This is an extremely relatable piece over something that all students experience at some point in their life. Your theme tied in well with your assets and the music of course reminds us all of the iconic Lo-fi beats YouTube streams. Playthrough was a bit difficult but manageable, and I could totally feel the character's emotions becoming more filled with chaos and paranoia.
For future improvements I would add some more visual cues for the player so they can distinguish between whether or not an object has been hit by a bullet or simply unloaded itself due to their time limit. I think improving the UI that accounts for the score could also help, as I did find myself a bit confused at times as to how much progress I was making. Overall a very cool dark take on a common college worry!
WOW, Absolutely Insane! Love It. I think you captured the feeling of absolute fear when you realize that you're barely clinging to reality after multiple sleepless nights of cramming. I often find myself listening to Lofi-Girl when studying and this definitely captures that vibe. The beginning track is actually really good. Where did you get it? Did you make it yourself? Think this game is a great commentary on toxic work and school crunch.
This game has a lot of potential to be something bigger. You could make each thought or distraction have actual academic problems and think of a way that players might have to approach each thought differently, thus keeping the gameplay fresh at all times. Overall, keep up the good work Yuen!
The eyes!! I can't stop looking at the person's eyes in the bottom corner of the screen. The way they twitch and roll around in his head is so creepy in the best way possible. I also thought the third wave transition was so beautiful and shocking!! Where do you see room for improvement?
I think that playing around with the sound effect on the pencil shooter could be interesting to try out. Since I was shooting at a constant rate I kind of felt like the audio I was creating was steamrolling over the haunting lofi background music. Another thing on audio design, this might be super cheesy and overdone, but I think that having a steady thumping heartbeat that increases as the waves go on could be pretty effective on emphasizing the increasing intensity (or something like that)
I had a little bit of a hard time keeping track of what I was doing cause I was just so focused on shooting the bubbles so I think that replacing the UI text scores with UI Slider progress trackers could be a good way for players to easily see what's going on. When did you stop playing and why?
I didn't stop! I actually replayed multiple times just so I could keep staring at the person's eyes :)
Was there anything related to the interface or controls that was hard to understand?
Controls were very easy to pick up! It might be easier for players to follow progress if it was tracked by a slider rather than text. Also on the instructions page it could be nice to have a visual key
Do you have any other feedback that you would like the designer to hear?
One more thing I just thought of, are the bullets staying on the screen after they miss bubbles intentional? If not, either shortening lifespan or having them destroy on collision with the boundary colliders could solve this! Other than that, SUCH BEAUTIFUL ART!! So cool seeing the progress from last week to now. Great job!
I enjoyed playing this game and found the art style and theme to be very charming and eerie! I think anyone who has had to study under pressure can relate to the feeling of having to deal with distractions. I think this game cleverly expands on this with the threat of being possessed, and the narrative sets the natural progression for the levels well. The sound and art design are strong between the different levels. I found the gameplay to be a bit difficult and the size of the "player" does make the space feel a little cramped. The levels get progressively harder and it took me 3 tries to win the game. At first I moved around a lot and turned to shoot "enemies", however this strategy didn't help me when I felt overwhelmed in the later levels. After losing the game twice I decided to stay in one place and just focus on spinning and shooting the "enemies" and this strategy helped me to win the game.
When I first played, I played without looking at the instructions. Nevertheless, I knew the navigation keys and attack keys right away. Also, seeing the blob color is black, I was able to assume that this could be harmful to me.
Illustrations makes me look forward to how the character illustration will change every time I go to the next level. It was fun to see the character shake his eyeballs on the second stage!
Where do you see room for improvement?
I was able to clear this game just by spinning and shooting. If you can get HP by touching the white cloud without shooting, wouldn't there be a reason to move a little more? and if there is a disadvantage when shooting the white cloud, I think I will shoot a little more carefully.
When did you stop playing and why?
I haven’t stopped.
Was there anything related to the interface or controls that was hard
to understand?
It's a bit difficult to see the instruction because the background texture of the instruction has dark gray lines.
Was there anything related to the mechanics that was hard to understand?
nope
Was there anything related to the art, or sound that was hard to understand?
I really liked the relaxing background music. It really matched with the bookshelf background image.
