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Hey guys, I've been working on this game for almost a year now and it's finally done! It's a platform-shooter-arcade game inspired by Super Crate Box and Spelunky.

Armed with your pew-pew gun and a jetpack, fly through randomly generated levels and hoards of neon colored enemies and environments while collecting randomized gun upgardes to prepare yourself for the final boss on the 20th level. Kill enemies to increase your combo, which directly increases your damage, letting you kill mini-bosses easier. Killing a mini-boss will give you one extra HP. If you get hit or go on to the next level, your combo will be reset to 0.


Here's a link to the game on gamejolt (http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/nezzen/21537/)


I really could use some critique. I'll even give you a short outline of what I want to know:

#1 How does the game feel? Do you like the controls and general movement of the game?
#2 How is the difficulty? Easy/hard? Does it get too hard too fast, never get hard, smooth difficulty curve?
#3 Most importantly, is the game fun? If so, what appeals to you the most?


Thanks if you play and/or give feedback! Here are some screenshots (it looks better in motion)

(http://i57.tinypic.com/25yxj4z.jpg)

(http://i57.tinypic.com/2n73z7k.jpg)

(http://i60.tinypic.com/9litro.jpg)

(http://i62.tinypic.com/2vmy2pg.jpg)

#1 How does the game feel? Do you like the controls and general movement of the game?

A: The game felt a little weird at first and the shooting was pretty hard to utilize to it's full potential when you haven't got the hang of the controls yet. Other than the shooting the movement was pretty decent once you get used to it.


#2 How is the difficulty? Easy/hard? Does it get too hard too fast, never get hard, smooth difficulty curve?

A: Didn't have enough time to play yet to say this, as I just had about 20 minutes before I had to leave to play it and give a quick first-impression before I head off.


#3 Most importantly, is the game fun? If so, what appeals to you the most?

A: The game was extremely fun and I enjoy the art style of the game :) The GUI needs work and you might want to make the black box around the level either outside of the games view or transparent if you want to leave it there, as it blocked vision.
Another thing you should explain earlier is that to open a chest, you need to find the key. I managed to miss the key the first time flying because of the black box around the level, found a chest, and was wondering why I couldn't open it.

Also a little bug:
In the tutorial where you learn that spikes hurt you, if you drop down from the edge of the wall you can walk across the spikes(the mechanic you learn later in the tutorial) when you should die from the first impact on the spike. You shouldn't be able to drop down on a spike and not die just because it's next to a wall. Or is this an intended mechanic?


Looking forward to checking it out more, but I hope this is ok for now :)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I'll definitely make the GUI partially transparent. Although I plan to redo it eventually, so I might just wait. Also unlike in games like spelunky, spikes are not a one hit kill in this game. They do 3 damage. It would be FAR too mean if they could one-hit-kill you in this game. You might have just not noticed that you got hurt, I've been meaning to make spike hits more dramatic, but I keep forgetting.

Thanks again for the feedback!

#1 How does the game feel? Do you like the controls and general movement of the game?

Yes, the movement is great.  Horizontal movement is super responsive, and the gravity strength and jetpack physics allow for precise vertical control too.


#2 How is the difficulty? Easy/hard? Does it get too hard too fast, never get hard, smooth difficulty curve?

I made it to level 11 on my playthrough and it took a while to get challenging.  I think there should be more enemies in the early levels as they feel pretty barren.


#3 Most importantly, is the game fun? If so, what appeals to you the most?

Yes, it's really fun!  It definitely has some of the magic Super Crate Box had where you're always looking forward to seeing what new weapons there are.  The pinball gun is my favorite so far.  Probably the thing that appeals the most to me personally is that it's a roguelike platformer.  I love the spike placement I got in my levels, making some tough-to-navigate little passages that add a good risk/reward balance to exploration.

One thing I had trouble with was telling enemies and items apart.  Since everything is square-based, it's really easy to get confused about what each one represents.  Maybe you could have some kind of glow particle on the items?

I'd also suggest some way to encourage players to go through the levels quickly (like the Spelunky ghost).  I played pretty slowly and methodically since there wasn't any reason to go fast.

Awesome little game, I'll try and get all the way through later!

Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've been trying to think of a spelunky ghost type thing forever. But I don't really want it to rush people along, I'd rather just have an alternate risk/reward way of getting your multiplier up. If I think of something good that isn't annoying, I'll put it in. Replayablity is important for me in this game, and I think it comes from getting highscores, so I want to give that as much depth as possible.

I think the telling enemies apart is a slight problem for most rogue-like. The differences disappear after playing it enough. The only thing I worry about is enemies blending into the background, which can be a problem for some specific enemies.

Enemy spawns are random (obviously) and some rooms have a chance to not spawn any at all (it would be anarchy if they spawned in every room). So some levels are more laid back while others are chaotic, which I like a lot. I can however, decrease the chance of enemies not spawning in a room (they're more like quadrants) OR I can make a minimum enemy number so you don't have only a handful in one level.

There's a lot I still want to do in this game, like adding new guns, a harder difficulty mode with double enemy spawns, an endless mode, etc. I'll also be making small changes here and there such as nerfing annoying enemies and making the final boss less unfair (it is unfair currently) and other such things.

Only got to play it a couple of times, don't think I made it far past level 10. I'll play it more tonight :D

1) I very much liked the movement and controls. Very tight, I felt in control and they did everything I expected them to do. And I'm VERY picky about movement in games.

2) Early on it feels too easy. I don't like the square enemies that don't do anything, they're just there to shoot. Or the ones that just shoot straight up (unless they're in a trap or hard to traverse area). They're too simple and weren't interesting for me to fight.

3)It's very fun so far :>. I like the changing of weapons, the movement/progression, the simple graphics, the character size in relation to the environment. I'd like if there was a little more to find than just the weapon change, maybe something to give a boost to combo, or a single hit shield. Just different rewards to explore to pat the player on the head and say "You're great for looking around! Look at all this different wonderful stuff you might find!". When it's an inconsistent reward it pulls the player in more.

I'd also like different enemies where I had to use the great feeling-movement more to fight. Either movement to dodge different types of attacks (not just playing peek-a-boo against line-of-sight shots) or to get advantages over specific enemies (that have invulnerabilty or shoot more from a certain side/angle). And some more environmental hazards might give more meaning towards traversing the landscape.

And these are just a few things I would do to make it more fun for myself; Simply brainstorming out loud :P

Those are definitely good ideas. I love games with tons of stuff to find if you look around, but I guess I was trying to keep things very simple: kill boss, get gun, find exit, repeat. I could add some randomly spawning small buffs though. Maybe you could also find temporary passive upgrades or items that just give you a flat score increase. And I know that the early game is too easy, but I needed to make sure people could get the hang of the controls before I threw too much at them. That being said, I can at least increase the spawn rate a little. It's not the first time I've heard that from someone.

So yeah, thanks for the comment, I'll definitely take your, and other people's, ideas into consideration.