Omega Strike feedback

[Woblyware]

If you're in the Omega Strike beta and want to help me balance the game properly, you can give me feedback about the game in this thread. Any comments are welcome!

[scuba83]

So far I'm still pretty early in, but I'm enjoying it. Difficulty seems fair as I haven't died yet in spite of testing behavior of elements meaning purposefully taking damage.

I love the fact that the bosses modify their attack pattern even though they consistently use a set amount of behavior.

Prices seem a tad steep if you don't go to the trouble of locating the skulls or killing enemies in your path. If you are grabbing every coin, then I've been able to afford 2 upgrades since rescuing my first teammate.

I have yet to see anything gamebreaking, but there are some quirks that might cause problems for players. Such as jumping from climbing surface to surface you cannot hold up and instead need to press up to trigger grabbing the rope or chain.

The combat roll I've found can leave you stuck if you don't position yourself properly. I understand why it doesn't throw you automatically out of a space as it can be handy for attack, but if you get stuck from rolling wrong rolling again can sometimes cause you to roll too far.

The pit danger signs don't always appear on both sides of a lethal fall. It does in some areas but not others so I don't know if that was by design or not.

I'll be playing more over the weekend and will update further with my thoughts.

Thanks again for the opportunity to test.

[zelgaris]

Oh my, the intro music is Metal Slug nostalgia hit :)

Testing on XBOX360 controller and keyboard

1) Left gamepad stick doesn't work in main menu

2) In options I would suggest using ESC as back, I consider it kinda standard (especially since you're going with arrows + ENTER to confirm) - and also because everywhere else ESC really works as back

3) Just noticed in options/controls you're really ignoring the stick... well please dont.

4) Options/controls - I tried messing it up and yeah, I can set everything to one key and it then works with the main menu. That's sort of good until you fiddle with arrows - I would suggest keeping the arrows to work properly in main menu no matter the custom controls (because now I can set UP to down arrow and then down arrow wont work as DOWN in the main menu)

5) Options/controls if doable, allow us to redefine controller controls as well, thx (especially if you're ignoring RB, LB, RT, LT, which are nice to use) But really, no left stick support?

6) Game doesn't mute or pause on lost focus, please change this and above that even when focus is lost (e.g. right now, writing this covering half of the game window, I can use gamepad to play the game). Lost focus should imho kill all input to the game and pause it (and mute the game as well - even if the music is as good :)).

7) Standard nice intro, would suggest making the text appear a bit faster and then leaving it there a bit longer, if you have it timed to the intro music and can't just make it overall faster

8) After the talk right after the intro we get the default controls screen which is easily missable, because it closes on hitting any key (in my case ALT-TABBbing to a notepad, not even using any proper game input), if we are the "mash A to skip the talking" above that showing default controls is basically useless for everybody who changed them as I did.
Since you're not using any fancy buttons look can you just show proper controls instead of defaults?
And I would suggest using ESC/START to close that "default controls" screen so we don't close it automatically.

9) Pause menu inconsistency
I think I get why in Options accessed from ingame pause menu we can use only arrows and not our custom controls (WSAD my case), thought that doesn't change how wrong it feels, when I can use my custom controls everywhere, but the options menu.

10) Selecting anything in ingame menus (inconsistent)
I think that the chosen slightly orangyyellow color for highlighted entries isn't a good pick - I would add more contrast color and or additional effect such as border or background (as you do in OPTIONS, where the text also flashes slowly).
In pause menu his is not a problem, since you see big CONTINUE, ABILITIES, etc. right there, but in Quit Game prompt it's not that clear if you have yes or no selected.
Anyway in OPTION the text is flashing and has a background color, while anywhere else, especially in Abilities, it's just orange and no background highlight.

11) PAUSE/ABILITIES
Inconsistent top padding between those 3 boxes (I would go with the same padding as the right box if possible)

12) PAUSE/ABILITIES
When talking about team members (Dex, Bear) I would strongly suggest using DEX/BEAR + different color then the standard white text.

13) Titles of sections in PAUSE menu
INVENTORY and MAP have both nice big titles
OPTIONS have unique boring
ABILITIES have nothing
I would suggest some unifying here

14) Weird position of SELECT/BACK tooltip in ABILITIES, INVENTORY, MAP, OPTIONS
GAME PAUSED - Select tooltip sticks to bottom left border
ABILITIES - Back tooltip is at bottom border, but it's horizontally off
INVENTORY - Back tooltip sticks to bottom left border (same as GAME PAUSED)
MAP - same position as abilities and looks bad, because on right side (save point, are exit) the padding from right is way smaller
OPTIONS - unique position in bottom left border of the screen (with same left and bottom padding)
I would suggest unifying here as well - I would go with sticking the tooltip to the bottom left border of windows with borders (GAME PAUSED, ABILITIES, INVENTORY) and going for bottom left border of the screen (with even padding) in MAP and OPTIONS (or preferably you can put both MAP and OPTIONS to those cells and keep unified look ;)

15) Quit game prompt
Ok, selecting MAIN MENU in pause menu shows a Quit Game? prompt. Shouldn't there be something like "Return to Main Menu?" instead or alternatively having the pause menu entry named QUIT instead of MAIN MENU?
Also if you have "Quit game" for returning to main menu, it is weird to have QUIT there once again (I would suggest having EXIT there, or vice versa)


Visuals are really nice, music as well

16) In intro the text appearing makes sound in game it doesn't. Have you tried that and found it too annoying?
Above that hitting button to continue with next text window also doesn't make any sound (at least this one should do something).

