Feedback Friday #133 - October 2-5, 2020

It's Feedback Friday time!

Looking for some friendly advice and feedback for your current game project?

Want feedback on your Ludum Dare game? (Ludum Dare 47 is this weekend!)

Then you've found the right thread! Feedback Friday runs from Friday to Monday every week. Share a build of your work in progress game to get playtesting and feedback, get new perspectives to help you overcome your biggest obstacles and take advantage of the Unity Community to boost your game development!

What To Show

• Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play > everything else
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)
• Post a link to a playable game, preferably WebGL. If you don't have a playable game, post something substantial, not just text.

How To Ask For Feedback

• Be concise.
• Specify what you want feedback on and what you don't.
• Resist the urge to write an immediate defense. Take the time to understand their points. Remember that your friends here are taking time out of their busy schedules to help you for free.

How To Give Feedback

• Be positive. There's something of value in every game.
• Focus on the design, not the designer.

Feedback Friday #132 is here.

 

I released today for this FeedbackFriday my new tech demo for Ova Magica:

Download on Itch

I want mainly feedback on:

- The battles
- Blob abilities (outside of battle like explosion)
- Controls when playing with controller
- Controls when playing with mouse and keyboard
- Other things you notice



Thank you in advance for taking time and trying it!

 

@ClaudiaTheDev -

Combat:
- Overall the combat feels solid, as satisfying as Pokemon battles.
- I like the way it uses stars to indicate action prep time.
- I also like the animations, such as the player kneeling at the blob to give it commands, and tossing items such as carrots to it.
- It's very cute when an enemy blob is defeated and rolls back.
- Is it possible to learn what an action does before selecting it? (Other than the stats listed in the up/down/left/right action selection blurb.)

Controls:
- The controls and camera are still nicely responsive.
- The camera rotation when using the gamepad's left stick is perhaps too responsive. Can you reduce the rotation or give it a delay? Many games nowadays have cameras that have inertia. Their motion lags slightly, which helps to smooth it out. I ended up using d-pad because it was less likely to wiggle the camera rotation.
- This is minor, but I couldn't pass through here even though it looks like I should be able to:




I like your blob designs. Despite being blobs, they're all unique. I ran around with this little guy for a while:

 

Thank you for taking time playing it and leaving me feedback!

I am happy that you liked most parts of it!

I will improve the camera rotation for controllers so it feels better.
I also will make the collision of the character smaller so he fits better between the gaps.

I love the screenshot you posted of you and your bomb blob ♥!

 

Love the colors and Love the art style.

This isn't really my type of game, but anyway.

Here's my notes:

-The dialog sound effects is like nails on a chalkboard. I would make sounds like mimic voices, rather than sounds for the letters popping up.

-The fight tutorial immediately turned me off to it. It was kind of a trudge. I think you should try using almost no words at all and give the player more free reign to experiment. Like instead of sitting the player down and throwing everything at them, maybe give them some fights they can't lose then add mechanics in to add to it. But for me, when a game starts off by not giving me the controls I groan inside because let ME figure it out a little, you know? Let me just jump into it and then those features that I don't understand I will be happy to get tips on it.

-I'm not crazy about having my options of characters start as blond hair blue eyed girl or blond hair blue eyed guy. It's a little.... Nazi.

-The dig animation is not very snappy. The delay between bending over and popping up is WAY too long. I'm sitting here tapping my fingers like "COME ON ALREADY!". It can be the same length of time, but the animation is not great. Maybe make the animation shorter but require more of them?

-The animation of the ax feels like I'm just lunging forward. I don't feel like I'm winding up. Same for the pick ax.

-It took me a minute to figure out what the hoe was. It looked a lot like a pick ax.

-I'm not crazy about how the camera turns when I move left or right with keyboard and mouse. In fact, I would consider just using the inside camera outside.

-I'm not really seeing what the point of fences are. I could if there were pests.

-I'm not really seeing the connection between farming and fighting my pets. I would highly recommend having them do things like help water the crops or what have you.

EDIT: Tried it with PS4 controller.

-Still not crazy about the camera moving on me when I go left or right.

-The mouse keeps jumping in my way. As a person who likes using controller, I got to say there's nothing more frustrating than a game that isn't fully committed to letting me play with the controller.

-When I was in the hatchery I kept messing up on the menu because I wasn't sure which was select. I would suggest giving it a silhouette, enlarging the button, or moving an icon like a finger pointing to it.

 

Thank you so much for taking time and writing me detailed feedback! This helps a lot!

- I agree with the text sound! Like written on the start screen almost all sounds will be improved and redone. So i hope the final sound will be more pleseant!

- You can already use your blobs for farming in the tech demo. The turtle blob has the "Sprinkler" ability and helps you water your plants. The bomb can help mine things. And if you manage to get a mushroom it has the "Fertilizer" ability which make your crops grow faster.

- I will improve the animation like digging so it feels better!

- I personally do not agree that having blonde characters feels "Nazi". So following this logic Zelda is also "Nazi" because Link and Zelda are both blonde and blue eyed.
In the final game there will be different skin tones, eye color and hair you can pick from. So i hope that most people will be able to create a character they can identify with!
I just didnt have time and resources to add it for the tech demo. The girl itself was added like 2 weeks before the tech demo.
You see for me this is a very delicate topic because i live in Germany and i really dont like to be called "Nazi" just because i have blonde characters in a tech demo...And i already got some critic why there are only female/male genders to choose from and not a binary/undefined character.

- The camera rotating when you move left or right with was criticized a lot! I will add a second camera option (which will be probably even the default one) where this behavior doesnt occur!

- I agree that the icon of the hoe and pickaxe looks to similar. I will improve that for the final game!

- I also will hide the mouse when you use a controller.

- For selecting buttons/options i try to make the current selection even more visibile by using an animation or enlarging it like you suggested.

- For the tutorial i see your point. The final game will start different so it will be maybe not that feeling you got from the tech demo. But to be honest most people really liked the tutorial which guides you trough the first battle. So i think is rather a matter of taste.

Thank you so much for your feedback, i really appreciate it ♥!

 

I'm sorry about the Nazi thing. I'm not meaning to imply that was your intention.

I'm just saying that having two characters be blond hair and blue eyes by default just makes it feel... awkward.

But I will say that I was thinking it, then my wife looked at the screen and said what I was thinking.

 

Thanks for participating in this weekend's Feedback Friday! If you have a project that you'd like feedback on, please join us next Friday.