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[Myrolit Studios]

Hey guys!
I present you "Hatch & Slay", which is our (Myrolit Studios) first little game. It's obviously a hack and slay game... ^^

DESCRIPTION:
The game is a simple 2D hack & slay survival game located in a tropical environment. It’s about the initiation ceremony of a freshly hatched Varaz - a humanoid lizard race - who has to fight his way out of the dangerous jungle.

The controls are very easy to use. Through clicking you can either move the character on the screen or attack incoming enemies. In addition to that there are also four skills with a cooldown assisting you in battle. More instructions are shown, when you hit the pause button while playing (yes, we will fix that). The goal is, obviously, to survive as long as possible and maximizing your score. For more information read our Blog entry.

We developed this game in very short time span to give you an insight to our world. We heope you enjoy it and would be very glad to recieve your feedback, so we can improve the gameplay and make it more fun. The game is made with Unity.

DOWNLOAD AND ISTALLATION:
You can donwload the Beta/Demo version HERE! (WIN/MAC)
For the download you need a programm to unzip the folder (like WinRar or 7zip). Once it's unzipped, just place the folder wherever you like, open it and double click the .exe-file. That's all

Screenshot

WORK IN PROGRESS:
The game is not ready yet and just a playable demo version. We are currently working on levels for the game, more enemies and better graphics. To give you an idea, of what I mean, here are some redesigns:

Also the GUI will be redone until the release. We hope to release a commercial version of the game sometime in september for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and desktop computers (probably via Steam).

To get it done right we need your feedback! How do you like the mechanics? Do you have any ideas that would enhance the gameplay? We would really appreciate constructive criticism and fresh ideas! And of course, if you like it, feel free to share it on any social network!  

We really hope you enjoy it and are looking forward to getting your feedback!

[You Blister My Paint]

Minor point:

For the download you need a dropbox account

You actually don't. I was able to download without being signed on to Dropbox.

Now on to the game

Seems like it is pretty easy to get overwhelmed. I am not sure what I need to do to get better at the game, aside from timing the ability use. What is your recommended strategy for this game? I may just be missing something.

Some general usability improvements that would help:

• Make it so you can hold down the left button to attack. Rapidly clicking is exhausting. (Either that or make attack timing more important, see Kung Fury below)
• Make the abilities have a hover over display so that you see what they do in game.
• Create a "dead zone" around the ability area. I was trying to click to activate and I would misclick and the player would start walking down.

This game reminds me a little of the Kung Fury game that was released recently (http://store.steampowered.com/app/373180/). I think there are lessons you could learn from that game. At a high level I would work on improving the feedback you are giving the player so they can tell if they are doing well or not.

[Myrolit Studios]

Hi You Blister My Paint,
thanks for your feedback! I already edited the dropbox part, my mistake, sorry.

As mentioned before, the downloadable game is not ready yet, it just should give a first impression. We will definitely add a "Instructions" button in the menu and are currently designing levels to guide the player step by step.
Getting better in this version of the game really just depends on the proper usage of the abilities. There will however be some more enemies, that should give the game more content the player has to figure out, before he/she can get better. However, "Hatch & Slay" is not meant to be a big game, just some fun little thing to play, when you need to release stress or something. It also should give a glimpse at the fantasy world, we are designing. And of course, as a developer studio, we need people to notice us before we bring out some bigger games (we are currently working on a 3D Action-RPG, that will of course take some time, before there is something to show).

The clicking is exhausting, yes. But we figured it also keeps you going. We fear, taking away the clicking would make the game a rather dull experience, as that is the main mechanic. It was a little bit inspired by games like "Cookie Clicker", which appearently have a big fan community, so many people seem to actually like the fast clicking.
We will take a look at Kung Fury, you may be right and there is a lot we could learn from it.

Hover over displays for the abilities is something we already considered, but we aren't sure, if we build them in... We also want to release the game for mobile devices, where they wouldn't work. Maybe you have an idea for that? Our solution so far would be to put the instructions in the menu and we are working on new buttons, that should explain the abilities in a graphical way.

