itch.io

As promised I cam back to rate it and give feedback, though honestly I don't think I have too much of it. That mostly comes down to the very simplistic gameplay. 

The few things I could point to with the dialog is: 

• some sound cue for dialog-it's sometimes easy to not even realize it started when you're driving and not actively looking, especially with the scanner adding some non-dialog lines.
• dialog choices sometimes disappear, with the only clue that there even is dialog happening being the "Press 1 or 2" pop up, but that still doesn't give me a clue about what I'm choosing between.
• I feel like the dialog options could pop up, closer to the center of the screen-this way you at least get a better chance to respond if you were busy dodging and didn't pay attention to the dialog.

In terms of other gameplay stuff:

• Personally I didn't even realize that the mirror was a gameplay mechanic, maybe I missed some obvious indicator, but the only pop up I found is the one that happens, when you're already looking at it, and that isn't really an angle you would naturally drift to, during gameplay.
• Overall the game doesn't do a great job of explaining it's mechanics. I completely missed the hazards and don't know what purpose they serve, apart from the fact that you can turn them on to do the same thing as choosing one of the lanes at the end, I still don't understand what is the benefit of taking the routes that give higher grid attention, and I especially don't know what the wipers are for. All of those are a shame, because if the game gave me information about their use case, then it could have added more depth to the simplistic gameplay.

Apart from that it looks great, it feels very cyberpunk coated, the sound design could use a bit of work, like a bit more road ambience, plus maybe some sort of music track to take away from the monotony of the repeating engine sounds, and the crashing sound doesn't really sell the impact of the hit that well, but overall it still felt like a polished and experience.

Thank you, started playing your game, but I still have one more ending to get through, so I'll try to get around to leaving a comment tomorrow.

It's an option to Godot, you just mark "Embed PCK" and it turns the usual two (unless someone forgets to disable the debug console) files to one single .exe file.

I kind of realized I need to do some more rating cause for some reason people keep rating my game, so here I am with another round of feedback:

• Hitboxes - I would personally increase their size on the projectiles and raygun hitbox, I actually gave up on using the railgun after missing shoots that felt like they should have hit the wings, but just... didn't, so yeah a bit of additional leeway would be nice.
• Telegraphing mechanics - It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that the body can't be damaged until the wings are destroyed. This isn't much of a problem, but I would still say that something like just shrinking the shield to cover the body would be nice to show that those would be ineffective more clearly. (Honestly might be what the other two were talking about idk, cause I didn't have any problems with beating it after a few tries)
• Homing projectiles - these were pretty deadly, cause there wasn't really a reliable way to dodge them, realistically you had to drop everything and hope that you can use running to circle around them, which absolutely killed the pacing. I would suggest limiting the homing speed so they mostly fly straight, steering slightly into the player, instead of just straight up turning 90 degrees and following the player, since the cart doesn't have enough ground to manover on it otherwise.
• Content - I mean, I'm guessing you guys were running out of time, based on the amount of placeholder models, but I would have loved to have at least 2 or 3 carts of fighting normal enemies, both to get a better bearing of the game in a low stake environment and pace the game better between the initial scene and the boss, especially since you had the hardest part (multiple enemy types) already done.
• Sensitivity setting - A small thing really, but I highly recommend adding it for fps games, especially that it's even easier to implement than sound sliders, just adding a single variable to some global script and a slider to set it.
• Debug console - A simple thing, that isn't really much of a problem, but turn off the "Export Console Wrapper" so the exported game doesn't feature the debug console, since it isn't really required for anything.

Ok now with that part done, good job on the enemy variation, honestly didn't get to see every one in action, just because how short the game was, but it felt like there was a lot of them, also really liked the text effects and voice acting in the intro, cool stuff.

Thank you. Honestly I don't make a lot of sidescrollers either so this game was done more just as a change of pace, I wanted to try out making something with a lot more unique animations for story moments, so it was a compromise made to keep the total amount of them in check.

I'm also glad you enjoyed the story, I didn't have that many environments and had to squeeze the dialog between heavy action gameplay sections, so I was worried about the fact that it doesn't have too much breathing room, but I'm glad my writing was bearable despite it not being my forte.

