Halt! Catch Fire! is a mix of real-time-strategy, unit/disaster management, arcade-style flicker, and idle games. You could sit back and watch the world burn, or make some questionable moral choices about the fate of these not-so-innocent robots, or (you know) do the right thing and save the world!
Ah, I figured there should be some perp-telegraphed indicator that a warning shot would work. That makes sense. Looks like there's a bit more police-murder in Police Stories than I originally though. I wanted to arrest everyone! Everyone Lives!
Great art and sound, great game, really hard. I like that the first area lets you get used to the controls before going in the house.
I noticed a bug that reloading sometimes wraps around to 0 bullets on semi if you spam the shoot and reload buttons.
My first thought was that I'd like to be able to jump between the two team members during play, I hope that becomes an option later on.
I tried shouting and firing a warning shot many times to get a suspect to not shoot, but got shot every time, brutal. Am I doing it right? Does the warning shot have to be at a specific range or direction? Or, are the first few suspects just that unavoidably aggressive? The only thing that worked consistently on suspects was luring them to a door (or flash-banging the room), punching them, then shouting and arresting. Although, sometimes I found myself standing more-or-less in front of a suspect (with the tip of my gun millimeters away from their sprite) punching the air wildly only to get shot. What I mean is the punch-range seems a bit short (or I just need to git gud).
I like how you can avoid flash-banging yourself by looking away from the grenade. That's one of the many intuitive things about the game's control scheme.
Only seeing as far as the flashlight cone is tense, and the last-known-position of a spotted suspect is interesting, but was a little useless given how quickly the suspects notice and run at you.
The one hit death adds a nice level of tension as well. Its horrifying to watch my partner die as I arrest a suspect. I appreciate the instant-reset with 'R' when you die it makes trying again less frustrating and more addictive. Excellent camera control, its a relief to be able to pan around the area a bit and the control of that is very intuitive.
The team's default careful movement speed feels right given the setting, and it impresses upon me that the goal isn't run and gun like Hotline Miami, but rather to leave suspects alive for a badass arrest.
Police Stories adds a refreshing couple of twists to the genre, well done! I can't wait to see how the game develops, keep it up!
