Boxes and Webs

denvil 2023-10-02 16:22

Little confusing what I am suppose to do. Was there some kind of end screen as spiders ate all the eggs and just stopped.

I think this would work if instead of multiple skills (confusing with some many keys used) this would start slowly and add skills slowly.

brandann 2023-10-02 16:27

I also found this a bit confusing, jumping in with all the mechanics right away was overwhelming. have a tutorial showing the players what elements were what, the goal, and examples of the actions would be helpful.

unentokku 2023-10-02 16:34

@denvil sometimes the gameover trigger bugs out and doesn't restart the game when all eggs are gone(skipping a turn seems to fix that though), sorry about that.

Also yeah, slowly adding skills probably would have been nice if I had thought of that, I did feel like I probably should've added on screen buttons to remind you of and potentially explain some of the actions but figured that the green circles indicating potential target locations along with the text saying what action you're doing would be enough to get you started considering you don't need to use most of the skills that often.

cymusi 2023-10-02 17:35

I have to say the same thing as the others, so many abilities makes the game very confusing and I absolutely didn't get what to do...

corporation 2023-10-02 19:53

Wow, that's a lot of controls to remember and a limited space (lol) on the screen to put them. Interesting enemy movement and abilities, but feels a bit too overwhelming, maybe some polishing would better reveal best parts of this game. But good job anyways)

candlesan 2023-10-02 23:03

There were a lot of commands to learn but I did enjoy the turn-based nature of trying to strategize to lay traps, gather traps, and trap the enemies who were coming in. I might have had an easier time if the commands were introduced one at a time, but given the time constraints of a game jam, I think it's easy enough to imagine that if you had the time to start with a few commands and gradually grow it into having a lot, the end state is quite interesting and creates some interesting puzzle situations.

lorddaniel 2023-10-03 10:32

There was an idea clearly, but I have no idea what exactly is the goal, or what do to.

unentokku 2023-10-03 11:06

@lorddaniel Hmm, so is the issue that you can't identify enemies in the game? Or how to deal with them? Maybe I should have increased the enemy spawn rate at the start since without knowing how things work you probably can't meaningfully prepare for the future which probably leads to confusion.

ellaris 2023-10-03 12:19

- A really neat idea, with some rough edges, there were a lot of cools things to do. - I think it would benefit greatly from a smaller tutorial map where players could figure out how everything works and interacts together, because being thrown into all of that was quite confusing. - There were a lot of cool abilities, but remembering them all was not feasible, having some reminder UI would help greatly, especially if only available actions showed up.

john-gabriel 2023-10-03 18:31

There's a _really_ old DOS game called Beast that this reminds me of. Beyond that, I'm pretty sure I didn't entirely understand it! There are a _lot_ of mechanics here - they could do with being introduced more gradually.

noya 2023-10-08 14:56

Interesting concept, it was fun to figure out how to defend your eggs with traps and blocks and actively attacking and not dying. 😅 After several tries, I managed to get to 4 spiders, but then the sheer number of enemies got overwhelming; I found it hard to keep track of things when a single move of your spider would be followed by 10+ enemies moving. I appreciate the many different mechanics you implemented, and also agree with the other comments that introducing them step by step would help a lot in the beginning. Would be curious to see where this goes with some more development time! 💜

pndaa 2023-10-10 17:07

Like already said. It would have been nice to introduce controls one by one. Or to put less of them.

It is also harsh to start directly into the game. Especially when you have that much controls to understand.

The text at the top is hard to read.

3mpty 2023-10-15 01:32

There's clearly a lot of effort in this considering how many features there are and how complex the mechanics are, but not enough of that effort was spent making things clear or improving the game flow.

The complete essay frontloaded at the start of the game in a color that blends with the background is not a great start, and the description on itch "Use Tab and QWERASDFGXC to control." does not really explain anything.

Some effort has been made to explain abilities as you try to use them which is great, but again the font color blends with the webs and is just an information overload.

I would say in future jams the best way to improve would be to slow down on adding features and ideas, and focus on making a small set of mechanics that work well and are easy for the player to pick up and understand. The game state is also quite obscure for the player which is a great place to introduce juice and feedback, walking into enemies kills them but also seems to hurt you, feedback such as sounds/vfx etc can be used there to indicate whether its a good thing or a bad thing. My gut says you aren't supposed to deal with enemies that way most of the time but it's not really clear to me.

Finally the game is very difficult, onboarding is already hard due to all the complexity but the enemies are relentless, fast and come early. A variety of enemy types, some easy, some hard can let you ease the player into combat without being instantly overwhelmed, and making sure there is room for failure early in the game to allow the player to learn are both simple but effective strategies for fixing those issues.

Great job finishing and submitting such a complex concept! I hope to see more iteration in future for a more approachable game. Congrats!