Yeah I just like to leave a bit more constructive comments (even if I started going a bit off the rails here), in the end I still rated it for the visible thig an not my possible skill issue, but I still stand along all the feedback here, because there is a lot of space for improvement. Also don't get me wrong, I enjoyed parts of the game, I just don't think something like "graphics were good" or something alongside those lines helps out as much as pointing out all the problems I saw.

Ranks are based on the completion time. For the higher grades the game requires a lot more optimized movements and attacks over the course of the level. For instance the gif on this page showcases how an S rank completion looks for the first level, though obviously there is more than one way of getting the same speed.

If I had a nickle for every time a girl was turned into a cyborg, called "Major" and fought a spider mech, I would have one plus however many times they released GITS nickles, which isn't actually that much, but it's still weird it happened this many times. Anyways, honestly hardly any big notes. The game was polished enough, the gameplay was done well, it had the right atmosphere, and it accomplished the "fighting a giant robotic spider mech" fantasy well. Honestly the only thing I could point to is that it's kind of hard to follow the dialog with how much focus the game requires, but realistically that's only an addition and doesn't impact the final game  in any way. 

But again, the game was really fun and the best one out of all the unrated games I've played so far.

Oh also I just remembered another thing, the task text was cut off for me when checking them in the first level.

Nah don't worry the boss fight was still fun, at that point I was really grasping at straws with things to point out, but honestly I genuinely mandela effected myself into believing that the pistol only instakills only on headshots. When writing about the detection system I actually returned to the game and that was when I mag dumped a guard while standing next to one of the containers (I was checking if lights affected detection time and distance) and he just refused to drop, but  throughout the game I usually had to fire at least two or three darts at most guards, honestly it might just have been a better hitreg on the head that caused me to believe that :P

"Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again expecting... shit to change... That. Is. Crazy." those were the words of Vas from Farcry 3 and I don't think I've ever gotten this close to understanding what he meant. This was a... Struggle and a painful one, so here is the feedback:

- the reset: the game has a somewhat lengthy animation after death, which generally you want to avoid when you expect the player to die a lot, most games have a save point and even games in the soulslike genre at least let you play during the run back.

- the controls: This might just be the thing that could have made this fight a bit less frustrating, but they need a lot of work, the main problem is how unresponsive they end up being. Animations lock out any sort of movement you've had and unlike most fighting games there is no way to cancel long animations mid-way through, which makes the controls feel really clunky. Also to this moment I have no idea what the roll is supposed to be used for, because the bullet storm only hits when jumping, the bomb only hits when not jumping and the laser doesn't care, so it really just feels like a detriment taking away controls and attacking time for its duration. 

- the laser: This thing has killed me more than any other thing. The health bar was realistically almost meaningless because this thing just kills you outright, which is not helped by the fact that avoiding it can be problematic, seeing that it only really gives you enough time between stopping to follow and firing for you to move out, though only if you don't switch directions. Instakills generally are considered a bad practice especially if avoiding them isn't easy, because at that point you're punishing the player way too much for way too little.

- the bomb: The only good attack in this fight, it sometimes hits, it deals appropriate damage, the only note I would have is that the time between the jumping away and shooting the bomb could be decreased to make sure there is enough distance and I think it would be better if it fired at the feet instead of at the player so it doesn't become impossible to avoid if the player jumped prior to the actual thing firing, but that's a small thing.

- the ult: It was kind of useless, it didn't stun the boss or apply any other visible effect and in terms of dps it was only marginally better than just attacking normally

- some glitches:

1) At the end the player character was in the floor for me, which might have been caused by some previous animation, who knows.

2) The boss would get stuck between the player and the far wall.

3) The boss and the player could fall from the left side of the map soft locking the game.

In the end I beat the thing, with only slight case of insanity, it wasn't the worst game in this jam, but it definitively needs some more work

Yep, I managed to narrow it down to some code that would prevent the kick from finishing due to waiting for "a frame" which if there was a lag spike or if the game was running poorly could be enough to prevent the checks later on from firing, plus with the help of some of my developer friends I managed to find out that some browsers were just problematic in general.

Oh well I guess I have to get back into it after I finish rating some other games and good luck with any future expansions, I'm definitively keen to do some more reading.

Well this is gonna be a difficult review to make, mostly because there isn't much for me to review. But I'll try my best:

- The starting cut scene has a major problem, it skips automatically and it does it fast, generally auto skip should be reserved either for when you have voice acting, in which case you don't actually have to read the whole thing, or if there is more than enough time to read through the entire thing before it skips forward, but as is, there is a couple walls of text that get skipped before I'm even halfway finished.

