itch.io

I like it! Seems like a fun 'hop on for a bit before bed' game. 

I'll definitely mirror the progress bars on contract demands someone else already said.

Otherwise it's a strong foundation! Nicely done.

Yeah, all good points.

• The clarity for taking damage is definitely placeholder haha. You got it on the green circle; it's part of the pyramid enemy. I'm definitely planning a tutorial that'll  when I've got the gameplay hammered down.
• I think I'll nerf the troopers and see how it goes, but yeah I'll probably add a very short range radar for enemies behind you once I figure out how to make it look good on the UI.
• I'll have to think about the lock-on thing. A key function all the specials serve is to be able to threaten you at all ranges and speeds, and being able to just dash to disable them would definitely be something I'd need to do carefully.
• It should be the closest enemy, though it might be an issue with hitboxes at super close ranges? I'll look into it, thanks for the heads up.
• Yeah the whole metaprogression is definitely  a v0.1 early alpha thing. It's all a total hack job since I was solely focused on making the game fun first.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

Honestly, your game is good. I think the biggest issue you're going to face as far as a commercial release goes is that even if your game is good, the competition in the platformer/metroidvania genre is the highest bar possible.

That being said, I do think you've cooked up something quite nice here. The actual mechanics feel really good and exploring is fun. The enemy designs were interesting too. If there was anything I had to say was wrong with it, it'd have to be the protagonist not really looking interesting. I didn't play very far (I killed the spitting beetle boss guy and got acorn mode) but I hope there's unique biomes later in the game too.

See it through to the end! Good luck!

So I made it to world two before I got softlocked in the little U shape thing that doesn't let you build up enough speed to escape. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the concept of not having a jump at all until you build up enough momentum; I think that needs to be changed a bit.

Interesting concept! But I think there definitely needs to be some kind of 'pressure' on the player; Either more limited control or more limited ricochets or something else to make it easier to lose. Right now it just feels like you're flying around checking boxes.

Still, really cool concept. Good luck if you choose to develop it further.

This is definitely a strong start! The art has a really strong direction and the gameplay is clean.

• It feels like 'camping' is very much incentivized, especially in places like the bottom left library node. The only thing that really kills you is being unprepared, and having a huge amount of walls to hide behind on demand makes makes it easy to game the AI a bit.
• The first two enemies are really fair, but the archers are pretty spooky. Archers killed me the vast majority of the time just because they react so quickly and efficiently. They're a big part of why it rapidly becomes less viable to just turbo run around the map and go on a killing spree, which feels like it isn't what you're going for.
• I'm not really sure what the ingame weapon upgrades do. I'm assuming the magnet is pickup range

Still, this definitely has the makings of commercial potential; You've got a fun hook and cool gameplay in a tight package. Best of luck with development!

Thanks for the feedback!

• I've added ESC pausing in single player to the TODO list. Good call.
• Yeah, the SFX hasn't even had a single real pass over any of it. The guy who was gonna help me with it has been super busy so I just grabbed random stuff off the web and slapped it in there.
• I actually want to change how I do the whole item thing; I want to avoid power-ups mid-run and make the game a series of 3-4 minute sprints with a boss fight at the end, and then in the cool-down period you spend the level-ups. That way I get to keep the items more complicated and randomized but don't have them tearing apart the game flow. That, and they definitely need icons and keywords, but UI still needs a major pass.

Still, I'm glad to hear overall you had fun with it!

I like it! I'm not really proficient with Into the Breach or any of these kind of games so my feedback is going to be surface level, but;

• It would be really nice to be able to pin people or rename them.
• The lightning sound effect for a prepped attack was really grating to me at the start. I kinda got used to it though.
• This is more of a personal thing but I don't really like the super casual clothes on the characters. Just the dissonance of people going to war with demons in punk rocker clothes feels a bit dissonant.

Otherwise very cool game though. Good luck with development!

Thanks for the kind words! I'm definitely open to feedback.

• Yeah, I totally agree with this. I'm thinking that the game will end up revolving around a 'wave' system (current gameplay -> boss -> level up) so the game doesn't get interrupted every 20 seconds.
• Agreed here too, with the current build of the game making this problem wayyyy worse. They also feel very unimpactful individually, which is something I'll take a look at when I finish up the bosses. I think I'm going to try to change the flow of the game, add keywords, and make them more powerful first, but failing all that I think I'll just make them more simple.

• Yeah, I find myself agreeing with this. The current state of the game depends too much on rapidly shifting your aim to deal with threats. It was only very recently I created the special enemies as a meaningful threat so it makes sense to tone down the troopers.
• The items are definitely a weak point so far. This was basically just me testing the feasibility of randomized items and how to structure the stat changes on the player. Optimally I'd create actually unique items and a proc system but that's all up in the air right now.

I appreciate you taking the time to review it!

Excellent game! Fun and polished across the board. Some feedback:
You can bug out the game by throwing the ball on the gloves to the right and screening the knife away with the cutting board.
The knife feels a bit too mobile for how strong it is. It feels quite oppressive.

Otherwise very cool game though!

I actually really like the framework here! Nicely done!

I've got two big suggestions though; 1 - The enemies have wayyyy too much HP. They feel like big HP sponges. 2 - The playable area is way too large; it's too easy to shoot at the enemies from the far edge of the screen where the patterns are really easy to deal with.

It's a pretty cool framework. Good job!