Amazing game with good combat and progression, I also love the Gentleman boss and think it's a good challenge, also do you think you could rework the controls and put it on Google play? it deserves to make to be on a app store
Reviews for "Forest Shack"
HatiValcoran responds:
Thank you for the positive feedback, it really motivates me. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤
I'm starting work on a smaller-scale game this week (if you would like to know about it come visit the campfire at discord) but I'm not against revisiting forest shack later on when I have gotten gotten more experience so I can do an even better job!
Graphics, gameplay and ambiance are really good but it crashed a couple of times for me.
HatiValcoran responds:
I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to Forest Shack! ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤
Sorry about the crashes, I hope the savefiles kept you from losing much progress.
If you tell me where they were, I can try to see if it is something I can fix. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ✎❑
The game is very good, I liked this board system and the horror atmosphere, keep it up.
HatiValcoran responds:
Thank you wanderer, I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to Forest Shack. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
I was really excited for this game and while I think it has improved in some ways from the original prototype and does have a certain mystique to it with its horror atmosphere, I was overall unfortunately quite disappointed and baffled by it, and feel like it actually got quite worse from before.
As said before, the most critical issue I have with the game is how incredibly confusing it is. But before we get into that, I just want to make note that when I say it is confusing, I'm not talking about the elements that are intentionally confusing for reasonable effect, such as how the player needs to pay a fee in order to see where a path leads to, or how certain mechanics are withheld for explanation until later as a means of progression/tutorialization, or how outcomes of events can be a bit vague like when you choose to steal the offerings and some such: those are perfectly understandable and add to the mystique I mentioned earlier.
What really confused me about the game is the absolutely abysmal UI/UX and the bizarre design decisions that made it so difficult to parse. I'm not even sure where to start: it seriously felt like every menu and UI layout was designed in the most worst way possible. Why can I not learn the use of certain items by hovering over them, until I first visit a shop and read the tool tips there, and only there? Why are some elements given tooltips while others are completely absent, such as the aforementioned items and path symbols? What the hell is the bone totem menu and how do you use it? Why do I have to click a bush in the corner, and what does it mean? And on and on.
The worst confusion of all was the combat design: without any proper feedback for attacks and the HUD elements spread so far apart, it was difficult to keep track of what was going on, let alone derive any sort of satisfaction from fighting. Take the lizard spitting some acid onto the ground in front of the player, or the deer just stamping its feet in place: did that hit me? Because it didn't look like it physically connected with me, and my sprite didn't react in the slightest, and my eyes were focused at the battle in the center not the health bubbles in the corner so its difficult to notice any change there: for all intents and purposes, its easy to think that the attack missed!
This confusion extends to a lot of other elements: for example, the feedback for landing a normal or critical timed hit on the arrow QTE is the same, so it's never clear whether you're getting the critical or not. Similarly, I had no idea I was actually succeeding in the knife QTE because the confirmation is so delayed from my input, and I have no idea what success does: did I hurt the enemy, or did I just stun them from attacking me, or something else? Who the hell knows, everything is so vague and lifeless and lacks any sort of logical connection that can be made due to the complete absence of visual or audio effects! A few hitsparks here, some player knockback animations there, a few damage numbers appearing above heads, moving health and turn timers near enemies instead of stuffed in the corner, perhaps slowing down the speed: some very simple things could help a lot here!
Even if I were to put this all aside, learn all of the game's rules through trial and error, and just focus on the gameplay...there's not much there either. Combat pretty much boils down to mashing attack, chugging a potion when you're low, and reacting to random QTE prompts: there's no real engaging strategy to the fights that I ever found, like having to prioritize certain enemies first, managing supplies in the long-term, or having to stay alert for powerful attack telegraphs and pre-emptively defend against it or stun them first. To add salt onto the wound, the game seemed incredibly buggy, with QTEs sometimes appearing behind enemies thus making it impossible to read, it losing my save file due to oddly-worded instructions, and with it just looping me back to the start despite my best attempts to progress over and over. Finally, without having any real sense of an ultimate goal or story from the very start to strive for, what's the point?
It was unfortunately a big miss for me, but as said, I think the concept behind this game could be nice, and for your first foray into game design, these kind of things will happen. As you create a game and get used to all of its systems, it can be very confusing to realize just how much you need to teach a player and facilitate their experience since it all seems so obvious in your head. Best of luck in future.
HatiValcoran responds:
Looping you back to the start? ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❓
The save system doesn't load your save unless you *click* load at the very beginning.
It is likely you were confused by the overworld travel, after you reach the campfire you enter a different area, it is not visually distinguished but it becomes obvious as you unlock new runes and new enemies that show up as you progress.
It feels wrong to say it, but most of your complaints touch the things I focused in the least in this project, I learned the most on how to craft an atmosphere, a progression system, different types of encounters, balance, coding, planning, prototyping, developing a concept, and *so* many other things.
A far smaller, more tightly designed game where I focused on a small gameplay loop and clarity would had made the more solid experience you were looking for, but unfortunately it would had taught me much less.
Thank you for your feedback, I'm still learning so any feedback into the parts a player might find the most confusing about my design is very valuable. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ✎❑
You would had made a great playtester. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤
This game is an example of being complicated for the sake of it, there is no improvements that can be made on having such finicky and needlessly drawn-out systems. Complexity like this does not equal depth. The game flows like milk after left in the hot summer heat. Perhaps time should've been spent in an actual forest shack instead of making this unsatisfying rube goldberg machine. The visual talent was wasted on this -Dark Avenger
Ahhh you mad ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤
HatiValcoran responds:
This comment is an example of being long and redundant for the sake of it. The writing talent was wasted on this.
And the complicated system is to distract you from the rats waiting to eat you when you fall asleep at night.
Please leave a cup of salt on your nightstand so you might be seasoned at will, thank you for your feedback. ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ❤