- The puzzles could use some sort of indicator, short dialog quip, a tutorial popup, anything really, cause I had to stare at it for a bit before I realized its a tile puzzle.

- The written down controls on the itch page don't include reloading and LMB and RMB are labeled as doing the opposite thing.

- The car is a bit hidden, I only realized that it was a working thing after the credits rolled.

- The reload just breaks all the character animations.

Again it's hard for me to leave a more cohesive review, because there is just so little and a lot of what is here is unfinished.

Alright, I was pretty stoked to play a stealth game, especially since that's what I attempted (and failed a bit in my opinion) during my first run with this jam a bit over a year ago. Anyways, time for some feedback and things I noticed:

- The main gripe I've had with the game is that it's really hard to gauge stuff, one of the main pillars of stealth games is allowing the player to: make a plan, try to execute it, then either fail or succeed based on mistakes or overlooked details. That's all well and good, but it requires the player to have enough information, and this game doesn't give enough of that. What I would suggest is: (yes I know a list inside of a list, I'm that great)

1) Some sort of detection meter or other piece of UI (see Skyrim's eye, Payday's detection circle, Dishonored's lightning bolts) or making the detection system clearer, like in thief where you get spotted almost instantly in broad light, but are safe in the full darkness unless they get really close, and even then thief gave you a gem to see exactly how fucked you are.

2) A better way to check for enemies, this can take a form of a minimap like in old MGS games, leaning around corners, or a crouch which could allow you to step into the line of sight for a short period of time without getting detected, because I found myself just turning a corner and getting caught immediately by a guard I didn't even know patrolled there.

3) Some indicator for headshots, because it was sometimes hard to gauge what I'm aiming at with enemies moving so fast and the darkness in the levels, at some point I even managed to pack a full silenced pistol at a normal guy standing still and to this moment I can't tell if I was hitting some gap in their collider, or if I was hitting some invisible part of a prop.

- The reinforcement system could use a bit of work, because the enemy spawners don't get disabled even when you're standing right next to it, to the point that one time when trying to hide I entered one of these tunnels, had enemies spawning in front of me without spotting me, and afterwards leaving without noticing me despite facing right at me, which felt a bit silly.

- The camera could change during the boss battle, because I didn't even realize what killed him at first, so an animation that would show the actual killing blow could be nice.

- In the end I kind of stopped doing stealth and just started running through the levels, because the slower stealth approach started to result in more deaths than running and gunning.

- But now comes the fun part. The good stuff, and there was a lot of it: the world building, the level art, the voice acting, even when stealth became frustrating I still had fun with the combat system (even if it also was a bit clunky). And I mean, stealth games are naturally just a hard genre to get right, especially during jams and even harder when you don't have a lot of experience with the genre.

Still gotta go read through ending A, but enjoyed it so far, was a bit confused at first with the greyed out links, I  guess those were things you haven't finished writing, but overall it was an enjoyable read, the art was nice, the guessing puzzle took me way longer than I care to admit, though I can't tell if that's just me being bad at guessing, or if they actually are really hard, might be both honestly seeing that the words aren't the most common ones and are on the longer side. But still, enjoyed the whole thing through and through. Though I will mention that the game lacked a bit in terms of sfx for both the UI and to better sell the environment, it could have also used a bit more ambiance to communicate the placement of the scene better, but I'm reaching a bit.

Yeah, I found it out later during playtesting, but decided not to add more locked door like the one in level 2 because it's still a fun thing to do when playing :P

Yeah, I disabled the web version for now, because it's broken for some people, but I'll try to get it working again once I figure out what the problem is.

Thanks for letting me know. Honestly I'm struggling because I have no idea what causes it and neither me or my playtesters had this problem. I guess I'm just gonna have to disable the web build for now, cause the desktop one should be more stable.

Yep, I guess I should have tested it with more people and on more browsers. I've uploaded a windows version, though for now that one won't have any saving

Oh yeah, it is the same concept :V. Anyways it's pretty good, I like the inclusion of networks, it added something that isn't a part of most deduction games, which is pretty cool. Here is some feedback:

- Texture filtering: Everything is blurry, I don't know if this is a stylistic choice, but for pixelart I would change the texture filtering to nearest, so it remains crisp, especially that you can always add other post processing effects like bloom on top for a similar feel, with more readability.

