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[QuadrupleA]

Infinitroid is a roguelike-ish platformer partly inspired by the old NES and SNES Metroid games, with a deeply customizable weapon system and randomly generated worlds. It's been through a lot of iterations already with friends and testers, and people seem to be digging it, so thought I'd start opening it up a bit more.

The game's C++ / PC native (shooting for Steam and possibly console release), but I have a web build that uses asm.js and WebGL to make it easy for people to try out:

https://infinitroid.com/

I'll try to update this thread too but check out the blog for the latest updates (subscribable by email):

https://infinitroid.com/blog/

Open to any suggestions on gameplay, theme, how you liked it, what was confusing, etc.!

[Quicksand-S]

Wow. It'd been so long since your last post here, I really didn't expect to see this game again. Looks like it's come a long way.

I was in the middle of doing other things, but I wanted to try it out briefly just to see what had changed.

-Is it downloading from your web server or somewhere else? It took ages just download it in the browser, and something of that size generally takes about a second to download.

-The room variety is much, much better than before. I think there are maybe a few too many symmetrical layouts, but I liked most of them.

-I found the lava suit long before finding a need for it. It would probably be better if the lava showed up on the obvious route while the suit was on a side branch. Then again, maybe that's how it was and I just happened to be drawn to the side branch first. I don't know.

-I almost never got missiles, so it was frustrating to come across doors that needed them. The balance of pickups seems very strange. I found a decent amount of money, quite a few upgrades, but only something like two missiles.

-The HUD isn't particularly noticeable to me, which could I guess be considered a good thing except that I didn't even see my health until it was low and beeping at me.

-Is there a way to regain health?

-I felt like maybe the doors didn't stand out well enough in some areas.

-I'm not sure what I think of having a compass in this sort of game.

-I think one big thing I'd like to see is just some more cohesiveness in the setting. Rooms don't really feel like part of a larger world. The visuals make them feel kind of self-contained.

For the most part, I think this is really good. It's a huge improvement over the old build. The flow from room to room and back again feels pretty fun, and the I like the feel of the movement speed and gravity. The game also ran really well for me. No issues at all in that regard.

Glad to see you're still working on this. I'll probably play more later.

[QuadrupleA]

Hey Quicksand! Thanks for the feedback, good to hear from you. I was gonna send you a PM about the game since you were so helpful with last version, but wanted to catch up on your latest stuff first (I enjoyed We Want You a lot, looks like you've got some newer games). I had dropped the old version of the game, but decided to reboot it with a little different take a year+ ago - got some better tools this time around, a homebrew C++ engine/editor that's a lot faster to work in.

-Is it downloading from your web server or somewhere else?

The download is from my web server - it's 26 megs total I think, so should take whatever that normally takes. If it's taking longer than an equivalent download that size let me know, it's coming right from Apache with gzip compression so should be fast. It should also generally stay in the cache, so should load instantly the next time around.

-The room variety is much, much better than before. I think there are maybe a few too many symmetrical layouts, but I liked most of them.

Yeah, there are a lot of layouts in the mix - I plan to go to town on the visuals at some point so hopefully some of the over-symmetry / monotony will get better.

-I found the lava suit long before finding a need for it. It would probably be better if the lava showed up on the obvious route while the suit was on a side branch. Then again, maybe that's how it was and I just happened to be drawn to the side branch first. I don't know.

That's a tricky one unfortunately, hard to know which route a player will take. Generally the inaccessible areas are attached earlier than the corresponding upgrade, but the level generation is pretty randomized so doesn't always work out that way.

-I almost never got missiles, so it was frustrating to come across doors that needed them. The balance of pickups seems very strange. I found a decent amount of money, quite a few upgrades, but only something like two missiles.

Keep searching Occasionally the RNG will screw you but generally if you open all the loot containers and clear out enemies in the room there should be enough.

