General points.
I am not too familiar with this genre, so it was a little disorienting. So maybe I'm not exactly qualified to critique the finer aspects of your game, but I will give you my feedback in a very general sense.
1. Gameplay Graphics.
- Graphics were good in an overall sense.
- It felt like you were trying to mix hand drawn graphics with photorealistic images and textures. If I were you, I'd just pick one style and apply it throughout the game. Perhaps you can convert the photorealistic textures into something that looks more, graphic? Doing this will give your game a more stylized look.
- The interactive objects such as the PC needs to stand out more. Right now, it's just sitting there like along with the other pieces of furniture.
- IMHO, I felt it was overdone with all the shaders and what not.
2. Sound
- Excellent. Nice music and SFX. Definitely the best part of the game.
3. Controls and movement
- First, the game was extremely slow on my computer. I had to disable the effects in the menu. Even after that, I'm not entirely sure if I was playing it at the quality it was intended to be played. It just felt slow. Like, even after holding "shift" it didn't feel like I was running. Maybe it wasn't performing well on my computer, so I dunno.
- I had some issue moving through some areas. Even though there was place to move, it was as if an invisible object was blocking my path. For example, in this area:
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4. The UI and Menu layouts
- You have a rather complex menu system that lets the player customize many things, which is good, but I still think it needs to be fine tuned to improve functionality, as well as aesthetics.
- The setting menu is functional and all that, but it lacks a logical hierarchy and polish. Buttons are arbitrarily grouped together. Fonts are clipped. Buttons keep moving around.
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Why is "menu" grouped with "apply" in the
audio section? Why is the visual section missing the "apply" button? Why do the buttons on the top change places? Why is "settings" in the same class as visual, audio and gameplay?
Here are some suggestions:
- Get rid of the "menu" (that takes you to the home menu entirely. That way, the player can only get back to the main menu from the settings page.
- Make the "settings" button bigger than the buttons for categories "audio", "visual" and "gameplay". Keep away from the buttons for the categories.
- In the pages for "audio", "visual" and "gameplay", have the "apply" button at the bottom right for categories and don't move it around.
If you feel I haven't articulated myself clearly, I can make a basic layout that you can use for reference.
- Units of information appear on the screen, sometimes overlaid on each other,
after the game starts and takes ages to fade. This was annoying, especially considering there were enemies around me. And the text and the box was blocking my view. There has to be a better way to communicate this info.
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- The shop menu on the PC needs to be more streamlined. You've got point and click for every thing else, so why does the shop menu operate on button presses? If the PC takes you to an "online store" or website, it would make better sense to use a point and click function
- The in-game text for certain things appears in black and is difficult to notice. But I'm assuming that you've just left it the way it is because you're sharing a WIP build.
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- The game doesn't show me my health bar, which is weird because it shows me health kits, the amount of health I've restored and an alert that I'm bleeding. But it it doesn't visually tell the player how much time or life he has left.
- The weapon system can be improved. The game should make it clear that buying/equipping one weapon removes the previous weapon. Perhaps at the weapon shop you could have a tab showing the equipped weapon. So upon purchasing a new weapon, the player can see that he's carrying a new gun.
- The in-game HUD layout needs to be refined as well. The game window is huge and there's information scattered all over the place.
5. Enemy AI and combat
- It was alright. It would be nice if the player had a laser pointer that would highlight enemies when they're in range. So that would help when it comes to aiming.
- Sometimes I would get shot at by enemies even though they were out of view.
- There needs to be a way in which the player can clearly tell he's being shot at. Perhaps add a bullet trail for enemy bullets or something.
Anyway, that's it for now. Hope my feedback was useful. Good luck and let me know if you want any more input from me!