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[maiscrudo]

Hi!
I'm Marco and I'm developing a game named Trigono.
I've come to a point in development where some gameplay feedback would really be useful:

Trigono Windows Build

Trigono WebGL

If you want to know what Trigono is about, here's my devlog.

Screenshots (click on image for a bigger version)

Controls
You only need left and right arrow keys to play:

• left key => left engine
• right key => right engine
• both keys => thrust forward

You can invert controls in settings menu.

You control the Trigono, a triangle shaped ship, and you are constantly followed by your circle shaped buddy.

Rules

• If you don't move time moves slowly and if any threat is near your buddy turns in patrol mode and protects you.
• If you use only one of the engines times moves a little faster.
• If you use both engines time moves normally and your buddy turns in pursuit mode and follows you.
• If you are hit by any enemy the bond between the two is broken and the darkness slowly surrounds you: you'll have a certain amount of time to reconnect with him and failure to do so means game over.
• If you go outside the room circle you lose your buddy just like above.
• The only way to kill an enemy is by pushing it outside of the room circle, but if you touch them directly you lose your buddy.
• Your buddy is invulnerable to enemies so you can use him as a mace, just like Particle Mace, by swinging him around.
• Your buddy leaves a trail that you can leverage to create explosive safe zones: explosive because any enemy found inside it during creation will explode (even turrets which are not destroyable by "buddymace"), safe because for the time of the zone duration you can use it as a trench.

Goal
At game start you find yourself in a room with an exit portal: this portal can be open or closed.
If it's closed it must be opened by collecting the portal keys (romboid filled shapes).
There are different kind of rooms, but the goal is always the same.
To enter a portal you just need to go over it.
My advice is to make some practice with the controls in the first room.

Important Info
In the demo there's only one level, but every time you play the rooms are random selected from a large pool.
Rooms are not ordered by difficulty at the moment, this means it can get very difficult very fast.
The only room that's always the same is the level boss room.
There are some items to collect that aren't actually working at the moment, and the rogue-like elements are not implemented yet.

Feedback
I'd like to have feedback about:

• controls: how long does it take to gain a good handling of the ship?
• mechanics: do you like the various buddy mechanics (mace, patrol, lazo)? Which do you like best?
• "rotate with ship": is it ok or does it make you sick?
• enemies: too hard to avoid? do you like them? some of them frustrate you?
• bullets: too fast, too slow?
• graphics: do you like the artistic direction?
• sound: do you like the soundtrack? (in android builds it's much more dynamic and it changes with slow-mo, but sadly it doesn't work in unity web player)
• general: do you like the gameplay? do you have fun? are you frustrated by something?

Thanks for your time guys!

Marco

[Vanethos]

I have to start of by saying the following: I truly loved this game.

The aesthetic is spot on, the music is great and the effects are very good.

That being said, I liked the game more when I inverted the controls, it was very strange for me at the start.

• It had a strange learning curve. I'm still not used to them, since I feel a certain "lack of control"
• • After we turn, if we thrust forward the ship tilts a little to the left or right, which confuses me a lot, it seems that the ship is not going where I want it too in the first 2 seconds after thurst
• I think the rotation is ok!
• It's difficult to say since I don't think there's any sequence to the levels, but I think the speed could be incremental. There were some levels which they seemed slower than others (I might be wrong)
• LOVE the artistic direction
• LOVE the sound, and I have to say that I like the fact that the game does not have many "effect sounds", it suits the game perfectly

Other feedback:
In my opinion (maybe I didn't play for enough time) it seems that it's difficult to return to your buddy after you loose it.

If I may say, you should put some screenshots in the thread! This way you will certainly have waay more people playing it because the art is AWESOME!

[maiscrudo]

Hey!
Thanks for the heart-warming feedback! 

That being said, I liked the game more when I inverted the controls, it was very strange for me at the start.

Actually I might be the only one that find the normal controls more appropriate: every tester that tried the game (not a big crowd to be honest) told me that he liked the inverted controls best. Maybe I find normal controls more intuitive because the game started as a prototype where the ship moved with full newtonian motion and I grew accustomed to that.
But at this point I guess I should swap the options and leave inverted controls as default: the customer is always right after all.