-The HUD isn't particularly noticeable to me, which could I guess be considered a good thing except that I didn't even see my health until it was low and beeping at me.

Yeah, it's off to the side a bit - I have little animations to call attention when they change, maybe those should be more prominent.

-Is there a way to regain health?

Yup - health pickups, armor, and a lot of miscellaneous items can replenish health. Curious how the balance is there.

-I felt like maybe the doors didn't stand out well enough in some areas.

Hmm - yeah - that was a problem early on, I added the lights to the door model and that helped. I'll keep an eye out, maybe add additional in-room lights in places.

-I'm not sure what I think of having a compass in this sort of game.

A little too Zelda maybe . Its purpose is to reveal room locations on the map, so probably could have something more scifi there.

-I think one big thing I'd like to see is just some more cohesiveness in the setting. Rooms don't really feel like part of a larger world. The visuals make them feel kind of self-contained.

Interesting... is it theme transitions mainly, like going from a green-colored area to a blue area? Or within the same areas too? The rooms are pretty self-contained by design so besides general difficulty I guess they're a bit non-sequitor.

Glad the controls etc. feels good, those have gone through a bunch of iterations. And thanks for taking a look!

[Quicksand-S]

The download is from my web server - it's 26 megs total I think, so should take whatever that normally takes. If it's taking longer than an equivalent download that size let me know, it's coming right from Apache with gzip compression so should be fast. It should also generally stay in the cache, so should load instantly the next time around.

I've got a really good connection here. Normally 26mb downloads in a couple of seconds max. Your game took around 30-40sec. It also failed to cache it (in Chrome. I didn't try Firefox again yet).

Yeah, there are a lot of layouts in the mix - I plan to go to town on the visuals at some point so hopefully some of the over-symmetry / monotony will get better.

One other thing I just noticed when I started up the game again is that the first room in a game should probably have a light near the player. It's weird to start in darkness.

That's a tricky one unfortunately, hard to know which route a player will take. Generally the inaccessible areas are attached earlier than the corresponding upgrade, but the level generation is pretty randomized so doesn't always work out that way.

Ok. Well, as long as there's code in place to determine the flow, I assume it was just me being weird. I think in that specific case it would've helped if the doors showed up more (as I mentioned before) because I didn't even see the door to the lava area until after I'd gotten the lava suit.

[quote
Yup - health pickups, armor, and a lot of miscellaneous items can replenish health. Curious how the balance is there.[/quote]

I completely forgot health pickups existed. I think I only ever saw one. Not sure I saw armor at all. I think my main issue is just that enemies don't drop anything (Although I just got a health pickup from one so maybe you changed that?). It makes getting health/missiles tedious and makes combat seem a bit pointless.

Interesting... is it theme transitions mainly, like going from a green-colored area to a blue area? Or within the same areas too? The rooms are pretty self-contained by design so besides general difficulty I guess they're a bit non-sequitor.

I guess it's just strange going from room to room and having the entire visual theme change almost every single time. When I was working on a Metroidvania earlier this year, I found it useful to make each gameplay section a zone (by which I mean the route from where you are to every place you can reach with your current abilities is a zone). When you got an ability that opened up a new area, that new area started the next zone. This meant that each zone was at least a certain minimum size and when you finally did get an ability it felt good to also enter a location that looked new. Of course, you don't always have to make zones look different, but I think having them be a bit larger helps the world feel more connected.


The weapon mods are kinda fun to play around with. It'd be nice to see some more interesting ones, though (spread? wobble? bounciness?).

I'd love to have a button for either switching between two weapons instantly. Maybe toggle between two slots, remembering what I had selected in slot 1 when I switch back from slot 2. The W key could still work to change what's in each slot. I just find it a bit cumbersome having to open up a menu every time I want to switch to/from missiles. I know it's quick but it still seems like an extra step.

