Alright, I've got some more time on my hands to write a proper response now, and I have more game play under my belt, so I should have more to say.
// Preamble First off I'd just like to say that I enjoy this game incredibly, I'm constantly finding myself returning to try and reach a higher floor than my last attempt (my current high score is 8 ). And must I say the AI for the enemies is superb, They are quite often equal adversaries, besting me at matches of projectile tennis and causing quite a fluster as I desperately try to stealth my way out of near death situations. They're difficult but feel fair.
// Skills I like the new skill GUI layout, it feels less clustered than the old interface and groups together relevant skills nicely.
After playing much more I'm beginning to agree on the "Time only moves when you move" skill being the default much more than I did originally, but I still believe that an option to disable it would be nice. It makes the hacking mini-game significantly more difficult in slow motion as the delay between me pressing the selection button, and the "seeker" actually stopping is increased, making it much easier to overshoot, thus I find myself holding reload during the hacking sections so that time proceeds normally.
My point about the fireball skill being too OP to start with still stands, I did end up disabling it because I found it removed a fair amount of difficulty for something I did not have to work towards.
I miss the vanity "skills" in the last build, such as the spawn room becoming an apartment and your energy sword being red instead of blue. Although practically useless, their high prices gave me something to strive for when I had bought all the other skills I wanted.
I'm fairly happy about the tweaked skills, like the pickup radius going from 2x to 3x and stuff like that, but the "Aim Assist" skill is something I think could use much improvement. It sounded exciting at first however once I had purchased it and used it for a while I found it counterproductive to use. I often encountered situations where I'd be aiming directly at an enemy and would open fire to find my bullets curving off to the side towards a drone across the room from me. It consistently disobeys my decision of who the largest threat is, choosing to target a weak enemy who is quite a distance away from my cursor, yet closer to me than targeting the orange RPG wielding grunt I'm actually aiming at. I feel that it could be replaced by a simple accuracy increase stat, or simply just adjusting it to aim-assist towards the enemy closest to the cursor.
I agree with the design decision to split unit detection apart into Moving, Biological and Robotic however as it currently stands there isn't a high enough occurrence and/or diversity of machine-type enemies. Its ability to detect drones and drone makers is matched by the "Moving" enemy scanner meaning that its only "unique" ability is to show the location of trip laser and cameras, both of which are infrequent and small issues. This makes purchasing the "Radio Scanner" skill essentially a waste of money.
Besides that the only other point about skills I have is a recommendation/request for a "Deep pockets" skill, in which the max ammo cap for your weapons is boosted by about 25% to 50%, as I find myself not being able to hold enough ammo and longing for such a skill.
// GrenadesNot really much to say here that I didn't say already. The timing is nice, they feel great to use, the three beeps are a good measurement, its pretty much all great. I do have one recommendation though. I was quite disappointed when I found out that they were held in the
melee slot, requiring me to either ditch my crucial energy sword, or leave the grenades behind. This conundrum gave me very few chances to actually use them to their full advantage. I suggest that as grenades are an explosive-type weapon, that they should be held in the RPG slot instead, as unlike all other melee slot weapons, you cannot actually use grenades as a melee weapon. Changing grenades to use the explosive-type slot would create the decision of whether to take ranged but dangerous RPGs or more diverse and useful but shorter ranged grenades.
// Graphical SuggestionOut of all of my points so far this is the point which is most fueled by personal preference as opposed to general game improvement, and feel free to entirely disregard this if it doesn't meet the intended mood of the game.
During a run I accidentally stumbled upon the console, and after a bit of tampering found that the ambient lighting colour was 1/10th black. Out of curiosity I adjusted this value to complete black and to my surprise the difference was immense. The atmosphere of the game changed entirely, changing what was once simply dimly lit hallways into pitch black corridors, giving my previously useless flashlight a purpose. Spaces which had previously been dimmed by sprawling battles where now unsettling. It gave the environment depth which I had felt it was previously lacking. Being in large dark rooms, the only lights coming from the muzzle flashes of my gun and the soft red glow of the tiles on the ground which until then I had not even realised had glowed. Pictures speak a 1000 words, so I will just give some examples of scenes which were much better experienced when ambientLightColour = (0,0,0,1).
I've tried my best to remove as much of the GUI from these screenshots as I could.
Basic Comparison
Glowing Acid Pools
Ominous Teleporter Glow
Battle-scarred Corridor
// ConclusionThis pretty much sums up all the points I had to say about the game in its current state. I really hope you do continue to develop this as I'd love to see it flourish. Even in its current state I believe if it were being sold for a reasonable price I'd purchase it. Thank you for the countless hours of fun, I hope my feedback is of use to you!
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