Hmm, there should be a dead zone around the ability area... Maybe we have to make it bigger, though. We will test that. Thanks for noticing.

We really appreciate your feedback, thank you!

[Myrolit Studios]

Hey, we have some new stuff to show!
We are still working on "Hatch & Slay", improving graphics and gameplay. The demo version has not changed, as we decided to make the final release commercial. However we want to show you some of our progress. Therefor we recently uploaded a YouTube video showing the gameplay of level one.

You can watch the YouTube video here!

Here is some short preview:


We hope you like it and would be glad about comments and feedback!

[diegzumillo]

I hope this doesn't sound too blunt. The gameplay is a bit boring.

Ever played a game called cookie clicker? It also has boring gameplay (superficially, at least) but it's surprisingly fun, so check it out, it's what I'm basing my suggestion around. My suggestion is to add another 'layer of gameplay', upgrades you can buy each time you die. After the first death you can buy more damage to your click. More expensive upgrade gives you a sidekick, which you can also upgrade. After a while the player will not be clicking like crazy any more, he will be managing his upgrades while his small army fights for him.

[Myrolit Studios]

Hi diegzumillo,

you are of course free to speak your mind and give us your honest opinion, there is nothing blunt about it!

Yes, I know Cookie Clicker, I've played the browser version for a while and even created an Android version together with a friend. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Cookie Clicker mechanic was an inspiration for this game, as we wanted to make something simple but addictive.

I like your idea with the companions, but to be honest, that wouldn't go along with the "story". "Hatch & Slay" was originally only meant to be an introduction of the Varaz race (the lizard character), which will play a role in the 3D Action-RPG we are planning. There are two other minigames we want to create, introducing the other two races for this bigger project.
And what you see in the video is only the gameplay of the first level, so we have some more features planned. There will be some upgrades, like different weapons and armor, so the clicking part will be reduced while proceeding in the game. More types of enemies and a well timed usage of the skills should hopefully also bring some variety to the gameplay.

However, thank you for your feedback! We will reconsider how to improve the clicking mechanic.

[CarbonHack]

Hey,

very nice idea to introduce the world of your bigger project via smaller and more casual titles!

Some various thoughts about the game itself:
- Enemies are swarming you up in no time. It gets messy and crowded pretty quickly, mobs are overlapping each other and the result may be little more chaotic than intended. Especially in terms on visual clearness.
- Visually, the game is using 20% of screen space, and packs it up with 100% of action - especially when you're swarmed. I would try to dispose stuff more evenly through the screen.
- More varied enemies, projectiles, maybe some bonuses popping up randomly here and there would spice up the gameplay for sure. But I imagine you got that planned for the commercial release.

Overall, as a more casual world introduction, the game should work pretty well!

[Myrolit Studios]

Hi CarbonHack,

thank you for taking the time and giving us your feedback!

- Yes, defenitely. Many of our testers, especially when they play it the first time, that there are too many enemies surrounding you from the beginning. We are now trying to slowly introduce the player to the gameplay mechanics with less enemies in the first levels. For the endless mode however, we figured, that there need to be that many enemies, or otherwise it wouldn't be a challenge for more experienced players. Also, there are more types of enemies now for more variety (visually and gameplay-wise). We hope, that this will do the trick, but we have to test it first, of course.
- Hmm, yeah, totally get your point. Which screen resolution did you select? That could be part of the problem. We want to release it for mobile as well, so we had to make a background that goes along with many different resolutions. On an iPhone, for example, you nearly don't see trees and just have the battle ground on screen. The user interface is also much smaller now and we are still optimizing it, as we aren't quite satisfied with it, yet. Do you have any concrete ideas, how to find a solution for that?
- Yes, you imagined right We are still working on achievements and rewards, more weapons for the character as well as some armor and more variety with the enemies.

We are on Stream Greenlight since yesterday, where you can see some improvements and, of course, vote for us!
Link

Greetz!