I fought my first boss today and thought it was good. Maybe a bit too easy (I think I got hit once, just before I knew its behavior). Both my plays today have been fun. My only really major gripe is that I hate rogue-like stuff, especially when you don't carry over any progress to the next attempt. It always bugs me that procedurally-generated maps are generally tied to that sort of gameplay. I'd much rather make my way through the game normally, not starting from scratch all the time. Also, the lack of health pickups or respawning enemies/eggs seems to make life and death feel like random chance sometimes. A "normal" game gets around that issue because you can always try getting through the same challenge again and do things differently. Just my thoughts. I know a lot of people love this sort of game, but I'm hoping you'll decide to make a non-roguelike mode at some point because I enjoy the game otherwise.

[QuadrupleA]

Thanks Quicksand. Re: downloads, I get about 2MB/sec which is typical for my connection, but maybe my web host has weird routing to your location. If it doesn't cache from the same browser that's weird (different browsers don't share caches so re-downloading would be normal).

Re: lights near player, sounds like your monitor's darker - there's a brightness setting in the options, and I'll probably start setting the default brighter (my girlfriend's iMac shows up pretty dark by default too). For the area themes & transitions, they are in fact grouped by inaccessible areas like you're talking about, although I think I need to make a 'lock room' with a high jump etc. be in the 'near' theme, so you get the new theme when you pass it. Right now they're in the far theme, so you see the theme before you pass it which isn't quite right. I also want to add some 'teaser' tiles from the new areas around doors, to help indicate what's behind.

Re: health drops and enemies, they drop a reward when you clear all the enemies the room, rather than per-enemy. Loot eggs also have health drops fairly commonly.

Glad you liked the weapon mod system - I do have spread and bounce modifiers in there, usually found in the red crates. Weapons vary a lot per playthru, takes a while to see them all. And yeah, I find the weapon switch a little cumbersome too, even though it's only two button presses. I should brainstorm that a bit, maybe just make it a single button rotate-thru type thing.

It's interesting, a lot of people don't like the roguelike structure, I definitely enjoy it. Adds some high stakes, and rewards you for learning the game mechanics and playing carefully. Curious, as a non-roguelike fan, if there were a mode to play the same random world seed over and over would that still be interesting?

[Quicksand-S]

If it doesn't cache from the same browser that's weird (different browsers don't share caches so re-downloading would be normal).

Yeah. I tried it twice on Chrome and still had to re-download the second time.

Re: lights near player, sounds like your monitor's darker - there's a brightness setting in the options, and I'll probably start setting the default brighter (my girlfriend's iMac shows up pretty dark by default too).

I don't find it too dark overall (even with my monitor brightness set low like it is). It's just that the initial room generally doesn't have much light in the center where the player is. It might be worth exaggerating the lighting just in that one spot to draw the eye to the player character.

For the area themes & transitions, they are in fact grouped by inaccessible areas like you're talking about

Sounds good, but that doesn't seem to be how it works in practice. I've encountered lots of doors that didn't need any special abilities but led to visually different areas.

I also want to add some 'teaser' tiles from the new areas around doors, to help indicate what's behind.

Cool. I like that sort of thing.

Re: health drops and enemies, they drop a reward when you clear all the enemies the room, rather than per-enemy.

Maybe it's just a balance issue then. I had one playthrough with almost no health items, then two playthroughs where I got a lot of health, health powerups and armor.

It's interesting, a lot of people don't like the roguelike structure, I definitely enjoy it. Adds some high stakes, and rewards you for learning the game mechanics and playing carefully. Curious, as a non-roguelike fan, if there were a mode to play the same random world seed over and over would that still be interesting?

Yeah, I'd love to play through the same random world until I beat it, then start a new, completely different world. Of course, I'd also like save spots in that mode, since getting near the end and dying only to go through the same world again from scratch isn't ideal.

