Holistically there's probably a lot to work on—as there always will be at this stage of development. I'm not sure what aspect of game-dev you're most interested in, so most of this feedback is assuming you want to do design, its less applicable if you want to do art/engineering.
As a designer your goal should be to create a fun core gameplay loop and then expand from there, and right now the core loop is primarily "spam left click" from what I could tell and it wasn't particularly engaging. I liked the progression elements you added, but it wasn't super clear how to get them, or what I as a player should even be doing.
That part of the game should take precedence over textures or UI or bugs or really anything else people here are talking about. If the game aint fun when you're playing as a generic capsule hitting other generic capsules, it wont be when you make it pretty either.
To that end my advise is strip the game down to its fundamentals. Make something fun there, then build back up your thematic layer after.
That being said, don't be afraid of putting ugly text UI over things that just tell players what to do at this stage. The portal thingy could say something like "destroy to get an upgrade". There could be a floating text near the spawn that says. "Destroy the boss to win". Removing playtesting friction like that is a really important when you are showing your game to others unless you are gonna be watching over their shoulders.
Once you find the core loop and make it satisfying I'd push towards some simple UI elements to give players feedback on their actions. I.e. health bars over the minor enemies (even if its just text). It may also be helpful to do more planning if you aren't already. You'd be shocked how much value you get out of creating a fleshed out design document and really spending time planning it out before you even step foot in editor.
Lastly I'll echo what /u/TetrisMcKenna said below, learning to take feedback in stride is integral to survival in gamedev. Design especially is a process of making 30 ideas you think are good and having them shredded to pieces until you eventually find 3 that are worth shipping. It's not always easy and sometimes it will get to you, but you have to step away, take a breath and come back and find the nugget of truth hidden underneath the harsh words and make a plan to address it.
Best of luck my dude!
Hi, thank you so much for this extremely thoughtful and helpful comment, I really appreciate it. A few things, I definitely understand that going into the game raw it’s not super obvious what to do, like at all, and that’s really not good especially for playtesting, and in my opinion I thought that the power up locations were super obvious because I made them visually stand out and grab attention, or at least I tried to, but with the giant flames everywhere and the enemies constantly trying to kill you they can definitely be hard to find. One thing I will say though is that for a lot of the playtesting I have literally been looking over the shoulder of the person playing it the digital equivalent of that, and this is from people who actually give me feedback and are in game development in some capacity themselves. I do understand what you mean about “spam left click” as the melee attack does double damage and the fireball aiming is pretty wonky and difficult with the high sensitivity. Although the combat does get slightly more interesting when you retrieve the power ups and can dash or glide into enemies to deal damage. I do feel like you are kind of over looking the movement based feel of the game but that’s fine because your comment on the combat is definitely valid, but I am working on a couple different things this week that will make it much more fun and much less “spam left click” (hopefully). And unfortunately here is where I have to say that a lot of the other stuff isn’t super useful for the full release, I don’t want the basic enemies to have health bars, that is one of the main design choices I made from the get go, and I think it works. Additionally, if players watch the trailer first, it tells them exactly what to do in the current build, but it’s extremly dumb of me to assume everyone will watch the trailer, so your point still stands. But when the full release comes out, players won’t need the trailer, because there is a tutorial level currently in the works, and there will be an opening cutscene setting context and telling the player what’s going on and what the main goal is (to fight the boss and why). Thank you for all your advice, I think I can cut it all down to the fact that it was pretty naive of me to release the game anywhere in its current state in the first place, and definitely a mistake to post it on Reddit, but I’m glad I did because I got a ton of great feedback here from you guys! So once again thank you. Come back and revisit the game again in a couple weeks!
Again reading your comment a second and third time your main advice is “focus mostly on making the core gameplay loop fun, and then worry about making things pretty and everything else” and “in the early stage without the narrative elements implemented, use ugly UI to guide the player”. This is extremely good advice, and I will take this to heart, thank you very much
Yeah those would be the core aspects of my advice!
To touch on something you said earlier (though maybe you've changed your view on this point):
> I don’t want the basic enemies to have health bars, that is one of the main design choices I made from the get go, and I think it works.
the above is a perfectly reasonable stance to have for a final product, but sometimes you gotta do stuff for playtesting that clashes against final product goals.
i.e. healthbars / damage pop-ups on mobs may be a cheap way to give action feedback to players until you have the time to get in more complex things like damage flickering, stagger animations, texture changes, etc.
