Post by Still_learning_controls in Hull Zero Hour jam comments

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Of course, I will try to describe, but keep in mind it is just my opinion, you don't have to change anything because of it :)

First, the shape. The surroundings are all sharp corner walls, but the player is all smooth and roundy, no corners, no sharpness. (I also saw your reply to Speed576 and an example of an enemy - also looking sharpey! I like that design!)

Then the colors. I am not an artist, so again take it with a grain of salt, but the surroundings are black and green and look cold, and the player is very bright and warm. It is understandable that the attention should be on the player character, so they should stand out, but maybe you could find some balance between capturing attention with character's looks and make it more in harmony with surrounding level.

My suggestions to improve this would be to change player's graphics. Maybe make a robot instead of astronaut (sharp lines and corners) and change color to something colder and more subdued (Maybe violet? Just a suggestion though).

Or change the level style to fit player character, but I like this option much less (also the music really fits the surrounding. If one of it changes, the other probably shall as well).

Hope this helps! (And again, this is my personal opinion, and I might be objectively wrong here)

Looking forward to seeing how you develop it further!

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Still_learning_controls343 days ago(+1)

On a second thought, instead of changing the player to fit the level, you can actually do the opposite and make a story about it!

Something like "You have boarded the enemy ship and need to wipe them out/get to the reactor chamber and blow it up/etc." - This way the player is an invader, and it makes sense that they look foreign.

This allows for several differently themed levels each in different color and with unique enemies. Also, maybe different objectives (kill all enemies, get to the point, protect an npc ally while they are setting up some mechanism, etc.)

But if you go this route, the explanation should probably be in the game itself, not in the description on the game page (add cutscenes with mission debriefs before each level, explaining why the player is there and what they are required to do, or something similar)

It can make the game even more interesting, but it also requires a lot of work (I don't know how much you want to expand this project).

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Terra Greatness343 days ago

You have given alot of feedback, thank you, I'll try to go through your points one by one.

The player's shape and round hit box was largely inspired by some lore that will be added in later but mostly by a mechanic that will be added later of camera and player rotation to make the arm waving and wall jumping more natural

On the player colours, the lighting in future versions will be a lot weaker, in future the brighter colors will really help with visibility, and the game would lean a lot more heavily into horror, but horror would likely just be the seasoning of the meal

I really like the idea of making this a Rougelite, so adding a robot character is a nice idea and I like the colour purple, so you have me sold on that

I probably will rather expand the tileset than change the current one to be able to as you said : "boarded the enemy ship and need to wipe them out/get to the reactor chamber and blow it up/etc."

I have prototyped a combat system, where you currently only swing around a crowbar, so defeating aliens wil be the next priority

And again thank you for your large amount of feedback

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