Indie furry game - "Deep Sea Descent"

[Triplefox]

trailer here
game here

It's a shooter-adventure in a post-apocalyptic world, with a deep backstory and anthro characters. I made the game - I'm an indie developer - and am both promoting it and looking for (honest) feedback. Ask me anything.

[Buddywolf]

Can you make more addicting awesome games!? 

[Triplefox]

Well, I plan to make more - a sequel to this and other types of games too This is my first one as an indie, before this I worked at a small studio doing lousy console tie-in games. I want to try for a full-time business out of it.

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

Ok, the good points is that there's some good ideas here. The different shot types, the little trilobyte thingy. It's all adds a good level of depth to it. I like that and think it could be expanded and improved.


The bad points are that the writing and art make it rather unlikeable. I didn't care about anything, I barely understood anything and the art made me not want to hear anything.
The collision detection is wonky, considering some shots went right through the top and bottom sections of the boss. Also, a lot of the smaller ships went right through the walls.
Also, Either the ship is too slow or the enemies are too fast because sometimes getting hit is unavoidable, at least on the first run anyway. I mean, there were times where I just rammed through things and rushed to the repair points because I couldn't be bothered trying and failing to shoot them
Oh and, one pet peeve of mine is the idea of having a rapid fire weapon, when only one shot can be on screen at any time. At panic moments, and you shoot more than once, it's almost guaranteed that nothing's going to reach the enemy before the next shot is fired. This is only exacerbated by most enemies needed more than one hit to kill it.
Also, that little warning light that says when invisible mines are around could definitely be bigger and more noticeable. I didn't even know it was on the screen when they first talked about it.

Oh and level design, more than once, I got lost. A map would be handy.

It's a good first game, but there are issues.

[KittKat chunky~]

That is quite a fun game! 

Though i agree with Asia, a map would be helpfull... and the warning signal could be more visible... i also love the adorable little trilobite drone 

[Triplefox]

The bad points are that the writing and art make it rather unlikeable. I didn't care about anything, I barely understood anything and the art made me not want to hear anything.

Thank you for the feedback, I spent considerable time on the story albeit it seems to be to the detriment of many players, who want more "pure action." The art I will hopefully get better at....right now my illustration skills are far weaker than everything else and I have to go to reference constantly to get a decent result.

The collision detection is wonky, considering some shots went right through the top and bottom sections of the boss. Also, a lot of the smaller ships went right through the walls.

There are some collision issues that were left unaddressed for this game, yes. At the point of discovery I couldn't solve them without tearing up a lot of code and starting over.

Also, Either the ship is too slow or the enemies are too fast because sometimes getting hit is unavoidable, at least on the first run anyway. I mean, there were times where I just rammed through things and rushed to the repair points because I couldn't be bothered trying and failing to shoot them
Oh and, one pet peeve of mine is the idea of having a rapid fire weapon, when only one shot can be on screen at any time. At panic moments, and you shoot more than once, it's almost guaranteed that nothing's going to reach the enemy before the next shot is fired. This is only exacerbated by most enemies needed more than one hit to kill it.

It's true that you can play by ramming most of the time. I settled on the current fire system because games that center around rapid fire tend only to reward dodging, and games that don't let you cancel shots become incredibly frustrating. I wanted to make "beat the game" just the starter challenge - then achievements, then getting higher and higher chain and score. For a sequel I want to have upgrades so that you can choose your playstyle.

Also, that little warning light that says when invisible mines are around could definitely be bigger and more noticeable. I didn't even know it was on the screen when they first talked about it.

I'll address this when I update the game(sometime in the next week, hopefully).

Oh and level design, more than once, I got lost. A map would be handy.

This will also be addressed in an update.

It's a good first game, but there are issues.

Exactly, thank you for being so critical, it's exactly what I'm looking for

That is quite a fun game! 

Thank you!

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

I spent considerable time on the story albeit it seems to be to the detriment of many players, who want more "pure action."