- Fonts and text: Now using HD fonts with pixelart can look alright, especially when separated, and having an option to turn on a normal readable font is alright, it would still probably make sense to use another font, pixelized one probably would be best, but other more angular fonts could also work. Another thing is that the character numbers like to blend in with the text box sprite, so either move the text box, move the number, or color the number, anything to just make it legible.

- Gameplay: As I mentioned at the start, I like the networks, they're pretty cool, but I do have some problems with the characters. There is usually a small amount of checking characters, as in characters that allow you to pick a person and deduce whether they're good or bad, which can sometimes lead to moments where you reveal everyone on the board and you're saddled with people who tell you nothing useful, because they randomly decided to point towards someone that doesn't even matter. Another thing is that even in the premade puzzles you sometimes get screwed over by roles like Assassin taking out an important role without which you can't solve the puzzle cleanly, which becomes a problem when characters like godfather take away that sometimes required safety net. Now this problem is part of the fact that the character count is limited to 8, which together with the fact there can be 3 character from the mafia, can lead to a small imbalance when features like poisoning can change the ratio to 4 liars and 4 truthful characters.

- Selection: I don't know if it's just a me problem or an overall one, but sometimes when revealing a character the input also selects that character for ability use, which can be problematic when revealing multiple characters one after another, especially that there is no sound cue for when you beginning selection, making the only real hint that one is selecting, the fact that the name turns green and the character portrait is slightly bigger.

- Pause menu: which feels like a thing that could have been easily added since you just had to hook up the settings menu to show up on a button press. Currently there is no way to adjust the settings once you start, but this could remedy that.

Apart from that though? This is good, I like it. The layout is definitely better then mine if a bit less polished, but the gameplay is really solid, despite the couple flaws.

Yeah I didn't realize the carousel will be as much of an issue for people, since it didn't come up in the feedback I got from play testers, but I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future. Honestly I might check out your game tomorrow, just to see how you handled and executed the concept in practice.

This is a shit ton of people for a jam, damn. Anyways, the feedback:

Visuals: The art is good, though the play space is missing some effects, a vignette is always a cheep an easy effect, just a gradient texture to fade out the edges and add a bit of depth, even with a faint one. A good idea would also be background panning, so there is a bit more movement during gameplay when you move the cursor, another part is that a common effect with card selection is to make them scale up when selected to mimic picking them up. Also the tweens could use different types of transitions, cause linear rising and falling feels a bit robotic. Oh also change the default theme of the sliders in the settings, it takes a minute and makes the whole thing feel a lot more polished.

Gameplay: I mean it is a bit easy, making the items kind of useless since you can easily win just because of the AI being kind of dumb. Also it would be nice to have even like an in game tab to check the rules, cause not everybody will check the description and the game kind of starts you off on a timer since you're not the first in the turn order.

Apart from that, the sound design is good, again the art assets are pretty, but needs a bit more life, and better opponents would be nice.

Yep, I had to make sure everything is weighted correctly, so there is always enough innocents for the amount of criminals, but apart from that it just adds a couple of roles to the list for every stage and then picks out a balanced assortment.

Yeah, I wanted to add a way to mark suspects on the list, but I had some other stuff to do over the weekend. When it comes to updating the list, it wouldn't work great, since once someone dies without getting investigated you lose the ability to read their role, so if that happens automatically would give more information than you should have, but yeah I should have just bit the bullet and implemented the markers. Oh and congrats on beating all the stages. I will say that if you ever want to see all the roles, you can try again or go into the endless mode, since not every role shows up during every playthrough, even if most of them do.

Somewhat, I came up with the concept before the jam and I actually found the dupery demo just before the jam started, but I decided that I'm not gonna let that stop me from doing it anyways :P

Alright, I finally have time to leave some feedback. So, in terms of the good things, is the fact it has voice acting, which is a nice touch for a jam, especially with a game this heavy in story, and it does introduce its mechanics well as a puzzle game, though some minor points:

- Narrator: some interruption sound for the narrator to maker when you don't let them finish like an "Oh." or "Hm.", so it flows a bit better. Also it could be nice to have the dialogs split up a bit more, so the narrator can return to what they were saying before, if they didn't finish it the first time. Another thing, during the ending sequence if you pick the button before the tape ends, the narrator will still say "Don't press the blue button", even after you already pressed the red one.