Personally, I don't find most roguelikes rewarding. It really depends on what sort of progress carries over. If I play well and random chance says I'm not going to get health right now so I die, that's just annoying. If I play well and random chance says I'm not going to get decent weapon upgrades then I'm at a huge disadvantage. It seems almost like you might as well just have people go through the game with one hit point and no powerups, since that's how they have to be prepared to play if RNG isn't in their favor. At least then it'd be solely about skill rather than a lot of it depending on chance. I guess to me there's nothing rewarding about gaining something that's just taken away again, especially if it feels like it was chance and not lack of skill that caused me to lose. Anyway, you should probably stick to the vision you have for the game. I'm just blabbing about my own personal preferences.

Any plans to have some small amount of progress be kept? Maybe unlockable...somethings? I don't know the whole structure of your game, but if you beat the first world can you start at the second next time you die?

How long does this game take you to beat, on average?

[QuadrupleA]

Weird, I'll take a look at the cache thing again. Should have a 1 year expiration set. Glad the game isn't too dark overall, I can add lights near the starting point in those rooms (unique sprites there would be good).

that doesn't seem to be how it works in practice. I've encountered lots of doors that didn't need any special abilities but led to visually different areas.

Well like I was saying the "lock rooms" (e.g. a room with an inaccessible high jump or a big lava pit) get the theme of the "far" area, which is probably a mistake - I'll switch that around so they match the theme of the "near" area, that'd be better.

Yeah, I'd love to play through the same random world until I beat it

I might play around with that, if only because it's so easy to implement

Personally, I don't find most roguelikes rewarding. It really depends on what sort of progress carries over. If I play well and random chance says I'm not going to get health right now so I die, that's just annoying. If I play well and random chance says I'm not going to get decent weapon upgrades then I'm at a huge disadvantage. It seems almost like you might as well just have people go through the game with one hit point and no powerups, since that's how they have to be prepared to play if RNG isn't in their favor. At least then it'd be solely about skill rather than a lot of it depending on chance. I guess to me there's nothing rewarding about gaining something that's just taken away again, especially if it feels like it was chance and not lack of skill that caused me to lose.

It definitely requires some careful crafting of the random distributions I think. In this game there's a range of how many weapon upgrades you get, but it's pretty tightly controlled, so you're always guaranteed a baseline playable minimum. For health, the odds of getting 1.5 hearts or less in an area (particular colored zone) is less than 5% (2-std deviations) provided the player clears out the rooms.

When I play it takes about 20 mins on average to get to the end - I'm shooting for about 60 mins total when the game's done. I often don't take damage at all (developer too good at their own game syndrome), so end up with a lot of health lying around. I do try to be careful in the design to not have any "unfairness" where you take unavoidable damage - ideally if the player plays carefully he can avoid all damage. For me I think that's where the fun comes in with well-designed roguelikes - you learn to make the most of scarce resources, and the RNG keeps varying the challenge and keeping things interesting.

Maybe it depends on the particular roguelike design - the two I've enjoyed the most are Binding of Isaac and Spelunky I think. "Rogue" itself and Dungeons of Dredmor were fun for a while but I feel like each game lasts too long (several hours). If you need to grind more than an hour to get to the later levels and learn new stuff it gets old quick, and the tragedy of losing everything gets a lot worse.

[Quicksand-S]

It definitely requires some careful crafting of the random distributions I think. In this game there's a range of how many weapon upgrades you get, but it's pretty tightly controlled, so you're always guaranteed a baseline playable minimum. For health, the odds of getting 1.5 hearts or less in an area (particular colored zone) is less than 5% (2-std deviations) provided the player clears out the rooms.

It might be worth making this less random and more dependent on various factors: how much health the players has, maybe a rating for each weapon upgrade or pickup, etc. I imagine you're already adjusting distribution by giving some things priority, but maybe make it more likely to give players what they need.

