itch.io

Is there a particular reason why swinging the sword from below to up feels strange? 

the reason is pretty simple, you don't use a sword that way. a swing like that it's something very uncommon to do. I can agree with the design decision to have X weapon not hit above etc, but the classic sword swing, it's an up /down move. A stab/point/Dmc stinger it's a back/forward move. So in the end it's just a problem of skin for said weapon.

Cursed World is the first area of the game, it is supposed to be a "twisted forest" with labyrinthic design, nonsense geometry and risky room layouts

It's your game, you can do what you want. Imo, this is pure nonsense. The first area of the game, be ragebait/kaizo or not, is to be the easiest zone of the game. A place where you get introduced to its mechanics with a certain degree of safety. You can't say to me that your first area is very hard, labyrinthian and full nonsense; but the second area is chill an more normal. Everyone will quit the game before getting there, because the rational thinking will be "if this is the beginning, i can't imagine wtf will come next". 

There can be exceptions of course, but they are mostly story related. You start a prologue from the end of the story; you start with a powerful pg from the past/future etc etc

It's your game, you can do what you want.

ED: lemme add that, empirically you can do whatever you want; the problem is to make a player care, and stick around till the end

Tested the web version*

I like this topdown doom a lot!

Dunno what your aim is,  you have a ton of possibilities. both a hotline miami style or a survivor kind of a game can work with this gameplay; but i must say that your game made me remember the old great twin stick shooters of the early days of iphone. Consider doing closed maps like the one you have now, and the game is to resist for X second to have a medal, unlock stuff, more levels etc

the only thing i really dont like is making your ammo refill by themselves on a long delay. If you wanna keep all the ammo on autorefill, an ammo count on the status bar is a must. so at least you know what weapon is ready to be used again.

Maybe consider a weak weapon with infinite ammo, or with a large magazine that autorefills; but then all the other ammo are just found on bodies like powerups. 

I suggest you to check nuclear throne for your wiz ability; you have tp, you can make a ton more, as more chara to use, or skills to equip.

Check also ubermosh, it may spark some new ideas about your game.

I like the style of wiz on coverart. dunno if it's me, but he seems bored

GL 

Thank you for playing!
- yes the game is still very wip, but i totally forgot to add a slash hit effect on the axe; so ty for reminding me 

- i plan to have a wide array of challenges, so you can avoid what you don't like if you dont plan to go for 100% completition (or power yourself up to the max)

- i hammered down the game a lot following feedback,  nobody likes to die in the tutorial. Of course the difficulty will ramp up.

I' glad my word have reached you

It's something that I've been concerned about for a while, trying to find ways of fixing it without remaking everything, but you've got a very objective view of the problems and it makes clear that patching up the map would not be enough.

It takes a while to understand what's good design in your own game (since we are not copying a game mechanic per mechanic). Me personally had to remake the tutorial from ground up 3 times, and the first levels. Also consider the Romero tip: "the first level should be the last one to be made". In our case we can't really do that, we need to explain to testers how the game works, but redesigning a level from zero imo it's not a shame, because we need to craft a smooth experience for the player.

 the game itself is meant to be niche. It's going to be a difficult game (not the same way it is now) with weird design choices and humor.

There is no problem with this, imo the only unexcusable thing is an unfair challenge, aka gathca moments. Take a look at Floe playing "i wanna be the guy", then see some games you like that are known to be hard but fair (super meatboy, 1001 spikes etc). Extrapolate lessons on what to do, and what to avoid; also test gameplay lenght checkpoint to checkpoint. Consider that you are devvin a metroidvania, so the road from A to B will be different from B back to A. In some sense i could also suggest you to try to dev pieces of the map as a stand alone levels that connects and fork at junctures; or go classic zelda 1, with an overworld and dungeons. you can do anything.

I can't tell what is wrong, maybe it's the color choice or the shape of the entrance, I don't have much idea.

In my case it was the shape of the entrance. Also gfx design it's a continue work in progress, so gl with that

Btw, swinging your sword from low to high feels very strange

nice catch, maybe if i put that tip on  the "red spinny room" it would avoid confusion

ED, or even "Sometime Bomba is the right answer"

Thank you for playing!
The "red spinny level" you screenshotted is a little unfair on purpose. That room is a tutorial for the bomba "you can evade everything, etc": in practice you can pass this challenge without losing a single hp, but it's a very hard challenge. The solution in this case is to use the Bomba to bypass some of it.

