I liked this game, although it's a little hard for me! The mechanics are well polished - it does exactly what I think it's going to do all the time, so well done on that. However there is one exception to that - I noticed that when I had one finger on one of the buttons, it didn't recognise that I pressed the other one. In a game where speed and accuracy are paramount, I think it would be a really goo idea to fix that.

It was a little annoying that when it opened in landscape it was the other way round to most games - perhaps having it open to be played rotated in either direction would be good. Admittedly I did get over that pretty quickly though lol.

It did take me quite a few goes to work out what I had to do, but I think that's fine - It's the nature of the game that as soon as you fail you get to try again, so I never felt like I'd lost anything by not knowing what to do, and after about 3-4 deaths I finally realised I needed to use the compress button to land faster.

My final suggestion would be to overhaul the UI. The start screen in this game really doesn't look all that great, and I think it doesn't do the rest of the game credit.

I liked the game overall though, so thanks for sharing! I'll be keeping it installed and look forward to future updates :)

Wow, this is an ambitious project! I really like the stormy feel, which added a bit of tension. I played on control point mode, as suggested. After about 15 minutes without finding anyone (I know there wasn't anyone else playing online, but I didn't find any AI enemies either) I eventually drowned in a river. There was no grass or anything either, which makes me think maybe I played an older version of the game from the one in the video. I'd be happy to take another look if there's a newer version around?

Thanks, have had a play now, and will review in just a bit :)

After my previous review, I went back and played this again on "Default", instead of "Best" quality. I think the core idea is cool, and the world it's set it looks great - has a really stormy feel to it. Maybe the rain particle system could be hammed up a bit to really lay it on, but it's already cool as it is.

Character animations were lacking a bit - They tend to slide around the environment, and people who aren't carrying guns seem to be shooting. I spent a while trying to shoot somebody before eventually realising (I think) that they're on my side. Perhaps coloured names above people's heads could fix this?

The biggest problem I think this game has at the moment though, is that it's not really clear what you have to do. I spent a good 15 mins the first time just wondering around. The second time I was straight in the action, but then the third time I again spent 5 minutes wondering around. Luckily this is probably a simple one to fix though, perhaps a change to the spawning system to make the player appear nearer to the action would help? Or even just a map / radar / UI on the screen pointing to the base.

Like I said in my first review, this seems like a really ambitious project, and that's great, but it's going to take a lot of work to make this a really compelling experience. The base structure is a great example of how you can do this - it's a cool building, and more like that would make it a much more interesting combat arena.

On the go where I did get into the action I enjoyed myself, although I sadly wasn't able to successfully defend the base - I'll try harder next time! Keep it up - I look forward to seeing how this develops :)

I love this game! I'm honestly struggling to think of what you could improve - the core mechanic is great, and graphics are simple, but effective. The only thing I think I'd suggest, is maybe add some kind of tutorial. Maybe not something too in-your-face, but I did find that because it's possible to die so quickly, I died quite a few times before I got the hang of the controls. I haven't had a chance to play the game modes other than "Classic" yet, but it looks like all those options should keep me entertained for a while.

I'll be keeping this one installed I think. Well done :)

Wow! I love this game! I've always been an RTS fan, so was pleased to come across this. The low-poly aesthetic looks great, and the music sounds like it's straight out of Mass Effect. Really well done!

Since this is supposed to be a roast, I feel I have to think of something I'd change! While the UI looks great, I did find when playing on my phone (I have a 5.2 inch 1080p screen) that some of the writing was a little on the small side, but I'm really nitpicking there, as it didn't hinder me in playing the game at all. I can see you guys have had a decent number of downloads, and I really hope you've done well out of this game - you definitely deserve to have!

This is a cool game. I like the idea of having 4 play modes in one game, as it keeps things interesting.

I have a couple of suggestions when it comes to graphics. The clouds in the background look great, but they would look 100 times better if they moved in parallax. You should look into that as it'd improve things no end. Also, if you change the particle systems you've attached to the balls to world space instead of local space, you'll find they trail behind the ball much better. Those two things would really help to give more of a feel of forward momentum.

My final suggestion would be to show the score and the high score on the death screens. When I fail, I want to know how well I did. Also, seeing that I nearly beat my personal best might make me more likely to play again.

Good fun game though - keep it up :)

I've already played this game before I saw it here, which I didn't expect to happen! I think this game has amazing potential. I agree with others that some levels did just feel less like puzzles, and more like just pushing through to the end, but please don't be disheartened by that - puzzle design is hard to get right, but your core mechanic is solid, and you obviously have some talent so I've no doubt you'll get there.

And don't get me wrong - some of the levels are great already. That initial discovery that things change when shadows pass over them is great, and comparable to first realising you can do impossible geometry in Monument Valley, or walk through portals in Portal.

I look forward to the full game :D

I'd love to help with that, but I use Android, sorry. While I've got you though, would it be cheeky to ask if you'd offer some feedback on my game? I'd be really chuffed if you did, but don't worry if you don't have time :) https://roastmygame.com/game/outbreak

Thanks :D

Wow, what a beautiful game! The artwork here is just gorgeous. The game really brought me back to playing Secret of Mana as a child.

