That is fucking awesome
Reviews for "Don't Save the Princess 0.3.1"
Good game overall, I do agree with the suggestion of a gallery. I did find what could be a glitch with endless mode, as I earned 1007 coins from challanges and coins and those coins weren't added to my shop total.
SierraLee responds:
A gallery will definitely be in the final version, and we know there are some miscalculations with coins in Endless Mode, so hopefully those will be resolved as well. Thank you for your feedback!
Definitely some aspects that seem a little excessively grindy, but these running games typically live on that element.
Love your writing as always, character wise and.. scene wise ha. Dargogai has the same voice as Dargai from TLS for me, since I'm now roleplaying them as the grandson.
I'm mainly writing a response to contradict Azureless, because while I certainly see the points to their summary, I think this is a difference of playstyle. I know people who swear TLS is impossible without Yarra and Varia, but I never use them. I double stack Carina and Qum for the slow buff and double heal game, and I feel like that review reflects this perfectly.
They're the burn them down high risk high reward, but I feel like the slow, safe, and steady way in this game works, too. Unless I'm going for a specific goal, my bread and butter (in order) is spawn frequency, stun, slowdown, sharper spikes, and so on in cc importance. A slow start with a couple of repeats necessary, but since then it's been pretty smooth sailing.
My one criticism would be the ceiling spike drop, it almost feels out of synergy with the rest, since his aim is not only affected by the position of the runner, which determines side spike ball and bottom spike trap, but it's also affected by the speed of the runner I feel like. If I'm wrong, ignore my placebo, but I feel the drop horizontal travel distance almost punishes the player for having runningman slowed/speeding back up.
Excellent job, and appreciate all of the work you do!
Edited to make the format a little easier to read.
SierraLee responds:
I take every comment about balance into account, but each is just one piece of feedback. So don't worry, I won't wildly alter the upgrades you mention, because I do think they're viable. That said, I always seek to keep improving flaws.
The dropping minion is indeed meant to be trickier than the others. We tried to get the feel of it right, but added the Helper upgrade for those who feel it's a bit wonky.
Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoyed the writing and characters. ^-^
So this is one of the few adult games that made me keep it in my pants. So there are several issues with this build due to unbalanced mechanics.
Holy Jesus if you beat world 2-3 and 3-8 without any items your third eye will open you will be able to beat Deadspace 2 hardcore mode without an external flash drive of your save data. World 3-8 was plain unfair before I realized that I could have 3 items due to upgrading the shop. It's still to the point where it took me like 10 tries because traps do not spawn enough even with the spawn frequency item equipped.
I like that there's a pattern and a easy to see if then script with the traps (I think lol idk coding quite yet). I can predict which trap is coming up based upon if it did show up.
The power ups are kind of like the summoner spells league of legends. You either take the good ones because you know nothing else or you find use in the situational spells.
Helper- an okay power up for early levels really helps you get into the rhythm of pressing the spike traps going mach 5.
Damage- One of the best ones due to it basically enhancing each trap in the game. It also stacks the damage of each individual trap damage increase items. But this in turn ruins farming.
Spawn Frequency- Actually is required to play and beat 2-3 and 3-8. This is how you progress without this its like actually playing on nightmare difficulty. Literally like taking flash in league of Legends, you have it or you grief yourself.
Slowdown- Never used it because too expensive. In a design stand point it would be useless unless the spawn frequency is tied to how fast running man runs ie. the traps spawn more because they are based on time rather than distance.
Stun- Another one I never used. But paired with slowdown it may be OP depending on like I said the traps are on a timer rather than a set amount of distance. However these would wreck your combos and basically you would need to pray that more traps spawn.
Coins- terrible power up and quite distracting as you need to focus on traps especially on damn right unfair levels. I think the way to go is to double coins (1 coin = 2 coins) or triple them so each upgrade would cost an additional 500 so for more coins 500 then double 1000 then triple 1500.
It doesn't seem worth it as farming in this game requires less damage? Its counter intuitive their should be a bit of a bonus for killing him early in the level to make farming feel easier, but limit grinding on easier levels to prevent basically exploiting gold. Yes I know the quests give gold but I cant cycle though quest so I am stuck farming for this one specific quest that gives me less gold than just using the magnet boost and coin items basically siding with one devil or another.
Sharper Spikes- are actually one of the OP power ups due to slowdown increase and crit so you can get those nice combos off and have that breath of air to get ready for the next trap
Heavier Smashers- One of the best ones due to smashers being easier to hit already and combo really easily
Better Throwers- One of the needed items if you need combos since it increases their active rate
Lightning cannons- Not needed at all I mean unless you want to mess around or need another item then this thing is useless unless trying to make more combos. It's better to get better throwers since lightning cannons is tied directly to a timer rather than the throwers being tied to the pattern of traps.
Magnet Boost- Most braindead item maybe if you were playing for coin farming with so you can afford everything
Levels
2-3 actually made me want to throw my game out of my cache to start over with the waste of coins I went though like there are not enough traps so spawn frequency is required
3-8 I know is the last level but dude you are giving dark souls a run for their money with the amount of damage you don't do thank god you have the shop upgrade which allows more items to be equipped.
Quests
Some of them are just plain random like why does 150 coins = 5 combos in one level it should be 500 because on 3-6 is when I was able to complete that. Previous levels arent long enough for that. Think of their being an achievement to beat dark souls in 30 minutes.
Also maybe add the option to rotate quests because frankly not all quests are created equal. Just add a little skip button for 25 coins or something
The sauce
Give the player a bone half way through the worlds like I do not feel like touching my meat when I just played fury of the storm on guitar hero on hard mode. Show the princess idk showing off to the guy and teasing him. Maybe forshowdow the next scene
Power ups for running man
Give me like 1 millisecond more or just make the combos easier to hit like the qte would be a boss fight in spider man 3 for xbox 360
What I loved
Its a simple platformer with that look of a hidden gem you would find on addicting games or newgrounds I just like this art style.
The pits my god the pits made world 3 like a cakewalk then 3-8 threw everything under the kitchen sink at you because traps were not spawning even with the same items I had throughout world 3.
The balancing on world 3 how even if he had more hearts the man moved at a snails pace.
How it was a game first then a hentai second
It was actually addicting with how hard it got sometimes, but way too grindy look I played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Warframe I know what a farm looks like.
How you can use WASD but somehow it doesn't tell you or I think I didn't read it?
The cutscenes with the sauce
Things to add:
An options menu
Keybinds
Maybe costume unlocks for running man or princess
World previews or title cards for worlds on the select screen
bonus levels like coins only maybe one time
A gallery because I am too lazy to click like 50 times for the sauce because of a cutscene
But yeah loved the game. Good job and keep up the work. One of the more unique platformers that I have played. Its a pretty good platformer and trust me I absolutely hate platformers.
SierraLee responds:
Hey, thanks for giving such detailed feedback! We'll certainly take that into account as we continue working on balance.
Seems like some of the power ups (all damage, more traps) are just objectively better than others. I wish they were either more balanced or we could make use of all of them and the game was balanced around that.
Otherwise great game.
SierraLee responds:
Some may be more useful than you think, but this is still a valid complaint. We'll keep thinking about balance as we move toward the final version.