Re: [WIP] Nagai Yamiji (Demo available)
I'm sure you realize that more extreme H content could put off potential buyers. Part of what makes Kyrieru's games successful is probably that they are relatively tame by hentai standards.
Now, lets see what my impressions of the demo are...
The demo started in Zoomed mode, full-screen. I tested it on a laptop with a tiny screen, and you could only see about a third of the game window in full-screen mode. I recommend changing the default value of Options>Display>Zoomed to "No" in future builds.
Dodge roll doesn't seem very useful if you are supposed to escape back the way you came. You have more control and safety if you hop over the projectiles in the hall manually. Further through the game, dodge roll becomes more necessary (you can use hit recoil from the plant turret's fireball in air to knock yourself onto the big staircase without it, however)
Level design feels empty and dull. Lots of unnecessary padding. Wonky hit detection. Way too few checkpoints. Though there is lots of unnecessary padding, there are multiple instances of platforming challenges that require memorization, precision, and quick reflexes, with no breather sections in between.
Lots of precision platforming segments leading to a conspicuous but empty alcove. Very frustrating realizing that you did something optional for no reward.
I do like the freedom of targeting you have with your own projectile attacks.
Why can't you duck and punch? It's kind of frustrating that you must use diving attacks or projectiles to hit stuff the size of the smaller slimes.
You might want to give the player some cue that the big chandeliers are walkable. Maybe some zombies placed on them early on, who pounce from overhead when the player gets close?
Blue spell seems like a straight upgrade to cyan one. Why would you switch back for anything but cyan doors?
I quit the game after like 5 complicated platforming sections in a row, one of which dropped on a super-long conveyer belt with a laser pulsing over it, plus some floating hands to grab at the main character for an extra "fuck you" if the player just wanted to just hop through it instead of doing the platforming section floating overhead. It ended up dealing like 80 damage, but I brute-forced through that and went through next 3 rooms gradually getting health chipped away. It was getting really tedious, but I didn't want to quit and take a break until I got to a checkpoint. Eventually got taken out by a laser pulsing in the middle of some sliding platforms. It was my 3rd try, and I was at exactly 1 health.
Overall, I'd give this game a D. Level design is dull, and controls really need some work. I don't want to see what's in the next room, especially if I'm wrestling with my character the whole time. Roll is especially awkward.
I recommend you check out Kurovadis, Nightmare Sphere, maybe Megaman X or Z. Look at what genuinely great platforming with dashes and wall-jumps looks like.
Yeah that's possible, but I think I've struck a decent balance with the vanilla/extreme content, at least hopefully
Next build I've made a check to see if the screen will fit if zoomed, otherwise it'll default to not zoomed.
I've tweaked dodge roll a bit, it should be more useful for that first bit now.
So what should I do to improve the levels? There's not a
whole lot I can do for Nagai Yamiji at this point, other than reposition some things or add/remove them, but tips would be good for future games at least. In the next release I will have made platforming a touch easier, as I've reduced the sliding you do (no sliding at all on "easy"). However, it is supposed to be fairly hard and checkpoints are supposed to be uncommon.
Yeah sorry about that, that's where a bonus rune (+3 to a stat) will be. I haven't actually added those in quite yet.
Didn't want to add that if people didn't find it necessary, but if it's annoying not to have I can put it in, no problem.
That chandeliers are walkable isn't supposed to be obvious. There's never any point that you
have to walk on them, and there are a couple places that they are used to access hidden runes and such.
The blue spell does have a slightly slower firing rate (whereas cyan will fire as fast as you hit the button), but the main reason is that especially for boss fights running out of mana is very possible, so you might have to switch to the worse dps cyan spell.
That room is designed so that you can brute force it if you need to, as the platforming above is a rather long sequence. There is a checkpoint right after it, it's the middle path off to the right, you can tell because of the light coming from that room. I'll make the save room lights more obvious I suppose, they are rather subtle at the moment.
Well, not thrilled with a D-rating, haha, but thanks for the honesty! Constructive criticism is always good, after all, and I'm still new to this, so tips are good
Kurovadis was actually my inspiration for this game, and I've watch egoraptor's Sequelitis on Megaman X backwards and forwards, haha. I'll check out the other two games you mentioned though.
Looks promising, I like the style. Thanks for sharing this with us, I look forward to seeing more of it!
Thanks
can you implement some way to mute the whole thing?
Yeah I can do that for ya. I really dig my voice actor, but I can see how some might not like voice
