:) Congratulations on the launch!!! I would recommend adding a logo and link to this demo to steam or whatever other platform you're thinking of (if you are)
Otherwise, haven't played much yet, but you can tell by far it has a lot of work and passion all over it!
Great work!
Very nice game! The visual style is fantastic + really cool gameplay :)
Yes, yes, yes! I've been looking for a good, simple browser Metroid-like for a while now, and this fits the bill perfectly. This is not a full review, and more of a "first impressions" kind of text.
To start off, the presentation is just adorable. The cutesy simplistic style of the sprites is lovely, and the eerie, cartoony feel of the scenery is also awesome. The music is just the right type for an adventure and exploration based game, it feels perfect and makes one feel pumped and curious to explore. The sound effects are nice, ranging from a plethora of nondescript "splat" sounds to cartoony jumping sounds, all of which go well with the soundtrack and fit the style of the game's presentation very well. So yeah, solid presentation, adorable, cartoony and adventurous.
The game takes place in a primitive scenery in which some form of weird magical clay has fallen on the world from space, taken over everything and transformed a bunch of underground landscapes into hostile and bizarre environments. As a cute dinosaur that has fallen into a clay-ridden underground forest during the commotion, you must venture into the caves with the help of a few helpful NPCs and at the mercy of a plethora of hostile monsters so that you can leave. I'm still not that deep into the story to know all the details of it, but so far, it seems like it's gonna be one of those games where the story serves only to motivate the gameplay, which is not a bad thing.
And speaking of gameplay, this game is just what I've been looking for these days. A Metroid-like where you can explore a multitude of different sceneries full of tiny secrets, unlock special abilities which in turn unlock new secrets and entire new areas, and with every section being full of dangerous hazards and fun platforming? Yup, I dig. The maps are very well designed, fun to explore, and with convenient shortcuts depending on the powerups you have, as well as a significant amount of useful secrets in each area.
The monsters are also fun and interesting, each presenting a different behavior and demanding a different approach to defeat or bypass them: we have the traditional horizontal-roaming enemies, but also bullet shooters, hopping monsters, monsters that fall from the ceiling, and some extra-annoying missile launching ones. The way the enemies are laid out in different sections of the maps is also very well thought, with certain enemy layouts demanding that you really think about what you're doing for a second if you want to traverse unscathed. It's like every section of every map was laid out in a design-conscious way so they're challenging and fun while still providing some shortcuts to keep them from being boring to backtrack through.
The powerups one can obtain can be separated in two categories: the "key" ones, that is, the ones that are necessary to progress through the game, usually found upon beating bosses, and the optional ones, usually related to battling or traveling, that one can obtain by buying them from NPCs with the so-called "Clay Orbs", plus some other items the NPCs may ask for. The progression in this game is exactly the way a good Metroid-like usually is: your hand is not forced through a bunch of linear levels, and instead, as soon as you gain a new powerup, you gain access to new areas, and one of them leads to the next "level", so to say. That not to mention that satisfaction of finally being able to reach a spot you once found but couldn't get to because of previous shortcomings, even if said place is just a tiny secret, is something I really enjoy in exploration-based games.
As much as I obviously enjoy this game, it's not without its share of problems. First of all, I'm experiencing significant slowdown in some sections, and I don't know exactly what triggers them. I mean, maybe it's hard to make a browser game in this level of scale and polish work seamlessly, but maybe my system is to blame too, I dunno. Also, while the levels mostly work perfectly, there was one occasion where I got trapped by a frog in one of those narrow corridors you have to go through while melting, and the only way to get across it was to take damage. It's not game breaking, it's just annoying. Also, it took me a while to realize the map screen doesn't pause the game, and in my opinion, that's rather cheap. I mean, if the map's gonna completely block off the game screen, the sensible thing to do is to simply make it pause as well. If the idea was to include a map that the player could look at while exploring, then maybe it should be either transparent or smaller.
To sum it up, the game does "Metroid-like" really well, better than most so-called "Metroidvanias" I've been encountering these days. It's also considerably long for a browser game, which is also nice, and in general, I enjoyed it. It does have a few issues, but nothing game-breaking.
Woah thanks a lot for the in-depth impressions!
The game (as expected) takes so much from the classic Metroid-like formula and it's something I really wanted to expand upon -while still trying to adapt to modern game expectations- , trying an unusual twist to the well known and expected mechanics of those games, so it's great to know it fits properly into the genre!
One of the reasons behind making this game was to learn the whole development process, and player feedback has been mandatory for that (I'm still taking notes!), I think I get which part you mean by the unavoidable frog-hit scenario, a good reminder to keep a closer eye on where creatures can become unavoidable.
I also tried a few things for the map, at the end I kept it within the game's real-time because you could see yourself moving through it, it didn't come up much in testing, but a safer and more expected way would be the ones you mention (or just pausing it as usual).
Thanks again, and let me know if you have more comments on later parts of the game!!
i lov
5 star quality