Weak Sbot

This game feels almost complete, which is a rare thing for a jam.

I haven’t manage to beat the entire game though. :D It seems that there are no saves; after ~50 mins of playing I only managed to pass like half of the game.

I recorded myself playing the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Fm6SjsVg4

My random thoughts regarding the game:

• The graphics and sounds are amazing. I had some difficulties setting the things up, because there is no sfx level control menu, but I heard the sounds myself just fine. These sound control menus are really useful for recording though.

• I would like to see an attack aura; especially for the ground pounce attack that has a circle area of effect. Some modern MOBA games do that, I’m not sure how popular it is in the single player games. It would make dodging easier: we don’t have to measure the distance using the graphical effects.

• Maybe introduce an easier mode? :D Or make it less likely that the boss will spam that gun attack more than 2 times, otherwise I end up “dancing” when these bullets become harder to avoid.

• I’m almost sure that I could beat the game if I tried again: I would pass the first levels much easier, but that would require more time than I’m willing to spend right now. If I could continue from the last boss battle, it would be more convenient. Saving in browser is possible with local storage.

• Sometimes the projectile attack hitbox feels weird. I don’t know why. It’s not impossible to dodge, but there are moments when it feels like I could have dodged but didn’t and the other time the projectile flies really close but does no damage.

• Not every side of the boss is equally dangerous. That could be a design decision. For example, it looks like there is less space in the north part of the arena, but at the same time it’s one of the best place to attack: the boss looks south when they’re unleashing some of the attacks. I wonder if north part could be made a little bit bigger since there is some free space on the screen that is unoccupied. The main reason would be that it seems to be near impossible to dodge the later stage gun bullets from that direction. If that’s intentional I guess it’s fine too.

• The blue up arrow upgrade was hard for me to understand. If you invest 1-3 points in that, it’s hard to notice any difference. I had a hunch that it improves the dashing somehow, but it was hard to measure the distance. At the level of 5 it seemed to be more prominent, but I’m still unsure if my guess was correct. I ended up allocating 50/50 into health and speed. The sound cue like “armor improved”, “speed improved”, “dash improved” when you press the button could help the player without the need to render a popup or any hint dialogue.

• 3 hits for a minion feels like a lot in a game like this. =( Usually, it’s possible to improve the offensive power to keep up with the enemy progression, but I felt like only the enemy was improving. I mean, the health and speed is great, but I can’t deal more damage. Perhaps it’s even worse in the last stages, but I haven’t played them. 4 or more hits for a minion would make me cry, lol. It would be OK if it was an option to completely ignore them, but I think they’re kinda good at hitting you if you’re being distracted by a boss.

• I would enjoy having some extra move to use. Something to choose from, preferably. Time slow on activation, a charged attack, etc.

• The gamepad controls were unusual for me. I’m not used to fire using the L/R buttons. Could be cool to either have a way to reconfigure that or to choose from 2-3 pre-made control schemes.

I really wish I played more levels to give more feedback. But anyway, it’s a very good entry for the jam which I enjoyed playing.