On a related note, I'd normally say that giving health when the player has full health and low missiles should be avoided, but maybe in this game, where pickups stay where they were left, that's not the case anymore. I don't know. Sometimes it's nice to be able to go back for health you left in another room.

the two I've enjoyed the most are Binding of Isaac and Spelunky

I could never get into Binding of Isaac. For all the creativity in the creatures and items, everything ended up feeling the same to me and I didn't enjoy the combat at all. Spelunky was fun, but I never felt driven to finish it because I always died around the same area and it took too long to get back. To me, 20min for a roguelike sounds decent. That might actually make me push through to beat your game. 60min that I'm going to have to redo if I die near the end doesn't sound nearly as appealing.

Here's a question: Are missiles only for doors? I was thinking about the issue with some games where you never know if you're going to need certain ammo type later so you save it and end up never using it. Missiles seem to be required for a lot of doors in your game, so a player might decide never use them in combat because they're so limited in number.

[QuadrupleA]

The way I have it, all placement of items, loot, enemies etc. are determined when the world builds. So it'd be tricky to dynamically withold or give health or weapons based on how well the player is doing. Nor would I want to I don't think - I like the idea that there's a fixed challenge to overcome with each random seed, and you have improvise with the resources you get. If you know the game is adjusting itself to get easier when you're doing badly or vise-versa, then it seems there's no real challenge and no way to measure your skill / progress over time.

To me, 20min for a roguelike sounds decent. That might actually make me push through to beat your game. 60min that I'm going to have to redo if I die near the end doesn't sound nearly as appealing.

Yeah. Spelunky had a thing where once you unlocked a later world you could warp to it in new games, I might be able to employ something like that for practicing later areas.

Here's a question: Are missiles only for doors? I was thinking about the issue with some games where you never know if you're going to need certain ammo type later so you save it and end up never using it. Missiles seem to be required for a lot of doors in your game, so a player might decide never use them in combat because they're so limited in number.

That was a tricky one - I added a thing a while back to try and mitigate it: for every 3 enemies you kill with a single missile you get a missle dropped as a reward:

  3 enemies = 1 missile
  6 enemies = 2 missiles
  9 enemies = 3 missiles

So by targeting big groups of enemies you can actually gain missiles. I left it as a "hidden feature" but people haven't been catching onto it, think I need to make the messaging / UI clearer when it happens, and maybe show it in the early game hints. It opens up missiles for combat a lot more.

[QuadrupleA]

Just updated that theme stuff - the "lock rooms" are now in the "near" area so you only see a theme change when you make it past them, I should have done that from the start. Also added quick "teaser" tiles around doors to shops, new areas etc.:

http://infinitroid.com/

[alvarop]

Just tried it out and played 2 or 3 games. I never heard about this game before, but I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised. I don't have time to play it much more right now but I'll write some feedback once I give it a couple more runs.

[GertyGame]

The game is actually pretty fun to play! I was a bit skeptical when I first read the controls, but the playability was actually very good and easy to get used to. The first level I got was quite small since I couldn't advance to the doors that required rocket launcher :D I only found like 4 rockets and both doors required 5. But the second time it was good and I got pretty far already.

The terrain graphics are a bit repetitive, and the flaming skull monsters seemed to be a bit out of place. Both graphics vice and... well flaming skulls in a sci-fi game just don't belong imo.

About the UI bar on the right. I think it could work without the grey box behind it.

One final thing that bothered me was that I have no idea what is the goal. I just ended up running aimlessly and trying to find the next door I could access. :D Although that was very fun, it felt pointless without the goal in mind.

Anyway good luck with the game and keep on posting updates. The game has a nice old-school feeling to it!

[buto]

Hey Luke,

I just played it briefly and thought it was really nice. Controls were direct and felt good (Gamepad). You obviously thought about many details (weapon-customization), which I think is really nice. Here are some very basic thoughts from two plays (so don't take them too serious). I'll be going back to try to get further of course...

I was really missing some moody music. I know this sounds silly. I'm ignoring it in my game, too (for the most part). However, after having played nearly all 2d Metroids (last one was Metroid 2) I think the music is integral to foster the sense of loneliness and of exploring a strange and different world in such a game. While the music can be added later on, of course, I still think it would boost the immersiveness quite a bit.