Of course some players still don't wanna ever use a bomba, they prefer to die. I need a better tutorial to explain that.

Sorry for the great delay,

I like it a lot but imma be harsh (as always)

This game it's harder than nintando hard, mega man 1 and castlevania seems babby mario in comparison. Imo, this is a big mistake. Since this is not a level based precision platformer (let's imagine super meatboy or 1001 spikes), this challenge it's simply absurd. You cant "explore" when every mistake is a death.  And since at every death you can lose a lot of progress, the patience of a player is immediatly lost.

i'm gonna be super harsh and say that some of the "traps" are not only super hard, but badly designed. 

The intial screen could be something like firelink from ds1: on one side you have a super unfair challenge (catacombs), on the other an easier way (aqueduct to undead burg). This is not the case for your game. It's all death spikes guarded by monsters in the air, and monsters on the platform you wanna land; and since most things kills you in one hit, (and yet you don't know what you can kill with one hit) you need to experiment; you need to time jump to avoid or atk a mob in the air then avoid/atk the mob on landing. Let's also add a gatcha little green thing that jumps out from the acid lake. So not only it's very hard to explore, but i also need to memorize the 'bad spots'. Spelunky, 1001 spikes are fair because they (for the grand part) don't do gatcha, if you play carefully and see your surrounding, you pass almost anything without getting hit.

In one phrase, it's all too unfair, too soon. You lose the player right away and he won't be back. Of course, if your objective is to dev a iwbtg/rage game for streamers, forget everything. Great job.

The graphics. I like it, but yet again, the common player dosen't like someting that mixes nes and spectrum. All back blackground are seen as "lazy" and not as an art choice. Add to that, some spritework is confusing: for example at glance i can't even see the door to the primitive man that wants a fruit. Now where your intent to hide something ends, and bad spritework begin?

Even in the case that you want to dev a rage game, this gfx is not appealing enough for a consoooomer kid that watches streamers.

In the end, if you wanna dev for the fun of it, i have nothing to say: i like the gfx, the music and everything. Maybe i'll put some more checkpoints like VVVVVV or pogo 3d.

If you wanna dev for commercial, your players for this game are maybe 1000 in total.  i can be super wrong, Harry Potter and the phil stone was refused by every pubblishing house. Of course don't give up on this, i'm one of those 1000 players

GL

Sorry for the great delay:

i did a few match against the crabs (lmao).
my feedback will be similar to what i've said to solitaire dev in the past, i suggest you to check his game and check the feedback he got in previous DDs. Of course you need to study balatro; and give a try to PuzzleQuest (Challenge of the Warlords). Puzzle quest will be super useful to you if you wanna implement a story in your game. 

Random thoughts:

- pls put the title of your game on its folder, prototype 4 is not optimal

- this game needs a lot (A LOT) of graphics, sounds and good telegraph to understand in a blink what's goin on. If you don't wanna mess with art/sound this project will be super hard for you

     - for example the crab move that halfs one of my rolls seems totaly random

- overall the idea it's there, it's also mobile freindly, so another way to success

Random rambling conclusion: dunno if this is a project just to get started into dev, or if this wants to become a full paid release. With the right skin, juice and addictive gameplay it could be a success. 

PS: for totaly unreleated reasons i was rewatching the original pirates of the carabbean trilogy... a crew of undead pirates that bets years of service on the flying duchman. The possibilities are endless, of couse consider a sexy appeal (strip dice game?) to gather money really fast.