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This is an extremely relatable piece over something that all students experience at some point in their life. Your theme tied in well with your assets and the music of course reminds us all of the iconic Lo-fi beats YouTube streams. Playthrough was a bit difficult but manageable, and I could totally feel the character's emotions becoming more filled with chaos and paranoia.
For future improvements I would add some more visual cues for the player so they can distinguish between whether or not an object has been hit by a bullet or simply unloaded itself due to their time limit. I think improving the UI that accounts for the score could also help, as I did find myself a bit confused at times as to how much progress I was making. Overall a very cool dark take on a common college worry!
WOW, Absolutely Insane! Love It. I think you captured the feeling of absolute fear when you realize that you're barely clinging to reality after multiple sleepless nights of cramming. I often find myself listening to Lofi-Girl when studying and this definitely captures that vibe. The beginning track is actually really good. Where did you get it? Did you make it yourself? Think this game is a great commentary on toxic work and school crunch.
This game has a lot of potential to be something bigger. You could make each thought or distraction have actual academic problems and think of a way that players might have to approach each thought differently, thus keeping the gameplay fresh at all times. Overall, keep up the good work Yuen!
Feedback I forgot to post from October 5th:
What were your favorite moments of the game?
The eyes!! I can't stop looking at the person's eyes in the bottom corner of the screen. The way they twitch and roll around in his head is so creepy in the best way possible. I also thought the third wave transition was so beautiful and shocking!!
Where do you see room for improvement?
I think that playing around with the sound effect on the pencil shooter could be interesting to try out. Since I was shooting at a constant rate I kind of felt like the audio I was creating was steamrolling over the haunting lofi background music.
Another thing on audio design, this might be super cheesy and overdone, but I think that having a steady thumping heartbeat that increases as the waves go on could be pretty effective on emphasizing the increasing intensity (or something like that)
I had a little bit of a hard time keeping track of what I was doing cause I was just so focused on shooting the bubbles so I think that replacing the UI text scores with UI Slider progress trackers could be a good way for players to easily see what's going on.
When did you stop playing and why?
I didn't stop! I actually replayed multiple times just so I could keep staring at the person's eyes :)
Was there anything related to the interface or controls that was hard
to understand?
Controls were very easy to pick up! It might be easier for players to follow progress if it was tracked by a slider rather than text.
Also on the instructions page it could be nice to have a visual key
Do you have any other feedback that you would like the designer to hear?
One more thing I just thought of, are the bullets staying on the screen after they miss bubbles intentional? If not, either shortening lifespan or having them destroy on collision with the boundary colliders could solve this!
Other than that, SUCH BEAUTIFUL ART!! So cool seeing the progress from last week to now. Great job!
I enjoyed playing this game and found the art style and theme to be very charming and eerie! I think anyone who has had to study under pressure can relate to the feeling of having to deal with distractions. I think this game cleverly expands on this with the threat of being possessed, and the narrative sets the natural progression for the levels well. The sound and art design are strong between the different levels. I found the gameplay to be a bit difficult and the size of the "player" does make the space feel a little cramped. The levels get progressively harder and it took me 3 tries to win the game. At first I moved around a lot and turned to shoot "enemies", however this strategy didn't help me when I felt overwhelmed in the later levels. After losing the game twice I decided to stay in one place and just focus on spinning and shooting the "enemies" and this strategy helped me to win the game.
Playtester Name: Chang
Developer Name(s): Yuen
Playtest Date : 10/4/2020
What were your favorite moments of the game?
When I first played, I played without looking at the instructions. Nevertheless, I knew the navigation keys and attack keys right away. Also, seeing the blob color is black, I was able to assume that this could be harmful to me.
Illustrations makes me look forward to how the character illustration will change every time I go to the next level. It was fun to see the character shake his eyeballs on the second stage!
Where do you see room for improvement?
I was able to clear this game just by spinning and shooting. If you can get HP by touching the white cloud without shooting, wouldn't there be a reason to move a little more? and if there is a disadvantage when shooting the white cloud, I think I will shoot a little more carefully.
When did you stop playing and why?
I haven’t stopped.
Was there anything related to the interface or controls that was hard
to understand?
It's a bit difficult to see the instruction because the background texture of the instruction has dark gray lines.
Was there anything related to the mechanics that was hard to understand?
nope
Was there anything related to the art, or sound that was hard to understand?
I really liked the relaxing background music. It really matched with the bookshelf background image.