After we turn, if we thrust forward the ship tilts a little to the left or right, which confuses me a lot, it seems that the ship is not going where I want it too in the first 2 seconds after thurst

Do you mean the ship's inertia? If the ship is going straight at full steam and you rotate and thrust in another direction the ship will drift for a little while. I already tried to reduce the effect, but I'll try to smooth it more.

It's difficult to say since I don't think there's any sequence to the levels, but I think the speed could be incremental. There were some levels which they seemed slower than others (I might be wrong)

Mmm.. maybe I could link enemies and bullets speed to level number.
About the speed of the Trigono it could be part of the rogue-like elements I plan to add later, maybe some kind of item could boost speed or reduce it.
You are right, some enemies are slower than others, but the same enemy should always have the same speed (bugs apart.. :D).

In my opinion (maybe I didn't play for enough time) it seems that it's difficult to return to your buddy after you loose it.

I was thinking about adding a "re-entry force" when you end up out of the circle and maybe your buddy could float a little towards the Trigono when it's near, to aid reconnection.
Also the glow and camera shake isn't helping I guess, but I wanted to add drama.. I'll try something else.

If I may say, you should put some screenshots in the thread! This way you will certainly have waay more people playing it because the art is AWESOME!

You are right, I'll add a bunch as soon as possible.. I need as much feedback as possible.
The problem is it's not a very "screenshot-genic" game, maybe. :D

Thanks a lot mate, really appreciate your feedback.

Marco

[Vanethos]

Do you mean the ship's inertia? If the ship is going straight at full steam and you rotate and thrust in another direction the ship will drift for a little while. I already tried to reduce the effect, but I'll try to smooth it more.

Yeah, the ship's inertia! But again, this might be something that only affects me.

About the speed of the Trigono it could be part of the rogue-like elements I plan to add later, maybe some kind of item could boost speed or reduce it.

Really? Well that makes things even more interesting! Curious to see what's coming up!   

I was thinking about adding a "re-entry force" when you end up out of the circle and maybe your buddy could float a little towards the Trigono when it's near, to aid reconnection.

This! Because when you get out the circle it is very difficult to get back to it.
Additionally, it's hard to get to your buddy if he's among the other enemies 

The problem is it's not a very "screenshot-genic" game, maybe. :D

Then make GIFs!  :gomez I personally use ScreenToGif, that way it won't be as generic as you were saying! (though I respectfully disagree ahaha).

[maiscrudo]

Additionally, it's hard to get to your buddy if he's among the other enemies

In this case you have two options:
- lure the enemies away from your buddy and then get him when he's free
- charge the enemies since you've got nothing to lose at that point and push them away
But I agree this is something I should work on.

Then make GIFs!  :gomez I personally use ScreenToGif, that way it won't be as generic as you were saying! (though I respectfully disagree ahaha).

LOL! Was it so simple? Up until now I used ffmpeg to create gifs and it was a real pain!
Thanks for the tip!

[michaelplzno]

This game confused the hell out of me. IDK what I'm doing even after looking at your text explaining it. Make a tutorial or something simple so players can figure out what the hell is going on.

[maiscrudo]

Sorry for the confusion, actually I'm working on a tutorial level, composed of different rooms, that will explain by example.
Then I'd be glad if you could give it a second chance.
Thanks for the feedback!

[maiscrudo]

Added Windows build.
It's exactly the same as the WebGL build except for the soundtrack that has a dynamic reverb applied which varies with movement.

[maiscrudo]

Added a tutorial that explains how to play.
Also added a "back to circle" force when trigono ends up outside it.
Updated both builds, some feedback about the tutorial would be great!

[Keithson]

This game is awesome. The music and art of the game suit each other really well (i love the soundtrack) and it looks and feels like a consistent whole.

I ran into a couple of bugs:

• If you type in a seed but it's wrong (not enough characters or whatever) the game will throw you in an empty level, without being able to move, causing you to quit
• I went into a room that was just a wall with an item behind it. The item had a string above it reading "lazer.exe" (or something similar) I picked it up but it didn't really do anything. I died before thinking to write the seed down so can't tell you what room it is sorry

Apart from that the game seemed to run really smooth. Also I liked the normal controls! It didn't take long at all to figure out how to move the ship, getting comfortable with it does take a bit of time but once you do it's a fun game.
I think the inertia problem mentioned before is another thing, I don't think it's the drift between boosting from one direction to the other, that's to be expected and felt pretty natural (it could maybe be shortened a bit) I think the problem is if you boost and then stop, THEN turn the ship, you turn rather quickly but still sort of slide in the direction you were going. Maybe if the slide were to decrease when you turn (or even if you just slide more to the direction you're facing) it would feel better. It might also help with quick turns and manoeuvres, and getting your buddy back.

