YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I was a bit behind on canvasing this week so I hopped on r/destroymygame and picked a couple recent demos. I'm actually going to have to start venturing out of the pirate games discord... Which, as a game dev, if you're not already there you gotta jump in.
This week I actually managed to align with 2/3 devs and I feel like it added a lot. I FORGOT TO TIME THE SESSIONS AGAIN... so one of 'em I ended up playing for about 50 minutes. The other two were around 20-25.
- Le Chat Noir By Monimus Arts
- Please Fix The Building By LogicIne Games
- Dark Aces By Crashed Software
Le Chat Noir #
Le Chat Noir is my first narrative focused game... and for me... it was a positive experience. I am big on aesthetic and art direction and this game was very polished in that regard. This game is a vertical slice developed in 4 days, which is always impressive to me. It's a short thriller noir game based in 1960s New York. The player lives the life of Detective Casey, exploring a deeply stylized world to solve a murder.
The developer asked for focus on "feel and atmosphere" as well as "Is the game fun? interesting? immersive? What kind of game play would you expect this?".
The Good
Fantastic feel and atmosphere. The aesthetic was easily the best part of this project for me. I really enjoyed the character illustration and the overall art direction. I found myself immediately connected with the characters on the first scene.
The dialog was serious and funny at the same time. The absurdity of a Noir cat detective really worked. All of the aesthetics work and compound to have a very established feel. The music, art and dialog all tie together for a very nice vision.
The Bad
While the aesthetic was top notch, I'd like to see some of the dark corners be a little less dark.
The action sequence didn't feel right. The slide animation is too unforgiving, this can be seen when I don't press it fast enough. I think the player should drop to the floor immediately and upon release pop right back up. Additionally, the bottles in the sequence affect player movement too much. I think a little bit is ok, but it shouldn't disrupt the player path.
One nitpick with the dialog – show shots of the characters that are talking. It made the dialog scenes a bit hard to track who was talking. It's also a great opportunity to showcase the games fantastic art.
The Ugly
Really no bugs, but I would like to point out my struggle with finding the bar chair to progress the scene. I am being a bit critical here, but I almost had to quit the game because I wasn't sure what to do next. The solution here is to;
a) make it obvious what is next.
b) make the interaction crosshair a lot bigger.
Conclusion
The game is interesting, immersive and the art direction is great. This game is at a crossroads. Easily the weakest part of the game is the action sequence. While I did feel quite a thrill realizing that there was a giant ethereal cat chasing me, it wasn't really fun.
I think most people who would get drawn in by the presentation would be a little frustrated with the action sequence. If you keep it make it easier;
- Shortening the sequences
- Make the controls more responsive.
- Slow the cat down a bit
- Fix some of the hit boxes to be more forgiving
Overall I think the mixing of genres was likely just too ambitious for a 4 day game jam. With significant investment the action scene could be made more fun, but even then I think it would diverge from what people would expect. If the action sequence is kept in I believe a significant change needs to happen in how the game is marketed. Show the action sequence up front.
Personally, just drastically reducing the length and making them less challenging in general would be the way to go. The game was very immersive up until I got frustrated with the action. I was... very upset that the bottle knocked me off of the ledge at one point. However, I think the art is good enough to go all in on the narrative theme and just ditch it altogether. With some careful decision making I think this demo is very much worth taking further. GREAT work.
Please Fix The Building #
Steam Demo | Discord | Twitter
This was one of the random reddit games I selected. I was pretty happy with how this one worked out. One of my few streams where the dev is watching me play. I really enjoyed the dynamic of this sessions because of it. Mostly because I freaking love puzzle games. It was nice to have the dev there to nudge me in the right direction. I'm sure it gave them some great ideas on how to improve the UX of his game.
In "Please Fix the Building", players are tasked with re-assembling buildings in a neighborhood. There are many ways to assemble them and there are subtle rules the player must discover to complete the puzzle. I went wayyyy over my time on this one because I am a puzzle addict.
The Good
Great asset selection from kenney. I really think anyone who hates on asset packs can go sit in a corner and figure out how to be like 10% more normal. Anyways, the assets here fit the vibe of the game perfectly. The animations were very satisfying. All of this was tied together with some very nice music. I'm not sure exactly what kennai2 actually worked on, but it doesn't really matter. I'm guessing the music was purchased as well. No one who enjoys games cares as long as the whole thing ties together and is fun. I will be assuming the dev was a programmer and was primarily tying together asset packs from here forward.
I think the best part about this one is the UX and, broadly speaking, the game play. I am a puzzle addict after all and this definitely scratched this itch. There was almost zero friction in the way the player controls the puzzles. It was very satisfying and responsive. The feedback the player gets from snapping puzzle pieces around is fantastic. It is also worth noting that the camera controls were quite well done as well.
The Bad
While I did enjoy the puzzles, there is room for improvement with introducing the puzzle piece rules. I eventually figured out most of the rules... I THINK... but that's not something players to feel. I do not think I would have been as successful if kennai wasn't there. If you look at the chat transcript on the vod you can basically do a 1:1 transcription to make hints for the players.
