Some complaints

[Tim]

1. Many of the attacks blend into the floor. Since the floors are mostly red and pink, attacks and their indicators should probably be... not red and pink. I have no idea why there are so many red and pink attacks in a game full of red and pink carpet.

2. Many attack animations involve smooth, bouncy movements. This makes it difficult to understand what the actual range of an attack is or when to dodge. I find myself getting hit by the house's chicken projectile just as they spawn at my feet instead of when they fully spring out, and that's not how you usually design an attack animation like that; the anticipation shouldn't have active damage attached.

3. All the visual effects on enemies makes it hard to know when they're winding up an attack animation. I shouldn't have to avoid cards like Five of a Kind just because they clutter the screen with pink cards (which appear over enemies, many pink, causing a dazzling pink effect, while the ground is red). And since enemies flash when they take hits, it makes it harder to read their animations.

4. Since the game's standard dodges aren't full of i-frames, I wish the hitboxes were tighter. I notice myself getting hit by the edge of projectiles. I'm not really sure where my character's hitbox is cuz of the perspective.

5. Basic enemies in melee range like the bunnies hardly have any wind-up animation. Action games with fewer characters on screen, higher contrast visuals, and more exaggerated animations (like something from Platinum Games) add attack indicators and loud, sharp sounds that let you know whenever an enemy is attacking for maximum clarity. This game has way more clutter and lacks that added clarity. Melee-range attacks don't seem to hitstun, either. Knockback effects don't even push the trident bunnies further than their attack range. So dealing with them REALLY slows the game down.

6. I'm playing the game with a controller. I wish the layout for cards as in a cross formation to match the layout of the Xbox controller (at least as a toggle).

[Protogen_Rhythm]

1) I didn't have any big issues with this myself, but there were a couple situations where I legitimately couldn't tell if there was a projectile or not. I'd recommend the devs to add a colorblind mode, as I cannot imagine colorblind people trying to deal with these projectiles as-is if they wish to keep them for artistic choice.

2) I never had any issue with this, the only attack pattern I had a big immediate problem with was the orbiting orbs, as they seem like the weirdest of the group, but this is partially from my lack of experience with orbiting projectiles in action rogues.
I will admit the house chicken projectile thing needs more of a delay to be an active hitbox, though, if it is how you said it is, as I didn't notice it. Just quickly learned to stay a distance from them as those aren't homing it appears.

3) Covered in section 1, this is something that'd likely be helped with a colorblind mode. This should of been blended into topic 1, if you ask me. But yeah, needs a solution, a rogue where you can't see what the enemy's doing due to your own visual effects just doesn't seem right, imagine being sent back to the start over this.

4) There's a teleport card within the pool, which covers up that difference. The dash card seems to be intended to be converted to an upgrade to other mobility cards ASAP, being the least useful if you cannot find an upgrade from itself or a stun card from my experience thus far. We tend to get spoiled by iframe-heavy dodges, and the mobility cards tend to be spammable in this game from what I've seen. I can guarantee when the game's out, some people may even go mobilityless in their builds outside of Haste upgrades, it felt like a legitimate option in some scenarios, although having the teleport card seems more likely of an option, either with a utility upgrade like stunning, or haste as their cooldowns line up nicely.

5) Yep, wind-up for melee attacks needs to be increased, the melee enemies I've encountered have been the most awkward to fight without any knockback cards provided.

6) QOL change that should exist in almost any controller-recommended game IMO, makes it easier to get into muscle memory what button does what card as, get this, most people don't play a game staring at their controller. I also couldn't even get my controller to be recognized in the demo, but that was likely my end, I just assumed that wasn't implemented in the demo.

Overall I do plan to get the game (depending on pricing) especially if key points like a colorblind option or alteration to the color contrast is made, as for me that's the biggest glaring problem with the game from my short time in demo, I don't want to deep dive the demo because they said elsewhere it'll be a fresh save in the main game.

EDIT: I finished the demo in full aside from some unlocks, apparently beyond that one boss isn't playable in demo, did a late night run and lucked out with a poison / burn / bubble build. I can confirm that immediately moving your starter dash to a Haste buff works wonders for the earlygame, as dodging by hand or teleports is 100x easier IMO, even as a former Gungeon player! I think in terms of run metas for most people, this will likely be a strat that gets widely used if no changes are made to the basic dash card. I seriously can't see why use it over the haste unless maybe it's for a speedrun? Even then I'm not sure if dash-spam outpaces just using the haste off-cooldown, I slapped it on one of my two main used spells, which ended up being the poison cloud followed by bubble burst on left click, and binding chains on right click.