17) I would add some subtle steps sound.

19) Ok activating the small terminal makes sound but talking to people doesnt...

20) MOVEMENT
While moving left and right feels good and responsive, jumping feels a bit too floaty for my taste - it feels like playing in low gravity.
UPDATE before posting: Nope, got into Tumbleweed, the jumping still feels like not having any weight.

21) Unnecessary info about SWAP
In very first dialog of the game we were told about the awesome teleport device for swapping team members, yet in the next room we have a computer panel telling us that same way. Ok it also tell us about each soldier having different abilities, but isn't that something we should find out?
Above that the game is using arrows + four buttons. We players aren't that stupid to figure basic things out, especially if we were already told so.

22) No chatting between heroes?
Really I was hoping that I could at least in this section talk with the other team members :)

23) No teleporter in inventory?
We have an inventory section in PAUSE menu, but yet it's empty from the beggining, though it would be nice touch to have the teleporter we use for swapping as the first default thing there.

24) Freezing my balls off, hehe :)

25) Button for opening the map?
I am not that sure at the moment how useful the map would be, but it would be nice to have a button/key to open the map instead of having to go through the pause menu, i.e. 5 inputs to open (2 to close))

Out of the base

26) Jumped straight into the pit with the spikes to see if you have instakill here. No instakill is good, but lack of any audiovisual feedback above the soundless white flashing isn't. There should be some hurt sound + I would suggest adding simple knockback.

27) So I intentionally died there and after continue I was send to the very beginning of the game. Why? Can we have a respawn/checkpoint at least at the exit or right at the beginning of the cave?
I know it's easy to do, but I would expect our heros having some unique death animations and sounds.

28) Ok no knockack and only mute-flashing even when we are hit by enemies. Not good.
This is especially noticable when hitting the enemy makes some nice sound and he dies in he is changed to pieces of bloody chunsk.

29) After not killing enemies with shotgun I noticed they also don't react to being hit, again just the white flash, nothing more. This kind of feedback is really not satisfying.

30) Climbing up
Somebody already mentioned this, but when we hold up, jump off and back while still holding up, we won't grab. Even if we hit ground before jumping back onto the chain again. I guess we should be able to grab the chain while holding UP without the need to unpress it.
Also what I find weird is that grabbing chain does some sound, while hitting enemies, getting hurt, etc. doesn't.

31) Picked my first gold
Can we have it visible all the time somewhere on the screen?

32) First mutant and I can't stress how much unsatisfying is hitting him. While it was okay for me that the caterpilars made no sound, the mutant is running left and right and just doesn't make any sound, no growling, nothing.

33) Hold down and press jump to fall through platforms
Okay, I know we live in age that we have to tell everything to players, but since this game isn't a free mobile game, I guess you don't have to tell them everything.
At this point we are aware about jump button and down button - I would just remove the terminal.
Oh and above that, those terminals in the cave system don't make any sense.
If you need to force some kind of hint into players head, why not like this:
if the player stays in this part without succesfully falling through the platform after 30 seconds (or minute), just show the required input above his head.
There is really no need for terminals

At this point I turned off music - not because I didn't like it, I really do actually, but I am wondering where sounds are missing :)

34) Please add some kind of sound when Dex do the air jump.

35) If we are crouching against the wall and shoot with Dex and the main one, we can see the bullets inside the wall.

36) Double jump terminal
Same with the DOWN+JUMP + this time there is even info in the ABILITY screen about this. Let the players do some research + it's few minutes in, some of us already know about the double jump.

37) Can we have an Inventory button at least on PC? Not that we don't have 7 more buttons and another stick available on standard gamepads these days.

38) When navigating through inventory and pause menu on keyboard, why we don't have the B functionality on special, like gamepad has? Instead we have to press ESC to move back all the time (while ESC should work always)

39) Bear can push stuff terminal - another useless one. This is no rocket science + it's again written right in the abilities

40) Have you considered adding AIM down ability when in the air? That would be sweet, especially with Dex

41) Found the first chest and while the animation of the opening and the skull is nice, it takes too long. Like the fact it makes us stop... I know Zelda does this, but.
I would rather see 30 coins just pouring from the chest for us to pick them.
Or staying more "real" just having the skull fall to ground for us to pick.

