Demo feedback

[Fideo]

Normally I give my opinion when I have completed the demo, but I doubt that this one will complete it since when I get to a panel that shows me an unauthorized message, the boss appears and kills me, the maximum damage I have done is 75%... but, I'll keep trying :)

I really like the game, both in design and gameplay, it is very fun, but there are decisions that I think could be better:

• The first thing is the high amount of health that enemies take away when they hit you... the damage caused seems extremely high to me and recovering health is almost unfeasible even with Neural Connections Assimilate.
  It's also not pleasant to think that the weakest minion in the game is tougher than our character, but that's how it seems to be.
  When I get to the final boss, the final boss doesn't kill me, his minions kill me.
  
  
• The second thing is the 'Neural Connections' and general improvements that you find on the consoles during the game. It is quite typical that improving something means making other things worse, I have come to play games where leveling up meant selecting an 'improvement' and any improvement made my character weaker... can they really be called improvements? The opposite was also the case, a set of improvements that made the character almost immortal, very useful when you found them.
  I'm not saying that this happens in this game, but I prefer that the improvement be more subtle and not make anything worse, that improving the character really improves it, whatever you select, and that you don't have to keep calculating how much you go up from here and how much you take away thence.
  Needless to say 'Make it Count', isn't the sniper the second character?, if I play with a character with an assault rifle I expect an assault rifle regardless of the upgrade I apply.
  
  
• The third thing is the Bonuses, sometimes I have allowed myself to be killed so that they can replenish my health, because if I win I am worse off than if I lose.
  Shouldn't I leave the bonus with at least the same health I entered with? I guess overcoming the bonus should always be positive.

Finally, I take this to report a bug. When you enter the room where you have to hack 4 terminals, there are times where after killing all the enemies and having all the terminals hacked the event doesn't end and doesn't open the door to continue. I think it's related to using explosions to kill enemies, but I don't know.
After walking around the entire stage I stayed waiting in the center to see if there were any stragglers but no.
It is very rare for the bug to occur but sometimes it does.

Note: I imagine the full version will add more enemies.
It would be cool if there were flying enemies like drones or something.

Great game, I hope to see news soon :)

[Fideo]

I finally managed to kill the final boss.

Sometimes the level up menu does not close. It usually happens when there are enemies. It is solved by pressing escape to go to the main menu and continuing the game.

[Sigfrido91]

Thank you for playing the game and for the detailed feedback and bug reports, I'll make sure to fix them!

On the topic of difficulty, the game is intentionally quite hard and challenging since it's a rogue-lite: starting off weak, dying and unlocking more upgrades while getting better is the core of the game. As you progress through a run you'll unlock many powerups and get to live the power fantasy of becoming super strong!
That said you can enable an easy mode in the options, it makes the game slightly more forgiving, there's no shame in using it if it makes the game more fun for you :)
You can also turn if off later if you want to increase the challenge after you are more familiar with the game.

[DevilBlackDoom]

Originally posted by Fideo:

Normally I give my opinion when I have completed the demo, but I doubt that this one will complete it since when I get to a panel that shows me an unauthorized message, the boss appears and kills me, the maximum damage I have done is 75%... but, I'll keep trying :)

I really like the game, both in design and gameplay, it is very fun, but there are decisions that I think could be better:

• The first thing is the high amount of health that enemies take away when they hit you... the damage caused seems extremely high to me and recovering health is almost unfeasible even with Neural Connections Assimilate.
  It's also not pleasant to think that the weakest minion in the game is tougher than our character, but that's how it seems to be.
  When I get to the final boss, the final boss doesn't kill me, his minions kill me.
  
  
• The second thing is the 'Neural Connections' and general improvements that you find on the consoles during the game. It is quite typical that improving something means making other things worse, I have come to play games where leveling up meant selecting an 'improvement' and any improvement made my character weaker... can they really be called improvements? The opposite was also the case, a set of improvements that made the character almost immortal, very useful when you found them.
  I'm not saying that this happens in this game, but I prefer that the improvement be more subtle and not make anything worse, that improving the character really improves it, whatever you select, and that you don't have to keep calculating how much you go up from here and how much you take away thence.
  Needless to say 'Make it Count', isn't the sniper the second character?, if I play with a character with an assault rifle I expect an assault rifle regardless of the upgrade I apply.
  
