demo feedback

[Valtaya]

The first thing was, I was a gameplay vid on youtube of this demo and thought "nice, lets test it out", and so I did. After some minutes I put it on wishlist. I like the concept, the artstyle, the general design, there are to be different clases that seems not to be gender-locked, there are levels... there are skill trees... which I like. I am actualy not a big fan of such games and "suck" at them, but enjoy them from time to time... so where I am not skillfull enough to go further, I just grind a bit, get stronger, and than do it.... and levels and skilltrees make this possible. I also love the thing, that your progress is not lost when you die, just the essences for leveling and that you can pick them up where you died. So overall, I like it.

But than... as I encounter the various mini-boses, that behave and work differently than in the video I watched, that was uploaded just 2 weeks ago... and than met the end-boss (that gravedigger hulk zombie whatever)... I am not so sure anymore.

As said, when started playing, it was on wishlist pretty soon. But with every mini-boss, that shifted to "wait till the game is on big sale"... and after the end boss I even think "maybe put the game on ignore".

What is the problem: lets talk about the end boss... when he hits the ground with his shovel, an earth shockwave moves in both directions. In the video it moved just a bit... now it goes till the screen edges, so the players only way to avoid it is to jump. Unfortunately it does not affect other mobs, so when you land and there is a mob nearby, it will hit you, till you can react. Or the big boss comes close enough... and when you are still in the air, it swings its shovel and kills you one hit, or it stomps and kills you one hit (which, in a nutshell, kills the whole idea of skill trees... if there is only one valid skill path, than the whole skill tree is pointless). The next problem is... in the vid any mini boss and the end boss are somewhat "slower" and the player can react.... in the demo itself not so much... the boss raises the leg to stomp and immediately hits the ground, there is no way to react... only thing is to have luck and roll in the right milisecond to the other side... but the problem here is, the hitboxes were either changed or are terrible (hit boxes for regular mobs are also terrible, so I would say its the latter)... the player char is "miles" away from the shovel or the foot, but still gets hit. Or it hit to left, while I was behind him to the right, and still got damaged (and yes died because one hit kill). In short, any fight is a game of chances, not skill, and it gets worse the "stronger" the enemy.

Could also just say, I loved the game, enjoyed the fights, that turned to somewhat "indifferent" with minibosses to actualy hating it with the end boss.

What this game needs are way better hit boxes... players should not be a full character width away from the enemy to not get hit, it should be enough to just be outside the "tip" of the enemy "weapon". It also needs an adjustement to damage... when the enemy just grazes me with the tip of the weapon (or claws) it should not do full damage. Shields have to be consistent for both side, when the mobs can block my damage when they raise their shield, so should the player be protected from damage by raising their shield... with the "round" shield the player can at least parry and stagger the enemy... but the pavise shield does not protect, it is pointless to use, even though much bigger and should do better ptoection. And the player char needs a run movement to traverse the distances faster.

[Primal_VGabor]

Thank you for the feedback, glad you liked some aspects of the game. We hope that the final product will be even more to your liking.