GL

Ty for for playing dud

I understand the axe problem, i'l explain it so maybe it would also be useful to you: axe subW is the one projectile that i rotate via animation (and make it bigger and shorter) and not via different sprites. You are the first to voice it, so double ty for making me notice dud

GL w lombard

It's great to see another shmupper and touhou fan

solid base, dunno if you are using a touhou-maker but gj

both kb and pad controls greatly; simple and cute menu

Random stuff i noted, the two most important i'll put right away:

- imo take a second to polish your art a little, it's not very welcoming. i know that touhou art can be very shitty too, but it's not really an excuse

- the dual chara i don't understand very much. They are the main 2 archetypes of touhou, no issue there, but the switch has nothing gamplaywise. The tip in the loading "one is faster than the other", maybe is the only thing; but in reality who cares about that

 - Take for example harmful park: harmful has 4 weapons, each one with its own power level and bomb; when you die, the weapon you had equipped downgrades to lv.1. This mechanic create exciting gemplay possibilities for customization and risk/reward 

 - my tip would be to make two separate chara like (old) touhou; or if you like the change chara gimmick give it a strong gameplay foundation. Imo play harmful park for some inspiration. also make a different bomb for the two chara

-  there is a problem with focus: the heart it's white. for man chara there is no problrm, red contrat white np; but not for your girl chara because her dress is almost white too.

- when u hit an enemy the collision particle it's very small, and the enmy itself dosen't registrate the dmg. you can make it flash (like i do), blink etc or maybe up your particles, dunno. in one phrase, lemme know at a glace in heat of dodging that the enemy is indeed taking dmg

- boss of stage1, third or fourth phase i think (when he showers a lot of small projtiles), maybe add another color beside yellow

- P disappar after a few bounces, no problem. but lemme know when they are about to disapper, so i can at a glance choose what P pick up next

- i like your bullet patterns, but they feel very touhou. since we don't have Y move imo you should think about on what you can do to differentiate from a classic touhou patterns

- at the start of the second level, if you start with male chara, the proj will all go to the bottom, maybe you spawn something there befor moving it to the top of the screen?

- hard mode filtered me, it's really really hard to survive just on X axis

- more on that, imo designing different difficulties in your state it's very premature. Your levels will change a lot and redo all difficulties every time can be maddening

GL

thank you for playing! i didn't know ranger x, my main inspiration is the old arcade game baraduke(alien sector). ty i'll try it asap

Can you actually defeat the first boss? 

Of course you can! when you destroy the boss' options, he stops and shows his weakpoint in the center of the templar cross. For some players it's a really hard bossfight, so I plan to rework it a little; but beyond all of that, maybe my choice of a red weak point on a big red cross wasn't very smart. So ty again for let me notice

PS: if for some reason you wanna try my demo again, on the first screen you have a warp room to diffent levels of the game. (you can "get back to base" anytime from the pause menu)

i like it a lot, but it's very rough.

random thoughts:

- i like the juice that makes you feel like you are inside a mecha, like the broken glass at low hp, the cockpit etc

- spend more time on the feel of the cockpit, on walk, jump land etc 

- i like anime style for chara design, mecha+enemy design dosent gel very well to them thou.

- scrolling for weapons for two arms is very cluncky. if this is a speedy arcade experience ala quake this system is not well suited for high octane combat

- i like that you can shoot down enemy's missiles, you should expand on that

- if you aim straight down at your feet the game fuck itself up

 I dunno your aim with this game, but GL

Tons of good, tons of bad.

Simple, but very polished. overall great job for a first submission.

i don't wanna sit down a write a megapost on why your shump is bad from a design standpoint, because shmups are super niche, and in my opinion you shouldn't cater to that crowd in general

my question is, who is this game for? if this game is for shmup fans, this game is very VERY bad for multiple reasons.

if this game is a casual experience, or even just a test project to hone your skills, it's very good

if you are not catering to shmups fans, lose the ship as your player design and think something else (for ex, I've chosen knight). Some people did anime girls, cute animals... anything you want is better than a spaceship. Sadly spaceship are boring for the costumer if it's not a shmup fan. I dunno the lore of your game, but since this is a "warmind" an andorid/robot/robomaid waifu of anykind can be a thousand times better for your general appeal.

the main cannon that you aim with your mouse has a reason to exist only if piercing. i will talk more about the gun aiming, it's the only bad design i'll explain:

1 - mouse aiming let's you stand still in a safe spot and shoot down everthing. this can lead to very boring gameplay. This is vary bad, you need to keep the player moving around

2 - if you wanna dev a shmup with a gun that you aim, you should design challenges that use that mechanic. I need to have a reason to have a gun i can manually aim and dosen't just shoot forward. I'm talking about wave design, and enemies/bullets

3 - with this setup a controller is very hard to do well(again who is your player? does he play with a keyboard?). if you wanna go for a twinstick experience, player's aim will be very poor, so your man shoot should be a lot bigger to be useful in combat.

