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Hello!

I was wondering how long does the paid GameDev Feedback service runs for? I wanted to potentially use the service in the very near future, and wanted to know if it runs extended beyond the jam period.

Thanks so much for the feedback!!! :)

Okay not going to lie, I really like the Skull O Matic powerup from Vampire Survivors + added difficulty so I wanted to place something like it into the game lol. My intent was to introduce better upgrades into the pool if the player improves the enemies. I did not clearly show any benefit of collecting enemy upgrade initially. I now am thinking of placing all enemy buffs into a single upgrade path to mimic Skull O'Maniac as increasing individual stats does not make too much sense to collect! At least with increased spawn rate + slight stat boost to feel it's easier to get XP faster at a slight cost early game while the enemies are weaker.

Yep! The feedback of getting hit was a problem. I have already fixed this in a new version of the build which I will share in the future!  Also great point about the enemies. I will most likely go about this approach!

As for the goal it was to survive as long as possible, and I did not make that super clear sadly. This was the result of scrapping around 2.5 weeks of work because I made some design decisions that messed with the run and gun nature of the game really badly. The new goal is going to be to survive 10 minutes, and it contains more enemy behaviors + bosses. I have now written a mission objective on the new HUD that explains the goal as well!

I missed the stream due to some last second obligations, but def look forward to the VOD! I wanted also say I appreciate the streams you do for indie developers, it's so valuable to get these and along with helpful feedback! :D

Thank you so much for your feedback :)

I have gotten the enemies attacking the player for behind feedback quite a bit, and honestly it was defiantly a problem to solve. My next update will have a mini-map to help fix this issue! I also pair that with some way better audio queues for enemies approaching behind player. I had some in it, but they were not that good lol. I hope that will fix that issue! 

The enemies actually spawn from spawners which randomly spawn around the arena! But those can potentially spawn behind you. I am adding a better distinct audio queue for those now, and maybe a special marker on the minimap.

Nice feedback there! I will add more effects to make easier the enemies are struck.  I added a hitflash and hit sound effect, but I think I need some more. I will adjust the effect, change the audio a bit and add some particles to make it easier to read and some for enemy death!

Thanks for your feedback! :D

I am definitely changing the floor color next update. Its color messes generally with everything else as my gems are blue and enemies are transparent red. I am taking notes from other games I am inspired to create a better color palette to work with!

I noticed the startup time for learning the game is bit rough. I am now planning on writing a tutorial to resolve this! I also recently redesigned the spawner enemy to be easier to see / read,  and to do a visual +audio cue for when the spawn occurs. I hope that fixes the spawn the head problem!

As for the fast enemies that might be the tank chaser types and that is hindsight 20/20 from me. I initially designed them to only be dodged 100% of the time by bunny hopping, but I did not even explain that was possible. I will add this to the tutorial and also adjust the stats of them to ensure they do not get the player instantly.

I got the upgrade screen feedback, and I think I got the fix for this actually. Next update will have the player initiate the upgrade sequence via the tab button. I played with a slow mode, but I think would be easier and not interrupt the flow as much or feel too weird. I will also make sure though a level up is obvious by making the level up sound is audible

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it! :)

The learning startup time snags people at the moment. I am planning on a tutorial due to this feedback.  I am hoping it helps out with getting started.

I feel that. This was the early endless mode as I ran out of time to get other enemy models ready. I was hoping to see if I could capture the feeling with what I had now. I have a timed survival mode for the next update so I am hoping that gets the survivor-like genre a bit more. I definitely feel my game is on the more loose end of the survivor-like genre as some core things from Vampire Survivors I wanted to replace in favor of other mechanics.

I have received the enemy comment a few times now, and am currently redesigning the enemies to make that easier to understand! I will take your collectible comment when designing the enemies :D. I am thinking I will embed to make it obvious they cannot be collected! Also going to add in a mini map and hope that helps with the behind the camera deaths.

That was a bug found! I am in the middle of patching that one up. The upgrade works, it's just that the resource was labeled all wrong. 

