Dante's Reinterpretation

janog 2023-10-03 10:43

Hello everyone! The game's concept, in which players must reach the final floor while contending with a closing, God-like Barrier, is undeniably intriguing! However, there are certain aspects that we can enhance, such as the feedback for enemy shots and your own projectiles. I'd like to recommend the video 'Juice it or lose it - a talk by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho' to all of you for valuable insights.

In summary, the concept holds great promise; nonetheless, it will be crucial to effectively implement and balance these mechanics through comprehensive playtesting and refinement.

ekke 2023-10-03 11:18

I really like the bullet hell aspect of this game. I feel like this would have been a lot better if you more flashy vfx and crunchy sfx. These sorts of shooter games want to feel really satisfying. I think just adding a bunch of simple particle systems would have enhanced the experience.

locke8 2023-10-03 12:30

@janog, @ekke Hello!, thanks for the feedback! we would of loved to polish the game a bit more, i definitively feel that improving the game's feel through sound effects and graphics would of improved the game massively, unfortunately we were unable to implement these improvements within the time limit, but if we were to continue development, it'd certainly be one of the first things to add.

alfred-clark 2023-10-03 15:52

Very cool bullet hell, I really like the circle size and player health being tied together, it felt very tense any time I started losing health! It was smooth sailing until a particular level where two new enemy types were introduced at once and I got absolutely trashed! It might be good to have a little more fine-grained control over the player's position and slightly more forgiving hitboxes for evading bullets. Others have commented on game juice so I'll spare you ;) but this has the bones of a great game! Great job!

foreyes 2023-10-04 00:46

What I like: - The design of circle as health bar - The concept of this game

What I dislike: - Still need to be worry about the darkness after I cleanup the room. - Movement and shooting is not nice enough. (eg. Can't hold to continue shooting) - Levels are too much duplicated

funemaker 2023-10-04 17:57

Nice job! Nice touch to be able to choose what to level up for each level completed!

cradac 2023-10-04 20:59

Nice game! It was a bit unintuitive how to progress to the next level. I would have expected to automatically interact with the open door, instead of having to press a button. I died one or two times before realizing that :)

redoxeide 2023-10-05 23:19

Well done! I really like the concept of taking/dealing damage affecting the playable space.

Some feedback: It is hard to tell how much time you get to be in the darkness before you lose. There are many ways to solve this but maybe a simple progress bar could do it. Same for time left before hardmode, maybe a countdown on screen would help.

logicon211 2023-10-06 22:49

Neat Game love the damage sound.

someone 2023-10-12 22:10

Nice game. The varied enemies and bonus selection were nicely done. Having to press E to go through the door was unintuitive though. That would have been better to happen automatically when you just bump into the open door. The game over felt very abrupt and random before I figured out how it works. Some visual display of how long you have left outside the light would have been useful. The circle decreasing when taking damage was a great mechanic, though having to leave it to get to the door was not ideal, especially before I figured out you need to press E once you are there.

lcstark 2023-10-13 19:58

I love this idea! My first idea for this jam was to make a similar game, but I abandoned it after I figured out I couldn't have done it justice within the timeframe I had. Glad to see someone else went for it!

I thought that having the limited space of a single screen to fight in would be enough to fit the theme, especially with some other obstacles in the rooms. The barrier idea was a great reinforcement of the theme. Having it both as a soft movement restriction and your hitpoints was brilliant. I also loved that killing enemies restored it, so if you got hit by few stray shots you could still come back by evading the rest and getting rid of some of the enemies.

Some people have already mentioned that the game could use more feedback in several areas, and I agree. Redoxeide mentioned the time you can spend in the darkness. How about making it so when you are outside of the barrier, a circle of darkness slowly closes around you, starting at the edges of the screen and shrinking until it touches the barrier and you lose?

I went through the game several times, trying to go for different powerups each time, and it would seem that you did a pretty good job on balancing it out - I didn't feel any particular option was too overpowered and each choice was a valid option to go for.

The hard mode was a great addition, too! The game became pretty hectic once several spread-multi-shot enemies showed at the same time. Also the idea of giving the player choice to risk more enemies in order to get a reward of more power-ups worked pretty well.

On the audiovisual side, I think it's pretty good. The artstyle is clear, which I find most useful in a bullet hell. The little animations are great, I loved the enemies exploding like blood fountains when they're killed. It would be great if there were more of those, but I know how difficult it is to make as much as you'd like during the jam time. The music was great, especially the haunting scream-like sounds in the background, they created a really spooky atmosphere.

I hope you keep working on it, there's a lot of potential for fun additions here. Like maybe going for a sort of New Game+ after you go through all the levels? In the description you've mentioned Dante going through his journey over and over again, so it might fit to have all the levels show you which circle of Inferno you're currently going through, ending with a boss and then starting over with stronger enemies and keeping all the powerups.

Overall it's a great jam entry. Well done!

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