I brought my game to the most recent NIGD meetup partially to see what everyone else had been working on since last we met but also to show off the game in its current form.
The feedback was... great.
People seem genuinely impressed with the state of the game. Here's some feedback I got:
1. One major thing I noticed was that I do have to explain how the game works in a fair bit of detail before people really start to get the hang of it.
2. People are hesitant to use the 'hover without jumping technique' (hold down the shift key/ left bumper).
3. I asked whether people considered the controls too complex and whether adding a second 2 block high character would be too much. Everyone said the game currently was easy enough to control.
4. People said it was ambiguous why the map was switching on its own.
5. "It feels like you should press down for shield. Down feels like a defensive button"
6. It's difficult to tell between the bullet tiers sometimes
Response:
1. I should definitely include some kind of quick tutorial that explains what all the UI means and what all the controls/ moves are. I could even bring back single player mode but make it far smaller in scope than the previous one. Interestingly, younger people (10 - 21; my target audience) tend to pick up the game quicker which is good because the game is already relatively difficult and having a skilled player base suits that demographic. Obviously I can't rely on everyone being immediately skilled though, hence the tutorial/ single player etc.
2. To be fair, it is not an essential technique for the majority of moves. I don't think people not using this is a problem as most testers are still getting the hang of the main set of controls. Some players go years with fighting games before learning all the techniques. I know I didn't use the shield in SSBM for a really long time and it took me even longer to learn to use more technical moves.
3. I suppose adding in this 2nd character potentially just acts as a higher skillcap for very technical players. I could possibly even make the 2 block high characters into a second game mode?... It does seem unnecessarily complex to do that though. The game was never built with lots of game modes etc in mind so adding lots of new ones now is quite difficult without revamping the whole system.
4. I need to make it clearer then what a round actually constitutes as. I could put player 'lives' at the top and exaggerate each kill so as to say 'look, you're closer to winning'. I should also extrinsically reward the winning player with a big 'player X wins' at least. This should make it feel better and also clearly seperate the rounds from one another. I think I should also give players the choice of player another round or not, although this does break the fluidity a bit.
5. I considered it but I think this is a really bad idea. Being able to constantly shield incentivizes defensive play which isn't really what I want as it's less exciting to watch. It also compromises the system of reflecting bullets as the bullets tier becomes less relevant. I suppose if I made the bullets just have 2 tier it could kind of work but again, this works in favor of the person not shooting; not engaging which is the opposite of what I want. It does help with issue 6 though.
6. Clearly the solution to this is to just make the different tiers more visually distinct. I could even add a different sound effect when a bullet turns into tier 3 just so as to warn players of the danger/ increase excitement.
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