42) Entering door could also use some nice steps sound

43) When we are at last life cube it would be nice to have some audiovisual feedback on that. Maybe the character flashing red? (but that could be too much maybe)
Or the cube in the corner flashing red fast so it's more noticable?
But please no beep beep beep beep Link style

44) When Bear push things, that should make some sound, thx

45) Since we can shoot the flying chunks from enemies, how about adding there a chance that those chunks also drop coins?

46) Boss fight
Allow us to skip the boss fight intro, when we already seen it, thx
Is it also intentional that when you jump over the boss, he just shoot at nothing until his "cycle" ends? This is especially funny, when he starts shooting while standing, you jump over him and he then continues shooting while crouching and that's a long cycle :)
Yes, I am aware some older games did this, but how about breaking the mould here and just have some boss vs player interactions, when we try to cheese him.
Also the boss is a bit bullet spongy.
And what's wrong with the hit boxes here? I though I jumped over him but the game don't think so.
I know it's a first boss, but no change in fight style when the lives are low?

47) First boss dropped health restore, which is kinda nice, but visually I was hoping for "new health slot"

48) In TUMBLEWEED at FRESH MEAT
Not having our custom controls in OPTIONS menu is not exactly acceptable, but maybe okay in the end.
Not having our custom controls when we buy at butcher is just wrong.
+ here you have again different type of highlight
please unify those
Also moving up or down again doesn't make any sound...


FIRST IMPRESSION SUMMARY

So far I kinda enjoyed the game, though it's a bit on the average side, especially the lacking audiovisual feedback and the jumping doesn't feel right :/ Still looking forward to play more tomorrow.

I especially hope to get the range upgrades as soon as possible because the default range is laughably small, especially for Dex.

As for difficulty, playing on Normal and it's normal, but since this is my preferred gaming genre I wold rather not comment on difficulty unless there are some difficulty spikes.

As for my nitpicks about lacking sounds I guess those will be added before the release but if that wasn't a plan, please rethink it and watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

You have some nice visuals there, now add those other things to make the game more alive and enjoyable.

[bd]

Hey, you accept my request to join it looks like a fun game :P

[Woblyware]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys! I've made some changes according to the feedback and build 0.9.2 is now live. Here's a list of changes:

- Various localization fixes
- Changed jump mechanics
- Added sound effects when player takes damage
- Added scream effects for dying mutants
- Added sound when pushing rock
- Added footsteps sound effect when entering doorway
- Added a sound effect for double jump
- Heads can now also drop coins when shot
- Adjusted the mechanics related to grabbing on to chains
- Fixed issue where meat would fall through platforms
- Lowered item prices
- Lowered enemy hit points
- Increased meat drop rate

[Very Evil Tomato]

So far, I'm in Tumbleweed town.

These are my comments about the game:

I've loved the gameplay and the feel, really brings me to the Metal Slug/Contra era, the following things could be improved:

- Left stick as movement, X360 controller has positioned the stick in a MUCH more comfortable way, consider that since it's one of the most widely used controllers.

- Difficulty spike inbetween the first boss and the previous enemies is way too high, maybe just lowering his health could help but previous enemies are so weak in comparison to the boss, his lower shots are also a bit too annoying to deal with, I'd crank the fire rate in that specific attack a little bit down. Another reason to lower his health is that he only has 3 patterns, so it's not that fun to shoot him for so long, his higher shot and his jump attack are cool.

- Consider using Select button as a Map shortcut, I think that'd be more comfortable for checking the map since I need to move too much to open something I use quite frequently.}

- Consider screenshake in general to improve the game feel.

I'll make more updates soon, great work here guys please keep up, I found it really polished and fun so far.

[zelgaris]

As for the lower shots or all shots and hit boxes I think those could use some reworking as often times it felt like "that didn't touch me".
Can you please add a command on/off to show hitboxes? :)

[zelgaris]

49) Sarge's roll is great, but
- As mentioned you can stuck in thight spaces - I would solve this as some other games do, by checking the height during roll and don't stop it unless you're out. We lost a bit of tactical advantage, but that can be addressed by slight changes of enemy placement
- Would be really nice if we could perform it without awkwardly stopping to laying down, now when we are holding left or right and we press and hold down while still holding the direction, hero lays down and stops. If this was changed so you have to release the direction buttons to actually lay down, this would prevent the awkward stop before the roll from happening (also connecting two rolls together would be more fluid)
- Would be super nice if we could cancel it to jump after first half of the roll is done, especially if this would add a slight horizontal boost ;)

50) FRESH MEAT and other stores
The fact we can't use our defined controls (WASD) aside, when we purchase something we need to hit confirm one mor time to confirm the "Thank you" "OK" - this is completely unnecessary step and I actually thought the first time the game stopped reacting :)
Feel free to show Thank you, but dont force us to confirm that to continue

51) Sarges weapon moves up and down when shooting, but bullets are still in the same height. I would say little movement up and down would improve the realism of the shooting.

52) Bigger muzzle flash on Sarges gun maybe?

