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Prophet
Prophet
By marcell-balog
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 137 | 3.88 | 57 | |
| Fun | 321 | 3.54 | 57 | |
| Innovation | 276 | 3.60 | 57 | |
| Theme | 149 | 4.06 | 56 | |
| Graphics | 112 | 4.11 | 57 | |
| Audio | 285 | 3.42 | 56 | |
| Mood | 227 | 3.60 | 53 | |
Comments
lees-pac
2020-04-21 05:04
Surprisingly good, This game is really cool, one problem i have with the game is the pacing of the game is somewhat off, it feels like a plateau, i think this could be solved with other tasks the player could do, another thing i saw was that the player got lost when near the mech, a drop off circle around the mech to succ the metal would be a simple fix. Overall its really cool to see a hidden gem in this game jam, also the upgrades are super satisfying to buy, i think a customization system for this game would be sick.
I agree that the game feels somewhat slow, maybe just speeding up the machine could do a lot. Also I had input lag, idk if it's me or the game but yeah, that's the only reason I didn't play more, other than that it's really really great !
Thanks for the feedback!
@lees-pac Yeah, I had these thoughts too while developing, but I was just happy to finally sync up the animation with the move speed haha. I will adjust the numbers a bit, if it is allowed. And what kind of customization system did you think of?
@alexauragan I haven't experienced input lag yet, but I'll take a look.
I'm glad you liked it! :)
Edit: Considering that the player needs to be able catch up to the machine, and that I can't add more interactable features now, I will leave this pacing for the time being.
kr4xkan
2020-04-21 12:17
It's not that much fun to play (maybe a lack of action) but I do quite like the gameplay and the mechanics of the game, good job it is an amazing game and also the models are amazing nice !!
pandepic
2020-04-21 12:19
A really fun game but I'm not a fan of the controls, I think just walking up to items should pick them up, picking things up at the moment can be pretty clunky. It also seems hard to get enough batteries to keep going. I really love the robot and upgrade system and the graphics work really well.
Nice game, upgrading the robot was cool. although at one point my gears went below zero.
toc
2020-04-21 12:25
Very nice game! Pretty chill, but satisfying.
I found a bug however: When I bought the first 'second row' upgrade, I clicked it twice. On the second click, it removed the cost again, and my scrap went into the negative digits. I could keep clicking it to keep detracting scrap.
Fun and creative! I like the concept of upgrading the prophet and the upgrades look awesome! Only complaint I have is that the batteries were a bit hard to spot because they kinda looked like logs. The visuals are nice as well :D
Maybe you could make the interactible ojects stand out a bit more, make them glow or something. Its a cool concept though, like a moving tower defense game.
I don't know why but it was very difficult for me to pick up items. I always had to press E multiple times to grab and drop them. Otherwise a very cool game.
The tree models somehow remind me of another game :D
@kr4xkan @pandepic Yeah, to be honest, I don't know which genre this game would fit in. The main point I wanted to focus and get right are the upgrades, so player interactions got overshadowed a bit. Hope you liked it anyway.
@KynanTokoro @ToC Thanks for reporting, I will look into it.
@bredcrumb Glad you liked it, yeah I can see your problem. Playing in fullscreen might make it easier, but I agree they can be hard to spot.
@klaus-peter They are pretty basic models, so probably that's why :D The pickup mechanic usually worked properly, when the player were looking at the item's direction (when not - that could have possibly been the problem)
devemil
2020-04-21 12:54
Hey, nice game! I like the graphics, the upgrade system is satisfying and it really makes the player want to try out all the upgrades. I couldn'T get past the part with the houses though, because I kept dying. I don'T know what I was doing wrong, but it felt just unbalanced at that point. Also, it is hard to tell what some upgrades did and if they are effective/or working. For example the crushers at the sides, I had no idea what they were doing, as there was no audible/visual feedback when it was doing something. Same for the back cannon and the engine. Nevertheless, I can'T deny that I had a great time playing this! Keep it up :)
@devemil I'm glad you liked it :)
I simply ran out of time to implement those feeback features, but I included a full upgrade guide table on the itch.io page, where you can see what you are upgrading. On the houses part, I was having the same result while testing, but thought I balanced it. A cheat workaround could be slowing the enemies you can to 0.