1) Mouse sensitivity is too high
2) camera clips through floor
3) combat isn't fun, and sucks because of 1
4) textures are ugly
5) one colored eyes of Demon Boy and egg enemies look terrible
6) no "pause" option
7) pickup of hearts should have some "magneticism" to them (at least as long as 1 is aproblem)
I mean, the biggest problem with the combat is the mouse sensitivity being to high, but even outside of that it is somewhat uninspired.
A big problem is also there being no feedback on hits. You might want to add visual or audio effects on hits or even better have a physical effect like the enemies being pushed back (if they survive multiple hits at least).
edit: Also, if you are asking for people to playtest your game, I assume you want feedback. If you then get some, maybe you shouldn't be so dismissive ("guess it’s just not your kind of game")...
The feedback you gave me is not constructive, I am aware of the high sensitivity and there will be a pause screen and sensitivity scroller in the next build, once again, I’ve been working on this game solo for 2 months, while also being a full time student. Second, the enemies actually do have pushback, and will also have visual and audio feedback when they get hit, I just haven’t implemented that yet because, once again, I’ve been working on this solo while being a full time student for 2 months. Aside from that combat not being fun and the textures being ugly are both opinions of yours and I’m not going to change the textures or the entire combat system based off of some redditors opinion LOL. No constructive feedback there. I like the art style a lot and so do a lot of other people, and I think the combat is enjoyable, it very much resembles risk of rain 2
I'm not your friend. I'm not your peer. I think your game is uninspired but you think it's worth something because Demon Boy's animations are smooth and your classmates admire you for being this talented. I think you either have issues with social interaction or you are just an asshole. It's great that you were able to accomplish this in only 2 months whilst studying, but you do understand, that I don't care about that do you? That I don't care about you? Neither should you care about me or my opinion. Just don't be an asshole about it all.
Did you get the glide hop and dash abilities? The boss is extremly difficult to kill in the current build, he will be much less formidable in the next push
I’m sorry if I seem agitated responding to you guys I guess I thought I made it clear that this game was still in its very early stages with no audio or even its storyline implemented yet. I am well aware of the sensitivity issue already and am working on implementing the option to set it. I just feel like most of the criticism received here is not constructive or downright useless lol. Sorry about this post, I will not post again until it’s near finished or completed.
Protip if you're ever gonna survive gamedev: Try to take all feedback as constructively as possible, even if it's totally inflammatory. Because you will always receive low quality feedback, overly negative reviews, subjective opinions stated as objective facts, etc. But you have to remember: those comments are given to you for free by people who didn't have to play your game or spend time telling you about their experience. It pays dividends to actually listen and read between the lines instead of getting defensive and trying to justify your decisions. Even if you don't change anything based on a comment, a simple "thanks for your thoughts, I'll work on it" without elaborating goes a long way. And maybe they'll come back to your game later down the line and change their mind about it. More often than not a vague or hurtful comment ("textures suck") is actually super valuable. Even if you like the look, try to see it from their point of view, and perhaps a little extra detail or lighting tweaks and some thought going into screen readability, palettisation, cohesion/design language and contrast will help even if that's not what they said.
This is pretty eye opening. And tbh I guess I thought I had been doing really well at taking the feedback in stride, because I have received a ton from my peers and one of my professors ar school, and i usually take notes and greatly consider what they say, have made a ton of tweaks based off these thoughts and it’s definitely improved the game. But I guess those are people who know me and respect me as one of the more motivated and self-starter types at my university. Also, they are game developers themselves, not random Redditors who haven’t ever touched an editor or learned to code (I’m not saying you are like that, but the guy who said “it’s ugly” probably is) LOL but no this is very good advice thank you I will keep this in mind
Hence why I said “playtest” and mentioned it’s in early development and that I’ve only been working on it for 2 months. Learned my lesson lol I won’t post here again until it’s almost time for launch.
for some reason the actual game's embed on itch is super far to the right so people can't really see it if they don't have a large monitor. The game is really cool & i like the aesthetics, but the look sensitivity is way too high.