[zelgaris]

53) On one side fast travel with helicopter is super fast, but it's also super cheap and made really boring. I know this may sound unpopular but I would just increase the black screen pause and use longer helicopter sound. It's not like we are using the helicopter ride that often.

54) And again, as is with vendors, I can use W to start talking with the pilot, I can use W and S to select yes or no in "Need a ride?" and confirm it with L.
But once the SELECT DESTINATION popup appears, I have to used default controls - arrows + enter.
Saying that, this SELECT destination popup could be easily a part of the standard dialogue, because it's really just the pilot asking. No need for differently looking UI.
And we can't use ESC to close the popup, we have to select CANCEL and hit ENTER.

55) I know this was mentioned and I am not alone, but we really need a dedicated map button.

[zelgaris]

56) Can we turn off or at least lower the effect of those vertical "god rays" in outdoor areas?

57) Would be nice if mines don't really explode on touch but makes some beep sound and desploy in a second.

[Woblyware]

Build 0.9.3 is now live! Here's the list of changes:

- Boss dialog appears only on the first try
- Added sound for dialog box when moving to next line or closing dialog box
- Added sound when moving between question choises in dialog and selecting an answer
- Added sounds for navigating the shops
- Removed 'Thank you!' display from shops
- Added a red flash effect when the player takes damage while having less than 4 health points
- Added a screenshake effect when player dies
- Default key M/controller 'Select'-button now opens the map screen
- You can now move back in Options and Controls menus by pressing Esc or B on the controller
- Adjusted player character crouched animations
- Made player hit box slightly smaller
- You can now swap character in the middle of a roll or a dash
- You no longer need to be crouched to perform a combat roll with Sarge
- Added a screenshake effect when Bear's explosive charge goes off
- Stick control added
- Added sounds to map screen
- Added sounds to death screen
- Added some screenshake to explosions etc
- Adjusted first boss difficulty
- Decreased intensity of lighting effects in outdoor areas
- Added some new sounds to a few bosses
- You can now press ESC/B to move back a step in main menus
- If window loses focus game will mute and pause
- Changed "Quit Game?" to "Return to Main Menu?" in pause menu when selecting Main Menu
- You can now use customized controls to navigate various menus
- Made chopper ride slightly longer
- Added a sound for Dex's dash ability
- Mines now make a beeping sound before exploding

[zelgaris]

I know you wrote about it, but it's now officially less annyoing to write down any feedback, when the game auto mutes and pauses :)

[zelgaris]

58) Sarge's roll again
I would suggest adjusting it so the roll can interupt shooting (holding the button) when laying, beause right now it sometimes does and sometimes don't depending what animation is playing at the moment.
+ would be nice to have some dust particles behind the roll as well - more dust particles everywhere! :)

59) Keyboard movement left and right
Standard thing that doesn't normally happen on gamepads.
When I walk left and press and hold right, I will still walk left.
When I walk right and press and hold left, I will change direction to left (until I release it).
Behavior should be the same.

60) Drillmaster
So far the most boring boss fight for several reasons.
- If we didn't purchased the range upgrade for Sarge's weapon, it's a loong fight :)
- Pattern, where boss is hidden and there are only drills randomly popping up, there are spots where those just don't appear (intended?) + this pattern takes too long + I am pretty sure I got this patter at least 2 times in a row. This is not fun, because it's a phase where you can't hit the boss in any way, and thus it's also speedrun killer. Also those drills make no sound and that makes the whole pattern even more boring.
Solution: Make the boss appear in the top centre so we can shoot at him while dodging the drills.
- Other two pattern - showing at the bottom and left/right are good and nice example of how various characters can be used, yet I would make the delay between shots, when the boss is in the bottom position, a bit bigger so we have more room for manoeuvring Bear (it's like one of few places, where he is actually usable for more than pushing boxes)
- Above that this boss feels even more bullet spongy than the others.

Died here the first time, because I got lot of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ patterns.
Finished the fight considerably fast because I got only 2 boring patterns, 2 bottom and 3-5 (or more) left/right where we can do the most damage with Sarge.


61) Bullet sponge bosses in general
I get that this is an issue in a game, where you can upgrade your weapons, but still killing bosses is a bit too long for my taste.
Considering weapon upgrades, see below :)


62) Boss health bars
Can we have the boss health bar flash red, when we hit the boss? (I know the boss itself is flashing with each hit, but this could be nice polish to the UI)

63) Also when boss kill us, boss health bar remains visible in the Game Over screen. This is probably bug, right?

64) When rescuing the other fellows
- I would just drop the standard cutscene "don't move, we are showing you something" here, let us activate the panel, don't stop us, there's no need to, let us walk around when the "cage" is moving.
- Add sound to the device moving, add sound of the caged character touching the ground
- Please, don't swap us to the new hero, INSTEAD (since it's another opportunity where we can actually see the friendship/relationship between those 3 characters, which is something you don't touch and it's not like important for the game...) - so when the character is freed, let us go to him and talk to him.
This would trigger a simple dialog, where we can see the characters actually having some kind of personality and only after the dialog ends the character "joins the team".

