Super exciting and fun game, can't wait to see whats in store from Wubs. Seems to be a very talented individual when it comes to game development, had a blast playing and will continue playing all night. Great work and good luck!
I didn't expect to be this fun and drunk! Awesome! Love the action. Character and enemy design is cool, lots of reference I see. But it seems its too hard for me, can't even pass stage II. Sad.
Hey! Just got finished watching your video, thanks for posting it! I've taken several bits of feedback from it, and will be using it to improve version 0.3!
for example: the ground based enemy AI is being redone. (flying AI was redone in v0.2)
Keep an eye on this, as i plan to rapidly iterate based on feedback like yours! Thanks
So I played 0.4 and I found out that you improve the kill spawn problem! Nice. But I also find out that bald guy is too O.P because its easy for him to find health.
Thanks for posting that! I will keep balancing the game, and releasing updates every few days! The next one is already in progress, and should be released early this week! your feedback has been extremely helpful, thanks!
Amazing work, I have no idea how you managed to put this together so quickly. I loved what I played (quite a bit) but there are a couple of things which are stopping me from enjoying it as much as I did Nuclear Throne or even Wasteland Kings, this being very reminiscent of that title in my eyes. That said, I liked what I played enough to give you this detailed rundown of ideas for you to consider.
I guess I will start chronologically. The user experience is very polished for a demo but there are some slight annoyances with the character select area, mainly that the characters tend to bunch up which made it tricky to select the character I wanted at times.
Furthermore, although the funky coin toss animation was one of the first things I saw of the game, I feel it could be shortened so that when you die, you can get back into the game even quicker. Think Celeste instant respawns. Also, I'll need more time to mull this over, but I'm pretty sure the sniper is easily the best weapon and I wouldn't pick any other (this causes some quirks later on which I will address).
I'll move onto the enemies, the enemies caused the most frustration in the game. I first noticed this when I spawned in and ~10 enemies also spawned in on top of me. So that needs to be fixed so that enemies don't spawn near the player. On top of that, enemies also like to bunch up and overlap so that you often can't tell how many enemies there are in a spot. The gameplay being so fast and frantic, it is necessary to quickly identify how many enemies are all stuck in a corner they have fallen down.
Following on from this, the enemies (especially flying ones) seem to have pretty simple AI which makes them forget where the player is straight away and stops them from seeing around slight corners. This stops the player from baiting the enemies into an advantageous spot and means they often get stuck on corners where they can't easily be shot.
A thought might be also to add slight auto aim or unnoticeable bullet curving so that shots go around the corner. My perspective on the game is that precision aiming is not a core part of the experience and you smooth that "edge" to make the experience more polished without losing anything integral.
Another thing that annoyed me was when the enemies would jump off a ledge. I just felt that it made their movement unpredictable and I died a few times either jumping blindly onto the floor and landing on an enemy or being on the floor and an enemy jumping on me.
I also found the exploding enemies unpredictable and it wasn't especially clear when they would explode so they do need a better animation. Similarly, the flying bomb enemies in the Donkey Kong stage are really obnoxious as their death projectiles last a long time and force you to totally stop, get out of the flow state, and wait for them to disappear.
To finish with the enemies, I think that an enemy counter would be an interesting feature so that you know how many enemies are left because I sometimes didn't know if I should leave the level ASAP or hunt around for extra tickets.
Aside from general art polish, I did notice that the tiles of the level disappear outside of the room which looks a little bit bad and unnatural. Possibly and oversight and a simple fix would be to create a wall of objects so that the player can't see out of the room.
Going back to my point about the sniper being the best, I think it is true but it did cause me some frustration as some of the weapon upgrades didn't work with the sniper. Firstly, the greasy burger seems to be a straight downgrade as the bullets are already a one-shot which means that they are just slower. Secondly, the curved bullets don't seem to have any effect as the bullets are too fast. And thirdly, the extra mag didn't work for me for some reason.
Another ridiculous suggestion which might fit the game. Destructible environments. I just felt whilst I was playing that some sort of grenade launcher might be a cool addition to carve some extra roots and add extra mobility options.
The most frustrating thing for me was getting killed by my own bullets which I believe only happened when I shot whilst standing inside an explosive barrel. Obviously I didn't realise this as the barrel is behind me so I don't know if it should explode if you're touching it. This also happened more when I had the gross urinal and shot more bullets, don't know if that helps at all.
My final thought is about the boxes. I didn't realise until halfway through my play through that they were more than just simple cannon fodder as I somehow avoided shooting them. I don't know whether them containing tickets or hearts really fits the game as I fear that players will try to optimise the fun out of the game. What I mean is that rather than getting into the meat of the action, it was obvious to me that an effective strategy was just to jump around hunting for crates because you got a very tangible reward. However, this was pretty monotonous and not fun yet it rewards you as much as killing the enemies in terms of tickets. Finally, it feels like an epic troll when you shoot a crate and it gives you a heart when you are on full health. Especially as when you need a heart, it never drops them. Maybe take inspiration from Half Life and increase the chances of giving the player what they need.
However, don't make the game too easy. I don't want to urge you to stretch out the game by increasing the difficulty but I also don't want you to make a bunch of content which is easily burned through. I would aim to replicate the progression in Nuclear Throne where you have to actually get a lot better to see each new stage and you have to master the earlier stages to reliably get back to where you finished. Instead of the random level selection I seemed to experience.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Super exciting and fun game, can't wait to see whats in store from Wubs. Seems to be a very talented individual when it comes to game development, had a blast playing and will continue playing all night. Great work and good luck!
<3 Thanks Askin!
I didn't expect to be this fun and drunk! Awesome! Love the action. Character and enemy design is cool, lots of reference I see. But it seems its too hard for me, can't even pass stage II. Sad.
Hey!
Just got finished watching your video, thanks for posting it! I've taken several bits of feedback from it, and will be using it to improve version 0.3!
for example: the ground based enemy AI is being redone. (flying AI was redone in v0.2)
Keep an eye on this, as i plan to rapidly iterate based on feedback like yours!
Thanks
-Wubs
Thanks for posting that! I will keep balancing the game, and releasing updates every few days!
The next one is already in progress, and should be released early this week!
your feedback has been extremely helpful, thanks!
Amazing work, I have no idea how you managed to put this together so quickly. I loved what I played (quite a bit) but there are a couple of things which are stopping me from enjoying it as much as I did Nuclear Throne or even Wasteland Kings, this being very reminiscent of that title in my eyes. That said, I liked what I played enough to give you this detailed rundown of ideas for you to consider.
hey Jordan, Thanks for the detailed review!
The game def needs some polishing, but dont worry, your suggestions have been heard.
Ill be releasing a 2nd demo as soon as I can. Current goals include: Improve enemy AI, and overall balance the game a bit more.
really enjoy the idea of balancing heart drops based on the player's current health, ill get that implemented quickly.
Thanks! stay tuned for updates.
Great! I'm looking forward to the next demo / full version.
A small update has been released, that solves some of the issues you pointed out, but not all of them.
next update will drop soon, as i work towards your feedback, and the feedback of others.
Thanks!