Hi. I tried the demo. I played it for around 45 minutes and reached the "evil mushroom king" and then after many tries, I gave up.
Now here are my thoughts:
- the menus, HUD, shop system, dialogue systems, controls and all the technical bits have all been mostly implemented, which is a good thing.
- Level design with underground/above ground areas work fine for now, but can still improve. Overall, it felt like one big room with different sections. Maybe they should all be separate zones. You could have a main "hub" area where the NPCs live and from there you have paths leading to other areas containing different items and enemies. So some backtracking will take place.
- There was one problem with the controls. When I had to jump out of the water, I cannot do so if I'm touching a wall. I can only jump out of the water if I'm not touching a wall, which feels counter-intuitive.
- the sword attack did not look or feel fast and powerful enough. But maybe that can change with the final sprites.
- enemies don't seem to react if I hit them with the sword. They just keep charging at me. Ideally, they should be knocked back a bit when they are hit.
- the enemies in general don't seem to react to my presence. They just patrol an area and none of them follow me around so I can easily just run away from them.
- In the boss fight, there needs to be an interval where he stops and shoots something at you or dashes at you. Right now, he just bounces around all the time. Add some variation in how the boss moves.
And now, the most important thing. The graphics! I cannot comment on it right now, because right now, everything looks like stand-by art. But I'll say this:
You're planning to open social media accounts and the website in December 2022... but your game is in no condition to be marketed. You're also planning to open a Steam page in January 2023 (next month) but do you think you'll be ready with graphics by then? Remember, you'll need to have the following:
- player sprites
- NPC sprites X number of NPCs
- enemy sprites X number of enemies.
- sprites for interactive in-game objects (doors, spikes, blades, treasure chests etc.
- sprites or tiles for decorations for each area (like trees, plants, rocks, statues etc
- sprites or graphics for collectible items (coins, weapons, health etc)
- sprites or graphics for effects (fires, energies, lightning, blood, explosions etc)
- unique tilesets for each area.
- multiple layer backgrounds for each area.
- hi-def graphics for cutscenes.
- icons for health, lives, weapons, power ups, potions etc for the HUD and other UI elements
- promotional graphics for Steam, website, social media etc.
- Logo for your game
That is the scope of work ONLY for graphics! That's a lot of work and you know it will take a lot of time to plan, create and refine. It will be difficult to try and create it all at once.
Unless you have already started work on graphics, I think you will have to re-adjust your schedule. I also suggest you begin the work of creating graphics immediately.
Anyway, that's my overall feedback. Hope I didn't come across as too harsh.
Let me know if you want to discuss this some more. I'll be happy to share whatever I have learned.