It’s really hard to answer those questions without a build to try. I didn’t spot any different game modes in the video, and what’s “clear” to me may be a complete misunderstanding.
Thank you! I really appreciate that. As a solo developer, I spend a lot of time on the art, environment design, and VFX, so it’s great to hear that they stood out to you.
That’s fair. A video can only show so much. I actually have a playable build available and I’d be happy to share it if you’d like to give it a try and provide feedback.
There are a lot of cool visuals in there, and the ball-launch mechanic works reasonably well already. Also nice with different game modes, I only played the standard one. Looking forward to seeing what gold and xp will do in the future
It took me a while to understand the goal of the game though - the tutorial says it’s “to eliminate your spheres from the arena before the opponent does”. I took that to mean I had to hit my spheres (which eliminates them from the arena) before my opponent hit them (which also eliminates them). As it turns out, it seems that that’s the last thing you want to do, as you get set back for doing either.
Notes:
The goal is a bit unclear, and the tutorial seems incorrect, or confusing. Even after multiple games, and a victory, I’m still not sure what the ‘correct’ way to play is… I tried to get all my spheres in the arena at the same time (the opposite of what the tutorial says), and won that way.
The game audio is very loud - compared to a loud, professionally mastered music track, this soundtrack is even louder. There’s really no reason for that, and it leaves very little headroom for audio effects, which are also loud but mixed okay relative to the music.
Several of the voice samples distort and / or clip. No need for that.
Having more than one music track would be nice.
The invisible timer to fire seems needlessly frustrating. You could at least show the timer, if there even is a need for it in singleplayer.
There is very little screen space to pull down when aiming, which makes the aim very sensitive. The aim line and color coding do make it quite manageable, but it may not work so well on, say, a smartphone.
Main menu icons aren’t centered when scaling up on hover over.
Arena selection with mouse feels odd - it’s either a dragging selection that doesn’t work, or a click (the images) selection that doesn’t work, or both
Thank you for taking the time to play the build and write such detailed feedback.
I’m glad you enjoyed the visuals, VFX, and the core ball-launch mechanic.
Your comments about the objective are especially helpful. The intended goal is to eliminate all of your own spheres before your opponent does. Reading your feedback, I can see that the tutorial and onboarding need to communicate that more clearly, especially for players who are experiencing the game for the first time.
The notes about the audio levels, voice clipping, aiming sensitivity, hidden firing timer, UI scaling, and arena selection are also very valuable. I’ve added all of them to my list for future improvements.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback and for spending the time to properly test the game.