The windup problem isn't as huge of a deal as I initially expected from this post, but we still need clarity for it and I think windup frames should have a few more frames than they currently do, as they just feel ever so slightly too fast to react to aside from the current boss fight. That boss felt almost spot on give or take 1-2 frames, in terms of the wind-ups. Most of my issues just has to do with clarity of incoming attacks due to how many particles both you and the enemy can cause.

[Hiretsu]

Hey! Thanks for the feedbacks!

1. We didn't have any complaints so far around this issue, and to be sincere, its unlikely that it will change. The point that @Protogen_Rhythm said about colorblind mode really makes sense and we'll look into that, but unfortunately for the launch at least it won't be possible.

2. As a rule we generally make the collider for the enemies' attacks smaller than their art and specially only be activated once it is already visible. On this case of the cuckoo specifically, I just saw here on our engine and the collider is indeed active 2 frames before the art. That shouldn't be that much of a difference, but I will change it nevertheless to improve it.

3. Whenever an enemy is about to attack, they don't have any more flashing feedbacks from being hit by the player. As soon as they start preparing for an attack, they only show their own feedbacks (growing in size a little bit and flashing in white). This additions seems to have helped a lot players from what we saw, but we can still try to improve it a bit more.

4. Indeed hitboxes can sometimes feel a bit weird beacuse of the perspective... We struggle a lot with this, but after some time playing it players end up understanding better how it works.

Just to make it perfectly clear, indeed we don't have i-frames on dashes since we think that this fits better with our card combination system, making them a possibility for offensive and defensive uses without making them overpowered.

It's very interesting this approach of using no dashes at all, using only haste to move around! Nobody did that as far as we saw it with our community, but completely valid if that works for you. Hopefully we'll see more different metas like this.

5. I think part of dealing with our melee enemies comes with experience and getting used to the game, although they are indeed meant to be quick and a bit hard to deal with. It is almost impossible that we have the same quality of feedbacks and animation as a near huge, almost 15 years old AAA company such as Platinum, but we will keep improving them as we can!

6. Hmmmm that's an interesting idea! For launch it will probably stay as is, but we'll surely study the possibilities for having this kind of option in the future.

[Tim]

I understand the resistance for my 1st point, but if you have the means to, please consider upping the contrast within projectiles and AoE indicators if you won't change their color. A dark outline around a bright middle (or vice-versa) really helps with visual clarity. It's a standard in shmups because they contrast well against any background.

And for the 2nd, this is more of a matter of taste, but the part of the animation that looks like it would hurt is when the chicken springs upward. It feels bad to get damaged by an unsprung chicken. It's like if walking into the bunny as it pulls back the fork hurt you; you're being damage by the anticipation of an attack animation.

Onto the 4th: If dodges interrupted enemy melee attacks, I'd use them more offensively. But I rarely feel rewarded for dodging into enemy groups, even when I add knockback effects to a dash, since melee-range enemies lunge or use spearlike weapons. Even when they're on their last legs, I can't guarantee a dash will kill since I can't see their exact HP. As it is, I usually use dashes to preemptively distance myself from enemies, even the blink, since the time it takes for a dash to complete AND go off cooldown is longer than/about as long as many enemy attacks.

Originally posted by Hiretsu:

It is almost impossible that we have the same quality of feedbacks and animation as a near huge, almost 15 years old AAA company such as Platinum, but we will keep improving them as we can!

Attacks in Platinum games often play a loud sound and show a + shaped glow around the source of attacks on small enemies to add extra feedback. I use Platinum as an example because they have expressive animations to begin with & deliver uncompromisingly hardcore gameplay. Even then, they add those extra effects for fairness, recognizing how hectic they get.

It can feel gamey, but titles like Hand of Fate or Curse of the Dead Gods have a 2D, flashing, animated visual whenever an enemy starts an attack. Lets the action get frantic while accommodating their moody, relatively low-contrast visuals, and if it's on the same layer as the HUD, its clarity is never compromised.

And as an entitled hardc0re gam3r playing your free demo, thank you for reading and responding to my feedback graciously. Sincerely!

[Protogen_Rhythm]

Originally posted by Hiretsu:

Hey! Thanks for the feedbacks!

1. We didn't have any complaints so far around this issue, and to be sincere, its unlikely that it will change. The point that @Protogen_Rhythm said about colorblind mode really makes sense and we'll look into that, but unfortunately for the launch at least it won't be possible.

2. As a rule we generally make the collider for the enemies' attacks smaller than their art and specially only be activated once it is already visible. On this case of the cuckoo specifically, I just saw here on our engine and the collider is indeed active 2 frames before the art. That shouldn't be that much of a difference, but I will change it nevertheless to improve it.

