alxertion 2020-04-22 10:01
Overall fun, understood the concepts and gameplay quickly, and the graphics style is really nice!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Soda Pop Vampire
By neontropics
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 891 | 3.62 | 38 | |
| Fun | 623 | 3.62 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 1415 | 3.19 | 38 | |
| Theme | 2218 | 3.00 | 38 | |
| Graphics | 639 | 4.01 | 39 | |
| Audio | 832 | 3.39 | 36 | |
| Humor | 419 | 3.58 | 36 | |
| Mood | 843 | 3.59 | 34 |
Overall fun, understood the concepts and gameplay quickly, and the graphics style is really nice!
Are they grow bigger in Level 6? :)
Love the humour and the overall presentation! The camera can be a bit frustrating though. Could be worth to experiment with different ways to control it?
Really liked the style and game idea concept! Good job!
Interesting and challenging. The camera is too easy to rotate. Seeing this kind of game first time in 3d view, innovative and fun to play though.
A nice game that knows what it's doing and does it well with a simple and well scoped gameplay loop which allowed you to make it look good and have a good amount of content for a solo project! Definitely one of my higher ratings! The only criticisms I have are very minor so I really have to push it :laughing: :
- On windows, camera movement is inverted. - The humans' view angle and range sometimes don't fit the cone gizmo precisely which leads to some deceptive detections and the inverse as well. - Level 6's challenge is great! So great in fact that I was let down when the following level was a complete cakewalk. - Maybe it's me being a speedy gonzales but I really didn't feel the health bar depletion mechanic too much, the level design didn't make a lot of use of it while it had a lot of potential. One of the earlier level goes through the effort of teaching it through a well placed dispenser, too bad the later ones weren't more... thirsty!
Congrats @neontropics !
Nice game, polished and with a good amount of content. The graphics are great and like some other people said the camera movement is a little weird. I didn't liked the scaled enemies because they feel cheap and I think the last level guys cone of sight was bugged. Also the dialogs are nice the first time but then they start repeating and that was somewhat annoying.
Man that second to last level took me forever, but I got it! I love the design and look of this game so much. Only complaint is the backwards mouse movement.
Played on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/601008119
Thanks for playing and leaving feedback everyone!
* I'm an inverted camera kinda guy so had that as the default. Only tested it on a Macbook and trackpad as well - if I expanded on it I would definitely add settings to toggle Inverted on/off as well as change mouse sensitivity
* You can get noticed when entering an enemy's cone of sight, but if there's something between you and the enemy then you'll remain hidden. There's sadly no visual indication of when you're safe in these scenarios.
@talops thanks for the detailed feedback! I wanted to build levels more around the health depletion mechanic but just didn't have time sadly - all of the level design was fairly last minute
@jake-marks thanks for playing on stream! Also good job on sticking through level 6
Very cool game. There are a few things that need to be changed: 1st of all, the moment are very confusing. I couldn't move properly. 2nd of all, the font is unreadable. 3rd of all, I didn't understand the goal of the game, because of the font
Holy cow this is MGS stealth missions reimagined! Haha I liked it, fun retro graphics and music. Would not say incorporates the theme very well though. Had fun playing, thanks for making this!
I'm not much of a stealth gamer so I couldn't make it past the fourth level, but I did enjoy the sound design and the graphical styling! On the other hand, as someone who died a lot, I can tell you having to sit through those dialogue boxes each and every time I got caught was extremely annoying.
Fun game, the lowpoly 3D aesthetic is very pretty, the camera controls were a bit floaty and hard to use and the sound effect when you get caught was very loud. Good job!
It didn't feel so much like a stealth game as an action game in which you have to remember the patterns and weave your way through. I could not get past level 6 "Land of the Giants", or at least that is what I have titled it now! You did a really good job on the graphics, I like the neon colors in combination with the PS1 aestetics. The game feels and plays really nice. Great job!
Nice game. I'm a sucker for that low-poly/low-resolution style, and you pulled it off :) Good job!
I felt there was a difficulty jump between level 2 and 3 and between 5 and 6. At times the camera control using the mouse was really hard to fine tune and I wish I could have just locked it in place as a floating camera or same angle on my character so I didn't have to worry about it. Also between when you got caught and had to start the level again it often felt something was wrong there, something to do with ending text and start of level text. I'm sorry I can't comment on what it was, something just felt wrong, like I had to click one too many times to get going?
Aesthetically it was really well done and well polished, what I did manage to play I very much enjoyed and would like to see more of it.
I love the PSX era look! The art all felt really polished !