The buddy also works well, I got surrounded by enemies at one point and even though they looked the same distance to me, the buddy always hit the closest one first. I remember thinking "That might make the game a bit easy..." then crashing straight away! Even in difficult levels you'll only really lose if you make a silly mistake, which I like.
There was one thing that did disappoint me though. I flew around fast and slow, making long turns and quick aggressive turns, and I couldn't use that buddy as a mace I was looking forward to smashing some enemies.

Seriously though this is a very good game, and when it's released seems like something I would definitely pay for. It'd also be cool to see boss rooms? I'm not sure if I played for long enough but I didn't see like a huge difficulty progression, something like that would add a feeling of learning/achievement

[maiscrudo]

Hi Keithson!
Thanks for your feedback, I'm glad you like the game!

Let's start with bugs:

If you type in a seed but it's wrong (not enough characters or whatever) the game will throw you in an empty level, without being able to move, causing you to quit

I'm aware of this but I forgot to fix it.  

I went into a room that was just a wall with an item behind it. The item had a string above it reading "lazer.exe" (or something similar) I picked it up but it didn't really do anything. I died before thinking to write the seed down so can't tell you what room it is sorry

Items currently do not work, apart for the full health one.

Also I liked the normal controls!

That's because in the latest version I switched normal and inverted controls to make testers happy  .

I think the problem is if you boost and then stop, THEN turn the ship, you turn rather quickly but still sort of slide in the direction you were going

I know what you mean, but that's because when you stop you're not really stopping: it seems like that because time slows down, but in reality the ship is just slowing down pretty fast, so if you turn you're just rotating the ship but it still continues its previous movement. Actually there are two kind of "rotations", one above a certain speed and the other under that speed, that only applies a torque to the physics body.. but let's not get too technical.
Anyway I'll look into it to see if I can make it more natural because many testers are reporting this.

There was one thing that did disappoint me though. I flew around fast and slow, making long turns and quick aggressive turns, and I couldn't use that buddy as a mace Sad I was looking forward to smashing some enemies.

I'm currently looking for a way to make the buddy a better mace: it's not easy to make defensive and mace behaviour cohexist but I'm trying my best, let's see what I can get.
If enemies could just blow up it could be much simpler, but in that case I think the game could become very easy.
Maybe I could just separate enemies into 2 categories, based on if they can blow up or not, to make the game more varied.

It'd also be cool to see boss rooms? I'm not sure if I played for long enough but I didn't see like a huge difficulty progression, something like that would add a feeling of learning/achievement

There's only a boss room currently, you need to clear 7 rooms to get there if I remember correctly.
You are right, rooms are not ordered by difficulty at the moment, because there's just one level and I wanted players to test all of them.
But in the final game they will be ordered by level: this way in level 1 rooms will be randomly selected from a pool of level 1 rooms, in level 2 from a pool of level 2 + level 1 rooms (with preference to level 2), and so on..

Thanks again for your feedback, really appreciated!  

[maiscrudo]

Hi guys! New builds available.
I've introduced a new game mechanic for buddy: lazo-trail.
Buddy leaves a trail that you can leverage to create explosive safe zones: explosive because any enemy found inside it during creation will explode (even turrets which are not destroyable by "buddymace"), safe because for the time of the zone duration you can use it as a trench.


You can also create zones that intersect already existing zones to create bigger zones:


Buddy has now three core mechanics: mace, patrol and lazo.
I'd like some feedback about that, if you have some spare time.
In particular I'd like to know if you have the infamous "it's too much" feeling, game mechanics wise.
Thanks!

[maiscrudo]

Fixed the super-annoying issue with loading bar of Unity WebGL player (well, it's a workaround..)
I suspect many potential playtesters just aborted loading the game because it showed no loading bar at all.