3. Whenever an enemy is about to attack, they don't have any more flashing feedbacks from being hit by the player. As soon as they start preparing for an attack, they only show their own feedbacks (growing in size a little bit and flashing in white). This additions seems to have helped a lot players from what we saw, but we can still try to improve it a bit more.

4. Indeed hitboxes can sometimes feel a bit weird beacuse of the perspective... We struggle a lot with this, but after some time playing it players end up understanding better how it works.

Just to make it perfectly clear, indeed we don't have i-frames on dashes since we think that this fits better with our card combination system, making them a possibility for offensive and defensive uses without making them overpowered.

It's very interesting this approach of using no dashes at all, using only haste to move around! Nobody did that as far as we saw it with our community, but completely valid if that works for you. Hopefully we'll see more different metas like this.

5. I think part of dealing with our melee enemies comes with experience and getting used to the game, although they are indeed meant to be quick and a bit hard to deal with. It is almost impossible that we have the same quality of feedbacks and animation as a near huge, almost 15 years old AAA company such as Platinum, but we will keep improving them as we can!

6. Hmmmm that's an interesting idea! For launch it will probably stay as is, but we'll surely study the possibilities for having this kind of option in the future.

Good to hear answers from a dev, it's always nice to see devs that respond to feedback, especially related to feedback regarding accessibility to a game or clarifying on game mechanics that may be hard to understand initially.

Anyways, I'm definitely planning to pick up the game on release if there's enough variety in the content, which it definitely seems like there will be based on the demo. I'm happy to hear that you'll likely be considering colorblind mode in the future, as that's something that in a lot of cases can limit a game's potential market due to accessibility for some users. It's good to know some specifics of the windup animation's mechanics as well. I'm also happy to know that the dash not having iframes is part of your intention, honestly it's quite a nice change of pace to have mobility not equal being able to dodge through an attack directly if you aren't teleporting or anything.

Hopefully the release goes well, as rogues are something that I'm always happy to see more good games within the genres of. They tend to keep me hooked for the longest thanks to high replay value the genre tends to result in.

[Hiretsu]

Hey Tim!

1. Yes, sure! We will keep that in mind and if we can find time to do this kind of changes we'll do it. Also the suggestions per se sound like good ideas indeed (but I'm not an artist so I can't say for sure what is exactly doable considering how it is done right now)

2. I understand your point and I would generally agree with it. But from what I saw on the animation, frame-by-frame, it is almost instantaneous the speed from which the chicken sprints upward. But we'll look into it if something could be improve so it doesn't give this feeling for some players.

4. That's what I meant when I mentioned the dashes not having i-frames, but being fully integrated with the game's card combination mechanic. That would allow you to add CC to your dash abilities, interrupting enemies' attacks or add offensive upgrades to them, guaranteeing that you would have the damage necessary to feel to confidence to dive right into them. Maybe you didn't unlock enough card already to feel that you have the tools needed to do so, but I believe that the examples that I gave could help this problem

We tried with our current animation and glowing feedbacks to give this feeling to players, making it clear that enemies are about to attack, but maybe they could have a little more work into them. But the sound thing from what we tried early on, really didn't fit very well with the game, just getting to noisy and in the end being more of a problem than a help to the player (specially in later levels, when things can get pretty crowded)

Of course! I'm happy to answer and get more feedbacks on the game! Hopefully with it, we can keep improving the game as best as we can.

[Hiretsu]

Hey Protogen_Rhythm!

Thanks for appreciating our response! It is really important for us to keep hearing from the community, and we already improved a lot on the game because of it!

Glad to hear it! The launch version of the game indeed has a lot more content for players to explore, so hopefully it meets the expectations.
Adding things like this can be a little tougher than it seems, specially with the very limited manpower we have, but I completely agree that is something that should be added and thought about.

Thank you very much, we're happy to have you playing our game!

Also, feel free to join our discord as well. Players tend to share some thoughts around different build and metas from time to time there, since it sound like that's something you're interested in!

[Violet Chimaera]

I'm having a really hard time seeing the red floor indicators for Scissorella's attacks because the room is so red. Please reconsider adding more contrast.

[Hiretsu]

Originally posted by Violet Chimaera:

I'm having a really hard time seeing the red floor indicators for Scissorella's attacks because the room is so red. Please reconsider adding more contrast.

Alright, thanks for the feedback! We'll consider making some changes!

[Bozeman]

As a red/green colorblind person, I will be refunding this game until a colorblind mode is added; it's almost impossible for me to play. :\