Hi, thank you for the feedback. It really puts a lot of things into perspective! There is a couple things I got to say though.
I absolutely understand your complaints about the music. Writing music is definitely not my strong suit, and the game's music were one of the first I ever made. I will making moves to at least make the music sound more bearable. Especially for the Streets music. While I'm at it, I may as well try using chiptune like you suggested, to see if it would work.
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As for the Flintlock Musket. A while ago, I was "sort of" aware of the issue so I tried to lower the accuracy penalty. I know now that it is most likely not enough. I realized that combined with a long reload time, the feature could be very aggravating to deal with. Maybe instead of punishing the player for not standing still while shooting, the game could REWARD for the player for doing it instead.
Perhaps the Musket could deal extra damage when the player is standing still? A simple reversal on how things would work before. On top of that, it would make sense in universe as it could be the protagonist just taking the time to get a better shot.
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I personally think that the control scheme is just fine the way it is for now. I may consider giving the player to set their own key bindings later down the line. I will also get to work on displaying the controls on the pause menu as well, and it making it more clear whether the musket is finished reloading.
Your concerns about stamina are valid. I'm not sure why I decided to make it that way. I'm guessing the reason is that I don't want the player to exploit the system by going in and in out of sprinting. Luckily while reading your criticism I already thought of a hopefully better way of doing this.
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The Radar and Morale are one of many systems I intend for the player would figure out on their own. I like games that have silent tutorials. Where the tutorial doesn't feel like a tutorial at all. Some of those games I could think of is the original Super Mario Bros for the NES, and Portal. In my opinion, I dislike tutorials which spell out even the simplest mechanics and systems.
Even when I can't explain certain mechanics this way, I utilize other methods rather adding a tutorial. Y'know that cutscene that plays in the beginning of the game? The first message is random each time, and its mostly used to provide hints to the player. I also use the controls menu to hint at certain mechanics as well.
One notable place where I apply this philosophy is the locked room you start in. It works well as a safe place for the player to get a feel for the controls. They also start near the door they need to interact with once they completed all of their objectives. To top it off they can't leave the room unless, they learned three key things:
- Interacting with objects in the world.
- How keys and locked gates worked.
- How crates worked. (This is optional.)
Most of these, the player would be able to learn by just exploring the room. This is how I want my game's learning curve to be. If you have any suggestions on how I could do this better, please let me know.
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The story is not meant to be the main focus. That would be the gameplay. It was only something I put thought when sometime before I release the game on early access. As development goes on, I may add some things that might hint at the story, but rarely any more than that. I'm intending for this game to just be something you pick up, and play once in a while, not something to be majorly invested in. That is also why I'm gonna be focusing on replayability and some randomness.
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Again, thank you for the feedback and constructive criticism . It's something I rarely get! Because of it I'm more set on what I should do with this game moving forward.