The enemy upgrade was a concept I was planning around with and I am a fan of the Skull O'Manic powerup lol. I ran out of time, but when collected they added better power ups in the upgrade pool. I will make these more obvious when I design the cards. I am also hoping to add synergies for it as well!

Thanks for the feedback and playing my game! :D

Lol, yeah that is still a bug. I am planning on increasing the size of the HUB to add in space for some new playable characters and game progress data so the wall glitch will be gone by then. My guess is the normals are flipped on it, but I am sure I can fix that.

Yeah real levels would be cool! I am planning maybe in the future as I was interested in attempting a roguelike more like Nuclear Throne as an FPS, but at the moment I want to keep it a pretty simple arena shooter in the spirit of Devil Daggers or maybe an FPS Brotato. I am planning more enemies and bosses though to keep it interesting! I am also playing with the idea of an infinite arena like the old Swarmlake had, but that would come later as a potential map if anything though.

Nice catch on the song loop! Its only about like 20 seconds before it looped. I ran out of time, but really wanted to put something so that is what ended up happening. I am working on the full song at the moment :)

Thanks for the feedback on the UI/UX! I do agree it should be more obvious. I am thinking of maybe making the health be lights on the gun or hearts rather than number. I will play around with this as I personally cannot design UI or want to animate it like at all so I am for like the most diagetic as reasonable possible lol. Though if I have to I will fold lmao

Also I will defiantly fix up the menu glitches and add in a way to exit the game! I will place those into my bugs column and feature column!

I just tried your game, and nice work!

I feel the difficulty was not too bad, and was correct in my personal opinion after completing the game (though I did think differently when playing until I made a discovery towards the end which I will not spoil for other players)

I feel the game was short and to the point and got its message across. I am not really a good writer so I cannot give too much feedback on the story sadly. Maybe add a few extra comments for the other characters as I think they started to repeat.  Also maybe have a small backstory to what is going on with the race since I was confused about what was happening at first other than I am following the other red peps.

Thank you for the feedback! :D

I agree with the enemy's feedback 100%. I feel they even blend a bit into the floor. I am in the middle of redesigning the enemies art for V2 at the moment, and I will take that into consideration for the new design.

The upgrade menu definitely needs an improvement. I am adding in an animation for when it appears + disappears, so I am hoping that delay for the animation player to finish should fix that issue!  Also I like your idea of mapping the selection to keys as well. I will play around with keyboard input rather than mouse for powerup selection!

Appreciate the feedback! 

I am so glad you and everyone seemed to like the aesthetics! I love making retro PSX stuff, but I am not big on horror visuals which is the biggest use for the style so I am really happy it works with people :D 

Yeah I totally get enemies location issue and it has been a running issue for a bit. I was initially trying to go about using spatial audio for that like DD, but honestly even playing myself its exactly the best for this I feel even if all audio was added. After some feedback I am planning on placing a minimap somewhere. Also I can add a reticle if it helps. I can add that for features for the next version after the jam! :)

I can definitely add some more weapon types of upgrades! At the moment I have Cherub and Star Buddy which are roughly mapped to Friendly Ghost from 20MTD and the Bible from VS. I have a small list of potential others, and I can add those onto the next major update!

The funny thing about that is that there was supposed to be some more content. I have two bosses coded up that were supposed to appear around minute 4 and 8, along with two new elite enemy types that spawn similarly which are similar to DD’s spider and the Tree from 20MTD and exploding enemies. DD has these unique enemies appear on certain intervals so I wanted something similar to keep things fresh. I had to scrap them since I really want to check the very core some more before expanding and for art reasons as too many default cubes would have been confusing I felt. It was a bit rough to have their AIs there but not ready for the game. I should have those in the next update as well as I am currently working on the art for those (with the feedback gotten from here as well). 

I am doing a V2 of the area, and I will take your points into the new design. I feel way more comfortable with SFX so I can try to add some noise texture to signal that a wall is being approached!

