I went ahead and gave this a go after seeing it on the forum! I have played the ranger games if that means anything. I played it on a laptop mostly on chill "difficul-tea" (love that lol) up to level 25. After that, level 26 caused a black screen and I assumed I finished it. Here's my very long thoughts as someone who's much more of a gamer than a dev - sorry for the wall of text!
Things I Liked:
Felt really polished! I liked the art/sound, and the visual aesthetic and humor was fun from the get go. A lot of the mechanics felt intuitive to me (circling to remove hazards etc.). The introduction of new enemies felt like a fun pull to keep me playing, and the customization is a nice touch. The difficulty on chill was perfect for me - normal felt a bit too intense to steadily make progress, so I appreciate the options. On chill, I feel like I usually had to give each level 1-3 tries.
Criticisms:
Excluding the black screen on level 26 I assumed meant that were no levels left, the only bugs I think I encountered was that the main menu started saying "You passed with 6.08 seconds left" at one point and never changed, and then the game froze when my laptop fell asleep (probably just my old laptop being slow lol).
Playing with a laptop can be kinda clumsy, and this game feels like it might be more fun on a mobile touch screen.
Enemies going offscreen was a problem for me. Ghost enemies sometimes teleported offscreen, and the button enemies charge offscreen. I'd prefer if they all just bounced off the edges like the knights so I didn't have to wait for them to come back onscreen to play.
This is pretty subjective, but the gameplay loop gets a little repetitive for me personally. Seeing new enemies every so often is fun, but I would love to feel like I'm working towards something. Maybe something along the lines of unlocking more customization options as I get through more levels?
Finally (and I feel least confident about this point), I don't think you ever specify in the game that if an enemy runs into your thread, it will break the thread and the circles won't count. You specify this in the controls on this page, and I kinda knew this from playing ranger already. But maybe someone who didn't play ranger and didn't read the stuff above might get confused? The only indicator that something negative happens is the wincing face (the expanding circle animation I feel is kinda ambiguous). If someone doesn't know what to look for in the beginning, they might not get why their circles aren't doing anything. Sound effects for the thread might help this to some extent (ex. a snapping sound effect for when the thread breaks).
Overall impression was good, though! It feels really cozy and minimal, and I quite enjoyed playing it! I'd love to see it when it's finished :]
Hey, thank you for trying my game! it means so much to me that you were able to finish it (the 25 levels so far) as it shows the game is very playable. Hearing that the game was intuitive even though it sounds very difficult fills me with confidence :)
Thank you for pointing out those bugs as I thought I had fixed the AI going off screen. The ghosts ignore all navigation for some reason...
I understand the gameplay loop can get rather repetitive. I thought of fixing this through more diverse gameplay scenarios (like mission types) rather than unlockables, but I do have an unlockable system in mind so hopefully that will make the progression feel concrete and as levels feel like they are working towards a greater goal :)
And I can understand the thread snapping being an issue too and appreciate your concerns, I actually forgot to add a sound effect for it but I can certainly add more definitive feedback from being hit and infirming players
That is amazing feedback thank you and it has made my day hearing that. Thank you so much :)
Glad I could help to some extent haha - the game is definitely playable and fun as is, and as for the difficultly, I might just be bad at it! I tend to favor slower paced games haha, and even I felt like the difficulty here was still pretty reasonable.
I'll try to keep following this, cause it seems really cool and I'd love to see where you take it from here! It definitely sounds like you have cool plans ahead. Happy developing! :]
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Very nice game! I said all my feedback over here; Just thought I'd comment on the page, too. I love it, please keep this one going!
Thank you so much! I have read your feedback, just need to time to reply with sincerity.
This game was just meant to be a 3 month project but I'm really enjoying working on it at the moment so it will keep going :)
I went ahead and gave this a go after seeing it on the forum! I have played the ranger games if that means anything. I played it on a laptop mostly on chill "difficul-tea" (love that lol) up to level 25. After that, level 26 caused a black screen and I assumed I finished it. Here's my very long thoughts as someone who's much more of a gamer than a dev - sorry for the wall of text!
Things I Liked:
Felt really polished! I liked the art/sound, and the visual aesthetic and humor was fun from the get go. A lot of the mechanics felt intuitive to me (circling to remove hazards etc.). The introduction of new enemies felt like a fun pull to keep me playing, and the customization is a nice touch. The difficulty on chill was perfect for me - normal felt a bit too intense to steadily make progress, so I appreciate the options. On chill, I feel like I usually had to give each level 1-3 tries.
Criticisms:
Excluding the black screen on level 26 I assumed meant that were no levels left, the only bugs I think I encountered was that the main menu started saying "You passed with 6.08 seconds left" at one point and never changed, and then the game froze when my laptop fell asleep (probably just my old laptop being slow lol).
Playing with a laptop can be kinda clumsy, and this game feels like it might be more fun on a mobile touch screen.
Enemies going offscreen was a problem for me. Ghost enemies sometimes teleported offscreen, and the button enemies charge offscreen. I'd prefer if they all just bounced off the edges like the knights so I didn't have to wait for them to come back onscreen to play.
This is pretty subjective, but the gameplay loop gets a little repetitive for me personally. Seeing new enemies every so often is fun, but I would love to feel like I'm working towards something. Maybe something along the lines of unlocking more customization options as I get through more levels?
Finally (and I feel least confident about this point), I don't think you ever specify in the game that if an enemy runs into your thread, it will break the thread and the circles won't count. You specify this in the controls on this page, and I kinda knew this from playing ranger already. But maybe someone who didn't play ranger and didn't read the stuff above might get confused? The only indicator that something negative happens is the wincing face (the expanding circle animation I feel is kinda ambiguous). If someone doesn't know what to look for in the beginning, they might not get why their circles aren't doing anything. Sound effects for the thread might help this to some extent (ex. a snapping sound effect for when the thread breaks).
Overall impression was good, though! It feels really cozy and minimal, and I quite enjoyed playing it! I'd love to see it when it's finished :]
Hey, thank you for trying my game! it means so much to me that you were able to finish it (the 25 levels so far) as it shows the game is very playable. Hearing that the game was intuitive even though it sounds very difficult fills me with confidence :)
Thank you for pointing out those bugs as I thought I had fixed the AI going off screen. The ghosts ignore all navigation for some reason...
I understand the gameplay loop can get rather repetitive. I thought of fixing this through more diverse gameplay scenarios (like mission types) rather than unlockables, but I do have an unlockable system in mind so hopefully that will make the progression feel concrete and as levels feel like they are working towards a greater goal :)
And I can understand the thread snapping being an issue too and appreciate your concerns, I actually forgot to add a sound effect for it but I can certainly add more definitive feedback from being hit and infirming players
That is amazing feedback thank you and it has made my day hearing that. Thank you so much :)
Glad I could help to some extent haha - the game is definitely playable and fun as is, and as for the difficultly, I might just be bad at it! I tend to favor slower paced games haha, and even I felt like the difficulty here was still pretty reasonable.
I'll try to keep following this, cause it seems really cool and I'd love to see where you take it from here! It definitely sounds like you have cool plans ahead. Happy developing! :]
It means a lot! Others have also struggled with the game so its not just you :)