Post by kkairos in Sol Amok jam comments

Viewing post in Sol Amok jam comments

Overall:

I enjoyed this one.
A lot of little nitpicks felt like enjoyment/execution things, so you'll see a lot of those listed in one or the other of those places.
You have a lot of good building blocks in terms of ideas. It feels (in a good way) like some of what I've experienced of Soulsborne titles
Some of the points below might seem contradictory or even lead to weird results if taken too seriously. In particular I want to recall as a fellow dev that as the critiquer of course, my job is mainly to tell you what I'm seeing and if I happen to provide a good suggestion or solution, that might be a lot of things but it's not the expected result
I made a number of comments about speed and world size--I think I stick by the speed one, but just wanted to note that whatever you do I think will work as long as it solves the (to me) central issue of feeling like one is walking through a fair bit of empty space

Enjoyment 4/5

Execution 3/5:

(Apologies here is where most of my design nitpicks are going)
Actual fighting feels decent. Not sure the basic dudes really needed to take 3 hits
Spear dudes feel more annoying than challenging, though to be fair I didn't do a great job of blocking them
Not always clear on the intended LOS for the soldiers
Quality of Life request: Start the player with a potion and have it refill automatically on re-spawn
Ran across some visual glitching on the web, desktop seemed fine

Sensory 3/5

Visuals do the job. Music isn't really noticeably complementary in a good way but isn't noticeable in a bad way either
SFX were good, ambience a nice touch. More audio feedback when getting hit by enemies would be nice
This could go under Enjoyment or Execution, but in terms of worldbuilding and enjoyment alike I think it would've done well to consider a game area of about 50% of the size of this one for your jam entry. I feel like I spent a lot of time...walking through areas that felt empty. Walking through relatively full, if smaller, places that once appeared to be inhabited might have helped the overall sensory experience. Right now it kind of feels like someone built some pre-fab apartments for the cult or whatever it is you're intruding on but nobody's really moved in yet
You might have a slight conveyance issue on how the boss hands work, the first time, though I'm hard pressed to tell you what I think the alternative would be

Metroidvania 3/5:

It doesn't really register much as one right now but I feel like even though it's only used once or twice, there's at least non-negligible effort made to give a mobility/area unlock ability here such that had the game expanded, its Metroidvanianess would have similarly done so

Thanks for the verbose feedback!

All valid points.

Reasonings for some of them:

Spear dudes aren't meant to be challenging, they are there to lure you into ambushes, and force you learn how to kite enemies into chokepoints.
Flask was a last minute addition, they are as jank as can be, my apologies.
Emptiness of the world: absolutely fair. I had planned for weapons, consumables, props, etc. ( and a max HP upgrade, hidden until you get the brand) to be littered in the environment, but ran out of time. Currently, neither exploration or combat rewards you in any way, outside of progression, so that is a point I'd definitely address if I decide to develop this further.