this is very difficult in an unexpected combination of ways
Reviews for "DRILLBIT!!"
I like the concept of the game but there are something to improve
1.as a fast pace game, the sensivity of controlling isn't high enough; if you ever dig to right direction, you have to wait for about 0.5 second to turn your drill to left beofre you can actually dig to left. This make the game extremely stressful to play.(Though holding left while drilling also works but I believe this is not the intended way to do it)
possible solution:
use "drill left" "drill down" "drill right" buttons instead of direction + drill
2.the drill hitbox is a bit too wide, it might be easy to catch the right letter but very hard to dodge wrong letter especially when the chasing mechanic start working.
possible solution:
add a "crash" button, when holding crash button you will ignore the letter you collect
(add a short cool down time in case it ruins the gaming experience)
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and there is some suggestion for making game easier to clear(well, ignore it if you are not going to show mercy to players lol)
power up system(collect to take effect)
shield : prevent 1 mistake collect
scarecrow : ghost stop chasing for a short period
eraser : remove 1 wrong collect
shop upgrade system(clear the stage faster to get currency and buy)
extra guessing chance
1 letter reveal
slow down ghost chasing(1 time use)
dig through wall to take short break
position indicator (show which row the incoming letter will show up)
letter indicator (show what will be the next incoming letter)
Super fun game, but the screen shake with the pixel artstyle makes it a little hard to tell which letters are there
Pretty neat little game with an interesting concept! As usual from a Jack game, I overall found the game to have a very polished level of construction and juicyness to it all, as well as being a wacky and unique concept, so for the most part the game was pretty neat.
Having said that, though, I did feel kind of awkward in my impression of it. I'm probably thinking too hard about it, but I was a bit confused on how you're supposed to play.
I assume the intent is that you drill down and make some educated guesses on letters until you get close to what the answer is, and then once you know what it is, drill and get the remaining letters you need. But it felt a bit awkward since, as much fun as it is to drill, it felt like the game was better played if you just idle around and think about the solution, which is pretty boring. Later on it kind of forces you to keep drilling with the wave of dirt, which I feel is good pressure to keep you drilling and take risks but it's almost too harsh too fast and just makes it frustrating instead of interesting.
Furthermore, I wasn't sure about scoring, like whether a big depth was a positive or a negative: it seems to think that a big number for depth is good since it has achievements for it, but shouldn't a big depth technically be bad since it would kind of imply that you needed to take so long to finish a word? Though thinking about it, the letters are randomly placed, so its not really up to the player on how deep they might have to dig until they get the right letters, unless the course is seeded in such a way that there's always an optimal solution at a certain depth, and every bit of depth past that would be suboptimal. And if depth is a positive, can't you just cheese it by digging down and down, ignoring letter blocks and the word solving? I dunno, haha!
Apart from that, there were also some minor annoyances like how letter blocks, one that I need and another I don't, would spawn right on top of each other, and I found the drilling a bit too wild and janky to reliably get just the one I want without inevitably getting the other one and being penalized.
For the most part I think it's a neat game: a little shallow (ironically) but certainly juicy and interesting enough to be a nice experience for a time.
Pretty cute and fun!!! Hard though.