@njm_games Thanks. I wanted to make them an outline, but couldn't finish. :D (Also, if you allow me, I'll steal this concept description)
Cool game with progression and good looking models.
bereg
2020-04-21 14:37
Very cool game. The art is great, animation is smooth, gameplay is fun. I enjoyed it.
kr4xkan
2020-04-21 19:16
@marcell-balog It was still a great experience :ok_hand:
despdair
2020-04-21 20:38
it is too slow to be fun I guess, at least that was my experience which bored me way too much. Like robot moves slow and there are few enemies
hegemege
2020-04-21 20:42
I would've wanted to play it again but since it moves so slow I think this could definitely use some checkpoints. Lots of content and it seemed to be quite balanced up until the point I lost, I had gotten almost all upgrades. Picking up items was really weird and didn't seem to work most of the time so I just had to spam E and try from other directions. UI font was quite small so it took me a while to figure out what to do, but then the progression felt really awesome :) Good work
Really nice game, with really good models, likely my favorite part. It took a while to get the hang of things (I'd made the severe mistake of skimming the instructions for sake of time) but when I did the game proved to be a really great experience.
amazing game. really fun and balanced gameplay
macdoom
2020-04-21 20:52
Excellent job! Just wished more progressive challenges for my jaggernaut and the chance to control it at some point. Smooth voxels and awsome techno-spider design!
arkinrev
2020-04-21 21:06
Really good entry. I must be a terrible mechanic as I had my gears drop below zero (swapping engines). That set me back, and when my prophet died inches from the end.... I had to play again. Nice job making a deadly robot that I wanted to keep alive!
moomka
2020-04-21 21:16
Very addictive, and the graphics are just super! But pretty monotonous
I like this idea i want to see more upgrades more levels and enemies! it's like tower defense but you only have one big walking tower. i think theres a lot of potential here to keep adding stuff!
Fantastic work. The voxel assets look really great and I'm in awe of how you made the mech it looks so sick. I also love the contrast between the somber music and the fact that a huge mech tank is wrecking havoc. Don't really have any other comments - just super impressed!
@despdair @hegemege I see the slowness beside others being brought up a lot by now. I won't change it now, but I take the feedback into consideration, thanks. I hope you had fun though.
@jacobwing @snarkusius Thanks, I'm glad you liked it :)
@macdoom Thanks, yeah controlling the robot would be cool indeed!
@arkinrev Oh, I thought I fixed that, sorry about that. Thanks, and it's nice to hear, that you made it that far! :)
@moomka Thanks, I hope you liked it despite the monotony.
@peterfiftyfour Yeah, I want to see more too. :D I definitely had more thoughts about different enemies and more varied map, but that's only what I could do in 48 hours.
@conor-galvin Thank you, I'm glad you liked it this much. :D
Just amazing! Loved the graphics and music! In the beginning I was craving for some shiny particles to indicate pickable items but later I realized that finding the items and running there is the main fun factor of the game! The sound design was pretty cool but since the music is very low pitched, I think higher pitched sound effects could fill the sound field a bit more :) The machinery sure feels heavy and the music helps a lot! If you decide working on it post jam, as you should, consider some screen shaking in every step! 5/5 amazing game.
zeggamer
2020-04-22 17:20
Fun game. It would have been nice if you could have an arrow at the start of the game to show the player, and signal that you are the little dude not the robot. Also, it would be fun if you had like a stun gun or something to stall the enemies just to give the player something else other then (get materials, buy upgrade, get materials, buy upgrades.)
@spyranteros Thank you! The tip about sound desing is definitely helpful. "consider some screen shaking in every step" - I imagined it exactly like this :D
@zeggamer I tried to make it clear at least in the description, but yeah, more straightforward indication would have been good. I haven't thought of a stun gun, it's a great idea! You're able to slow or stun enemies in this version too by pressing E near them with the player.
ted
2020-04-22 22:58
Very interesting! It's definitely a good game "mechanic" (see what I did there?) that has potential as a bigger product. First: grats on the work this took, I've done upgrade trees in a jam before and they are NO FUN. Second, if there's a future version, I'd love to see the hero be vulnerable to damage, and for the speed to be about 2x to 3x faster. But! That's for later. This is awesome.
niels
2020-04-22 23:27
Really cool, I always love well done upgrade games, and I totally enjoyed this. I was a little sad I was not able to upgrade everything in my first run. The distance for picking up and dropping off stuff is a little to narrow. But really well done nonetheless. the map is big and diverse!