4 - a classic design flaw is to not "give a reason to not push a button". shotgun has a very long cd, so you click it when you need it, its hitbox is very strict, you can go pointblank and oneshot a boss, or go long range for a crowd control. it's a good design. (of course almost all old shmups had a fire button that you held down or rapidfire like raiden. that stuff it's just nostalgia)

random thoughts:

- i like the power setup a lot.

- shotgun is ver very powerful, and fun to use.

- folder and subfolder of your game should have a version, so we can recognize them (dd you used in the main folder is also fine)

- change the color for weapons/subsystems when they are in range of a socket. in general check path of exile/diablo/other arpg to have an idea on how to do your juice

- i like the art (care about ai accusations)

- ui for your slow can/should be a circle around your ship, see crimzon clover for a visual input

Good Job and GL!

Thank you so much for playing again, and jesus what a fan art!

The little suit-up transformation sequence was cute, hope you animate it properly sometime (or get someone to do it for you.) 

I would love a sailor moon sequence for the transformation, my problems are mostly budget 

I'm not sure I like the weapon subsystem as it is: I accidentally picked up a subweapon I didn't want halfway through the plant level  and was stuck with it until the end. 

yep, that was a trap

I would make it so you can cycle through the subweapons, with the ammo you pick up going to the active subweapon. 

You probably wont like this answer, but my design is for a castlevania sub system and not mega man. My idea is for some levels to be harder/easier if you have the right weapon for the job. I think it's a more fun/challenging design in the long run, ofc it's up to me to make good levels

The vertical drift as you move horizontally is a bit annoying, made me hit a projectile or two. It's not a necessarily bad addition but I don't like it very much.

Sadly almost nobody likes it, but don't worry I have a no-grav powerup for that.

The crushers are a little buggy, sometimes I get crushed when I should have lived and survive when I should've died. I also got pushed into a wall by a crusher at one point.

If you remember the level/section (even a shitty ms paint of the bad crusher setup) i'll go bug huntin 

I don't really get the setting of the game yet, why does RoboTemplar need to kill some blobby plant dudes again?  Feels a little underwhelming, I was expecting aliens, monsters, or other robots who were threatening Earth or something.

At one point i'll add the story/dialogue system ofc, In short: robo is a rookie sent on a alien planet, and his protector license is 0, so that's why he is sen't to deal with a slime problem. So the story progression is him climbing ranks and dealing with bigger problems.

Challenge rooms were cool, I took an embarrassing amount of time to complete the first crusher one.

Still eager to see how the game shapes up. Anyway, here's some quick art.

 Thanks again!

Thank you for playing dude, i'm glad you recognized the song

i'll tunedown that boss even more for next time.

I now noticed your first post:

Main thing to try is the new combat gameplay. In particular I want to know what people think about the movement and the process of having to pick up ammo after shooting it. 

dungeon movement is fine; 

dunno about sprinting in a line, it's something you can judge only with a level (mobs/traps/walls)

same for ammo pick up, we need an enemy to test it on: the bullet will pierce enemies? how many hit you need to kill an enemy, how fast/big is this enemy; what happens if you lose a bullet (or forget to pick it up) etc etc 

Last time I played your game was still all 2d, great job so far.

I like a lot how you can tetris forniture, and maybe a tutorial could be on "an item must be reachable to be purchaseable" and so on.

I also like a lot your cleaning system

I lolled when I heard actual recette speaking, and there are already nice little things like puttin on your hat and animating your 2d portrait. Even if I love all of this, my suggestion is to keep your game as humble as possible, so voice acting (if not done by you and your friends) maybe should be avoided, as any other money trap.

Dungeon mode is still under construction, so nothing to say here. My overall tip it's: better build something simple and solid than something overscoped that blows up in your face.

I don't remember nothing about your story beyond the fact that you have a brother+sister, rememeber that the ticking clock to make more money and pay your load was a vital point of recette.

