This could be a pretty good game. I like the voice acting, the sound effects are good, and the story is okay, but it has its problems.
- If you kill everyone early on, the game won't advance. There will be no one for the creature to possess and replace. There were a few people left alive and I took blood samples and none of them were the creature. I know this for certain because I killed the rest of the people. You could have made it so the creature could possess or hide inside dead bodies or if everyone, but you is dead, you could try having a surprise attack inside the building or have it come after you outside. You could also have it where it can shrink down to its smaller size and jump out of the vent at you.
- The game doesn't offer multiple endings, right? It could offer four endings, one if you beat it without killing any innocents, one for if you accidentally kill an innocent, one for if the creature takes over everyone except you (killing them all), and one for if you murder everyone. There wouldn't have to be much of an ending for each. For killing everyone, you could show him in jail or show everyone who survived.
- Things about the game’s logic don’t add up. Based on Astrocreep, these creatures can reproduce yet only one of them is present in the game and it jumps from body to body. Why is there only one? What happens to the body it originally jumped from? Why does the bloody wetsuit disappear after the creature is first attacked? You could have made it really creepy and had it so the creature would stash the bodies in different places, like one in the fringe, another under the bed, etc.
- Starting the game over and having to swim through the credits is boring the second time through. Perhaps add a skip function.
- You don't offer the player a way to restart the game if they get stuck or if they just feel like starting over. You can refresh the page, but the game takes kind of long to load.
- You can’t leave a room once the creature reveals itself, which kind of stinks, especially if you run out of ammo (if I ran out of ammo in that situation, I’d get out). Also, why is it that you are only allowed to run during attacks? Why not provide the run option outside of this? I understand wanting to build suspense, but if you designed this game for multiple playthroughs, players are going to get annoyed by this.
- During the “take blood” part of the game, you can’t interact with Trevor. He’ll just stand in the corner of the lab (though you can shoot him).
- The text doesn’t always fit in the dialogue boxes, making it difficult to read (one example being talking to Uma after the first appearance of the creature).
- Dean, your character, will know that the microscope has been damaged before he even goes back to the lab (if you talk to anyone after encountering the creature a second time, this will be revealed even without going back to the lab).
- You can turn on the air conditioning unit without the screwdriver. I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen.
- The audio for a character will cut off if you advance usually, which is good, but if you get to a choice screen, the other character’s audio will keep playing even if you tried to skip it.
- The creature attacked me after getting the gun and going back to the party. How would it have known to do that? What’s worse is that the character (who I knew the creature was) was off screen and I walked to the second screen, but the person was right there as soon as I got there and the creature transformed and ate me. This isn’t very fair at all. It also isn’t right where you are shooting at the creature and he is still approaching you. You don’t provide the player with much room to fight and this is also bas because you can’t control where the creature is going to walk before it transforms (for example, if the creature in human form is coming to the left wall than right, then you’d want to go to the right wall and put as much distance between you and creature as possible, but you’d have to pass by it. What’s stopping the creature from transforming when you try and pass it?
- Having to check the blood tests again after dying is a pain and it can be avoided. Why not have it so you have the blood tests, but randomize them upon respawning so that the result might be different. If you want to indicate the player that they should check them again, have a “to do list” or a menu that details what the current mission is.
- When the helicopter appears, it takes a long time for the game to end. Please speed up this process. I don’t hear anything special while waiting for it to end except for the sound of a helicopter.
- I don’t know this for certain (because after three times where the game either freezes or doesn’t let me advance, I’m not playing it again. Getting through the opening again is a pain), but it’s possible if you try to rapidly shoot bullets, the game will only shoot at a certain rate while if you press the fire button faster than this rate, then your ammo will go down. Maybe check on this.
- It’s a small detail, but when you shoot a bullet, the direction of the sprite does not change.
- There is a locker in the last building on the left. I’ve spoken with everyone, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is offering a key. I even got the blonde woman to offer her key (originally, I got it from killing her).
- You allow the player to open the refrigerator, but you don’t let them take a beer. You could make it so you can just ignore the scream and party for a while until the creature attacks or something.
- When you take away the beginning credits portion, the beginning introduction to the characters portion, the game is pretty short and doesn’t offer a lot of replay value after beating it because it doesn’t offer anything new. The game will play out in the same way each time with different characters being taken over. So far, Trevor or the scientist woman haven’t been taken over at the beginning because this would interfere with the streamed line storyline. There are no surprises after playing it through the first time.
- There might be more problems, but I don’t feel like playing the game again right now. Below, I’ve listed some definite glitches.
Glitches:
- After turning on the air conditioning unit and dying after facing the creature, the game over screen came up and then game screen went black. You could still hear the rain for a little while though. This happened to me at least twice, forcing me to restart the game if I wanted to continue.
- The game flashes white when you leave a building. Is this intentional?
- The game window shifts slightly to the left or right when you are about to walk off screen.
You’ve been making games for at least 12 years and I’ve seen the things you can make and they are good, but recently there is almost always problems with them whether it be glitches, they aren’t finished, or something else and a lot of the time, they are glaringly obvious problems. Now, glitches and lacking gameplay you will find in nearly all games, but putting in safe guards that prevent the player’s progress from being lost is vital (I played Psychoscape and I wanted to make a walkthrough for it, but I got trapped on one of the levels, I wasn’t able to restart and I wasn’t able to reload the game without starting all over. That turned me off immediately). Also, as interesting as playing the game was, I wouldn’t mind (and I’m guessing many others wouldn’t mind either) waiting for it to be good and done instead of releasing a beta or releasing it with problems. Many people lead busy lives and they don’t want to risk wasting time playing something that may fail on them (also there’s less motivation to play a game you played once before, even if it is the “complete” version). I’m willing to help you test your games and I’m sure many other people are willing to help as well because it is clear, both from past and present projects, that you have talent and you can organize the creation of games and work with other people on them (the voice acting in the game is well done).
I would really like this game if it took place inside of a house or hospital, somewhere where there is room to move about and danger could come at any moment.
I wish you luck on your future project and let me know if you want any help with them.
