Love it folks - I think the speed is great now that I can experience it with no lag. I do still think the feedback is a little hard to see with the speeds we are going at which strengthens the argument for more gore as it's easier to see haha
The art is clean and vibrant and the animation is impressively smooth. It's nice to see 2d animation in a 3d environment because it's just a really nice aesthetic.
The grappling tends to break at times and there's not much momentum to it, which feels a little weird. Coupled with the bottomless holes, I ended up trying to minimize my usage of it. It just gets stuck whenever there's any solid ground between the grapple target and the player character and then you have to slowly wiggle your way out of it, so I'd definitely say it needs some work.
I think part of the tradeoff of using 2d sprites is that hitboxes aren't as clear and it looks like there isn't any feedback when attacks land on enemies. It would be helpful to know whether something is going to die or not even though there's infinite ammo, probably through just modulating the color of the sprite or adding particle effects whenever an enemy is hit.
It's also hard to figure out the timing for the snake and bat enemies, since the snake gives up easily and the bat projectiles are small enough that the only indication of it attacking are based on the attack animation. I would suggest differentiating the snake's idle and chase state somehow and increasing the size of the bat projectiles. It would also help if there was directional sound attached to each enemy instance because it's a little hard to keep track of enemies, especially when they just spawn in (which could also benefit from a sound cue and/or visual effect).
The map design could use some work, since the lighting is pretty dark and it's not very clear where to go without taking a moment to look around. There could be graffiti arrows or some kind of set design to differentiate entrances from exits and naturally lead the player to the correct passageway. On the first large room, I didn't really think about looking up the random cubbyhole with a health pack because it was very dark and I assumed wrongly that maybe the random floating platforms would lead somewhere.
Lastly, you should probably reset the player state to idle (if you're using a state machine) or at least reset the direction and speed after a cutscene. Not a game-breaking bug but I assume you probably don't want that.
Overall, it's very nice visually, but could use some work for a better player experience. Good luck with the full game (I hope my suggestions weren't too harsh).
Thanks for the detailed comment - no you weren't too harsh! We're aware of pretty much all these issues but needed to get the demo out in time for our assessment. It might get some minor fixes soon, but given our plans for the full project will end up looking pretty different to what this demo is, we'll be focusing our efforts on that instead. Thank you for playing!
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Love it folks - I think the speed is great now that I can experience it with no lag. I do still think the feedback is a little hard to see with the speeds we are going at which strengthens the argument for more gore as it's easier to see haha
Amazing boomer shooter concept all around
The art is clean and vibrant and the animation is impressively smooth. It's nice to see 2d animation in a 3d environment because it's just a really nice aesthetic.
The grappling tends to break at times and there's not much momentum to it, which feels a little weird. Coupled with the bottomless holes, I ended up trying to minimize my usage of it. It just gets stuck whenever there's any solid ground between the grapple target and the player character and then you have to slowly wiggle your way out of it, so I'd definitely say it needs some work.
I think part of the tradeoff of using 2d sprites is that hitboxes aren't as clear and it looks like there isn't any feedback when attacks land on enemies. It would be helpful to know whether something is going to die or not even though there's infinite ammo, probably through just modulating the color of the sprite or adding particle effects whenever an enemy is hit.
It's also hard to figure out the timing for the snake and bat enemies, since the snake gives up easily and the bat projectiles are small enough that the only indication of it attacking are based on the attack animation. I would suggest differentiating the snake's idle and chase state somehow and increasing the size of the bat projectiles. It would also help if there was directional sound attached to each enemy instance because it's a little hard to keep track of enemies, especially when they just spawn in (which could also benefit from a sound cue and/or visual effect).
The map design could use some work, since the lighting is pretty dark and it's not very clear where to go without taking a moment to look around. There could be graffiti arrows or some kind of set design to differentiate entrances from exits and naturally lead the player to the correct passageway. On the first large room, I didn't really think about looking up the random cubbyhole with a health pack because it was very dark and I assumed wrongly that maybe the random floating platforms would lead somewhere.
Lastly, you should probably reset the player state to idle (if you're using a state machine) or at least reset the direction and speed after a cutscene. Not a game-breaking bug but I assume you probably don't want that.
Overall, it's very nice visually, but could use some work for a better player experience. Good luck with the full game (I hope my suggestions weren't too harsh).
Thanks for the detailed comment - no you weren't too harsh! We're aware of pretty much all these issues but needed to get the demo out in time for our assessment. It might get some minor fixes soon, but given our plans for the full project will end up looking pretty different to what this demo is, we'll be focusing our efforts on that instead. Thank you for playing!