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Andromeda: There is no god up here

Inspired by the good old Metroids. Openworld (open galaxy!), Metroid-vania, 100% retro-style, pixel art 2-D · By Andromeda Project

Demo Feedback Sticky

A topic by Andromeda Project created May 17, 2016 Views: 974 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 6
Developer

Hello everyone!

We want to know your opinion! The community is a very important element for us and we want to hear you out! Leave a comment with your opinion and feedback about the demo.

If you have found any bugs or typos we would love if you could let us know, after all we are human and make mistakes too!

Thank you for your time and understanding, we hope you love Andromeda!

(1 edit)

The game looks great so far! I do have a share of praises and criticisms:

++The DNA/Shooting mechanic is fantastic, it rewards you for killing enemies while also incentivizing you to kill instead of just running away.

++The camera controls are amazing for this type of game, most modern metroidvanias suffer from the lack of vertical awareness, but these controls are definitely a great solution to the problem.

++The boss battle's expertly designed. They are a true test of the players skill and are fun to fight.

+I really like the jetpack mechanic, the lack of jumping is weird but with time it becomes tolerable. I think the control limitation you've given will allow you to be more creative with certain aspects of the final product. However, I'd recommend writing in a reason for the lack of jumping as to not confuse players. Maybe make the excuse that the protagonists armor is too heavy?


-+ The long journal logs will definitely alienate some players, so if you want to avoid that, try to make the mandatory ones more concise without breaking the suspension of disbelief.

-+ The enemies are kinda hard to see when they're not moving, I'd recommend doing something to rectify this but this is a matter of preference.

-+ Standing still and then going left/right is jarring, I'd personally recommend that the protagonist starts slow for 1-2 frames and gets up to full speed by the 4-5th frame in animation. Same with turning around. This may conflict with the game design, so if it's too late to fix/change, I completely understand. It's not that important, and again, a matter of preference.


-There's no good reason as to why the protagonist should stop the game and make an entry log about something that we, the player, are witnessing ourselves. If you want to keep this for some reason, here's a possible solution: Every time you explore a world and see something worth writing down in an entry log, notify the player by flashing "log updated" on the screen, and then allow them to access the logs via when you leave the planet. This will not only give us an insight into the protagonist's personality, but it will also be a handy tool for gauging how what the player has done on the planet, giving them a hint as to what they can do next.

-When the player falls a certain distance, they take falling damage. This is fine. However, there's a point where the protagonist falls through the floor in a cavern while escaping the planet, and when he lands, he doesn't take falling damage at all. This may be considered "nitpicking," but I think consistency between gameplay and story is important.

--I genuinely hope the music is a placeholder, because not only does it hurt my ears and gives me a headache, it never compliments the tone of the game. There's two key problems with it: 1) Nobody likes Midi when it's painfully obvious that it's midi. 2) Classical, or traditional, music doesn't belong in a game where you explore new and distant worlds. Music direction like that is meant to give a sense of nostalgia or belonging, something you're not supposed to feel in the depths of alien worlds infested with dangerous monsters. If, during world exploration, you wanted to make the player feel afraid, you failed completely for me.

--The destructible environment doesn't really add anything to the level design and generally makes the game more tedious to play. They make the levels look uglier/less consistent, and that's really the only way you can separate them from normal terrain. That being said, there was one decent use of it where, if I didn't destroy the blocks, I could access some extra resources. Though, that doesn't make up for the rest of the issues with it.


As for bugs, I personally didn't find any.

All this aside, it's a very fun, creative, and ambitious game. I can't wait to play the final version!

Developer

Thank you for your feedback!

We are and continue to work very hard on the demo on a daily basis and we will have a new demo with a few more and new features next week!.

As for some of the things that you have mentioned in your post, some have been fixed and others we have them very present as you are not the first to mention them.

The music issue is one of our most painful ones. Half the player base loves half hates it. We can only say that NO it won't be Bach forever. Only for the demo. We have our own compositor and her work may make it into the Demo very soon so stay tuned.

Thank you so much for your time and for writing us!

(4 edits)

I love the game so far, one issue I had was after I had explored everywhere I could find, I had one of the parts for the elevator repair and i had found the Triangle piece and put it back into that machine. However after that point I spent so much time trying to figure out where to go or what I was missing I simply ran out of resources until I couldn't load my game anymore. At that point the game automatically deletes your save and you have to start the planet over again. Maybe I made a mistake and the other 2 parts of the elevator weren't hard to find and I was just missing something on the map. But the planet is so big that starting it all over, not because it was hard but because I couldn't figure out where to go seems a bit harsh.

After a while I had saved so many times that my saving cost was over 100, which is fine but I still think loading the game shouldn't cost anything. I still need to figure out the water area on the bottom left area where you can either go under or try to jet pack up to the rocks but having to redo the whole planet now makes me not want to keep playing.


EDIT: I realized what I was missing. In the underwater area. You can climb those plants in the background as if they were a ladder. They really don't stand out as something you can climb, I just happened to grab onto one as I was walking down there.


Having finished the demo now, it is still an incredible game. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Developer

Hello ColdFear

I'm sorry that happened to you but it is part of the game experience. We want it to be a hardcore game where saving and loading takes up resources so you have to play with care and are always on the line. It makes the whole play experience a lot more exciting!

If you are lost there is a walk-through-guide video of the demo here: https://youtu.be/RTTYtASUCxI

I hope you make it and enjoy the game! Don't forget to read all the diaries before the very end!

Thanks for your support and interest!

Seems like it could be fun, especially with a controller! I just wanted to report that it seems to work flawlessly using Wine on linux.

The immediate issue for me is the camera controls - I don't like that they stay where I left them after releasing the button.

I suggest, if it isn't in the game already, adding an option in the menu to toggle between two camera modes. The first is basically what it is now, while the second moves the camera up and down faster when up/down are held and resets it to normal when they're released.

I have so many problems with this game it's almost impossible to list them all. It's frustrating because I can see the potential a game like this would have. But the execution is WAY off.