The weapon-customization seems like a cool feature and is presented nicely. However, to me it felt a bit clumsy to add/remove upgrades. I repeatedly had to change between the fire-powerup (to open doors) and range+repeat (which felt more powerful). Using the gamepad this took quite some time.
Probably this could be splitted a bit. The weapon-upgrades could be for shooting enemies only and not be required for progression. One could build a cool weapon this way without having to alter it to open doors.
On the other hand there could be different weapon types like missiles/fireballs which open doors or burn plants, which can be quickly picked from the weapons-shortcut. Missiles are already in that category, flame-modifier is not. Please mind that I only played it twice - maybe I didn't see some other aspect of it.

I will try to provide more feedback in the next days, once I played a bit more. Really nice game!

Regards,
Sebastian

[QuadrupleA]

Thanks alvarop / Gerty / Sebastian!

I was really missing some moody music. I know this sounds silly. I'm ignoring it in my game, too (for the most part). However, after having played nearly all 2d Metroids (last one was Metroid 2) I think the music is integral to foster the sense of loneliness and of exploring a strange and different world in such a game. While the music can be added later on, of course, I still think it would boost the immersiveness quite a bit.

The weapon-customization seems like a cool feature and is presented nicely. However, to me it felt a bit clumsy to add/remove upgrades. I repeatedly had to change between the fire-powerup (to open doors) and range+repeat (which felt more powerful). Using the gamepad this took quite some time.
Probably this could be splitted a bit. The weapon-upgrades could be for shooting enemies only and not be required for progression. One could build a cool weapon this way without having to alter it to open doors.
On the other hand there could be different weapon types like missiles/fireballs which open doors or burn plants, which can be quickly picked from the weapons-shortcut. Missiles are already in that category, flame-modifier is not. Please mind that I only played it twice - maybe I didn't see some other aspect of it.

Agreed on the need for music, it was one of my favorite aspects of the old Metroid games. I think I'm going to try to license or hire somebody for it - I took a crack at my own track in a previous build of this game but wasn't quite happy with it, a little too serious:

http://infinitroid.com/play/0013/

For the weapon modifications, there's actually a "preset" feature that does what you're talking about I think - you can add new presets with different arrangements of parts, and pick from them in-game. So you could set up a high-damage weapon, a fire weapon, etc. In the weapon screen if you look up top there's a key you can press to get into the preset popup.

The game is actually pretty fun to play! I was a bit skeptical when I first read the controls, but the playability was actually very good and easy to get used to. The first level I got was quite small since I couldn't advance to the doors that required rocket launcher :D I only found like 4 rockets and both doors required 5. But the second time it was good and I got pretty far already.

The terrain graphics are a bit repetitive, and the flaming skull monsters seemed to be a bit out of place. Both graphics vice and... well flaming skulls in a sci-fi game just don't belong imo.

About the UI bar on the right. I think it could work without the grey box behind it.

One final thing that bothered me was that I have no idea what is the goal. I just ended up running aimlessly and trying to find the next door I could access. :D Although that was very fun, it felt pointless without the goal in mind.

Anyway good luck with the game and keep on posting updates. The game has a nice old-school feeling to it!

Thanks! Curious, was it just the number of controls in that list? I was debating simplifying that with graphical key icons but figured I should probably focus my efforts on more important things.

For the missile doors, those are optional for progressing, although they generally have useful stuff behind them. If there was nowhere else to go in the level though let me know, might be some obscure world gen bug.

It's on my list to replace those flaming skulls, they don't really make sense. And yeah, graphics in general need some spice, the visuals get pretty repetitive. I was mostly focusing on gameplay so far but might be time to put some energy into those.

Anyway thanks all for the feedback, much appreciated.

