In 2-3 sentences, what makes this game unique? Not marketing speak, just clear explanation. Also, not in the variety of details, but in the big picture. Unless the details are the picture.

Maybe I just don't explore this genre well enough to know from the screenshots and few sentences. And maybe I'll learn something.

I'd actually recommend a walking rather than a running animation for cases where walking would be expected. But yeah, I like the shattering. I couldn't figure out what W and S do, except, W made his head look upward a bit. I also didn't understand the meanings of the symbols above the doors at first. I made it through the first level, and it was interesting to work through.

Circular buffer seems wise. I might try to look at capturing the whole game state (where immutable things don't need copied) for each frame, though, instead of trying to place recorders individually on things. And if the game state includes particle positions, you just play back like a movie at whatever rate you want, including interpolation. However, sounds like the issue is conflict with the systems you are using from Unity, maybe? I know almost nothing about Unity, so I can't give advice there.

I think clarity is good. I suspect I'd still make mistakes some, but I'm not always the best in quick action. And I still think this game looks super fun.

As an aside, your gif isn't marked up right for the post.

I agree it's beautiful. I haven't watched the trailer. My main question is about the realistic settings vs. the clearly artificial and violent-looking gameplay levels. On the "stages of grief", are these dangerous looking levels entirely metaphorical, or do they have a physical reality in the game story?

Been keeping some eye on this. I think this has some good potential. And I like color.

By way of recommendations, I know some folks will complain about gradients (aka "pillow shading"), and I might recommend to have shading match object texture instead of ignore it. But maybe you're doing that on purpose as part of coloring idea. Overall, I'm not a visual expert, so others might see things differently.

I also personally think the UI in the upper left is too busy, but maybe it's needed for the game.

Anyway, just some thoughts. The overall premise for the game sounds nice, and I like platformers.

Thanks much for the technical and tool info.

I think the progress is looking good. Not sure I have specific advice, but I'm still very optimistic about this project.

This game still looks so cool. I looked up Voxotron now, and it's nice, I admit. But what I think goes well here for you is that you aren't using voxels just for voxelness (is that a word?) but for the pragmatic effect you get from it. So your visual style doesn't scream "Hey, we used voxels!" Instead, you're aiming for the visual style you want and are using voxels as your tools. Or something like that, it seems to me. Anyway, I'm still very impressed. And yes, the animations are great. And the little critters are cool, too.

I do research in AI, but I'm going super simple on the AI in my current game project (which I hope to get something done on one of these weeks). I think there's no problem at all with going simple (and even predictable), depending on the needs of the game.

Looks really cool.

Understood about life being busy. Great to see an update. (I've posted so much here that I might not next time around, but I'm sure I'm not the only one still very interested in this project.)

Out Run is good old days for sure.

Looks like a really cool game, and robots always rock.

I think the name ChickenSword is fine, and I think the game looks fun, too. I just have a son who's really into paleontology, so I was familiar with the dinochicken (AKA chickenosaurus) concept and couldn't resist.

Didn't know about Frog Sord, and sadly "dinofrogchicken" doesn't turn up any hits.

Good point. Thanks for compare and contrast.

Yeah, I guess I'm learning better what people can do with voxels. Cleverness on the deduction engine, too, but a large knowledge base probably takes a lot of work to set up, I imagine.

I thought I didn't like voxels, but I'm not familiar with all the scene, and maybe I just don't like Minecrafty course-grain voxels. I like the look here a lot.

And I'm curious to see when someone starts working on a DinochickenSword after seeing this project and Dinosword for a while.

I like being able to see the whole thing myself. Although maybe some clever automatic camera work could be nice for some occasions. Sweet blades there.