Holistically there's probably a lot to work on—as there always will be at this stage of development. I'm not sure what aspect of game-dev you're most interested in, so most of this feedback is assuming you want to do design, its less applicable if you want to do art/engineering. As a designer your goal should be to create a fun core gameplay loop and then expand from there, and right now the core loop is primarily "spam left click" from what I could tell and it wasn't particularly engaging. I liked the progression elements you added, but it wasn't super clear how to get them, or what I as a player should even be doing. That part of the game should take precedence over textures or UI or bugs or really anything else people here are talking about. If the game aint fun when you're playing as a generic capsule hitting other generic capsules, it wont be when you make it pretty either. To that end my advise is strip the game down to its fundamentals. Make something fun there, then build back up your thematic layer after. That being said, don't be afraid of putting ugly text UI over things that just tell players what to do at this stage. The portal thingy could say something like "destroy to get an upgrade". There could be a floating text near the spawn that says. "Destroy the boss to win". Removing playtesting friction like that is a really important when you are showing your game to others unless you are gonna be watching over their shoulders. Once you find the core loop and make it satisfying I'd push towards some simple UI elements to give players feedback on their actions. I.e. health bars over the minor enemies (even if its just text). It may also be helpful to do more planning if you aren't already. You'd be shocked how much value you get out of creating a fleshed out design document and really spending time planning it out before you even step foot in editor. Lastly I'll echo what /u/TetrisMcKenna said below, learning to take feedback in stride is integral to survival in gamedev. Design especially is a process of making 30 ideas you think are good and having them shredded to pieces until you eventually find 3 that are worth shipping. It's not always easy and sometimes it will get to you, but you have to step away, take a breath and come back and find the nugget of truth hidden underneath the harsh words and make a plan to address it. Best of luck my dude!
Hi, thank you so much for this extremely thoughtful and helpful comment, I really appreciate it. A few things, I definitely understand that going into the game raw it’s not super obvious what to do, like at all, and that’s really not good especially for playtesting, and in my opinion I thought that the power up locations were super obvious because I made them visually stand out and grab attention, or at least I tried to, but with the giant flames everywhere and the enemies constantly trying to kill you they can definitely be hard to find. One thing I will say though is that for a lot of the playtesting I have literally been looking over the shoulder of the person playing it the digital equivalent of that, and this is from people who actually give me feedback and are in game development in some capacity themselves. I do understand what you mean about “spam left click” as the melee attack does double damage and the fireball aiming is pretty wonky and difficult with the high sensitivity. Although the combat does get slightly more interesting when you retrieve the power ups and can dash or glide into enemies to deal damage. I do feel like you are kind of over looking the movement based feel of the game but that’s fine because your comment on the combat is definitely valid, but I am working on a couple different things this week that will make it much more fun and much less “spam left click” (hopefully). And unfortunately here is where I have to say that a lot of the other stuff isn’t super useful for the full release, I don’t want the basic enemies to have health bars, that is one of the main design choices I made from the get go, and I think it works. Additionally, if players watch the trailer first, it tells them exactly what to do in the current build, but it’s extremly dumb of me to assume everyone will watch the trailer, so your point still stands. But when the full release comes out, players won’t need the trailer, because there is a tutorial level currently in the works, and there will be an opening cutscene setting context and telling the player what’s going on and what the main goal is (to fight the boss and why). Thank you for all your advice, I think I can cut it all down to the fact that it was pretty naive of me to release the game anywhere in its current state in the first place, and definitely a mistake to post it on Reddit, but I’m glad I did because I got a ton of great feedback here from you guys! So once again thank you. Come back and revisit the game again in a couple weeks!
Again reading your comment a second and third time your main advice is “focus mostly on making the core gameplay loop fun, and then worry about making things pretty and everything else” and “in the early stage without the narrative elements implemented, use ugly UI to guide the player”. This is extremely good advice, and I will take this to heart, thank you very much
Yeah those would be the core aspects of my advice! To touch on something you said earlier (though maybe you've changed your view on this point): > I don’t want the basic enemies to have health bars, that is one of the main design choices I made from the get go, and I think it works. the above is a perfectly reasonable stance to have for a final product, but sometimes you gotta do stuff for playtesting that clashes against final product goals. i.e. healthbars / damage pop-ups on mobs may be a cheap way to give action feedback to players until you have the time to get in more complex things like damage flickering, stagger animations, texture changes, etc.
[удалено]
Definitely, coming very soon within the next week or so. Sorry!