[GertyGame]

Thanks! Curious, was it just the number of controls in that list? I was debating simplifying that with graphical key icons but figured I should probably focus my efforts on more important things.

For the missile doors, those are optional for progressing, although they generally have useful stuff behind them. If there was nowhere else to go in the level though let me know, might be some obscure world gen bug.

It's on my list to replace those flaming skulls, they don't really make sense. And yeah, graphics in general need some spice, the visuals get pretty repetitive. I was mostly focusing on gameplay so far but might be time to put some energy into those.

Anyway thanks all for the feedback, much appreciated.

Well I guess I'm just used to mouse + keyboard controls instead of just keyboard. :D I've played games like Risk of Rain though that has only keyboard controls, but the aiming is a bit different in that.

There were two rooms with indestructible walls so I couldn't reach the next door that was behind it. There was a small gap that I could've crouched through but I guess I can't move while crouched? Or I just failed to do that somehow :D Might've been bug then. It had flaming skulls inside the walls. Can't recall too well, but I think the walls were made of metal.

Looked something like this:

[QuadrupleA]

Yeah I was considering mouse + keyboard, I do like how that feels in Terraria, etc. But wanted to make it play the same on gamepad too - ended up with this layout which people seem to like.

There were two rooms with indestructible walls so I couldn't reach the next door that was behind it. There was a small gap that I could've crouched through but I guess I can't move while crouched?

Thanks for the drawing - that's a "1 block tunnel" room, you need an upgrade to get past those (Grub Suit).

[marcgfx]

I did not read any other comments, so I might be repeating what was said before.

- I like your enemies, they all work a little different and can get blown to pieces.
- not so sure about the flying skulls, they dont really fit the described scenario
- graphics are nice, but maybe a little sterile?
- the jumping feels too fast to me
- I find it quite annoying that the shot range is very low
- aiming is pretty awkward using a keyboard
- I did not understand how to open the door, where it says you need the missile gun (after rethinking, I probably should lock the movement and point the gun down to shoot?)
- I wanted to get past the red blockade using a missile, does not make sense that the flame gun can do what the missile cant
- after dying you end up somewhere completely different, no idea why

[marcgfx]

gave it another go and had more fun this time. It takes a while to get used to the weapon system, but it gets a lot more fun when you actually have a useful weapon. I find switching weapons a little cumbersome and was quickly killed in a first boss-fight like scenario. I don't think it was a boss fight, just these big blobs containing little blobs. I was a bit surprised that while avoiding the first blob I ran into a second one, even though I had not the slightest clue how to defeat the first one.

[buto]

Finally I was able to play a bit more. I definitely preferred the version with music. I instantly felt like playing a game instead of only testing one. Actually I think the music is already quite nice. Maybe one or two more tracks, e.g. one with sparse instrumentalization and one with bleeps and your done! .

So far I really enjoyed the game. Seems to be quite polished. Weapon upgrades all make sense and feel empowering. They really affect your play-style, which is really nice. Now I also understood weapon customization and presets. Seems like a very flexible system.

Some random thoughts:

• I somehow expected your hitbox to be only one square high while ducking. However, those rotating square enemies (rotate in one spot, then fly until they hit a wall, then rotate again, ...) can still hit you, even when they are flying horizontally one row above you and you're ducking.
• Items sometimes appear in a neighbored cell from where you killed an enemy or destroyed a stone.
• Adding newly obtained powerups to different presets is still a bit laborious. I think such a system would be perfect for a game where you're keeping your weapons longer than just for one playthrough. It still works very good in your setting, too. I will have to see how it feels after more sessions.
• While the graphics and effects are quite nice overall, I personally would prefer a more organic look of the foreground tiles, especially considering the caves in some background images. The underlying grid structure is very visible and neighboring tiles very seldomly connect to a larger structure, at least in the first world. The point with the grid structure however holds true for the second world, too, as far as I've seen it (died early on). This is a minor issue, of course.