Thanks once again for your feedback! I will def have a new version out soon, most likely sometime early next month. :D

Thanks for the feedback! :D

Good insight on the color theme. I used a palette for this, but I definitely could have done a better job mapping it to gameplay better.  Looking at it through the lense I definitely can improve the contrast way better. When constructing the map V2 + enemy models I will consider this for the textures! I will look a bit more into Devil Daggers color selection a bit to try to get the select colors from the palette to match way better than now. 

Yes! I enjoy making art, but sometimes I wish it was as straightforward as programming sometimes lol.

Thank you for the feedback! 

I agree with the game start. I initially tried to go about Devil Daggers way, but after seeing their updated new kind of sequel Hyper Demon I noticed that they put a tutorial inside as well, probably for a similar reason now that I am thinking about it. I will definitely insert some kind of tutorial now for the first time playing!

That bug is not supposed to happen! Thank you for reporting that, and I will definitely ticket myself and fix that up for the next version. 

Appreciate all the feedback! Also I will def take a look at your game soon :)

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate the try and feedback even though it's not your preferred genre :) 

I have gotten all enemies  around the player awareness a few times and it's a problem at the moment. I was kind of aiming for a sound based approach (I was missing a bunch of sounds lol), but even I think it might not be enough. I am definitely considering adding a small radar / minimap somewhere! Thanks for the idea! 

I totally agree with you about the upgrade menu! It annoys me too, and I wanted a way to go about that. I will play with your suggestions for solutions and I am leaning on having the player start the powerup screen themselves. Also I am hoping with some animations it should make it less sudden! 

Once again I appreciate your advice, and best of luck to your game too! :D

Nice fun game! Great work for a graduation project! The game was very polished and the art looked nice.

In terms of adding to a possible sequel I believe that is up to you! The game in its current state has a good potential to kind of go anywhere at the moment since there is no specific hook or main mechanic besides being a core platformer. However, what you have is an amazing starting base for a cool platforming project you have though. The only you got to do is find / make a cool mechanic you like and tie to your base game and a demo could come quick from that. 

Nice submission and best of luck! :D

Also this made me laugh a bit lol

Thanks for the follow up! :D

I will def improve the visuals on the enemies. I do agree that its hard to tell enemies as they all start blending with each other.  Been meaning to change em up, but always ended up pushing back, so its time to change those up! Also I will get to fixin up the lag issues as well once. I have a few ideas to go about that one.

Thanks once again for the feedback, I appreciate it Also I will get to looking over your game later today!

Fun game!

I am not a good puzzle gamer, and I was able to get to the main idea pretty quick! Very intuitive and interesting game mechanic with the folding

I did not get into all 62 puzzles, but based on what I played I had a good time so far! Everything was very straightforward and nothing was super confusing to me.

Music would have been nice, but I see in the early comments you were planning on that!

This game was super dank and fun as heck! Amazing work y'all. Reminds me of when very memeish really early phone games on the apple store, or a good flash game in the 2000's.

For me like no real comments honestly the game felt pretty polished and felt overall pretty complete to me. Narrative was good to me, and the gameplay was great and felt very Wariowareish.

Also non-feedback question, did y'all use the TF2 heavy eating sandwich effect lol? I swear I heard it

Ahhh gottcha!

I was referring to the walking speed! The running speed was fine for me.

Cute game! Reminds me of playing inside an EyeSpy. Nice entry!

Small Comments:

• The game was pretty straight forward, and I got the jist after the first level!
• Since I cannot drop the notes due to puzzle reasons, sometimes when I bounce of the timpani the color will change on me sadly
• The coin collection did not really make too much sense to me at the moment. Maybe its a feature for later?
• The character controller is a bit on the slow side for me. Maybe a tiny bit faster like brisk walking speed would be nice!

Pretty cozy strategy game!

I am really not good at puzzle games at all, so def take what I say with a grain of salt. That being said it def felt good to play once I got the hang of it and the whole ambience is nice.

