I really enjoyed this! It threads the needle in being just the right amount of difficult, it took me a fair amount of tries between each checkpoint, and also on the boss.
After getting used to the movement, fall speed and just how far the air-dash takes you, handling the character feels great and it felt like each challenge was set up the right way to show you what the character can do, which is a great thing for a first level: it was less like "how am I supposed to do that", and more "that's what I'm supposed to do, but man it's gonna be a bit tough". I saw some little parts where you can optimise and make skips too, which is going to be cool for the speedrunning crowd.
My thought while playing was also "Hmm, this seems a bit harsh, 5 hitpoints to get through all that?", and maybe the checkpoints should be closer, but actually that is solved with the pause screen option to refill health every room. The placement of the checkpoints is actually just right considering that, there's a natural rise and fall of tension/relief when playing. My only consideration on that would be "should the first level overall be this hard?". With a standalone trial it's fine as it occupies a decent amount of time, but it could be offputting for a beginner when they start with this and can only imagine that it's going to become more difficult as they progress.
My only other piece of feedback would be to potentially add some more elements to the backgrounds, not necessarily to add visual noise for the sake of it, because the aesthetic is already good & because colourful backgrounds would distract from the on-screen hazards. But it could be a way to potentially weave in some interesting background details in the less perilous areas, or empty-ish corner of some rooms, maybe even serve as a way to loosely feed in some narrative/world-building.
All in all, I'm really excited to see how this develops!
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game demo ShadowZael! I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed and clicked with it, I'm glad you noticed how it can be optimized for speedruns, that was a thing that naturally came from me play testing it hundreds of times and changing the rooms over and over to fit both styles of play! Amazed someone noticed that!
I 100% agree on the first room specially, I've spoken to a few people on this but if you check out my devlog you'll see progress where I change stuff up here: https://twitter.com/DerekBottles/status/1748110657864540253 (this is the new version of the first room, it wasn't difficult to change up but the safe zone/fall at the start was super important for people starting out!)
I'm also updating the tiles or rather adding more stuff to the aesthetic of that level, I want to strike a balance so it doesn't distract from the hazards in the room, specially like you mentioned the empty parts of some rooms but also looking very nice!
There's going to be a lot of positive changes and updates for the proper demo in a few months! Thank you for sticking around and I'll do my best to keep at it!
It's unfortunate to say but the platforming (more specifically the level design and its pairing with the platforming) is really annoying, I can't put my finger on it specifically (other than saying I have a medically prescribed skill issue), but pretty much every platform will have a death and the game is pretty specific about your movements.
Maybe that's just the type of game it is, maybe it should flow better and afford you some wiggle room, or maybe I should grow some balls and stop whining like an embryo.
I will note that everything but the platforming has a lot of work and character put into it (which is why I bumped this from a 3 to a 4)…but the gameplay criticism is unavoidable and it infuriates me quickly.
Thanks for the feedback sicave! Sorry to hear you had issues with the gameplay, a lot of that is being changed up as I go through it with a group of people who are big into platformers, things such as being able to dash from the ground, more control when you're hit back and a jump buffer to name a few planned changes alongside level design considerations and changes to match that.
That said i appreciate you bumping the rating for the other aspects of the game, and for taking the time to play it despite it's flaws, I hope you can look forward to the full demo which is will be released in a few months (hopefully, never know how it goes with game development)
I am an English - Spanish (Latam) translator and I am trying to get experience in videogame localization. Would you be interested in localizing your game into Spanish? If so, it would be my pleasure to do it for free. All I would ask for is some credit so that I can build my portfolio (:
Hi there, I'm sorry there isnt an option in this game to change language, so it would be hard to implement but hopefully in the future I'll implement a way so i can switch between language options! Thank you for reaching out that said!
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I really enjoyed this! It threads the needle in being just the right amount of difficult, it took me a fair amount of tries between each checkpoint, and also on the boss.
After getting used to the movement, fall speed and just how far the air-dash takes you, handling the character feels great and it felt like each challenge was set up the right way to show you what the character can do, which is a great thing for a first level: it was less like "how am I supposed to do that", and more "that's what I'm supposed to do, but man it's gonna be a bit tough". I saw some little parts where you can optimise and make skips too, which is going to be cool for the speedrunning crowd.
My thought while playing was also "Hmm, this seems a bit harsh, 5 hitpoints to get through all that?", and maybe the checkpoints should be closer, but actually that is solved with the pause screen option to refill health every room. The placement of the checkpoints is actually just right considering that, there's a natural rise and fall of tension/relief when playing. My only consideration on that would be "should the first level overall be this hard?". With a standalone trial it's fine as it occupies a decent amount of time, but it could be offputting for a beginner when they start with this and can only imagine that it's going to become more difficult as they progress.
My only other piece of feedback would be to potentially add some more elements to the backgrounds, not necessarily to add visual noise for the sake of it, because the aesthetic is already good & because colourful backgrounds would distract from the on-screen hazards. But it could be a way to potentially weave in some interesting background details in the less perilous areas, or empty-ish corner of some rooms, maybe even serve as a way to loosely feed in some narrative/world-building.
All in all, I'm really excited to see how this develops!
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game demo ShadowZael! I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed and clicked with it, I'm glad you noticed how it can be optimized for speedruns, that was a thing that naturally came from me play testing it hundreds of times and changing the rooms over and over to fit both styles of play! Amazed someone noticed that!
I 100% agree on the first room specially, I've spoken to a few people on this but if you check out my devlog you'll see progress where I change stuff up here: https://twitter.com/DerekBottles/status/1748110657864540253 (this is the new version of the first room, it wasn't difficult to change up but the safe zone/fall at the start was super important for people starting out!)
I'm also updating the tiles or rather adding more stuff to the aesthetic of that level, I want to strike a balance so it doesn't distract from the hazards in the room, specially like you mentioned the empty parts of some rooms but also looking very nice!
There's going to be a lot of positive changes and updates for the proper demo in a few months! Thank you for sticking around and I'll do my best to keep at it!
4/5.
It's unfortunate to say but the platforming (more specifically the level design and its pairing with the platforming) is really annoying, I can't put my finger on it specifically (other than saying I have a medically prescribed skill issue), but pretty much every platform will have a death and the game is pretty specific about your movements.
Maybe that's just the type of game it is, maybe it should flow better and afford you some wiggle room, or maybe I should grow some balls and stop whining like an embryo.
I will note that everything but the platforming has a lot of work and character put into it (which is why I bumped this from a 3 to a 4)…but the gameplay criticism is unavoidable and it infuriates me quickly.
Thanks for the feedback sicave! Sorry to hear you had issues with the gameplay, a lot of that is being changed up as I go through it with a group of people who are big into platformers, things such as being able to dash from the ground, more control when you're hit back and a jump buffer to name a few planned changes alongside level design considerations and changes to match that.
That said i appreciate you bumping the rating for the other aspects of the game, and for taking the time to play it despite it's flaws, I hope you can look forward to the full demo which is will be released in a few months (hopefully, never know how it goes with game development)
Hi, Derek!
Your game seems great!
I am an English - Spanish (Latam) translator and I am trying to get experience in videogame localization. Would you be interested in localizing your game into Spanish? If so, it would be my pleasure to do it for free. All I would ask for is some credit so that I can build my portfolio (:
Hi there, I'm sorry there isnt an option in this game to change language, so it would be hard to implement but hopefully in the future I'll implement a way so i can switch between language options! Thank you for reaching out that said!
I can't beat the boss... I have to get good enough at this game to beat the boss...
I hope you can beat the boss one day, I belive in you