Really nice game. Looking forward to play more (hopefully somewhen with music in the second world, too... )

Kind regards,
Sebastian

[QuadrupleA]

- I like your enemies, they all work a little different and can get blown to pieces.
- not so sure about the flying skulls, they dont really fit the described scenario
- graphics are nice, but maybe a little sterile?
- the jumping feels too fast to me
- I find it quite annoying that the shot range is very low
- aiming is pretty awkward using a keyboard
- I did not understand how to open the door, where it says you need the missile gun (after rethinking, I probably should lock the movement and point the gun down to shoot?)
- I wanted to get past the red blockade using a missile, does not make sense that the flame gun can do what the missile cant
- after dying you end up somewhere completely different, no idea why

Thanks - agreed, skulls are on the way out, just need to come up with a new model there. For shot range, there are range upgrades found pretty commonly that help with that. Jumping and movement are a little fast, agreed - people seem to like the way it feels once they get into it a bit, so I'll probably keep what I have, but unfortunately might be a bit of a turnoff for new players.

Good to know about down missile doors, that is a little tricky since you can't use the 'use' key like with other doors. You got it right, you can lock movement to aim downward and get them. I'll keep an eye out for that, if a lot of people have trouble I might just disallow down-missile doors in the map generation, at least in the first world.

As for the dying into somewhere different, I definitely need to weave that into the story a bit and prepare people for it, it's confused a lot of people. It's a pretty fundamental part of the game. Glad the 2nd playthru went better - that blob thing is indeed a boss. Gonna try a one-key weapon switch thing soon instead of that popup menu, if it works I'll post it in the next version.

Finally I was able to play a bit more. I definitely preferred the version with music. I instantly felt like playing a game instead of only testing one. Actually I think the music is already quite nice. Maybe one or two more tracks, e.g. one with sparse instrumentalization and one with bleeps and your done! .

So far I really enjoyed the game. Seems to be quite polished. Weapon upgrades all make sense and feel empowering. They really affect your play-style, which is really nice. Now I also understood weapon customization and presets. Seems like a very flexible system.

Some random thoughts:

• I somehow expected your hitbox to be only one square high while ducking. However, those rotating square enemies (rotate in one spot, then fly until they hit a wall, then rotate again, ...) can still hit you, even when they are flying horizontally one row above you and you're ducking.
• Items sometimes appear in a neighbored cell from where you killed an enemy or destroyed a stone.
• Adding newly obtained powerups to different presets is still a bit laborious. I think such a system would be perfect for a game where you're keeping your weapons longer than just for one playthrough. It still works very good in your setting, too. I will have to see how it feels after more sessions.
• While the graphics and effects are quite nice overall, I personally would prefer a more organic look of the foreground tiles, especially considering the caves in some background images. The underlying grid structure is very visible and neighboring tiles very seldomly connect to a larger structure, at least in the first world. The point with the grid structure however holds true for the second world, too, as far as I've seen it (died early on). This is a minor issue, of course.

Really nice game. Looking forward to play more (hopefully somewhen with music in the second world, too... )

Thanks Sebastian - glad you liked the music, I seem to go back and forth a lot on the music I make. Love it, then hate it, etc.  Maybe I'll restore it in the next version. Re: hitboxes, I'll play with those a bit - would be good to allow a duck to dodge in those type of rooms. For items appearing in weird places, I have a crude "reachability" check that moves an item if it's unreachable... before people would often waste time trying to jump for something when it was too high etc. I might need to do something more sophisticated there, it just checks if there's floor underneath, maybe need to check for sideways reachability too. Leads to some odd teleportations. Unfortunately it's kind of a tricky problem when you get into it, lots of special cases.

And yeah, graphics are still "semi-prototype" although I want to start moving them to more finalized soon, adding more block variety, larger scenery pieces and less gridlike elements. Also make better use of the lighting engine, there's a lot of potential there I haven't explored yet.

Thanks for playing!