My only criticism so far, would be that I got into a LOT of battles in that first hunting bit. While it might be necessary to get a lot of those fighting bits in, I did very quickly find myself sighing and then just button bashing to get through them. I imagine as I continue to play that will pass though, and there battles will become more challenging.

I'm going to keep this game on my PC, and look forward to playing more, thank you :)

Your game looks great - the faded moving shapes in the background are a great subtle touch. I was surprised by how hard the game is. I noticed some of the feedback on the game is pretty old now, and the game seems pretty polished, so I guess you've probably moved on to other things now.

My only suggestion for improvement would be maybe have it start off slow and get faster. It might be that the game already does this, but I just wasn't good enough to survive more than 21 (I'm gonna keep trying though!). Changing it to start off slower would certainly make the game more accessible, and might help to increase your player base, and keep people playing longer.

I really like the option to change the music and the colour. These features are really well done, but hidden away in the options menu, which I'd imagine many people would never look at, which is a shame.

Hey, there's no link to download your game, which I guess is why nobody's left feedback yet. I looked it up on Google Play though, and had a play.

I like the core idea, and I think it could be something great. The camera angle makes it really hard to tell where the cube's going to land when you flip gravity, which makes it fairly hard to play. Have you thought about overcoming this with a dropshadow? Many platformers do this to show where you're going to land when you jump (check out screenshots of Mario 64, for example).

I also found the ads really annoying. I get the need to earn money from a game, but I found myself for the first few plays spending more time watching ads than playing the game. This is likely to turn people off pretty quickly.

I feel like your core idea really has legs though, and with a few improvements, and a lick of paint (a cool skybox would make the world of difference IMO), this could be a great game :)

What a cool idea! This is the sort of game I see and think "I wish I'd thought of this first!". I enjoyed playing it, but true to the nature of this site, I do have some pointers.

First off, I agree with the @BernardsRegards comment that depth perception is tricky. It's hard to know what you could do to resolve this, but my first thought is some kind of texture on the inner walls of the cylinder - maybe a grid or stripes or something. Alternatively, you could go for some distance fog, so that lower platforms are visually further away. Making the depth clearer would drastically improve the game.

My only other pointer is more to do with your Play Store listing, rather than the game itself - I read somewhere before that you shouldn't include screenshots of your main menu in your store listings, and I think in your case this is definitely true, because the gameplay screenshots look great and are instantly interesting, but it's not what people see when they land on your listing page.

Keep up the good work!

P.S. I only put graphics as the area of improvement because I had to put something- I think the game looks great!

I don't have a Wii U, and so I never got to play Mario Maker, but that's what I thought of when I saw the level editor in this game. Please take that as the compliment that it's meant as though, as I know you were going for a Mario-esque feel to the game. You've nailed the classic Mario feel in terms of movement and jumping too.

My only criticism would be that the initial tutorial level felt really clunky - It wasn't clear why it kept feeling like the end of the level and then I was back where I had been. However, once I was past the tutorial, I liked the first level, and loved the level designer. I can see myself spending hours on this game. Well done and thanks :)

Cool game :) I enjoyed playing this, and will keep it installed to play more.

The only thing I think I would change, is the buttons to switch colour - I think these would be better if the touch targets were bigger, as I did miss them a couple of times. You could do this without increasing the size of the images, but by making the padding around them clickable too. It would look the same, but the effect would be that the touch area is bigger, and the player's less likely to miss. This is a common thing to do when developing mobile apps, and just removes that minor annoyance of missing the target. Keep up the good work! :)

Really cool game. When I first started playing, I wondered how the hell I was ever going to get good at it, but very quickly realised that what's happening is in time with the music (I should have read your description!). That moment of realisation was really cool, and I had a nice feeling of having worked it out.

It did start hurting my fingers after a while bashing away at my keyboard (which I don't normally use for gaming) so quickly. So I guess my only suggestion for improvement would be adding controller support. As you're using Unity, I can recommend an open source asset, called InControl, which would let you support multiple controllers / platforms easily.

Thanks for a great and very original game :)

Hey, just been playing this and I honestly really like it. The core idea is cool, but (in the nature of this site) I do have some pointers:

The controls aren't very intuitive - The control scheme is kind of odd, in that the camera doesn't turn when the character turns, and movement stays the same regardless of which way the character is facing. While I did get used to it more over time, I did also find that it never reached the point where it felt 'right'. I think it'd be much better if the camera stayed behind you, and pressing up always meant the character would walk in the direction they're facing.

I also felt the lighting could have done with some work - why are there no shadows on the highest graphics setting?

Other than those two points though, I think it's great, and I'm going to keep playing :)

Just went back to play some more, and I hit a glitch! I can't upload a screenshot, but it's in a clearing with two conifers and a circular tree. Just below the tree there's a tiny hole in the terrain. Once I was in it, I wasn't able to get out. These holes appear really easily in Unity terrain, so it's worth combing through your world for them.

