I'd like to report that upon exiting the tutorial area the controls went wonky and won't work and my character randomly moves and attacks things. But otherwise the game really looks promising
Reviews for "Rum & Gun DEMO"
Borington responds:
Do you mean WASD or clicking didn't do anything. Your character can't attack on its own, that must have been an AI follower. Did it have a health bar displayed on top? What browser/OS are you using? Thanks for the feedback.
This is a pretty neat lil' brawler aside from a few issues, most minor. Don't take the fact that this review seems long and critical the wrong way; it's just that all the things this game does right are pretty obvious and don't need me to spell them out. It's got solid mechanics, responsive controls, beautiful graphics, pretty good auditory feedback, and -- most importantly -- stylin' hats. So here are the things to improve and make it close to perfect.
Slow movement from place to place makes the game feel kinda sluggish. A non-combat movement speed boost would be nice (ie, you move faster if you haven't attacked or been attacked in the last three seconds), to assist in travel without making kiting too easy. Perhaps the Agility upgrades would help if they weren't glitched. They provide a brief movement boost, but it goes away after some event (perhaps changing weapons or acquiring a different perk); I did a timed comparison of an Agility I + Agility II character against a brand new game, so I'm quite sure.
The Rifle feels terrible, even with its Pierce upgrade, as compared to either the Pistol or Blunderbuss. The latter is obviously vastly better at close- and mid-range, and the former is just better in all contexts due to its fire rate and access to the sword charge. The Rifle needs something unique to differentiate it from the Pistol, and Pierce is insufficient due to the higher fire rate, higher ammo count, and larger projectile hitbox of the Pistol making it better against crowds anyway. Perhaps switching Pierce to "ignore bullet reflection" and increasing the frequency of enemies who can reflect bullets (why don't cannons, for example?) would help, as would increasing the damage and greatly decreasing ammo availability so that it feels more like a proper sniping weapon.
Holding Q to see enemy lifebars is super awkward. Make that a toggle button instead of a hold button, like the fiddle.
Melee allies need a lot more max health (and should heal the same percentage of max health from the Fiddle as they do currently). Protecting your gunners is fine and all, but sword allies seem strictly worse than gunners: they run into massive swarms of enemies and there's no way to protect them as they insta-die, other than playing the Fiddle...which prevents you from helping them dish out damage in the process.
I think that's mostly it. Again, solid work. Looking forward to more from you.
Borington responds:
Thanks . I can'imagine how Agility lost its effect. Maybe it's too subtle? (no agility is 0.09 speed, Agility II is 0.096). Anyways, this has been a very helpful review! Glad you liked it.
Edit: in version 1.0.2 the agility perk has been slightly boosted, and Q has been changed from hold to toggle. Also, the rifle bullet's collision size has been increased. There actually was a coding mistake there.
I hate how allies have permadeath. Can't the fiddle wake them up? I don't want to just ramble through a place that gives me allies only to be the only survivor of the group. Maybe a perk that lets my allies wake up on their own after being knocked out.
This is a nice Diablo clone otherwise. I like the pirate aesthetic and I just want to command a crew. What is a pirate captain without a ship and a crew?
Borington responds:
Thanks for the detailed feedback! Ship combat is definitely coming in the full version.
i like it
I enjoyed it more than I'd expected to. It's simple yet addictive. I did notice that at points you really can't seem to strategically take out groups of enemies to prevent being overrun in later levels, which could get frustrating.
The weapons were interesting, I'm still not entirely sure about the spells. But overall good game.