GL

I rememeber your progress from dunno how many months ago, I'm glad you sticked with this game.

Gameplay is great so far, but your design is lacking. My suggestion is to experiment with level design and see what you like to make, and what ppl like more to play. Spark 3 can be of inspiration (ofc you already know it); but also more sandboxy experiences ala mario 64/odyssey with missions. I could also suggest  a pure corridor A-B where the only objective is to reach the end flag.

PS: since this game seems a pg-8 you should avoid your Main to "flip off" in the cover. Rebellion per se dosen't need to be vulgar (see jet set radio).

Well shit you have a solid game. You just need an year (or just hire someone) to do a super juicy SFX/GFX+UI like balatro and you got this.

random thoughts:

> I like a lot that greed can lead to disaster

>I love sci-fi but be warned that fantasy almost always sells more

>Dunno what you have in mind for everything around this gameplay, but it seems fit for both a mission style game like puzzle quest and a story focused experience like paper please.

I have no words for your fanart (I'll make it my avatar asap). Thank you so much,

I'm eager to play some real levels of this game in the future.

I am adjusting it because some people died a lot vs shieldboss. There are already more levels to play, but I'm still rebuilding them for 400x240. Next demo will have a lot of more stuff

Thanks again!

Your game is progressing nicely.

Maybe masteries still need a better explaination, because in a stream we got pretty confused about them.

My only issue with your new demo is the summoner that spawns too randomly, and sometime you need to search for him for too much time. An arrow that points at him or making him spawn very close to you could resolve this.

I can't judge much about bombgirl  because  is still unfinished. I would like to kick upwards, make bombs explode when kicked to an enemy etc etc

Different builds already works with bombgirl, so gj on our system, it's pretty solid.  

ED:  in the stream there was a discussion about your chara design, the witch is meant to seem like a psiko or she is just smiling? For what I remember from fiends it seems your normal style, but who knows

 I like the new ui stuff a lot: crafting cooking etc

 I like a lot the new system "choose a bonus when you sleep"

 I'm not sure about the implementation of it. Your new system of "craft consumable once then you can equip them as many as you want" is not well explained (brimstone streamer had a problem with this and I had to tip him). Nioh has a similar system with magic/ninmpo(you prepare them than you recharge them when you rest at bonfires). You can refer to that for some more insight

 I understand the idea to have a first zone like the great plateau, but with your stamina degeneration system makes it very very punishing. Since if you explore badly you can descover the crafting items for meat for last. And if you don't have meat your pacing is very reduced (again see rimstone stream)

 I am sorry to say that this rebuild of your tutorial/first zone seem a step froward and one back, because it's pacing it's entirely random on where the player will explore. Maybe at last meat craft should be part of the super corridor start of the tutorial zone.

ty for commenting

-Orange companion is neat, but for what purpose does he serve?

it's rare, but sometimes when you get hit he will eat the bullet and be smug about saving you.

 One stone was set off by the player not timed, that could also be differentiated somehow. 

that trap was a hidden on purpose, some players see something fishy about that room

thanks again dude

templarVania 

Another anon call it jetpack knight once

thank you for commenting dude

Yes, shieldboss dosen't dmg you on touch on purpose (because it's a crusher boss and crushers that tease it's moveset dont do that)

Also walking is slow on purpose to let you feel that flying is better.  Of course I need to design better levels to reflect that.

I was one of the devs in yesterday's stream, since you stated that you wanna drop this project I've reflected more on your game to give a better feedback.

Since I'm esl I prefer ruminating on my toughts and then writing them out. 

tldr, for what I'm about to write: Should you drop this project? If this is meant to be a commercial product, yes.

Imo you spread yourself too thin, but the real problem is that this game has not a strong gameplay idea. So, why it's a game to begin with?

Even with your post on the mining project, you dont start with the gameplay. Your "Concept" section it's story. For you it seems that gameplay is secondary to the story you wanna tell; that's a problem because you are not a director of a studio. You need to to actually code that shit.

There is no problem/shame to build a vn with some minigames in the middle. It can be simple, but it must always be solid.

Scope is killing you, you should design by subtraction. If you know the core of your idea, cut the fat from it and polish that core.