Making this in a compo game o.o, wow. First, congratulations on making such a game for Compo! About the game, I liked it being slow paced but the animation could be "stop then move", i forgot it's actual name >-< It would feel more robotic, it's too fluid, plus, it would look like it's faster, even tough it would be the same speed. hehe I saw that u had a hard time syncing the animation, i'm sorry XD But your game is fantastic! The art is amazing and, (i believe procedural) environment is so good! Loved the upgraded equips art and the people! I could see this game as an App game, where you touch and the player goes, managing the little guy. The more runs you do, you gather points and upgrade your robot for the next run, like the game Learn to Fly 1-2-3, and I loved those! I really wished my upgrades would be saved for the next run, it was the first thing that i checked. The speed could also be upgradedable ^-^. Amazing Solo game! My only real problem was that the gun stopped firing, i could slow down the guys but i couldn't stop 50 of them without gathering items hahahaha
unicorn spin.gif
@ted Thanks for the feedback, remarks noted! Creating the upgrade system was not the problem, but implementing them. It took like half of the development time. :D
@niels Thank you, I'm glad you like it!
@zebraatomica Your comment was fun to read, thanks! :D Yeah, I like your idea of keeping the upgrades, it rewards the player, but that would require more possible upgrades I guess. If your cannon on top stopped firing suddenly, then that is a rare bug, that I only ever saw once, so I don't even know where to start debugging. But thanks for mentioning! I'm glad you liked the game!
@marcell-balog It happen with me thrice, but maybe one lead, if it isn't a PC related problem, I was smashing the buttons. That reminded me, if the interaction button was space it would be so much better than removing my WASD finger to interact, would use the thumb!
@zebraatomica Huh weird things, I'll look into that, I hope it was fun even with this bug anyway. You confirmed my thoughts with the keybinds, I wasn't very confident in that either.
@marcell-balog It sure was fun! And i'm still impressed this was a Compo game!
Nice voxels, I love the unit !
I like the art style! The gameplay is really nice, and I enjoyed collecting gears to upgrade.
I liked the concept and the main mechanic a lot. I think it fits nicely with the theme. However the game is extremely slow paced and I felt like that the work (carrying upgrades and choosing powerups) is entirely random and doesn't reflect a real strategy. Overall good fun! =)
@giulio-bottari Thanks for the feedback, the only randoms are how much points you get for the gearboxes (5-10) and where do enemies spawn. There is an upgrade table on the itch site (I'll might as well incule it here too actually) with the detailed powerups, and you can experiment with the different combinations. The remark on slowness is noted.
levlaj
2020-04-25 12:06
I liked the game a lot, I think it is an interesting idea! I felt it was well-balanced, and was fun to play. I also liked the mechanic of keeping the autonomous walking tank alive, and especially upgrading it. Choosing which attacker to slow down was also cool. I just wish the game were a bit longer, and maybe have more types of enemies. Also, it would be nice if the game would pause while in the upgrade menu, but maybe that was intentional, to keep the player "stressed"?
@levlaj Thank you! Yes, I originally wanted the robot to keep going while the menu is open, but I added a pause button on the top left in the last moment (thus leaving the decision of pausing to the player), but it's not really perceivable then I guess. Thanks for mentioning and the feedback!
Let me start with what I liked: - Simple control - Easy Objective - The music matched the mood and pace of the game - The aesthetics are all well done and fit together - (good a jam) so long as I collected everything on the way I was always ready for the next round of enemies
Areas of improvement - A gear counter in the HUD so that I don't have to open the menu to see it - Some sort of an alert near the "Open Upgrade Manual" to let me know when something is available for purchase - Better indication of the machine's state...I never felt like I losing
Optional things (depending which the style of game you want and how much more difficult this makes it) - Friendly fire? - Should the enemies flock towards me if I'm near and maybe snatch away whatever I collected? (since the goal is to keep the machine alive and not the little avatar) :)
This is an impressive solo project. Nice work!
