Impressive job! The game is fresh and engaging. I love that you took the simple digging loop of minecraft and focused on it. There are some things I like and some that I feel take away from the distilled experience. Here is my more in-depth feedback:
1. Adding the lung capacity works really well to add tension. It doesn't feel gimmicky, and created very vivid emotional moments during gameplay, where you frantically have to scramble to get up. I feel though that the air trails dilute the essence of this situation, pretty much giving you a highway to get back up. Later on when my maze was quite deep it sparked the panic slightly again, because the trails lead to different directions. I think I could see the logic behind keeping it and removing it. But I think it should support this moment of panic the player has, and the consequences of this breath system - if the player has limited breath and can get lost, he now has to consciously plan routes and escapes, they can't be careless! It gives weight to every digging decision. Which I feel should be in this game. Maybe instead of giving the player a helping hand with the wind, give him a tool! He can buy a set of markers or torches, and place them - this results in player creating their own winds, like breadcrumbs from the tale. It is on them to ensure their safe escape.
2. The game is very juicy, which for short play sessions feels amazing, similar to Devil Daggers, but it limits the amount of playtime I can handle at once. I feel like this digging fantasy has capacity for a longer play session, closer to 1-2 hours not 15-20 minutes, but for that I would recommend toning down the juice baseline and boosting it in certain moments.
3. The atmosphere and colors do evoke strong feelings. I love the vibe and the possible storytelling to come.
4. Losing mining progress on death removes the possibility for this feeling of uncovering the world, knowing your own tunnels, and figuring the space out. It works well for repetition but I'd say the loss is quite large because with a game about mining blocks, the shape and spaces you make create emotional attachment. You build a bond with these tunnels and mines you've built, you recognize them. Resetting that on every death makes me want to come back less. Maybe removing the progress partially could work? Like only parts of the mine around my death would get refilled?
5. The mechanics of the hammer and drill are a bit abstract but very fun and with the dynamite placed around it creates this nice push-pull dynamic.
6. Most of the within-run mining upgrades I used were impactful to gameplay and well thought out. I felt like they could really change the way I have to play or improve my digging. Some of them felt much stronger than others, but modifiers are difficult to do well and I think you are on the right track.
7. The UI is not very readable - mostly how much ore do I have. At first I didn't see it at all and even when I saw it, it was very hard to read the numbers.
8. The meta-progression of gathering and buying upgrades in the shop fulfills its role but is so common nowadays that it lost my interest immediately.
9. There was a bug where sometimes my drill disappeared but I could still dig. I was not sure what was happening.
Overall, I think you have a really cool game there and it's already enjoyable and in a good state. I can see a lot of potential with this gameplay loop, but some of the ideas I brought up might mean much bigger scope. I wish you well with this project and will definitely share this with my friends. Good luck!
Just a heads-up, as currently implemented, there is no meta-progression that I can see, so it's more of a roguelike than a roguelite. Additionally, the skill shop bugs out sometimes, leading to being unable to enter it and making the audio stack. Starting a new game after that makes you stuck in the skill shop and does not stop the noise.
Will try to replicate it tomorrow, but there's a chance the same thing that you fixed to make the skills save will fix the shop. This is especially the case if buying the same skills after losing them is what causes it or something. Edit: Also, definitely loving the demo.
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Impressive job! The game is fresh and engaging. I love that you took the simple digging loop of minecraft and focused on it. There are some things I like and some that I feel take away from the distilled experience. Here is my more in-depth feedback:
1. Adding the lung capacity works really well to add tension. It doesn't feel gimmicky, and created very vivid emotional moments during gameplay, where you frantically have to scramble to get up. I feel though that the air trails dilute the essence of this situation, pretty much giving you a highway to get back up. Later on when my maze was quite deep it sparked the panic slightly again, because the trails lead to different directions. I think I could see the logic behind keeping it and removing it. But I think it should support this moment of panic the player has, and the consequences of this breath system - if the player has limited breath and can get lost, he now has to consciously plan routes and escapes, they can't be careless! It gives weight to every digging decision. Which I feel should be in this game. Maybe instead of giving the player a helping hand with the wind, give him a tool! He can buy a set of markers or torches, and place them - this results in player creating their own winds, like breadcrumbs from the tale. It is on them to ensure their safe escape.
2. The game is very juicy, which for short play sessions feels amazing, similar to Devil Daggers, but it limits the amount of playtime I can handle at once. I feel like this digging fantasy has capacity for a longer play session, closer to 1-2 hours not 15-20 minutes, but for that I would recommend toning down the juice baseline and boosting it in certain moments.
3. The atmosphere and colors do evoke strong feelings. I love the vibe and the possible storytelling to come.
4. Losing mining progress on death removes the possibility for this feeling of uncovering the world, knowing your own tunnels, and figuring the space out. It works well for repetition but I'd say the loss is quite large because with a game about mining blocks, the shape and spaces you make create emotional attachment. You build a bond with these tunnels and mines you've built, you recognize them. Resetting that on every death makes me want to come back less. Maybe removing the progress partially could work? Like only parts of the mine around my death would get refilled?
5. The mechanics of the hammer and drill are a bit abstract but very fun and with the dynamite placed around it creates this nice push-pull dynamic.
6. Most of the within-run mining upgrades I used were impactful to gameplay and well thought out. I felt like they could really change the way I have to play or improve my digging. Some of them felt much stronger than others, but modifiers are difficult to do well and I think you are on the right track.
7. The UI is not very readable - mostly how much ore do I have. At first I didn't see it at all and even when I saw it, it was very hard to read the numbers.
8. The meta-progression of gathering and buying upgrades in the shop fulfills its role but is so common nowadays that it lost my interest immediately.
9. There was a bug where sometimes my drill disappeared but I could still dig. I was not sure what was happening.
Overall, I think you have a really cool game there and it's already enjoyable and in a good state. I can see a lot of potential with this gameplay loop, but some of the ideas I brought up might mean much bigger scope. I wish you well with this project and will definitely share this with my friends. Good luck!
Just a heads-up, as currently implemented, there is no meta-progression that I can see, so it's more of a roguelike than a roguelite. Additionally, the skill shop bugs out sometimes, leading to being unable to enter it and making the audio stack. Starting a new game after that makes you stuck in the skill shop and does not stop the noise.
thank you for letting me know, the skills were supposed to be meta-progression, but they got reset, now it works correctly
the skillshop should not bug out like that, and i'm unable to understand how that happened
Will try to replicate it tomorrow, but there's a chance the same thing that you fixed to make the skills save will fix the shop. This is especially the case if buying the same skills after losing them is what causes it or something.
Edit: Also, definitely loving the demo.
useing the hammer, just makes the block disapear, it does not give anything.
you are hammering dirt...
how would I know the "dirt" is useless???
hammering the oxiolite also seems to replenish oxygen instead of giving ore.
HOW THE HELL DO I GET ANY ORE!???. Been mining for 5 min. clicking the highlighted bottons and dont think i am getting anything