At this point I was thinking, how does the personal teleporter even works and why our heroes share health.
The teleport may be working only when the other two heroes are waiting in the base at that special room (which could have some kind of teleporting pads or something visible there maybe?:)) and so they can't really do things when not "in action".
As for the shared health - yeah...

And then I decided to start a new game, kill Dozer and then immediately go back to check whether you removed the characters from the "base room", to only find an edge I can't jump over (and recalled there are also some boxes to be pushed). Clever, move ;)
Though when I later returned there with full squad, captain still had the same dialog as in the beginning of the game.

65) The double jump sound is so bad, it seriously sounds like "tit" to me... wondering how dash sounds.

66) [POLISH] DEX, holding shotgun
Can we have little "forward back, chick chack" movement with the bottom hand on the shotgun and little knockback of the top part of the body with each shot. There is slight animation not selling the shotgun blast properly.

67) [POLISH] Can we have bullet shells flying from the guns (Sarge, Dex)? Not enemies because they use mostly energy weapons and Bear has a granade launcher

68) In addition to the "swap to next character" button, can we have dedicated buttons for changing to particular characters (e.g. 1, 2, 3) and then one another for swapping between last two used, e.g. Dex>Sarge>Dex>Sarge (on gamepad I would be content with normal swap and last two used swap). I am using this example intentionally because the truth is, unless he gets some super important upgrade (and he doesn't), Bear is the most useless guy in the group - he is good only for pushing the blocks (and later destroying some). So whenever I accidentally switch to him it only breaks the flow.
At this point of the game we have Sarge's roll to move faster and to nail the jumps there's Dex - Bear is just there - well, mostly isn't :)
Yes, we can train ourselves to hit swap once from Dex to Sarge and then twice to back to Dex, but having a "two last characters swap only" would be awesome.

After finishing game: Though there are some places, where he can be used to destroy some enemies seemingly designed for his weapon, it's good we can evade those "turrets" shooting from the holes in the ground without the need to use Bear.
Especially in last stage he is really useful on few spots, but it's not like we can't dash through the enemies and healing ourselves later.

69) Picking money and Life Cubes
I was rethinking this a bit and maybe it would be enough if we get the info when we pick gold - no need to see the total amount all the time. But same with the map, to see our current amount of gold we have to use 4 inputs. I would show the amount of gold in the pause menu (I would also show the health better in the pause menu, since it is behind the semi transparent background.

Current +1 gold info popup is kinda useless.
If the popup showed something like +1 gold (TOTAL) that would be way more useful.
Same with life cubes, show "Life cube (TOTAL)"

It would be also nice if the pickup info don't stack in one place - when we pick two gold coins and a meat in short time, it's an unreadable mess.
I would stack the info in more lines if necessary

[zelgaris]

70) Weapons upgrades and hero's weapons in general
- All 3 weapons get the same upgrades and that's kinda cheap and boring
- Range upgrades actually feels more like restoring the weapon from broken to normal state, than upgrading them to be better
- When the the bullets hit the range limit, they "explode", use the same sprite when hitting enemy or solid object - I dunno, can we have some kind of fast fade out instead or just make them disappear? Except for Bear of course, because it's a grenade launcher, it makes sense here.
- Since Bear is using grenade launcher, I would expect the grenade exploding on impact with enemy or when it reaches the "distance" and the explosion having an explosion sound
- I suppose it's because of the colour coding so we can tell what are our bullets (but in the end there are similarly coloured enemy bullets as well - those could be red you know), but if each character has differently coloured bullets? Not really sure about this one

SUGGESTION: Upgrades more unique for each weapon + improve the basic range of all weapons a bit.
The idea is making the gap between the characters a bit bigger + making Bear actually viable
All upgrades would have only one level I guess

Sarge's Machine gun
- Faster rate of fire (replacing damage upgrades, because shooting faster = more bullets, more dmg)
- Range upgrade + laser sight (because that may look good :)
- Laser sniper addon - same technology as the laser sniper enemies, shoots every X seconds in addition to normal fire (whole screen range, hits all enemies in line)
- [NON-PURCHASABLE] Rock shots improve dmg and change the hit sound a bit (in case you are keeping rock shots for Sarge)

Sarge is obviously the long range class even now, so let's roll with it (also until DEX gets dash, he is the choice for faster movement)


Dex's shotgun
- [STARTING] better range, see below
- Wider spread + more bullets (replacing damage upgrade, basically adding more bullets to sides)
- Hitscan bullets speed (bullets travel instantly)
- Faster reloading (or maybe adding another shot so it would be BOOM BOOM wait BOOM BOOM wait, instead of BOOM wait BOOM wait)

Dex on the other hand is the "melee" class. While I was referring to her basic range as "laughably small" and I still think it is, now having it upgraded to level 3, maybe it's too good?
I would go with level 2 range upgrade as her basic range and no upgrade here.


