Hey thanks for playing and your huge feedback ! I totally agree that the upgrades could have an impact on the shadows and lights, but have you noticed that the powerups only affects the shotgun as it is the "vampire" and they come from blood ? The game's diegesis would have to be changed slightly to modify light and shadows too, even if gameplay wise it would be a plus !
There's no wave system : For each upgrade took you have 8 max zombies that can spawn + 1 every 2,5 s (initial spawn time is 0,25 s). I wanted to prevent a no choice option for the player, but you're making me reconsider it !
Also side note, the shadow mechanic is kind of hacky as it is implemented, I'd rather have dynamic lights/shadows and obstacles. There's a lot of room for improvement ! If I recall correctly, in the initial design, Vanilla suggested some switches to turn light on/off at specific places - that would have been interesting too.
Simple yet effective platformer, I can feel the work on the level design. I particulary liked the attention to details like the hair flowing when falling or the clouds at the start of the game.
Also really nice to have put spawn point at key places so you don't have to redo the whole level when you die :).
If you're carefull not totally filling the indesirable blood gauges and only fill them up when they are linked to good augments you should be fine. But yeah, passed a certain amount of upgrades you just "go for it" and try to kill as much as possible to get an highscore :).
Honestly one of my favorites games of the ones I've tested on this jam (around 20 ?). The music is top tier, you made a real work on the ambiance. It really felt like I had a small homonculus at home that I had to take care of. The handmade art fit this feeling, the attention to small animation not so cumberstone is nice. The storytelling is also really well done. The difficulty is on point.
"Caveman brain" => lmao ! The small bullets are actually downgrades. The idea is for the player to only shot the zombies corresponding to the upgrades. The spanning in wall is unfortunate indeed, there is a check to not make them spawn outside a defined area and another to not make them spawn on top of another, I wonder how they still achieve that :(. Thanks you for your feedback, I really appreciate.
EDIT: Oh I know, when they flee the might stuck on the wall since I update their position and not their velocity... silly me.
I've also noticed a freeze when firing the gun for the first time, I don't know what's the source of it :(. Reloading could indeed have an UI animation but we were running out of time ! Thanks for playing !
Thanks for your feedback, honestly you're not alone in this case and maybe the game should reward the player more for getting upgrades ! We intended for 1 to 5 minutes run so 4 is totally acceptable :)
I love the fact that the cursor light the area around it from the menu - it helps immersing the player in your game. The little navigation system reminded me of FTL too, it's a nice touch !
Was going to say this, the menu selection made me smile :), a nice way to introduce the controls ! However when enetring the game suddenly the arrows keys aren't recognised anymore :( !
Really well done, congratulations ! There is definitely an audience for those kind of games. The bubble sound when scoring is really satisfying.
I think the rune system could use a bit more explanation at the start, but I figured out while playing what happen if you do a combination that isn't on the receipe list on the left :).
Really polished, nicely done, the game time to complete is on point, more would have been too long. I love the special camera angle in the corridors, gives it a bit more personnality, and I died multiple time before beating the boss, the difficulty is well managed. Congrats !
Just for the record, we haven't put any 'recoil' on the shot mechanic because the shadow is detected on the player by looking on a pixel at the center of the screen (hacky !). I'm glad this did not impact the feel !
There actually is the blood type appearing in place where the zombie die, did you miss it ?
Thanks you a lot for your feedback, I think most players shared your though about the upgrades not mattering that much, it was hard to equilibrate and could get some more polish !
The shader comes from a water one that I adapted, it wasn't easy so thanks you !
I think your remark is spot on with the difficulties to differentiates ennemies. It's a point we would have dig more if we had time, and the overall game design. We added the blood moving from the ennemies dirrectly to the gauges and the 0.5 blood type animation where an ennemy dies to remedy this, but we could have done more.
Thanks you for the feedback, have a great day :) !