I also think there is an opportunity to improve the victory conditions. The sparkly building effect is cool but the people playing these types of games crave that dopamine. Make a big deal when a player finishes the level.
The Ugly
Nothing to bad but, there were several places where I got puzzle pieces stuck under the board. Additionally in my live review I was able to glitch out the buildings and they were "sparkling" with mismatched roofs and being incomplete. Kennai pointed out this was a bug.
Conclusion
I believe this was the longest I've played a demo on stream. It was just under an hour. If that's not an endorsement I don't know what is. I think with a METRIC TON of these puzzles, with more and more unique pieces slowly introduced, this game would go pretty far.
The UX is really what stood out in hindsight. It was very snappy and felt good to whip those buildings around. Great job all around.
Dark Aces #
Play In Browser | Discord | Kofi | Twitch
These types of games will always bring me back to my childhood. I don't even recall the names of the ones I used to play in the arcade... but if there were little airplanes with abilities I was all about it.
I think this type of game is a challenge for a solo developer to tackle. Mainly because this is a very competitive genre with some very great games added to the genre in recent years. For it to stand out it must be a very well rounded game; graphics, game play and ux. If any of these are not great a game will have a hard time gaining an audience. This is true for every saturated game genre... but there seem to be an immense amount of bullet hell games. The challenge here is to stand out.
The Good
I enjoyed the graphics for this one. The developer lovingly crafted these assets by hand. I think one of the biggest advantages to having an in house artist is that all of the games assets will have the same style. The style in this game is (mostly) coherent and is really nice. It's a little bit odd to have the contrast between the old time planes and the monsters... but... WHO CARES ITS A GAME!
I feel like the difficulty and the manner in which enemies were spawned was well made, albeit pretty hard at the end. After a couple plays I felt more confident and was able to get the boss to 50%. It's definitely hard, and I'm operating under the assumption that this is intended.
The abilities were satisfying and visually stimulating. It would be a nice quality of life improvement to have a visual indicator closer to the plane instead of on the side, but that's a minor thing. I also thought the idea of healing when you're not shooting was an interesting thing instead of the typical health pickup.
The Bad
While I enjoyed the graphics, I think the resolution of assets is limiting this game. I understand that this is the same as, "Just do all of the art over", for a pixel artist. ZeroK humbly stated, "I am not great at art". I think ZeroK is too hard on themselves. The art is great, just too small, not enough detail. I think given enough time and larger canvas the art direction would really be taken up a notch. Given that a complete rework of graphical assets is... probably insane to ask of a solo indie dev. Maybe just for Dark Aces 2... lol. I just want to be clear here that I think ZeroK needs to be more ambitious.
I think there are some minor tweaks I would find an improvement;
- Tone down screen shake / add audio feedback
- Icon or visual indicator for abilities being done near the plane
- Regen state needs to be more obvious – I didn't notice it until I went to go take a screenshot!
The Ugly
One of the weapons was flat out broken. I feel like this could potentially throw the difficulty ramp I experienced off. While I love, love, LOVE the new browser based game resurgence... gotta make sure it all works! This is the thing that needs fixing before any other work is done. I'm a huge advocate for simply cutting a buggy thing to get a demo out over releasing a broken game. It takes away a LOT from a game when a major feature doesn't work. Given it's already live, take a step back and fix it or permanently remove it. I'd lean towards fixing it – it seems like a different and important ability.
Besides the laser bug, the lack of sound is probably the largest thing holding this project back. Being a solo dev is a near impossible task... a programmer, graphic designer AND audio engineer? What do I need to be, some kind of jack of all trades? It's insanity to attempt to be all of these things (I definitely feel insane when I do it)... so... time to go find an asset pack. If any dev is getting serious about a project, I would recommend finding one and purchasing it. I'm sure there are some very affordable ones. The main thing is there are an immense amount of stolen assets being marketed as free – it's worth knowing it's a legal license.
Conclusion
Great work. I enjoyed it a lot. I think if I wasn't a geriatric gamer who lacks stamina I would have beaten it. I try to keep that in mind when giving feedback at the end of my sessions.
ZeroK mentioned that they were considering adding a 'roguelike' element to the game. I took that to mean experience and abilities that reset with permadeath. I think this would be a great addition. It is something that needs to be added before any more levels are added. A roguelike element would drastically shift the level difficulty.
Wrap Up
I feel like the games are starting to blend together in my memory. Next week I will be giving feedback to my 30th game in just over 2 months. For me, the obvious one I will remember is Please Fix the Building. This may be my favorite game I've played yet. It's also the first pure puzzle game I've played. Send me more puzzles!!
I appreciate your support!
This is a passion project for me, so I appreciate all of these developers putting themselves out there and letting me give them some public feedback. If you enjoyed this content and would like to support this channel please do the things;
PS - I just wanna say out of the... oh... 50 or so people I've messaged only ZeroK has told me they don't click strange links. Y'all... this is how you should act when someone sends you to a strange website. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.