Small comments:

• Maybe make the tutorial shorter a bit shorter. I felt the tutorial last quite a bit which made it bit hard for me to get into it as most of the time played was learning the game in the tutorial. I feel that combining the levels when possible could help a bit like the first and second levels! 
• I also echo what everyone else was saying about the red herrings level as well. I felt its was pretty luck based, and was not sure how to go about it in a while other than hoping lol.

UPDATE v0.5 (HOTPATCH)

• Fixed blade enemy hit lag
• Temporary remove auto VSync

UPDATE v0.5 (HOTPATCH)

• Fixed enemy hit lag
• Temporary remove auto VSync

Thanks so much for the feedback its really helpful, just some follow questions so I can improve on your points!

• What you mean the rush by chance? I would to capture that, but unsure what you mean by that!    I read your comment wrong lol
• Def a good amount of enemies can lag the game, by chance do you recall around how long it took or how many floating red things there were when that starts to happen?

Also did some experimenting and I think I think I know what is going on with the lag! I believe its the hit stop that occurs due to a time delay. When vsync is not enabled or supported it does the intense game lag you are referring to! I managed to get that on my machine, and that is totally not intended and I will patch that up.

Tried out your demo and good work so far! Down below are some comments!

Controls

• Movement felt good and acceleration was okay! I felt that using arrow keys plus mouse for camera control did not feel really good to be honest. Maybe change it to WASD instead as the distance with arrow keys and mouse and really close so it feels a bit jumbled.
• Not sure if it was just me, but I think the controls were all unbinded by default which it kind of confusing when testing for the first time as I could not move.
• I was not able to glide after jumping, and I think it might be because of a binding issue on my end? I tried to jump then hold for glide, but it did not work

UI/UX

• Good place holders for now! They convey the needed information correctly and did not feel weird. I think the next steps here would to be use your favorite Sonic game UI as reference when constructing your own :D

Animations

• Least for me the animations felt fine! Looked and felt like something I would play in a sonic game

Potential Bugs

• I have multiple monitors, and something I found when I like on another screen and go back to your game it locks all my controls and I can no longer move.

Just tried your game! Overall, a pretty nice and promising concept. I liked the premise that the game is kind of a boss rush and it is a bit challenging with simple controls.

Down below are some comments I had based on your feedback request!

How The Controls Feel

• The controls felt okay for the most part! Very simple and straightforward.

Gameplay Mechanics As A Whole

• I personally like the simple controls and the arcade vibe it has. I think if there was a way to track the time to kill the bosses it would add a good replayability factor to this!

How Fun It Felt Moving Around To Attack The Boss

• Usually it felt pretty good moving around to attack the boss. The only times I felt kinda weird was when I hit the small ends of rectangles towards the bottom screen because trying to navigate out of it felt weird as well. Also when I get a certain glitch to happen (I report down below!)

Potential Bugs

• Felt the retry button delayed a bit. When click a few times it does not change the scene right away. 
•  Towards the end of the tutorial there is a white block in the way of the down arrow. Unsure if it was there on purpose.
• Something I found is that if I died by touching the outer area I had a chance of spawning not a white block and that messed with me a bit
• Sometimes at death there is the chance of the bosses names not being updated. Like if I die to Fighter, when I start the level again it still displays the Fighter vs Constructor.

Just tried your game and it was pretty nice! Sadly I got the crash even on the Windows version, so this is my feedback up until that point!

Here is my feedback based of what you wanted :D

Feel of the Mechanics

- Very straightforward and I got the just at the very straight. I had no problem navigating really

Navigating Through The Pause Menu

- Also straight forward, and I understood the options! My only issue though is it seems it is possible to pause the game, but still move the character.  I am not 100% sure how I got the bug to occur, but I recall pausing and when moving the arrow keys I could still move my character around!

Game Difficulty

- Pretty easy and I was able to clear all the stages at least till I got up to the first Jellie, to where everything stopped working for me (Got this to happen on the Windows version as well)

Potential Bugs

- After the first Jellie crash I cannot talk to NPCs anymore! Not sure if the two are related. Likewise, I get softlocked when exiting that stage and trying going into the next one!