The good advice for your first game it's something you can finish in six months. This is a godlike advice because in the beginning you get better really fast, but also so you don't get chained by your old bad ideas. 

Final note, how dare I to tell someone else to drop a project? If I can persuade him to do it (I have CH1 in my real life build), it means that this project was doomed to begin with. 

 I wonder what the golden coins will be used for.

story spoiler, but not really. You start as a common bot, and when you pick up the golden coin you become a templar. So the first level is your test to become a knight

I only found one issue where strafing was toggled on and I had to strafe to move normally. I had no unlocks and I have no idea how it happened but dying and respawning solved the issue.

noted. the strafing bug seems to be caused by spamming spacebar and shift. the easy solution is to kill a bind, and that will happen when i'll implement rebind

Also, slime/plum enemies being able to hurt you with their dying animation is a little unintuitive although they do attack by exploding so maybe I'm just dumb. Why are the knights Templar at war with the plums anyway? 

Another anon noted this, and designwise might be bad to have enemies with death explosions that bypass walls at lv2 (kek). Story spoiler again, but basically they are parasytes, since you are a rookie you deal with low lv stuff (in the beginning)

Also, I don't know what's the deal with the cat or what function it provides. I imagine it's intended for communication since it's wearing a headset but it would be cool if it did something in-game too. 

Thanks for noting my pixelshit. I'm working on his combat usefulness

I tried the power-ups and I have mixed feelings about them. Removing recoil or gravity also remove some of the uniqueness from the movement. That's also the kind of thing that feels like "stuff that was removed from your original kit so it could be an unlock" territory. Increasing HP is a little boring, but ok because it's so useful.

I have no knock and no grav beacuse some players asked for it, I totally  agree with you, I almost consider them accessibility options.

The bomba related ones are the best because they provide a small reward from timing the screen clear properly and maybe taking a little bit more risk in exchange for a reward. 

Thanks for playing and givin a feedback on powerups, man

Everything is rough, but great attempt so far.

As a fan of tenchu and shinobido(rememeber to play it), I'm hyped.

Random stuf I noted:

- you need to remake the starting room because the camera shit itself too much in tight spaces

- camera is fine in the open (fine not great), but indoors its a real problem that imo needs to be a priorty

- like very much that you have equips on your chara

- I like that you can hide in tall grass

- night time or fog weather should be a priority

- ninja nails are very fun but can be used to stunlock enemies in hurt anim with nail+dropkicks etc

Tenchu is a complex game to remake, so big GL. See you next demo.

Every dev knows his game best, but I'll pressure you this time since you are in an hard spot:

The early game encounters are there to teach you how to use the moods and cards. It is a game that requires attentiveness to make combat easier but blowing through the enemies is quite possible. This is probably not something everyone will like

I went in full tutorial, exploring every room and picking up every chest (minus one protected by the red female ghost). combat is gets more difficult room by room. At grandma house I have bone ghost in north that does a double atk every turn and kills me in 3 turns; or south with fish ppl that have a waterfall atk that hits for nerarly half health. bone ghost can be escaped, fish ppl cannot. In these encounters I need 6-7 atks to win if I don't get a lucky crit. In the mist of this, I have not a recharge station. Items are limited and once they are gone they are done. So or your autoequip dosen't work as intended (Iclicked it after every pick up) or something else is wrong. Maybe the difference of power between some moods you choose from is fucked. I've not played fear & hunger, but I'm not new at jrpgs. 

Clearing it without any grinding at all is not easy but it is completely doable if you take the time to prepare for encounters. Autosave in every area does make trial and error less punishing. This is a matter of taste and not right or wrong. 

If you think your balance is fine, then your tutorials in my case have failed. I suggest you to see every streamer that has played your game, and check if everything is as it should be. Maybe my experience was just an unlucky one.

Sorry for the delay, I usually review in reverse popularity order:

- please name your demo in files, folders and exe

- I don't play a lot of vn, but pressing esc to accept your name seems very strange, add an "accept/finish" button, since ideally you wanna make your game enjoyable with mouse only

- clicking npc feet to select them is not good, but I understand it's a tile problem. 