  
• The third thing is the Bonuses, sometimes I have allowed myself to be killed so that they can replenish my health, because if I win I am worse off than if I lose.
  Shouldn't I leave the bonus with at least the same health I entered with? I guess overcoming the bonus should always be positive.

Finally, I take this to report a bug. When you enter the room where you have to hack 4 terminals, there are times where after killing all the enemies and having all the terminals hacked the event doesn't end and doesn't open the door to continue. I think it's related to using explosions to kill enemies, but I don't know.
After walking around the entire stage I stayed waiting in the center to see if there were any stragglers but no.
It is very rare for the bug to occur but sometimes it does.

Note: I imagine the full version will add more enemies.
It would be cool if there were flying enemies like drones or something.

Great game, I hope to see news soon :)

To adress your points as a player :

• I didn't find enemies that damaging. The lowest I got to was around 350-400HP (and that's when I took the upgrade that removes 200 max HP) and I got back to max after around 1.5 rooms thanks to the upgrade that gives as many HPs as the current kill combo on kill (in a big room, managing to rack up a 10 or 15 combos means easily gaining back a bit more than 100 HP, combined with the chests that sometimes have HP). But in all fairness this may be an issue. It's a demo, me not running into the issue doesn't mean it's not one. But I feel like being a glass canon kinda makes sense anyway considering the gameplay.
  
• Most enhancements I found were flat enhancements. Only the the "+20% firerate -200 max HP" was a tradeoff. Everything else was just more damage, all damage are crits in slomo, more firerate and so on. Either I got lucky with my RNG or you got unlucky with yours ? It's up to the dev to figure out the balance they have obviously and without more test I can't say, but at least for my playthrough, only one of the offered upgrades (in any "pick between 2" terminals) had a tradeoff.
  As for a weapon "morphing" due to stat changes, I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree. It's a feature of almost every good roguelite with big stat changes that a weapon, when pushed far enough in a direction, can basically become another one. Taking an upgrade that would (I assume that's what the one you're talking about is) trade firerate for power can definitely turn an assault rifle into a "semi-fast" sniper, and that's perfectly fair. It's the name of the game in roguelites. You just now figured out you disliked that upgrade for this character, which is knowledge to carry on in future runs.
  
• Not sure what Bonus are. Do you mean the "cyberspace rooms" where you have to complete a special objective ? That's an interesting one. I assumed dying there might have meant the end of the run but based one what you are saying it's not the case. In that case, if failing those bonus doesn't mean actual death, then yes, winning should probably get you back to your health status and get you some minor healing at least.
  
  For the bug report itself I have another idea. 2 or 3 times in the tutorial enemies got stuck out of bounds. Near the walls but on the outside of the wall. While this didn't happen during a run, I assume that it can, in which case the enemy is practically impossible to kill without a grenade (you basically have to get close to the wall and shoot while they're swinging, but you lose a ton of HP in the process). I must say that this particular bug really needs fixing. Considering the pretty "static" nature of the rooms I'd recommend having detection shapes to detect when an enemy is out of bound and spawn them back in the room (ideally out of view of the player).

[Fideo]

Originally posted by DevilBlackDoom:

To adress your points as a player :

• I didn't find enemies that damaging. The lowest I got to was around 350-400HP (and that's when I took the upgrade that removes 200 max HP) and I got back to max after around 1.5 rooms thanks to the upgrade that gives as many HPs as the current kill combo on kill (in a big room, managing to rack up a 10 or 15 combos means easily gaining back a bit more than 100 HP, combined with the chests that sometimes have HP). But in all fairness this may be an issue. It's a demo, me not running into the issue doesn't mean it's not one. But I feel like being a glass canon kinda makes sense anyway considering the gameplay.
  