Super cute game! (I really enjoy games with cute characters lol)

I love the visuals and everything was super clean! The chibi characters and names were great. The sound was good, and overall I did not have any huge things glaring at me. I had a good time with the game, and had to put it down encase it started digging into my own development time lol.

Down below are some small comments! By no means are they like super game breaking, but some small notes :)

- The dash seems to be instantaneous. I think it would benefit a bit with some small dust particles and maybe a lerp? It look like a teleport at the moment and since I dash a lot it feel a little funny personally.

- During the tutorial, I am not sure if I was supposed to be able to do this but I managed to exit the chick peaking circle and did not really have to dodge anything.

Great game, and hope to see your success on Steam! If you ever get the time could you look at mine and give some feedback please? Mine is also a survivors-like and I would love to hear your input :D

I made a slight update to the game! I will be adding more, but had to make some adjustments to meet the deadline for another feedback I am part of !

UPDATE v0.4

• Enhanced jump + added sound
• Added rough draft for music to get an idea
• Adjusted wave spawning to be slightly
• Patched boids speed and increased size
• Increase size of base magic blades + added slight visuals

KNOWN BUGS:

• Collecting an explosive powerup will cause game to crash!
• Shotgun fire is loud. Lower volume on machine for now. (Going to make a dedicated shotgun sound vs using a sound per blade)
  
• Walking around the HUD close to walls may trap you! I will fix this as the HUD is getting a redesign to fit more characters I am added!
• Cherub shotgun crashes the game!

Played your game! I can tell there defiantly love put into the art you made as everything was unique and charming. It gave me the energy of those early 2000's cartoons like Ed Edd and Eddy + way early web flash art. Down below are some small comments I had.

- Something like a heads ups up instruction and goal would be nice to have when we get to the SHUMP phase. I was a bit confused for a second.
- The roads in the town section I cannot walk in the middle off. I have to walk a little below those. Not sure if its a bug, but its something I wanted to bring up just encase!
- I really wanted to talk to those NPCs, but I could not figure it out. I think I have skipped on how to read it or something. Maybe a heads up display that goes over their end would be good, if I was able to do so!

Howdy! Just tried your game's demo and I had some fun playing this! The performance was nice and I did not experience any crazy glitches as well!

I typically do not play RTS, but the campaigns were nice and bite-sized for me to enjoy. I like more arcade kind of games that get right in the action without too much exposition. Great work :)

Also I noticed you had a Steam Page up and it's even released! So I will also give some review as if I was a Steam user!

• Something I would work on is the graphics a bit. Most of the models themselves were fine, but at times they seem a bit like placeholders for a prototype. 
  • I would focus more on the robots than the buildings as those that look good! If I am going to be battling an AI I feel they should give a more threatening energy.
• Some more juicing when money is collected and round ends would be great to give a better feeling!
• I would also put some time into polishing the UI a bit more to look more pretty. Since the game involves a lot of menus a bit for selections I would put some polish there. Like resolution can be different so it gives a unpolished feel
• The audio could use a bit of work. The more voice acting done in the house using a home mic than something I expect to see from a finished product.
• A bit little nitpicky from me, but consider reworking the capsule image as well. At the moment I do not get a complete look of how the gameplays is by just looking at it. Maybe include the troops and the AI they are fighting in the image.
•  Even if I looked past the capsule and got to the page, I might not convert to sale because I feel I would need to try the demo first. Since your game is not too story heavy like a VN to my understanding, I think also having the demo on Steam would be helpful as well. 

I hope my review did not discourage or anything because I really feel your game has got some potential! Your gameplay was great to me, and I feel a bit more polish visual + audio wise you are able to snag a few more Steam page views for the algo to kick in :D

Thanks for playing! :D

I have already definitely got to improving the controller due to the feedback. I have already tweaked the controller parameters and added some sounds + animations to the player already for movement actions! Also a good catch on finding that wall bug. Once again thank you for the feedback!

