I have a bajillion things I could say about this game so sorry if an essay manifests below or in the following week/days but the short version is I am very intrigued.
I love solving problems by eating everything in front of me and I love a diablo-style loot hunt, so the core concept hits me right in the dopamine centers.
I’ll try to avoid too much obvious stuff and address what I assume are intentional design choices (or at least intentional compromises).
I’m going to be pretty critical but understand that I like this game enough that even with what I’m about to say I’m considering starting a new character to try a different build because the core concept is just that strong for me.
My principle criticisms are:
Camera
The range of couple late game enemies mean they can attack you from off screen and we are way too zoomed in in general. The (I’m guessing) easiest thing would be to just make the resolution higher. I don’t mean scale the game up, just literally make the viewport larger. At 1:1 scale the game uses like 50% of my 1080p monitor.
Also, whatever scaling method you use when the window is maximized is so horrendous it actually hurts my eyes. Probably could be fixed by just tweaking a setting in the game engine.
Combat
The combat just isn’t done. I don’t play a huge amount of platformers but I’ve played Hollow Knight so I know what a good melee-focused platformer feels like.
The most frustrating thing to me personally is how low the acceleration of gravity is. Jump timing is really important against a lot of enemies and it’s frustrating to have a literal metric ton of enemies in my gut and be floating around like a hot air balloon. (Not that your fullness should affect your acceleration, that would probably also feel terrible)
Contact damage that stuns you in a game with this many enemies (and very large, very mobile enemies- i’m looking at you fucking Alaska bull worms) feels awful. Most of your moves are very close range so the most effective strategy for enemies that you don’t outlevel is to just spam the airborne special which both has the longest range and keeps you in the air where you are less likely to be hit.
I’m fine with contact damage but it absolutely should not stun imo, i think combat would feel way better if it was more about juggling enemies than poking them with your feet.
I shouldn’t be afraid to get close, I wanna punch shit.
You could still have a stun on special attacks to make maneuvering and parries important, but every single trash mob stopping me in my tracks feels awful.
It’s REALLY IMPORTANT to make combat and movement work first, because you don’t wanna spend the time making a bajillion sprites before you know if the moveset you are animating actually works.
Quantity > Quality
There are way too many levels on each planet for the unique ideas each planet has. Like honestly I’d prefer there was 1/5 the levels but they focused on replayablity (random events, poi’s, etc). Most levels of the same “tier” feel largely identical anyways.
MORE EVENTS
The little text-adventure-stye encounters are great. They break up the combat, flesh out the world/level, and provide ample opportunity for kink shenanigans. I think the levels should be built around them, acting as primary & optional mission objectives driving the path the player takes through the level.
Personally the way I’d develop the levels is
- Devise a setting (planet)
- Determine the stories you want to tell in that setting
- Build level geometry and encounters around those stories
MORE PROGRESSION
Just grinding for loot is already a pretty fun core loop, but I feel like the game could use at least one more avenue of progression. I’ll expand a bit on this is the following sections.
Mission Rewards
It feels pretty anticlimactic to reach the end teleporter and just be done. There should be some kind of reward for actually finishing a mission.
An obvious choice would be making finishing missions grant a large XP bonus or perhaps special loot that can only be dropped at mission end.
Inventory
The most rewarding part of the gameplay imo is grinding for loot, so the game desperately needs a real inventory UI. The inventory and stat screen should be one and the same IMO and you shouldn’t have to drop stuff to equip/compare it.
Late Game
A loot grind game can keep you going for a long time as long as you have something to be grinding for, but this game doesn’t really have anything to strive for after you reach the final area.
A very easy way to give the lategame some extra spice is to have a rare loot drop that lets you permanently increase one of your stats. It should be very easy to implement and nothing quite hits like a permanent stat boost.
Non-Conclusion
This is probably only 25% of what I have to say about this game but I’m loosing focus so I’ll leave it here for now. Excited to see what you do with this. :)