Reviews for TentaCat: The Lost Lineage

[Valio]

I gave up after being killed by Seth for about the 90th time with 581 fish

What I liked:
* Great style and pixel art
* Fitting music and sound effects
* Keyboard controls are good and can be adapted in the options screen

Suggestions for improvements (prioritized):
* On the continue screen, the "No" option should _not_ be the default option (make "Yes" the default or add a superposition state before the player has pressed any key), as novice players are likely to accidentally to choose this one
* Kill enemies that are depleted of energy immediately, instead of keeping them on-screen until you stopped shooting. Else players will get frustrated, as they're uncertain at what point an enemy is dead (especially if it's a new type).
* Provide a better possibility to anticipate, when Seth is going into a new rage mode (e.g. make him shortly stop in an invincible mode [e.g. panting] or provide graphical/numerical indicators within the energy bar, so that players can adapt their behaviour early enough without getting hit
* Do not reset killed enemies, if they're off-screen.
* Consider an option to leave a level, while keeping the fish in order to level up at the shop.

PKTORA responds:

Thanks for trying out my demo and for giving feedback! I'll tweak things so it's not as frustrating. I really like the idea of giving Seth additional animations for additional anticipation.

[cyberleon]

Let me give you 4 stars - Usually, it would have only been 3 because of the game length being far too short, but you did an incredibly good work with Seth. I would not consider him being the boss of the first set of levels, though, more like the endboss of the finished game, considering the difference in difficulty of the levels compared to him (died once by falling into a pit, used 2 continues ( ~ 8 lives in total ) on Seth). Making not only his health bar, but also himself yellow / red in his stages, would maybe be more explicite warning to the player that he s building up more power / changing attack patterns. I would only let him gain the higher strength levels when he is at the screen borders. I like the idea previously mentioned by other newgrounders of him having a "mutation" or "increasing fury" animation.

One thing, I did not get to read what Seth actually wanted, I pressed z twice quite fast (by mistake). Maybe add a half second delay into key-acknowledgement during reading texts. I´m very much ok with Seth only talking to you once -> Here I have a new gameplay mechanic idea: Upon approaching a talking boss a 2nd time (after dieing), he could have a dialog message "come closer if you want to talk, or I directly will attack". This way, the player could decide if he wants to re-read the dialog or skip it by staying a bit further away and waiting an extra second.

The levels are genuine, you even made some powerups, well done!

If you implement mobs that need more than 4 or 5 shots, these will need a health bar. This would also give a good indication to the player about how good the pepperoni upgrade is in terms of damage, in comparison to the standard shot.

Tell us when you have more things to show us in this game and want more feedback!

[Done25]

At first I couldn't get past the start screen until I realized the game was picking up my plugged in xbox controller. Which was pretty neat after I figured it out. Though I wish Jump and Shoot hadn't been bound to opposing buttons, and that instead it was A to Jump, and X to Shoot. D-pad support over forced joystick usage would have been preferable as well. As I was unable to press "Up" accurately enough to go into any entryways without using my keyboard. I think it would look nicer if the horizontally flying parrots always faced the way that they were going. It just looks weird when they fly backwards to always keep facing you.

[WarpZone]

A perfectly servicable megaman clone with a delightful main character!

The gameplay is pretty solid. At first, I thought they had implemented coyote time (google it), which is something a lot of platformers are missing these days. But then I tested it a few times and I couldn't tell for sure. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter, because thanks to the absurd width of the character's legs, I always jumped well before I needed to.

If I could change one thing about this game it would be to get rid of the opening. You press the button, you're at the first dot on the island. Period. No unearned Chrono Trigger homage. No old man expositing unskippable backstory.

Just press Z to start (which was a good move) and keep pressing Z until the end of the game! MAYBE put some arrows and the letter Z in the background the first time you need to jump, and an X in the background the first time you need to shoot black lemons. That's ALL the tutorial this game needs! And all the story it needs is "Are you a bad enough octocat to rescue some old fart's stolen jewels or whatever? I wasn't paying attention."

I can give you four good reasons to play this game, and they are all four pairs of legs jumping at the same time. That sounded funnier in my head. Just PLAY IT.

Who am I kidding? You've probably already played it, because you've seen the main character.

PKTORA responds:

There's no coyote time, but it wouldn't hurt to include it. I agree with the idea of simplifying the intro.

[LunarGD]

Some decent stuff here. Through you can collect the same hidden fish twice.
There's also a bug where my tentacat stopped reacting to the controls but an empty message box showed up and the only way to move was spamming "Z" button

Edit: i found this bug at right checkpoint of a floating island on a 1-2 level

PKTORA responds:

At what point did you encounter that bug?