Ahhh that makes sense! Feel free to disregard my performance comment lol. Anyways, best of luck to your development! 

Cute game! Reminds me of the style of those The Behemoth games in a way. Your art style is nice!

Simple game, and easy to understand directions. Nothing to much for me to say here other than great job, and I hope you add some more content to the game like a leader board to compare scores :D

Nice visuals and polish! It looks pretty nice so far!

- I liked the idea of getting powerups! I love a good roguelite mixed with something!
- I echo that Octopus X kind of said about not feeling too much like pinball. Although we have the bumpers and paddles it still feels like its missing something.
- I know playing pinball machines at my local arcade they are themed, and sometimes when you hit a certain bumper a side quest occurs which instructs the player to hit certain bumpers for a point bonus.  Maybe you could do something similar since you are rolling with a roguelike pinball game?
- Might just be me, but the ball feels kind of too heavy at times. Sometimes when I hit the ball it will arc up then fall straight into the deadzone.

I hope you keep working on this because I feel the idea is solid, but it just needs some more content and too lean a bit more into the feeling of pinball! :D

Hello! Just wanted to say that my game is more of a prototype than a full on demo  more of super early demo now. I am aiming for a 20MTD / Devil Dagger hybrid FPS kind of game. It is still a bit underbaked but hoping to improve graphics, sound, etc every update + fix bugs.

Regardless I would love to get some feedback and suggestions on what I have so far! :)

KNOWN BUGS:

• Collecting an explosive upgrade will cause game to crash.
• Shotgun fire is loud. Lower volume on machine for now. (Going to make a dedicated shotgun sound vs using a sound per blade)
• Walking around the HUD close to walls may trap you! I will fix this as the HUD is getting a redesign to fit more characters I am added!
• Cherub shotgun crashs the game.

Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it!

Yeah I can definitely agree it's hard to tell if the enemies hit you. I wanted to do a slight vignette effect with a screenshake with robot buzzing but lost time. I am working on that right now actually as that was something mentioned before! I will also adjust the difficulty of the waves a tad as well.

Actually yeah there is a better jump powerup! It's somewhere in the pool of upgrades. That being said though I agree the base jump is still not high enough. I will adjust the number for that in the next update and probably adjust how its coded as the way gravity works makes the character fall way too fast.

I am glad you think it's interesting! I was not able to get the art for baby skill trees inside the game, but by upgrading the enemies better power ups would start appearing in the pool that were stronger but come with a catch similar to Binding of Isaac's Devil deal system. I am playing around with it still, but introduced it early to see the reaction. After I polish off and adjust a few powerups I am hoping it work better with the system.

I liked this game! Gives me an Undertale / Downwell kind of energy!

- Very easy to get started as the directions and concept is very straight forward, and UI helps with telling what is going on!
- In terms of sound and overall visuals I think this game is very good as well!
- I think though the game is a bit on the hard side (at least playing the game on the computer).  Maybe increase the time needed to finish a puzzle or have time stack if you complete puzzles fast enough?
- I also did not know when a battle encounter would end as well, and that is information personally I would have liked to know. Maybe insert somewhere amount of puzzles / enemies left needed to defeat?

Other than that great game and best of luck to your game development :)

Wow your game looks really polished! I love the sound design and the overall aesthetic it has going on! The only problem I had going was it was lagging a bit on my machine running a RTX 3070Ti. When a more few enemies started to spawn my FPS started to tank quite a bit below 60 FPS. Though that being said, it might be because I was running the game using Wine since I use a Linux desktop, but not 100% sure. Just wanted to mention the performance issue just encase since this game looks really polished, and not sure if you wanted to eventually start selling it! Overall, great entry :)

Interesting game! I felt it this is a cool concept and has some good potential. Though I wanted to say the learning start time is kind of long, as it took me a bit to get an idea of what was going on. Like Ready2Run mentioned, maybe having some premade boss might help. Also maybe consider having a hand holding tutorial which walks the player through making their first boss and getting to the arena would help too. Best of luck to your game, and I await to see the updates :)