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[Usagi]

Hello All !

Yesterday I finished my new game: Shackles. It is a game about Failure and Observing, inspired by Gods will be Watching and The Stanley Parable. You can play it at the end of the topic 
The goal is to reach the white room. I don't want to add any further explanation, because the game -should- present its idea clearly.

I am aware of few bugs (sorry), but the game took a lot of time and I need to study now  :D  so please focus on the design, art, story and the main goal of the game.

Feedback: please tell me what did you learn from the game and how did you learn it. C&C about how to make the design better and more easier to understand are much appreciated. Bug reports are welcome as well but don't bother with them for now !

Play it on GameJolt http://goo.gl/MYNoOi, Itch.io http://usagi.itch.io/shackles and Kongregate too http://goo.gl/G3Yp1v

[Quicksand-S]

As a right-handed person, with my keyboard in front of me, playing with a mouse and the arrow keys isn't particularly comfortable. It'd be nice to have something like WASD as an alternative.

The art is decent when arms aren't floating in mid-air because they've been pushed away from their bodies. The combat feels terrible to me, though. There's no sense of weight or power behind the attacks. All I get is a little flicker of the enemy, which isn't very satisfying when it comes to melee combat. Having the enemy weapon get in the way half the time is a bit irritating too.

In my opinion, enemies take far too many hits. It'd be fine if they were fun to fight. I'd love it if there was a nice back-and-forth style of combat, where I block/dodge and then rush in while they're stunned/off-balance.

One thing that would've helped a bit is if my character could walk backwards. There's no real reason for the mouse to be used at the moment, but if the character faced in the direction of the cursor then I could attack and retreat without turning my back on the enemy.

I could hardly see anything in the second area, then I jumped near something and got sent back to the beginning of the game. No idea what it was because it was small and dark. I didn't have any reason to think I wasn't supposed to jump and touch them, which made it even more irritating that I was suddenly sent all the way back. It's far too annoying to fight those enemies, so I don't feel inclined to try again.

I kinda like the character art, and I found the game very responsive. With fewer enemies in the first area, I might've tried it again, but not in its current state.