Edit: Thank you for the great feedback! I took the build offline again. We will do other playtesting runs in the future, but for now we want to focus on evaluating your responses and working on the game.
We have made some great progress in the last few weeks (the IGF deadline certainly helped!) and we are pretty close to releasing the demo!
Before we do that we would like a few other people to play the game and give us feedback on level design, controls and performance. After you have worked on a game for a year it is easy to lose the bigger picture. A new perspective from someone who hasn't played the game before is vital to make sure that the things you are doing make sense and lead to a fun and challenging experience.
As an indie developer we don't have access to a QA team nor can we bring in groups of people at the time. This leaves us with local events (which tend to be too crowded for in-depth feedback) and the internet. Here is where you come in!
I uploaded a version to the IndieDB servers and you are free to try it. If you do so, please leave us some feedback, either in the comments or send it to info@specter-game.com.
Build offline again
Thank you for your help!
Having played for a bit I must say its great! I really like the graphical style. There are a few things id change though. Id like to be able to remap controls. Using arrow keys for me just isn't practical. I would far rather use WASD. Secondly I feel there needs to be attacks for up and down as well. I found myself having to jump back down places to take out enemies so I love to be able to look up/down. Lastly when there are pits with spikes in them, you can't see the spikes and its pretty annoying.
Other than that the game seems great. As I say I really like the graphical style of the game, it looks awesome. I would like to see more variation in enemy types, and perhaps some ranged weapons (There could be some in already but ive only played a little) but it seems great so far. I will play more in the morning, and hopefully give some more feedback tomorrow.
Thank you for your feedback, it's really appreciated!
We definitely want to allow for control remapping later on, but that was just out of the scope of the alpha version.
Did you finish the first level? You'll get a dash which can be used upwards and downwards as well. Though we'll consider your suggestion of giving you the ability to attack up/down by default!
You mean there are parts where you have to make "blind jumps"? We try to make dangerous pits as obvious as possible by adding a red light, but maybe we forgot them at some points.
You will come across a lot more enemy types later on (14+) and you'll unlock multiple ranged attacks.
I'm looking forward to more feedback, I'm glad that you enjoy the game so far!
I see what you mean about the pits. It was just a little confusing for a new player. Perhaps add something about it into the tutorial. Also in the first level I noticed the moving platforms (flat skull things) would turn around and continue moving in the same direction for a while. So they rotate before they move in a different direction. I see what you mean about the dash. It works pretty well, although its pretty awkward to do it up/down. Left and right is fine. I think it would be better if you didn't have to jump first. I still stand by my statement about being able to attack in all directions at the start.
I have tryed the game out, although the options screen can't be accessed in the game using win7 starter 32 bit version without crashing (my experience), the game looks good, i have also sent the download link to some other players so they could try it out.
I can't wait for the full version to be released (i wanted to mess with the options cause i am running this on a netbook so it has a small screen and horrendous graphic card).
Add me on skype and I will give you news faster and more precise.
skype name: tigas.rigas000
Added you on skype!
Having just played more I must say I was getting very very frustrated with the boss stages. I'm only on the second level and the boss stage was ******* me off. There were too many enemies at once. I also was getting annoyed at the fact it takes ages to turn. I would fall with my back to the enemy, and be unable to turn without either walking into them or taking so long it would kill me before I could.
Okay, that's exactly the feedback we are looking for!
We'll tweak the closed fight events some more, they are the main reason why we wanted to get some player feedback.
Do you mean that you turn to slow while walking normally, or while attacking? Attacking allows you to move backwards while facing the direction you are attacking in for a short amount of time. Maybe we need to tweak the delay before you go back to normal movement.
I mean like if I need to turn to attack an enemy, I would walk backwards then turn, rather than turn then walk forwards. It meant that if I was right next to an enemy, I was unable to turn to attack.