- Movement: A setting to turn of the camera bob, personally not an issue for me, but for some it might cause motion sickness, plus a raycast/shapecast check for the ceiling when crouching, so the player input takes effect only once you get into a spot where you can stand. Also something small, like a darker vignette when you're crouching could help the player realize what state they are in.

- Level design: while I don't have too much qualms with the actual puzzles, I would like to see either some more textures, or highlight around some edges when there is a hole in the wall, otherwise the player can just miss them completely since the rooms are dark, the walls don't have any contrasting patterns and those rooms don't have any light highlighting them, nor any dramatic light escaping them.

Actually that's from the Saboteur's description he makes one innocent target next to him lie when doing their action.

Well either I have great luck, or I'm just a quick learner, first try. Now I wanted to leave a detailed list of points on what to improve on... but I kind of don't have any in terms of what the game is. It does what it set out to do and everything surrounding that works well, the sound design was good, the art didn't have any egregious faults, the game design was solid, it's just kind of a good card game adaptation.

I'll see if I can get to it tomorrow.

*I lied I did it today.

Honestly I will say that I thought this is gonna be a disaster when I settled on it, because I also hate working on UI, but surprisingly it did work out by some miracle.

Thank you, I tried my best to make the curve passable, even with the fact it is getting randomized each time, so there is only so much I can do to keep it well balanced. The cigarettes as volume sliders is something I came up years ago for another game and I decided to remake them for this one, because it's such a fun detail and very in character for noir.

Alright, it took me playing a round to understand what exactly are the rules, but after that I did beat both medium and hard first try. Overall I think it was pretty good, though I have some points:

- The UI is really blank, there just isn't any central theme for it, it feels generic which doesn't mesh well when the game focuses so heavily on it.

- The color scheme could go for a change, there is a lot of different bright colors, generally I wouldn't go over 2 or 3, plus black and white, otherwise it doesn't feel right especially since you aren't using any color harmonies.

- Gameplay wise it feels a bit too random, I feel like the player has too little effect on the outcome, unless you're making a horror game you should try to give people as much choices as you can. But here it did bottle down to just placing a bet (which quickly became limiting after the first one) and then either calling a lie or not, based on, very limited information. Kind of felt trying to predict a random number generator, while knowing the range, rather than solving a puzzle.

- In terms of QoL, it would be nice to have a fold or give up button, so you can reset the game where you don't think you have a chance anymore, to speed up the gameplay. Also the animations could be a bit faster and the shape selection could show every one to make it a bit easier to pick.

- The music has a bit too much progression for a base track, generally you want less changes in the: key, instruments, and melody; if you're planning on repeating the music a lot.

But other than that, it was nice. It felt finished, which is something I can't say for every game in the jam.

The second Bulldoger game I've played \o/. Honestly it's good, I think it was solid over all, my only qualms would be the fact that the game doesn't full screen so my mouse kept escaping, when scoping it doesn't always center the zoom on where you aimed and...

The fact the the sniper keeps picking the worst fricking spots, like mate, I don't think there are angles with more obstructions.

But yeah, overall really solid.

Thank you, I always try to make the gameplay fun (I am a game designer after all), and I mean, what can be cooler than a guy in a trench coat, I'll always take an opportunity to make noir if it's on the table especially with a theme so suited to it.

I had to reply a bit of it just to check for all the new changes, and honestly it's great, especially the art and atmosphere and dialog. I really have no other gripes with it other than the stuff I mentioned yesterday, so yeah. Great game :D

I shall make every person a professional programmer. By forcing them to do logic puzzles C:<

Thank you. I guess the 5 years of making jams helps a bit. It was my first time working with UI and HD art so it was a fun change of pace from my usual stuff. And well the gameplay is just my standard, I like to consider myself a gamedesigner :D

Not planning to stop so far. This game really was an exercise in making stuff with very limited dev time, so I'm glad it doesn't show that much.

Glad you enjoyed it. I didn't have much time to work on it during the week, so I was hoping that I can make up for it by just focusing on my speciality which is game design. Thankfully seems to be working so far :P