- liked the videos a lot

- very good to have not enough swagger to do a special in your first atk

- tutorial laptophead is fine, but in combat it talks too much

- 6-7 turns to kill the second mob of the game is not fun

- I like a lot 'optimize' equip

- open chest sprite is not open enough

- it's funny when you are confused the rifle gfx turns against you

- bug: if you are on the little island where you talk with little girl about fishes, you can walk on water and bypass the ladder 

Game is really depressing, so gj. great atmophere, sounds, gfx, everything.

imo your game is prone to too much softlock: 

You are not very powerful, but you can't run away from most combat

some enemies can twoshot you

some enemies get stuck in travel points (little island with ladder point) so you are fucked

resources are super limited, and there is no indication of low lv mobs; so you can't farm

I have confused messages of what I should do as a player, should I farm or avoid enemies? This is a bad middle ground. Or you make a silent hill experience where you can avoid most combat because everything is very dangerous, and you fight only when you must; or you make a classic jrpg.

A simple solution to solve this first location with grandma at the center would be to place a restore point at grandma house, but ofc it would ruin the atmophere

Oi it's nice to see you again and ofc thanks for replaying

Destroyed the last of the first boss's adds while it was doing the ram attack and it didn't disable the boss's collision, so I couldn't hit the weak spot.

thanks, it happens rarely but it's still a bad bug

The sword is too spammable. You never have to dodge anything while you have it.

yep that's a hard situation. My basic solution (yet to be implemented) is to limit energy storage like curse of the moon, and have powerups to upgrade it. 

No idea how you're meant to get past the tall crusher moving horizontally in the crusher challenge.

Some streamers did pass it.

I'm not liking this dumb-looking thing that's following me around everywhere. It can be distracting when there's a lot going on, too.

fair. 

Why do you take damage from being near the second boss when it splits? What's supposed to be hurting me?

in the specific: when big cherry splits, it spawns two little cherry and an explosion that damage you in you are in range, also cherry themselves hurt on contact, so you should never go near him in the first place

The placement on those first three enemies in the poke challenge is really cheap. You're given no time to react, so you're guaranteed to die immediately on the first try, and if you wait even a second, they'll have blocked the path. It's pure trial and error.

Fair assestment. it's a gotcha moment, but has a design underlay: you die the first time. And that's ok (I'm also removing lives entirely soon)

For the second try you might think "I'm attacked from below, but I can't atk below, so what?" that's when you should think to bomb and descover that the poke curse makes you die in one hit, but you can still use bomba. Now, not everyone got it. Some just try and retry to dodge those enemies, or lure them out and bypass them. its not my best design but imo is good enough till I'll think something better.

What was different for the hard mode boss? I didn't notice anything except it having a lot more health.

Boss already starts in phase 2 (he can crush)

his movements scale faster

his Options are only the "hard" selection of the total pool he can spawn

Boss options on death spawn a suicide bullet

boss weak phase last 1s less, and that's why he seems to have more health

Btw you have any opinion on the powerups? my tutorial about them was very bad, so you might have missed them entirely.

Thanks again for your review.

 It's just too prominent in the first level where you barely even get to shoot enemies at first (which is more satisfying than squeezing between). 

That said shield boss should have more attack telegraphing because the bullet hell segment has too much stuff happening and it's hard to react to fast pink projectiles when you are tangled in avoiding other projectiles. Same could be said for all other enemies if you are planning to make it bullet hell heavy.

noted

I like the crushers because of the neat pathing you designed in the challenge. I got a weird bug where I somehow squeezed past horizontal one by clipping into the floor and then popping back out. That reminds me why I'm not using box2d and the likes.

Designing crushers was pure hell. I totally understand now why most deal dmg on hit or outright kill you.

I like that you left the recoil in but I'm still not sure about the gradual falling down without strafing key as I don't understand what purpose it serves.

for some reason I like the gravity aspect very much, so much that's with knockback on shoot it's the main reason this game exist at all. I could say many things abut it, but I just like it on a visceral level. This said, if you check the powerups I added no grav and no knockback for anyone who wants a more classic shmup approach.

Subweapons need better icons to be recognizable at a glance. Axe feels disappointing when it only hits once.

