Zombies In Space

qzqxq 2017-05-02 07:16

Cool game! The first few levels were quite fun as I was trying to get the hang of it, and who doesn't enjoy blowing the heads off zombies? I think it started getting too repetitive for me around level 6 or 7 (whichever one was the second level where you had to kill 30 zombies), so I didn't really have much motivation to finish. I think I would have enjoyed a lot more it if there were more variety in the levels, and if there were fewer zombies to kill per level. 30 is a really large number and there's no reason to force the player to do the same thing over and over once they already know how to do it once.

It took me a long time to figure out how to use the vending machine; I was just pointing at the objects and pressing E and didn't think to press the 0 and 1 buttons for a while. In retrospect it makes a lot of sense, but I think other people might have a similar issue.

Some more nitpicks: -I appreciated the arrow, but it would also have been nice to have an arrow pointing towards the vending machine, or even just having a screen pop up to buy upgrades between rounds. I didn't like how the next round would start immediately after the current round ended, since it was difficult to go to the vending machine in between. -I was confused that zombies seemed to have wildly varying HP; some went down in two shots, while some took 6 or more. Some HP indicator might have been nice. -Similarly, some indication of exactly how much health I have left would have been nice, though that's not as big of a deal as the visual effect communicates it quite well.

Overall, though, I think this is a really solid game, and it's decently polished (e.g. the press R/press E messages were very helpful, the sound effects were good). Also, I really like the "retro horror" visual style, which is really well-done. Good job!

cremmy 2017-05-02 09:46

Time to comment - with many things I agree with what @qzqxq said. - Idea o vending machine is interesting (and how it has planet with vending machine with planet with ... on top of it on top of it). - Even with help of plasma grenade i couldn't keep on top of rocket/vending machine. - Grenade is weird, it's more useful as one-hit-kill weapon than something that kills multiple enemies. - Headshots don't seem to be effective, even though zombies become their headless variants. - Some zombies of the same type die with one hit from shotgun, others need 4 shots. Maybe some feedback after hitting would be nice (zombie yelling or -1hp particle). - Too repetitive, i got bored about the same time as @qzqxq, and arrow was constantly pointing down - underground zombies? - Graphics - well, it has graphics, little blocky, but maybe it's just case of 'programmer art'. It's clean, so you know what's going on screen. - Title looks like movie from '40s or WordArts from '00s d;

Game's working, you can shoot zombies, no bugs found. If anything, then escape velocity for a planet of this size is too high d;

jesseycool 2017-05-02 12:10

Thanks for commenting, @cremmy and @qzqxq. It seems that you both put some time in your comment and we appreciate that!

I totally agree with that it might get repetitive at round 6 and we should have made another type of zombie to keep the player interested. We thought the weapons would keep the player interested. There also should have been an HP indicator from the zombies, pretty dumb that we forgot that. @cremmy, there is a 2x headshot multiplier though, so headshots really do work even if you shoot their heads off.

cremmy 2017-05-02 12:41

@jesseycool - When someone loses their head, I'd rather expect them to stop moving, rather than continue running after me (except for chickens). As for the multiplier, that's exactly what I meant - no feedback after hitting enemy. I started to wonder if bullets passed through enemies (standard bug in many games, position+=speed*timestep when speed is too large object passes through walls). At least, if I decide to try it again (and climb that rocket) I'll know there's reason to aim at their heads d;

szimano 2017-05-04 18:28

All in all impressive game for the jam!

I can only agree with what my predecessors said that it gets a bit repetitive after few rounds, but i kinda liked that "hidden" manual for the out-of-the-blue vending machine in the middle of space, surrounded by zombies :)

sebastian-lague 2017-05-19 11:28

Quite fun for the first few rounds. I think zombies should die several seconds after their heads are blown off though. The damage effect overlay didn't match the screen size, and looked quite ugly cut off on the edges. The fade to red at the end was nice and dramatic! Some recoil and gun sway would have helped a lot to make the game more immersive.