Bear grenade launcher
- [STARTING] Grenade does AoE dmg by default (about the size of double the grenade sprite)
- [STARTING] Biggest base damage per shot among the three heroes (to balance the usability, nonstandard projectile arc and low rate of fire)
- Grenade can bounce twice (instead of range limit, make it bounce limit) + short distance then explosion (replacing any range upgrades)
- Bigger AoE area + damage boost (+ some burning damage?:))

Idea here is to make Bear viable when fighting more enemies at once or tougher enemies, because he can't be viable for movement.

As you can see, there are less upgrades, but consider this as possible "way to go" to make the weapons and characters even more different and the upgrades more unique.


71) [POLISH] Preacher's hadouken
Back in the Tumbleweed with full crew and more cubes so I went to Preacher to perform some magic and while the visuals are great and the hit makes some sound, the whole sequence lacks lot of sounds.
Also I prefer removing the "game stuff" from the dialogues, because it's out of place (I know Nintendo characters will straight out tell you to hold B for special attack, that's nintendo...). I am talking about the "Your maximum health has increased. Praise the Lord!" - especially if we can clearly see what happened in HUD.
For example "Let your body feel stronger! Praise the Lord!" or something would be much better.
BTW nice touch actually taking the cubes and rolling with the idea in the game world.


72) Weapon shop
Behaviour is super weird when there are more entries and up/down arrow appears. What happens when moving from up to down in the list is okay, but when we are on the bottom entry and we move up, I would expect the cursor only moving up (e.g. now being on 4th row from 5), but you actually move everything up staying with the cursor on 5th row, again hiding the previous bottom selection. This is super weird and inconsistent with the behaviour when you are moving the cursor from top up to down.


73) Can't drop down through elevator platforms
This is strange - while being semi-solid as other semi-solid platforms we can't drop down through them. Is this really intentional or just a bug?
I guess this should be consistent with other semi-solid platforms.


74) Forest Guardian Boss
Forest Guardian boss intro... he is obviously shouting in the intro, yet there is no sound other than the chest booms.
Forest Guardian boss fight
- no special sound when he dies :(
- good fight overall, maybe have some limits on how many times he can do the "hanging on hand shooting with the other hand" because it gets really boring if does just those?
I would also make the earthwave a bit faster and thus the delay between each wave bigger (writing this later, so I am not exactly sure whether this boss did it :))


75) More about boss patterns
I would really like to see a speedrunning community around this game, because it has potential, especially if we cut lot of optional areas with skulls and lifes, but with the bosses being so bullet spongy and their patterns being so inconsistent, this may be a big problem.
I already suggested lowering their health, and I would further suggest adjusting their patterns so when the fight starts boss always use all their patterns at least once (not necessarily in the same order) before mixing them and possibly repeating the same pattern twice. I would strongly suggest not allowing patters to repeat more than twice in a row.


76) Hard hat Boss
When he is stomping in the intro, there is a screenshake and the stomping have nice sound.
- Then when he does his spinning pick axe attack, no sound...
- When he stomps during "rock fall", nice sound¨
- When falling rocks hit the ground them just fading out is meh + no sound and no screen shake - those are big rocks, why not breaking them to smaller once on the hit :)
- When he throws his pick axe like boomerang, no sound of the pick axe rotating fast through the air (+ there could be some kind of grunt when he throws it)
Overall nice boss fight, definitely enjoyable, because it forces us to move around


77) Rock shots upgrade
This is so lazy - bullets are still the same, look the same, their hit spark isn't even bigger or sound like explosion... (or the change is so subtle it's hardly noticeable)
And then there is the fact we have a grenade launcher guy in the team. I know it's a game and this can be explained of course, but how grenades from grenade launcher can't break some block and some upgraded bullets can..
(it gets even more logic-lacking, when we are doing the 2 dynamites fetch quest - again we have a guy with grenade launcher in the group)
I would go as far as just allowing skipping the fetch quest by just using Bear, IF we have damage 3 upgrade at the time (or if you ditch those one of the alternatives)


78) Kamikaze enemies
On death they explode in 5 bullets. For sake of not-waiting I would reduce those to 3 - one to left, one up, one right.

79) Sky commander
He menacingly lowering from the skyes, no sounds, no sound on impact with the ground.
I get you wanted to point out he has a jetpack, but how about letting him fall down to cause some screen shake and then when he raises and talks to us, he levitates using his jetpack.
Also when he appears the music doesn't change (this may be similar to all bosses, because I was playin mostly without music up till now).
The fight itself was nice, but I would limit his levitating in the air shooting round attack. In the same way I would prevent him from doing the standing and shooting attaack more than once, because that's his "shoot me now, I wont hurt you" attack.
Still nice fast battle + we finally got DASH!
And from this point on I am pretty sure I don't need other characters :)

[zelgaris]

80) DASH
Is awesome, it even sounds good (I am looking at you, double jump), but :)
- Would be even more awesome if we could do dash to jump for longer jump (gba megaman zero style)

81) INVENTORY
We still can't use our custom controls to use items in inventory - it still requires ENTER. It's also strange how in GAME PAUSED enter is represented by the symbol, while in inventory it's just "ENTER". Anyway, leave enter there if you want, but allow us using our input.