The Prophet.png
@prodigalson Thank you! Your feedback is very helpful! I haven't thought about an upgrade alert before for example. The other two improvements you mentioned are both valid too.
Well, friendly fire would be a bit tricky with these upgrades, and it would probably need a player healthbar, and that's a whole new design issue, but I'll play with the idea. The gear snatching would also throw off the balance a little in this state of the game, but if I decide to develop it further, I'll definitely take it into consideration.
Thank you for your comment! :)
the game object looks very Good. It is a great Game keep it up
tobiasw
2020-05-10 15:16
Some unordered feedback: - I really like the concept of playing support for the bigger robot who's doing the main work! - The upgrades were a little bit unsatisfying gameplay-wise - e.g. I don't have the feeling that the crusher or the flamethrower ever did that much, probably mainly because I can't control either. They were super satisfying visually though! - And on that matter, I really like the art! - The music fits super well. - I wonder if the robot could be a bit more interactive. Maybe I could (or have to) mark enemies by shooting them with a tagging weapon? Maybe I have some other kind of supporter weapon? Right now it doesn't feel like there is a lot of strategy to the game. - ...and maybe that could also enable different kinds of enemies. E.g. some that you just want to stop for a bit so they are shot later (e.g. because they can take more hits), or some that you definitely want to shoot first (because they are fast or do a lot of damage). - Actually, what happens when an enemy reaches the robot? I have no idea, although I guess I did play (and win) on the lowest difficulty level only. - The upgrades should really have some info about them ingame. Pausing and checking the itch.io page feels cumbersome.
Despite the slightly non-interactive gameplay, I enjoyed the experience and I really like the general feeling of the game. Great job!
@tobiasw Thank you for the helpful feedback! I can't disagree that player feedback elements are very much missing, regarding some upgrades and enemies. I had to either choose to work on polishing it for another day, or submit it to the compo, but I went with the latter, as I originally wanted to, so unfortunately some things didn't make it. On the remark on the gameplay ideas, these are super cool, and I also thought about some of them.
Actually, I did a little brainstorming in recent weeks about how I could expand this prototype, and now what I'm pondering about is whether I sould bend it into more of a strategy game or more of an action game. Because I consider this a hybrid of those genres, and what I got from the comments is that action players doesn't like the slowness and the chill vibe, and strategy players doesn't want too much action. So I don't really know what kind of audience this could fit. The closest things I could find are shooter tower-defenses, but still this one only resembles them slightly.
But anyway, this is my problem, sorry for monologizing, and thank you for giving it a try and giving feedback!
Edit: Oh, also to make it clear in retrospect, there is an indicator in the lower right corner which shows you how much fuel is currently in the machine, so if it runs out, the game ends. That's what the enemies are draining upon reaching the machine. Sorry that I didn't make it clear enough in the description! The different upgrades have more prominent roles on higher difficulties with a lot more enemies swarming in, so yeah, on easy they could have felt a bit needless.
tobiasw
2020-05-11 17:35
@marcell-balog You're welcome! And I can't really fault anyone for not opting for the jam - my game would've probably benefitted from being in the jam too, but as always, in the compo it goes.
I can't help you with the decision on whether to make the game faster or slower, but I think you could make it both a better action game *and* a better strategy game by giving the player more agency over what happens.
I think if this was my game and I'd go for the action route, I'd make the player itself stronger, e.g. by giving them a weak weapon so that they can also fight a bit. If I'd go for the strategy route, I'd grant them more agency over the robot, e.g. by giving it commands.
It feels to early to make a decision though. Actually, I'd probably try to go both routes and see what balance feels good in the end.
Ah, and another idea that feeds into both: Maybe the enemies (or some of them?) could also try to attack the player. That could allow you to actually kite monsters, either delaying or gathering them. Provides both more action and more strategic decisions.
@tobiasw Good points, thank you!