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[nobody]

This short game was originally made for the Molydeux event two weeks ago, but we've put a touch more work into it, adding a couple more levels and attempting to smooth out a couple of the original ones.

We're particularly looking for gameplay feedback -- difficulty, fun, level-progression, etc. -- though any sort of criticism is of course appreciated. If you stop playing mid-way, I'd definitely be interested in knowing which screen made you quit. Thanks!



Windows executable, v1.1, ~30MB

[Tynan]

This was a surprisingly strong and interesting game. I played it all the way through. Some thoughts:

Great short-level pacing. Reminds me a lot of Super Meat Boy.

The wordy levels that you enter when you kill someone were effective. Not breaking the player's control maintains flow, while the flashing death story adds a simple emotional punch. They can get repetitive - I'd think on how to solve that.

I think it would work better as a platformer. Platform movement is inherently more interesting than what you've got here in terms of route finding, and it takes fewer controls (L/R/J only instead of up/down/L/R).

I liked the narrative interlude hallways. They really added strong context to the core play, and they did it efficiently and without breaking control flow.

It took a while before I noticed that the civvies would run from me. That was really interesting - I wish I'd noticed it sooner and there had been more levels that made it important.

The level with concentric rings of vulnerable blocks was cool. I wish there had been more vulnerable blocks like this.

I see the levels splitting into three basic kinds:
-Narrative interlude
-Puzzle (hide in corner, wait for timing, jump to next corner, and so on)
-Action (lots of destructible blocks means winning is a matter of reactivity and timed challenge).

The SCREAM SCREAM GURGLE GURGLE was awesome.

The worst levels were the ones with an obvious path and lots of waiting in corners for the gun-spraying to go around its cycle.

Consider making the shooting happen in a different way. For example, as Molydeux said, it could react to civvies. Imagine
   -It fires at the closest civvy
   -It takes a few shots before the kill shot comes out, a la Frozen Synapse
This means that nobody dies as long as you either break line of sight to your target or get closer to a different target before the kill shot appears. I can see gameplay there, and it avoids the corner-hiding-waiting thing.

Bad guys who want to apprehend you - the gun becomes useful (I'm sure you thought of it).

I think if you made this a platformer and spent a year or two polishing it you could sell a half million copies.

[Tynan]

It combines the emotional insistence of not murdering innocent people with the interesting mechanical/geometric challenge of managing sightlines and routes to do it. Pretty elegant, that.

[nobody]

Wow, thanks for the considerable feedback, Tynan.

Getting the player to understand that the bystanders are reacting to your position is something I'd like to make work better. There's one screen in particular that is brutally hard if you don't realize by that point how it works, and seeing if that screen plays alright now for a larger percentage of people is a big reason I've posted this here. (I wasn't sure if more rooms that require that sort of manipulation would be particularly fun, but it sounds like it might be worth exploring.)

I'll keep in mind your breakdown of action screens vs. puzzle screens. I assume the last playable room (lots of breakable walls, a couple unbreakable 'bunkers' to hide inside of) might have been the worst offender as far as your tastes go? Personally, I'm drawn towards the idea of such an action-y game having some methodical elements, but I hear what you're saying about it possibly feeling like a chore to hide in a corner and wait for the shoot-angle to come back around. If nothing else, it sounds like it's worth being mindful of the balance between the two, using one sort of screen to break up the potential monotony of the other. I may have been thinking of them as easy screens vs. difficult screens, but your breakdown sounds more useful.

As for your platforming suggestion, it's probably just a completely separate game, but at one point I did think about screens with gravitational force as a way to introduce a new complication. I might go ahead and rough that out when I have a chance just to see what comes of it. Thanks.

Lastly, I think you're right that the penalty rooms can start to feel repetitive, especially during more difficult levels. Right now each bystander is assigned a static identity, and I'd rather avoid making the text random just to provide more variation, but your comment makes me think it might be fruitful to create more than one description for each bystander, so if you keep hurting the same one you might at least be entertained by a new bit of text. (Or maybe after a certain number of failed attempts in a single screen we should skip the penalty room entirely and just jump the player back to the entrance?)

Thanks again for the great feedback!

[Pandara_RA!]

I'm really going to have to channel my highest level of nit picking to give this feedback.

Starting with the good
It was disturbing
it had a clean understandable mechanical interaction
it was challenging but "fair"
And it was engrossing

Now with the turbo nitpick.
1. The jump from a "few bullets" to minigun felt a bit sudden
2. The minigun parts felt a bit "out of control" at first before looking at the level, I'd suggest there be "starting" zone where you could take a moment to think about what you are doing, unless the point is to feel completely out of control of your situation, which many horror genres lean on (tough controls in silent hill/resident evil for example are "intentional" to give a fear of fighting and unpreparedness)
3. You need to go darker :D. it's the most enthralling part of the game. the penalty rooms are a great addition to the disturbing feelings you get for failing, and actually make me feel all bad inside every time I fail. Now why is this amazing? because I feel that instead of frustration.
4. I'd been stuck entering a new room inside the blue doors once before, by hugging the edge while going through, I can't get it to happen anymore though =]

wow my nit pick ended up being a half positive anyways.

Well my suggestions for the future
1. Have more things in your control as you progress, maybe a way to shout and have everyone run away from you once per room? maybe have a way to stop shooting for 1-2 seconds once per room or have those abilities base on collecting things  in each room, by not collecting these things and finishing the levels without could yield a different ending
2. the ability to have larger rooms
3. A meta or pretentious ending in moly's honor, maybe traveling back through the old levels you'll find X and if you kill X a ending plays about talking about the "human condition"
4. As I said before, needs more disturbing, I really think you could take this concept and run with it.

Level feedback.
1. The most annoying parts are when you complete a hard section only to have to wait for an exact timing to progress, then miss that timing. this is seen mostly in the final level.

Well that's all I got in me so far, feel free to send me all additional updates as I will play and talk about each one.

[nobody]

Thanks so much for that feedback, Pandara. Very, very helpful. I'm not sure when we'll get around to putting together a new version, but when we do this will point us in a good direction. I'm a little unsure about whether at, say, double the length it will overstay its welcome, but maybe I'll toy around with new things here and there once I have more free time again and we'll see if enough new ideas eventually bubble up.

As for getting stuck in the doors, I've also seen that happen once but haven't been able to reproduce it again to figure out what I overlooked in the code. (At least that means you probably saw the 'pause screen.') I'll look it over carefully the next time we dive in. Thanks for that reminder.

[harkme]

Neat concept, though I hate the blinking text. Made it annoying to read.

[Qqwy]

I loved it. I haven't finished it completely yet, but this had to do with me having not enough time, and not the game.

The good:

-Art = Amazing.
-Style = Amazing.
-I love how the walls react when they are shot.
-I love how 'identity' is given to the different innocent bystanders you shoot, with these death messages.
-I love the 'SCREAM' messages.


The bad:

-I personally did not like that you'd enter a special room where the death message is shown. This room lagged quite a bit on my (very old, I know) computer. A screen with the message where you'd just need to press the Down button (or something similar) to continue would be amazing.

-Messages such as the "GURGLE" message, were shown for a too short time. Also, the blue-square kids' 'mommy, where are you going', 'daddy, where are you going', etc. cycle way too fast, making it nearly impossible to read, and giving it not enough attention.

-The blinking of the death messages was annoying, made it hard to read. Also, I can imagine that it might really induce epilepsy with some people.




I am really amazed by this game. I love it.