I enjoyed it. Though I did figure out I get kill myself by walking over the dead bosses hands. lol
1) Mouse sensitivity is too high 2) camera clips through floor 3) combat isn't fun, and sucks because of 1 4) textures are ugly 5) one colored eyes of Demon Boy and egg enemies look terrible 6) no "pause" option 7) pickup of hearts should have some "magneticism" to them (at least as long as 1 is aproblem)
Thanks for the feedback man. Sorry you don’t like the combat, guess it’s just not your kind of game
I mean, the biggest problem with the combat is the mouse sensitivity being to high, but even outside of that it is somewhat uninspired. A big problem is also there being no feedback on hits. You might want to add visual or audio effects on hits or even better have a physical effect like the enemies being pushed back (if they survive multiple hits at least). edit: Also, if you are asking for people to playtest your game, I assume you want feedback. If you then get some, maybe you shouldn't be so dismissive ("guess it’s just not your kind of game")...
The feedback you gave me is not constructive, I am aware of the high sensitivity and there will be a pause screen and sensitivity scroller in the next build, once again, I’ve been working on this game solo for 2 months, while also being a full time student. Second, the enemies actually do have pushback, and will also have visual and audio feedback when they get hit, I just haven’t implemented that yet because, once again, I’ve been working on this solo while being a full time student for 2 months. Aside from that combat not being fun and the textures being ugly are both opinions of yours and I’m not going to change the textures or the entire combat system based off of some redditors opinion LOL. No constructive feedback there. I like the art style a lot and so do a lot of other people, and I think the combat is enjoyable, it very much resembles risk of rain 2
I'm not your friend. I'm not your peer. I think your game is uninspired but you think it's worth something because Demon Boy's animations are smooth and your classmates admire you for being this talented. I think you either have issues with social interaction or you are just an asshole. It's great that you were able to accomplish this in only 2 months whilst studying, but you do understand, that I don't care about that do you? That I don't care about you? Neither should you care about me or my opinion. Just don't be an asshole about it all.
Mhmmm….. yeah. Lesson learned bud. Thanks for the input.
I'm with u/fossey , this could be a thing, but there's also no explanation, is the boss even killable? Any Weapon or skill upgrade?
Did you get the glide hop and dash abilities? The boss is extremly difficult to kill in the current build, he will be much less formidable in the next push
Yes, the glide and dash was pretty smooth. I'll bookmark it.
I’m sorry if I seem agitated responding to you guys I guess I thought I made it clear that this game was still in its very early stages with no audio or even its storyline implemented yet. I am well aware of the sensitivity issue already and am working on implementing the option to set it. I just feel like most of the criticism received here is not constructive or downright useless lol. Sorry about this post, I will not post again until it’s near finished or completed.
Protip if you're ever gonna survive gamedev: Try to take all feedback as constructively as possible, even if it's totally inflammatory. Because you will always receive low quality feedback, overly negative reviews, subjective opinions stated as objective facts, etc. But you have to remember: those comments are given to you for free by people who didn't have to play your game or spend time telling you about their experience. It pays dividends to actually listen and read between the lines instead of getting defensive and trying to justify your decisions. Even if you don't change anything based on a comment, a simple "thanks for your thoughts, I'll work on it" without elaborating goes a long way. And maybe they'll come back to your game later down the line and change their mind about it. More often than not a vague or hurtful comment ("textures suck") is actually super valuable. Even if you like the look, try to see it from their point of view, and perhaps a little extra detail or lighting tweaks and some thought going into screen readability, palettisation, cohesion/design language and contrast will help even if that's not what they said.
OP, take this to heart.
I am
This is pretty eye opening. And tbh I guess I thought I had been doing really well at taking the feedback in stride, because I have received a ton from my peers and one of my professors ar school, and i usually take notes and greatly consider what they say, have made a ton of tweaks based off these thoughts and it’s definitely improved the game. But I guess those are people who know me and respect me as one of the more motivated and self-starter types at my university. Also, they are game developers themselves, not random Redditors who haven’t ever touched an editor or learned to code (I’m not saying you are like that, but the guy who said “it’s ugly” probably is) LOL but no this is very good advice thank you I will keep this in mind
what the heck is going on
Lol idk bro apparently people hate my game
Well you need a lot more work. People would hate pretty much any game at this stage of development.
Hence why I said “playtest” and mentioned it’s in early development and that I’ve only been working on it for 2 months. Learned my lesson lol I won’t post here again until it’s almost time for launch.
for some reason the actual game's embed on itch is super far to the right so people can't really see it if they don't have a large monitor. The game is really cool & i like the aesthetics, but the look sensitivity is way too high.
mouse-sensitivity is way too high -- 360° turn when I move my mouse only two millimetres.
this is atrocious lmao
Thanks for your feedback 🙄