Hey, thanks for the roast! You're right that a lot of work's gone into it - It's been a side project for the last 18 months, although I did scrap everything and start again about half way through that time.

It's odd that you're not getting sound - there definitely is some. Just some basic BG music and some SFX, but it's there. The game has an option to mute the sound, so maybe that's on by default, I can't remember but I'll check. It's a toggle on the main screen, before the level select one. Thanks for the tip about the GDC sound packs though - I'll definitely check them out as the sound for this is far form done.

You're the first person to make that suggestion about the camera button, but I think you're right - That definitely feels more like what that button should be doing, so I'll go with it, thanks! :)

Thanks for the roast! I'm glad you like the game. The original had a tutorial, with text that came up and told you what to do. Then I tried just having things happen on screen that more vaguely indicate at what to do. Eventually I got rid of it all and figured let people work it out, as that feels better for the player - like you said, it's the old way, we were never taught how to play Mario (okay, maybe some people read the manual, but I certainly didn't!) so I'm glad you approve, as I feel validated for making that decision :)

More diversity comes in the later levels, but I think you're right - it needs to happen sooner to keep the player's attention. The levels included currently are the ones that will be used to teach some of the mechanics and the basic game systems. I'm currently working on more complex puzzle based levels, that use a combination of the level features. Once I've got all the levels I want done, I'll sit down and really think about what order to put them in to keep the player engaged. At the moment, if there's a forcefield-thing then no, there's no way through without losing all your followers, but there will be in some of the levels I'm working on now. If you check out levels 9-11, they have buttons that open doors. These buttons are going to be linked to other things as well in future versions as well, so in some levels they'll disable (or enable) the forcefields. Hopefully that should make for some pretty varied play, and some decent puzzles.

@klimbub suggested a way to control the camera above, which I think sounds like a good idea - basically you'd be able to toggle between a camera that follows you, and one that you control yourself, using the button in the bottom right (currently it just snaps the camera to where you are, but then it doesn't follow you after that).

Thanks for the feedback, both you and ~klimbub have given me some really useful insights, and given me a some encouragement - sometimes when I work on something for too long by myself, I really start to doubt what I'm doing!

Hey, thanks for the roast :) I think you have a point about the visuals - the theme has become confused. I did initially have enemies that looked much more like human cells, but it was difficult to tell which ones would be able to shoot at you and which wouldn't. I think more work is definitely needed in that area!

I'm getting conflicting feedback about the lack of an explicit tutorial, even just on this page - some people like it, some don't. I left it out because the tutorials I originally made weren't really very fun to play through. Good idea about having the trailer act as a sort of instruction video, I think that could be helpful. I also now intend to play with having some non-text hints at what you're supposed to do. I played a game the other day called Causality, which has some subtle hints at the beginning, and I found they worked very well, without bring too instructional, so maybe I'll go with something similar to what they did.

Thanks for the heads up about the frame-rate issues too. I use a couple of devices for testing, and I I thought one of them was low powered enough that if it ran fine on it without stuttering then it'd be fine anywhere, but I guess not. It's a really tricky balance to strike on mobile between satisfying visuals, and performance. I'll see what I can do though. Thanks again for the roast :)

Great feedback, thanks! :) You make a good point about control - I think I've been playing it too long, and have gotten used to it, so I don't see it any more, but you having said that has made me analyse it a bit more, and you're right - it's not just imprecise, but unpredictable too. I've set up an empty scene to work on just that, and will play around with that for a while.

Picking a theme has been a really hard one for me - I originally made this a 2D game, with just circles going after each other (kind of like agar.io), but decided it should have more than that. That did mean though that I came up with the mechanics before I had any idea what the theme would be, and so I haven't had a clear direction of where to take that. My original intention was to have it set in the human body, but I've found it really hard to build assets around that theme - I'm more of a designer than an artist, and so I find geometric shapes much easier to model than fleshy stuff. I guess I was hoping I'd get away with the mechanical looking stuff in the same way that Pixar's 'Inside Out' does, (not that I'm making comparisons in terms of quality!). Obviously I haven't pulled that off, so it'll require more thought.

In terms of a business plan, I was thinking just make the game available for a low up-front payment - I'm not a fan of IAPs etc in general, although I realise that free-to-play games do tend to make a lot more money. I'm not expecting to make any real money off it (although it'd be awesome if I did, of course). This is all done in my spare time, so I'm not in any rush to release either, so haven't set myself a release window at this point. Once I get closer to release I will, so that I can hopefully generate a bit of interest in that time. I could still be a long way off though - maybe 6 months to a year.

Hi, thanks for commenting.

Out of interest, in what way do you think it seems "too old"? Do you mean visually, or just the type of game, or something else?

Cheers

Oh right. I disagree, but thank you anyway. Did you play the game? Or are you judging from the screenshots? I ask because I noticed you only left 1 minute in between roasts of different games.

FYI the purpose of this site is more around giving constructive feedback than a one-line review. If you're interested, have a look at the comments on this one as an example of people giving some really useful feedback https://roastmygame.com/game/outbreak