I could try to add a mini weapon icon instead of letters, but I'll probably wont. Letters + colors setup has always worked in  contra and metal slug etc, why here should be a problem. I don't wanna defend myself, but imo it's purely memory adjustment, and that's fair. Remembering letters it's harder than having a weapon icon for pickup.

I need more story levels as the one segment I kinda liked isn't there anymore.

I havent cut it, I removed it for now because once I understood what the story was, that space setting was the last level (lmao).  But i'll probabily add some part of it in the tutorial area, since a setting of all grey walls is not sexy at all.

Thanks for the feedback man.

Could you elaborate on the resolution thing?

In my case by default your game starts fullscreen 720p, and I can click only when I alt+enter out of fullscreen. My new setup is pretty standard, w10 nvidia 3060

I'm getting mixed feedback here, because platforming isn't exactly the focus but means of moving around and killing enemies efficiently.

Sure, you should focus on that fun side of the experience

Platforming might be simplified even more, but instead I can add more bonus side paths to actually test the skills in nonobligatory way, similar to the practice stage but smaller.

Try it and see how players react. For ex almost nobody liked the spinning firaballs from mario in my new demo. In My case I was slowing the pace to an almost complete halt.

Hopefully in context and after a few redraws it will make more sense.

sure. GL for next DD.

- please if your game has low res don't put it in auto full screen

- in full screen mouse highlight and select didn't work, only keys with response were W, S to move in the menu and Esc to quit. Also Pad works with up, down but I can't select anything and R1 quits the game.

- if I use alt+enter in the main menu the game shit itself, but after a while it works. Mouse highlight and select work again, but pad wont.

- upgrades screen is cool, like all your menus

- plese let me see what a pow does without equipping it; also W and S in upgrade menu are broken

- you upgrade for now are not very good, beyond bullet form. They don't speak fun, or powerful to me

- your save works for coins/misison rank, but dosen't for screen settings(or is yet to be implemented?)

- in the wall jump tutorial the bouncing vertical platforms that help you come out the pit seem part of the background

- gun money is cool

- hover tutorial has too much setback if you fail. Also the whole challenge is badly implemented: when you arrive to the big gap with a tornado of flying enemies below and above you it's not well telegraphed what you need to do(I didn't record my play, but i'm not sure you see the other side of the gap)

- I like ledges as an "immortal" platform solution

- more on overall movement gameplay: your movement seems a stepdown from before. The magic bullet now is wall jump on the same wall ad infinitum and hover in the meantime, bypassing platforming alltogether . Right now it's boring. Mostly because your level design is in a midway between the original "tide of casings" meme and what Brassrobo can do right now. With infinite hover and infinite kick wall jump your levels must be redone to be engaging. 

- new skin for worm boss is pretty nonsensical, I say this just because it didn't seem placeholder. He shoots missiles and little insects? I could understand if it was a robotic snake, but from what I understand your lore is brass robos vs biolocial lifeforms

- snake fight seemed too long for what it offers mechanicwise

- 3d shader is super great and your game is always a joy to see in motion 

When you say transversal movement is bad you mean going up or down?

It's not fun because it's empty. It's not fun because there is no choice to do, nothing to collect or dodge(monsters mostly mind their business and deal almost no dmg) or button to press when you go from A to B. Your game right now is the equivalent of an empty mario level.

Some people said the movement is slow but it is the same speed as the horizontal movement, I think the parallax background may give the feeling that the player is moving too slow. 

It's also the big amount of nothing of your level design. If you wanna make a first level a tutorial area is fine, but there is no reason to make it this big beyond wasting player time

Did the dash break collisions or do you mean its too fast when compared to regular movement?

it's too fast and works for too much. Go see any dash from any game. Even racers have more restraint. 

I think you mean to disable the alarm entirely.

yep

My suggestion is to see a longplay (but better if you pick up an emulator and you play them) of Ecco the dolphin games. Also think of the mood of your game should give, it's joyful? It's terror of the abyss?

Super barebones, but it works.

Art is very cute.

I heven't much to say beyond simple stuff

- dont make quit the game when you press esc

- even if it's just for testing purpuses, add a X2, X4 speed

Yours will be a long journey. GL and remember to post progress in the threads