I didn't want or expect pure action/no story. The game seems to strive for some depth, and for that it really needs a story to give a reason for going through the levels, as well as acting as bait to pull the player along. The problem wasn't that there was too much story, but simply the quality of the writing. You can write for a hundred years but that won't mean you'll have a good story. The dialogue was clunky and unrealistic, the backstory was scattered around in totally the wrong places, exposition dumps reared their head every now and then. I would say that your writing is probably worse than your art, and I know I'm being harsh to you, but it's what I got from it.

[Triplefox]

I spent considerable time on the story albeit it seems to be to the detriment of many players, who want more "pure action."

I didn't want or expect pure action/no story. The game seems to strive for some depth, and for that it really needs a story to give a reason for going through the levels, as well as acting as bait to pull the player along. The problem wasn't that there was too much story, but simply the quality of the writing. You can write for a hundred years but that won't mean you'll have a good story. The dialogue was clunky and unrealistic, the backstory was scattered around in totally the wrong places, exposition dumps reared their head every now and then. I would say that your writing is probably worse than your art, and I know I'm being harsh to you, but it's what I got from it.

Ok, but this isn't a useful critique yet. You haven't given a specific example of where you feel the writing doesn't work, you've just tossed out a bunch of literary terms, folded your arms in proud triumph, and expected them to explain themselves. Maybe you could instead give an example of what you're looking for in a good game story?

Or, something else to consider: I went for a narrative structure here that was almost entirely expository in nature because the reduction of traditional rising action elements in turn reduced number of characters and required depth of scripting, while drawing me away from cliched antagonists, damsels in distress, and non-interactive cutscenes that break game logic, all of which clash against the laid back, choose-your-own-pace style of gameplay that permeates the game. The problem was that in doing so the story becomes a passive "mirror into the past," and the only thing driving it are little mysteries dotted throughout the game, with no other hooks to pull it along; If you don't buy into those mysteries, you'll hate it. Not only that, but my attempts to characterize more expressively were thwarted because I only had one pose per character, causing a violent disjunct the moment the emotion of the dialogue moved away from that pose.

Given what I just told you about the limitations that shaped this game, how would you start writing a better story? Would you attempt to push the structure back towards traditional narrative, despite its clashing with the gameplay? Do you have ideas for better hooks that can still work with this gameplay? Would you push for a bigger art budget, so that the expressions in the writing can be freed, or is there a way around that?

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

Sorry I wasn't clear.

Just now, I tried going back over and taking quotes from the game to explain myself, but I found that there is a glitch where I can not see the environment, and I can't wait for it to load all over again to see if it's just a one-off thing.

What I do remember is that there's nothing wrong with the method of delivering the dialogue, it works just fine. The problem is the dialogue itself. It can be written better.

From what I remember, the main guy goes through shooting a bunch of stuff early on and then says that the day is rather uneventful. There's been explosions everywhere, and i know this is just his job, but even then people don't call that uneventful unless they've been completely jaded by the experience and are just going through the motions.
The girl doesnt point out that the planet is flooded until way late in the game. Surely it would be the first thing she notices
Both characters act as if the whole pirate thing is serious and not totally absurd at all, when obviously it is.
Also, at one point, she asks about her father, and then guy goes on a long spiel about the history of the planet, most of which has nothing to do with her father.

The characters seem to just say things with little reason behind them saying it other than it being required by the story. Plot is controlling character, when it should be characters controlling plot.

Make character profiles that are really detailed, incredibly detailed. That will give you the information to decide what someone will say in a certain situation and therefore makes things more believable.
Also, listen to how people talk.

[Triplefox]

Okay. Thank you for all the advice. I'll take it into consideration for future works

[White Wolf Guardian]

From what I saw on the trailer, looks pretty good actually. You have some nice programming skills and the coordination of movement and the background art with shooting abilities and the AI of the enemies is decent . With the inclusion of easter eggs and then an interpretative story is interesting.