Had to use the Windows Explorer unzip, 7zip was giving me a bunch of error messages. Compatibility issue from still rocking Win7? I dunno.
Anyway, I like the duality from having the flying car and on foot play styles. I tend not to enjoy games where you don't control something directly throughout the whole game, like in FTL. But here, you can actually move and shoot stuff. I think that, combined with the more thought out, strategic side, played in the map area is a better mix and suit to my personal taste. How common said preference is, I'm not really sure.
Regarding combat, from reading the description, I was expecting some kind of Crypt of the Necrodancer style gameplay where one would press the fire key at the music beat, but that didn't seem like the case at all. It took me quite a while to realize I could just fire whenever I wanted, apart from the gun "heating" mechanic. Hitting targets was a bit difficult at first, even with the auto aim, but I think I got the hang of it after a bit. I kept wishing for a dodge ability not unlike the Fish character from Nuclear Throne. Or, at the very least, some kind of movement related ability, since dodging projectiles was a tad difficult since we move somewhat slowly. Since you can be unable to see the whole arena, I wonder if it may become a bit too hectic, with shots coming from enemies away from your field of vision.
It would be neat to get some different abilities throughout your map exploration, either adding them to your arsenal or by choosing which ones you want replaced.
I got to the boss building, but never managed to reach it due to having lost a lot of health on the way there. Couldn't figure out how to kill the shield generating enemies though, shots would just bounce back cause of the shields or just go completely through them. So whenever they showed up, I couldn't progress any more.
Flying the car around in the combat encounter zone seemed a bit unnecessary, since the only on foot explorable area was the actual combat building. But I suppose you may want to include some secret or extra stuff in the game that rewards exploration.
I realize it's still pretty early on, hopefully this feedback can be of some use. Keep up the good work.
Weird :) But thank you so much for the feedback!
Yep, combat is wholly driven by the music, but I've decided not to go the "rhythm game" way of "click on the beat to shoot/move/whatever". That locks out too many people that struggle with it, often gets frustrating and IMO a bit repetitive, especially with faster weapons. Also, it simply doesn't sound as good if the main instrument of a track is slightly off-beat most of the time because you don't constantly hit the beat perfectly, which would be the case for most players. Instead, it's still a big advantage to listen to the music and use it to understand enemy attack patterns, trap patterns, when your weapon will shoot, and generally to "get into the combat flow".
I'm still figuring out if it makes sense to add a couple of optional "expert weapons" at some point that allow that kind of beat-clicking gameplay, or maybe in a higher difficulty mode, but as of now, the main weapons will probably stay "hold to shoot".
What I'm definitely planning is more gameplay stuff that is paired with the music. Like, grenades you throw or red barrels you shoot that explode on the start of the next bar, so you have to be careful when to do it or otherwise they might damage you too. Enemies that shield themselves on the upbeat, remove the shield on the downbeat, so it's helpful to anticipate that short window where they are vulnerable. Stuff like that.
Was this a disappointment for you, or just "oh, expected something else but this is ok too"?
A dash ability is planned, but I'm not sure if that one should be instantly, or by holding down the button to dash on the next beat. The latter doesn't work as well with dashing as it does with shooting (usually if you want to dash it is because you're actively trying to avoid e.g. a projectile, so having to wait until the next beat is a deal-breaker), but allowing offbeat dashing might break the rhythm a bit.
I'm actually currently working on upgrades you get as combat encounter rewards, e.g. shooting dual projectiles, increased projectile auto-aiming, modified power shot etc. :) It's a bit inspired by Hades, where you choose where to go next based on the types of rewards you can expect in the next zones.
My main struggle currently is the usefulness of the hovercar as you state. Originally the idea was to have hovercar-only zones where you e.g. have some sort of music-puzzle that you solve by listening to and understanding the music; or resources to mine from floating rocks; or a short time trial checkpoint race. But I fear that is a bit out of scope and too different from the main shooter-y game.
So at the moment I have multiple solution ideas for this:
a) Move the world exploration out of the 3D map screen into the actual hovercar-flying-around gameplay, making it a bit more open world-ish, getting rid of the zones. You'd be able to fly from building to building, but still limited by the overall "progression" in the current run, i.e. you'd still only have 1-3 possible destination buildings to land on. The 3D map would still be there, but just to check where you are and what your possible destinations are, but not to travel around as you do now.
or b) Enable hovercar controlling in the 3D map screen, making it more of an "overworld" kind of screen. So instead of clicking on the nodes to travel to, you manually fly to them. I'd zoom the camera in a bit more and add more details to it so that it becomes more of a mix between the current hovercar-flying-around gameplay & the map screen. When you enter an encounter node, the actual gameplay zone loads as usual, but the hovercar automatically drops you onto the rooftop, removing the redundant "fly and land on the building" part.
Drawback of a) is that the buildings would have to be rather close to each other or it gets boring flying from building to building all the time as there is not much to do here. Also, constantly having to open the map to check where to fly next because there is no minimap.
Drawback of b) obviously is that there's no hovercar flying in the "real" game world, just on the overworld. Though I guess I have to set the game focus somewhere and that's where the hovercar draws the short straw.
Whew, wall of text. Anyways, thanks again for the feedback! If anybody else wants to try it, here's my original post:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ho...ing-everythinging.90470/page-23#post-20931052 Would love to hear more feedback :)