82) EMEGENCY BEACON again
Using emergency beacon doesn't make any sound and it doesn't reset the music to Tumbleweed town music.
It would be nice to have some kind of actual telepod on the ground in the town, where we teleport to.

83) LASER SNIPER GUYS
Visually it's nice they are charging the laser, but adding a charging sound would be great.

84) SUPER aiming shots from the ground turrets
This is like the on situation where it would be nice to use Bear, but since there are enemies around and Bear is hardly on full power, it's more effective to just ignore those and dash through enemies.

85) GARBAGE KING Boss
Again, him enering the scene, although he is on a machine, that flies on some kind of repulsor, those do no sounds.
Again a big boss who, when die, just meh, disappear, no junks, nothing.
In case of big bosses I would go with while flash explosion.
When he does the attack, where you need to roll into safety, I would give more time for the roll.

86) Unlocking new location
Would be nice to have some jingle or at least sound effect, when the new location popup appears.

87) Have I mentioned making all the vertical (or even horizontal) moving platforms faster? That would be great as well :)

88) Had to quit the game to main menu to find out the percentage of the game progress. Can you show that somewhere in the game? Maybe in the map or directly in pause menu?

[zelgaris]

89) Omega citadel first boss
Calling intruder alert and not a single BEEP BEEP ALARM sound there. Other than that and some lacking sound this was the most enjoyable boss fight in the whole game. Very active, very DEX.

90) Last boss armored
When he dies he makes squishy sound - should make metal scrap sound since the human survives.

91) Last boss final form death + last boss in general
Nice white flashing, that's what I was talking about earier with huge mechanical bosses, that just disappear after some small explosions :)
This but on smaller and faster scale.

As for the whole last boss fight, despite it being a bit to recycling considering all the previous bosses, it was fun

Phase 1
(p1) Teleport + dash pattern is cheap af at first but good, dangerous
(p2) Jumping pattern is super non dangerous and repeated quite often - if he did a small shockwave when hitting the ground or something, that would make it a bit more dangerous
(p3)Shooting hand is also hardly dangerous and allows doing a lot of damage
I would always start the fight with p1 cycle, then p2 or p3, back to p1 and again p2 or p3, then p1 and so on.

Phase 2
This was dangerous fun
(p1) rock shower - easy damage, hardly any danger
(p2) bullets - sort of easy damage, a bit more dangerous
(p3) earth wave - definitely most dangerous until you get the good rhythm - i still think the wave should be faster and linger on the ground for shorter time, it feels off, most of the times hitting me in situation when it feels like it should already be ok to land after jump

Shame this phase is immobile and doesn't do any kind of rush or jump or anything.
It would be also interesting if it could combine the p1 and p2 pattern.
Overall it would be nice if bosses have more dangerous patterns when at 50% (or 33% or 25%) of health.

Here I would prevent repeating of p3 in a row - maybe again mixing p3 then p1/p2, then p3, etc.

Phase 3
For a final phase this was super boring and not really that dangerous, maybe if he could repeat the horizontal flight pattern more often and shoot twice (2x2) or have a variance sliding right above the ground sou you have to jump over it, while it also shoot once.
Overall meh phase, which is kinda sad, since it's the last fight.

92) Those credits :D
Reminded me of The Room movie, google if if you don't know - Lauri everywhere :)


93) [NEW ITEM] - Auto healing system
Makes the medkits to auto heal when the damage should cause death - uses 1 medkits + 1 auto healing system
Since medkits can't be normally purchased it's not as op as it sounds :) (and you can disable this item in hard difficulty)

94) Garbage disposal boss
Sounds :)
- When he is moving on the crane track especially at the start of the battle but overall during the whole battle
- when he is using the flame attack, he telegraphs that by "starting" the flame throwers, yet those don't do any sound until fully shooting
- when using the heavy block attack, the only sound is from the block hitting the floor but no other sounds like the chain lifting it up
But despite the lacking sounds I think this boss is well done.
Flame throwers pattern has nice twist when he can change direction whenever he wants, not only when going to the edge of the arena, which makes this rather dangerous instead of boring


95) [NEW ITEM] SAFETY BEACON (15 gold)
Using it will teleport the squad to the last used save point.
I want this thing to be able to do some nice warps using particular planned save points.
It would also speed up some backtracking, though I have to say there are a lot of locations, where you allow faster way back and that's great (sometimes using new found abilities like roll, or just making the layout so you can just jump down - that's some good level design here).