The music was good, but i think the camera control was hard
Interesting aesthetic choices; thick font, bright and gradually shifting colors, retro music, and early PS style graphics make for an amusing experience. Gameplay and level design wise the game isn't particularly creative—of course bigger sights equates to less space to move around—and the inverted camera is a bit off-putting, but the dangers are clearly communicated (even if you've never played the game you can tell red sights are to be avoided) and the difficulty in the later levels presents a decent challenge. A fun game overall. Favorite part was the death sound; you really feel the screeching, so you don't want to die even if you don't lose a lot when you die.
I like the low-poly aesthetic and the unique color design. The characters are a little weak but the world looks great.
I don't understand why the camera moves with the mouse - it doesn't feel natural for a top-down game and it's very disorienting. I think a static camera would be just fine.
It was fun to try to weave around the enemies, but the game was a bit punishing since the instant you're spotted at all you die and the time limit means you don't have the luxury of being patient and waiting for the right moment - I'm not sure if the strict time limit and the stealth-ish gameplay worked together.
Lol soda is my life as well. Sometimes the patrol does not register correctly. But as a programmer I understand it is not a easy task lol. Neat gameplay and lovely art. The camera sensitivity is a bit too high. I feel a bit dizzy after playing. Overall a very solid entry and fun game.
Cool visuals! The dialogue stuff is very cute and looks nice and chunky. Eventually I got quite annoyed with the repeated text when I started getting caught over and over, haha.
I don't think sound is working on my machine right now, so I can't rate it, sadly. I'll try to remedy that later and amend this comment.
As for gameplay: For the most part, it works well! I get stuck on level 6. I think it kind of falls apart in wide open spaces. Maybe I'm missing Metal Gear Solid experience (it's been a while). From what I can piece together, I think areas that would normally be in line of sight but are currently obscured are represented as dotted? It's a bit hard to see with the overall look / filter going on. It's not a problem when there's a bunch of walls, but when it's just a few boxes in a wide open field, it gets quite confusing. After looking at the menu, I found the 'unlock camera' option and thought that helped a bit. I think with stealth games like this, a more zoomed out, straight-down perspective makes things easier.
I liked this time limit addition to a stealth section via the depleting soda meter. Quite intense!
Cool game, good job!
Good game. The thirst timer added just the right amount of pressure. It took me a little bit to get used to the inverted camera controls, but it felt natural after a while. The text was a bit blurry on the HTML5 version, perhaps you'd like to look in to nearest neighbor sampling.
Thanks for the comments!
@eckkert Did you play full screen? The web build will look blurry otherwise. (and strangely, will look good in window if you enter then exit full screen - it seems this is some strange WebGL bug)
@neontropics How interesting. No, I did not try fullscreening it. Thanks for letting me know that workaround!
@battlerager Thanks for the detailed comment! Basically - I didn't have time to implement any partial cone effect so the enemy line of sight will always fully display. However, if something like a wall or a crate is between you and the enemy you won't actually get seen - the enemy needs a clear line of sight to see you. This part would be easier with better visual representation, as it is now you have to get a feel for it and just trust that you're hidden.
I really liked the low poly aesthetics, really resembles the PS1 era graphics. I think the camera control is a bit off, but it can be just me. Can't say it's innovative, as it is clearly inspired by the MGS VR Missions, but it isn't less fun because of that. Good job.
the game is very entertaining and the graphic style absolutely lovable, it was just a little bit difficult to get used to the control system, somehow disorienting. Just improve that, the rest is great!
I really liked your game! The art looks great, and it was fun to play to boot!
I have a few minor pieces of constructive feedback, but none of these detracted from the experience! I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing. :)
The first suggestion I have is to slowly reveal your text for the intro, victory, and death screens by modifying the transparency of each individual character in the string, rather than adding new characters to the text you're displaying. This will prevent your text from jumping around from one line to the next, and can make your text reveal feel a little bit more slick and polished. You can see an example of the text-jumping that I'm talking about in this gif - The word "vending" starts on the first line of text, and then quickly jumps down to the second as more characters are added to it. text.gif
The camera controls took me some time to get used to - Generally, they felt a little bit too sensitive, and it felt like the camera turned in the opposite direction that I would have expected whenever I moved my mouse. I had to move my camera while standing completely still, because otherwise I would accidentally start walking in an unexpected direction and die.
Finally, a lot of the levels started you out by waiting for a guard to walk past you - This wasn't a huge deal, but it added a bit of frustration to each death. I wanted to be able to immediately try again whenever I died, and the short wait at the beginning of most levels felt somewhat punishing.
That said, these are all minor nitpicks in a game that I greatly enjoyed playing! :) The art and sound design were both awesome, and the gameplay was both challenging and fair - I never felt too overwhelmed, and never felt bored. :) Great job!