I played the web version. Immediately from the beginning, I loved the artstyle of this game and the sound track. The opening sequence is pretty cool and added a nice touch. Blast seems like a really cool character with an interesting past. The world itself is pretty nice, and the idea of AI taking over is very real now considering chat gpt 4o's release :D. I think you have a good base for a great game here.
The bane of this game in my opinion though are the controls. Things are a bit clunky. For example, you can't move while jumping until player reaches max height, which really makes platforming hard unless you have a running headstart. And even when you do, the character goes too far to the right or the left even if you let go of AD input. Also, shooting while running will give the player momentum that will persist for a good couple of steps even if AD input stops. This made it difficult at times to align with enemies and shoot them, considering the tight spaces enemies spawn in. Also, I noticed shooting at the top of the jump consumes 4-5 bars instead of 1? Is this a bug or a design choice? I find it very peculiar if it is a design choice, as the green tank-like enemy are usually situated on high spots and the only feasible way I found to attack them without getting nuked is to jump shoot. But then I have to spend a good 20 seconds jumping, shooting in mid air, waiting for my bar to recharge, repeating this sequence 5-6 times till they die. I would recommend halving their health as they simply do too much damage to have that much health. Using shift to climb ladders is a tad annoying as others pointed out.
Also, does the game have checkpoints? I went to an area marked as "S" on the minimap expecting to see a save point, but found nothing. I got to the rat-like boss with drones dropping grenades and died there and I really dont like having to go all the way back from the start everytime. But this could have been my fault for not finding the checkpoint. I also didn't see any indicator of which movement mod I have equipped, did I miss something?
I got hit by the enemy carrying a bat and i got shot into orbit. This reminded me of getting hit by the giants in skyrim, 10/10 would get hit again. Even though the map is a bit empty, I still like the design of the levels. There seemed to be a lot to explore and a lot to find which got me excited. Again, you have a very cool concept here. All these issues are relatively minor and shouldn't be hard to fix. Don't feel discouraged about it. Keep up the great work!