96) [POLISH] ) Save point capsules...
(Supersubjective)
Since Metroid lot of games do this, but tell me - what is a save capsule doing in enemy crowded location (or main enemy base)? I mean even if there weren't any enemies, it's kinda stupid.
If you need some kind of save points, especially in a game, where dying means reseting the progress to the previous save (i.e. all those deaths never actually happened and all unsaved progress is gone), I would suggest more naturally looking thing without any kind of crazy "lying in the capsule".
E.g. flag or smoking flare and some box with supplies, so it look like it was dropped there by the helicopter guy when scouting the areas. It doesn't even have to be the same thing in all locations.
Refilling of health is okay here but game saving itself should never be mentioned by the NPCs, only in some tooltips.
Though I am pretty sure I am in a super tiny minority having this issue in games, where levels are magically made so you can use your newly found abilities to progress :)

97) [NEW ITEM] ADVANCED TRACKING DEVICE (permanent item, map upgrade, 200 gold?)
Map upgrade, which will show more info on the map
- coloured boss rooms (though I would show these by default)
- highlighted open edges (where we didn't go but still can go)
- highlighted locations with special items (skulls, life cubes)
- highlighted locations, which requires special skill to continue (
- percentage stat of given area
Amount of info depends on how much you want the players to aimlessly go here and there.
I would go with as much info as possible, because it's a recent trend (Ori, Guacamelee) and it didn't hurt the gameplay.
Info could be also dynamic showing some arrows with character icons only when it's available.
Dunno, your call.
I got lost exactly once, but I missed some collectibles - which is maybe okay, since it was my first run through the game and I will definitely play again.

98) [POLISH] Map
Some boss rooms, which are at least 2 squares high cannot be "uncovered" properly. If possible uncover whole boss room once the fight is over. And since the boss rooms aren't marked on the map, when I got stuck this one time, those not searched areas looked promising until I got there and found out it was just a boss room.

99) More money drops or better money drops from "heads" - rather than single more value coin I would go for more coins at once.

100) Achievements
Not working currently, but we can check them anyway :)
Though being an achievement hunter, I like challenging achievements and looking at what you have there, those are pretty basic.
For killing the bosses - those are of course good for tracking how far the players got before dropping the game (if you don't monitor that in other way)
Those others are just meh, no challenge and only the chicken one is missable if you just don't buy the chicken - I didn't, I started purchasing health items until the last boss. Yeah, those would save me dead or two...

Though I am happy you didn't went with "kill 1000 enemies" or especially "die 100 times".
But I would go with shooting some heads, because that require some aim :)

Opening one chest - okay, why there is achievement for opening a chest and not actually picking the content (skull)?

And for challenging ones
Iron Strike - Beat the game without dying (sort of pun on iron man mode and the title of the game)
Full loadout - Get all weapon upgrades
Praised by the Lord - get all health upgrades
Vanilla Squad - Beat the game without purchasing any weapon upgrades and using any health upgrades
Fast Strike - finish the game under "TIME" (dont be too cruel though)
+ leaderboard with best times

101) When sarge is laying right next to the block he can destroy with rock shot upgrade, he can't destroy the next right to him, he will destroy the next, effectively shooting through a solid block.
Not sure how to handle this, maybe by making the muzzle flash bigger and making him cause damage as well?

102)
And more feedback later
Finished game on 96% - seems like I was missing 3 life cubes (finished with one in inventory).
Could we get more stats in that screen?
How many times we saved, how many times we died, how many enemies we killed, how much money we gained and how much we spent, etc. I like stats.

103) Ingame timer on/off, thank you
Though maybe suitable for post release update to keep the community engaged and keeping something happening

104) How is the percentage of completion counted? What is counted in?
Map uncovered? Collectibles picked? Does it include the upgrades for weapons we can buy?
Do you even want to tell us or you leave us to find this out eventually? :)

105) Secret locations and risk reward
While some of the secret areas were too obvious, there were nice well hidden and some of them pretty dangerous to the point I wished there was something more in the chest than a standard skull - maybe dropping some money in addition to the skull depending on the section's difficulty?
(Also allowing us planning routes for speedrunning, where we can choose to ignore the easy areas with less money and go for harder with more money?)

106) Though I haven't played it yet we talked a bit about it and I like the idea of it being more of a rage mode than standard hard
- I wouldn't give enemies more health, I would not touch that, maybe giving them even less, but definitely boost their damage a bit
- I think about it as good risk reward mode, where you may kill things faster, but if they hit you, you're dead
- You can also play with some different attack patterns for the enemies (e.g. bombers sprinting toward you, when they see you, same with the normal zombies, normal gunners shooting two bullets at once (the advanced shooting 2x2)
- Maybe some enemies from the final fortress appearing in normal levels (especially the big fat one) and the machine gun soldier
Overall I would try something else than "more hitpoints and more dmg"

And maybe some more feedback later - gotta finish the game once more and then it's time for hard.

Overall I did enjoyed the game even though there is still some lack of polish and Bear sucks in general.