• Most enhancements I found were flat enhancements. Only the the "+20% firerate -200 max HP" was a tradeoff. Everything else was just more damage, all damage are crits in slomo, more firerate and so on. Either I got lucky with my RNG or you got unlucky with yours ? It's up to the dev to figure out the balance they have obviously and without more test I can't say, but at least for my playthrough, only one of the offered upgrades (in any "pick between 2" terminals) had a tradeoff.
  As for a weapon "morphing" due to stat changes, I'm sorry but I'll have to disagree. It's a feature of almost every good roguelite with big stat changes that a weapon, when pushed far enough in a direction, can basically become another one. Taking an upgrade that would (I assume that's what the one you're talking about is) trade firerate for power can definitely turn an assault rifle into a "semi-fast" sniper, and that's perfectly fair. It's the name of the game in roguelites. You just now figured out you disliked that upgrade for this character, which is knowledge to carry on in future runs.
  
• Not sure what Bonus are. Do you mean the "cyberspace rooms" where you have to complete a special objective ? That's an interesting one. I assumed dying there might have meant the end of the run but based one what you are saying it's not the case. In that case, if failing those bonus doesn't mean actual death, then yes, winning should probably get you back to your health status and get you some minor healing at least.
  
  For the bug report itself I have another idea. 2 or 3 times in the tutorial enemies got stuck out of bounds. Near the walls but on the outside of the wall. While this didn't happen during a run, I assume that it can, in which case the enemy is practically impossible to kill without a grenade (you basically have to get close to the wall and shoot while they're swinging, but you lose a ton of HP in the process). I must say that this particular bug really needs fixing. Considering the pretty "static" nature of the rooms I'd recommend having detection shapes to detect when an enemy is out of bound and spawn them back in the room (ideally out of view of the player).

I'm certainly not a rogelike gamer, although I don't rule out games based on their type, for example Dead Estate is a rogelike that I've finished countless times and I really find it very fun, although in Dead Estate there aren't permanent upgrades like in Simulakros.

I agree with what you say and I really don't have enough knowledge to refute you. I think that the best way to enjoy the game is the way the developer has designed it, so I'm fine with everything in the demo and what you mention. Certainly if an upgrade doesn't interest me, once I try it I probably won't select it again and this in the long run offers variety in gameplay, although I don't use it at first maybe later on.

Regarding the bug you mention in the tutorial, it's similar to the situation I've seen in the room where you have to hack 4 terminals and where enemies are continually summoned from them.

From what I can read, your skill is quite superior to mine, as it took me quite a few tries to finish the demo, mainly because of the final boss.
Anyway, I found the game really fun and enjoyed every run :)


They said the game will be released in October, I hope they publish the exact day soon.

[Fideo]

Having said all that, I gave fists award to Sigfrido91 because really responded to my comments in a totally clear and concise way.
Understood and totally agree with its answer.

[DevilBlackDoom]

Originally posted by Fideo:

Having said all that, I gave fists award to Sigfrido91 because really responded to my comments in a totally clear and concise way.
Understood and totally agree with its answer.

Yeah Roguelites are often a different experience. Stuff like Dead Estate where you have no "metaprogression" (permanent upgrades as you called them) usually are much harder at first.

I'm also not sure if that was the case, but if my comment came off as "elitist" that was not the goal. If you indeed don't have a lot of experiences with roguelites, let's just say it's indeed very very frequent to see a weapon just flat out turn into something else due to stat upgrades (hell, I think even Borderlands 1 had some assault rifle basically be mini semi auto snipers because of how slow their RPMs was). But I can see why it would lead to confusion when it's not a genre you necessarily play often. For example, while there's no weapon, in Binding of Isaac it's not unfamiliar to have your tears turn completely on their head with a single or couple upgrades. What I do like here is that at least upgrades are not hidden. That's the part I kinda hate in some roguelites, when upgrades are consistently hidden and you have to commit to them to know what they do, ugh !

Eheh, well I don't know if it's vastly superior or if I got a lucky run (entirely possible), but I've played shooters in all forms for over 15 years now, so this could tip the balance :P (probably play too much of them).

Yeah the devs seem pretty involved with the discussions so far, always a good thing IMO :)