Ranked #678
280 Points
Demo of this puzzle racer. Full vertical slice with ten levels + boss fight, but you can beat it in like 20 minutes.An alien has landed on Earth, and hides from the police. A couple of car-driving children befriend him... In Stealth Kart, we mix Real-Time Tactics and Fun Racing. The result is a puzzle racer, or a racer that feels like Commandos with tiny levels. The alien has a fast car and needs to get to the goal. One friendly kid has a ramp car, allowing crazy jumps. Another kid has his pa's donut food truck, avoiding suspicion by selling donuts. Switch from character to character and sneak far away from the police cones of view - or get into hot pursuits. You choose whether you need to be fast or undetected. Do multiple runs to get everything. Oh, optional Local Coop is in the game! Bring a friend and a controller. Please comment if you would use an online coop mode. Keep up to date on my twitter @theHalfMule Feel free to join us on Discord. https://discord.gg/jV3uB5T
This is quite cool!
You get many creative ways to solve the levels, so I had a lot of fun experimenting here.
Music was neat, too. And the graphics were nice and coherent (although RIP for OLED screens).
Some notes I made regarding the player experience.
1. It's weird that the goal is the same color as the enemies (blueish). So I tried not to walk into the goal at first.
2. Sometimes you cannot do things because of the distance, and it's somewhat hard to see when stuff is close enough. For example: At some distance, you can start hacking the enemies. But not before. Same with removing blocks. Apparently you have to be crazy close to remove blocks? Made me never remove blocks ever.
2b. Maybe you could change the crosslines if an interaction is possible, like Portal does.
3. Sometimes, I have trouble finding out where the next block will be placed.
3b. Maybe there could be a transparent block which shows you what your shot might place.
4. A lot of times, I was not sure where I would land. Then I died lol.
4b. How about a player shadow?
5. Also the player can squish himself between blocks, most notably when he tries to superjump right under a "roof cube".
So much for player experience - which is great except for these points.
But the most immediate change I would make: Shorter dialogue when you die. He says multiple sentences whenever I get shot, and very quickly it's the same sentences and I have to wait to play again. If it has to be dialogue, but some shorter cues in there like "Sigh, here we go again" or even "Restart..."
In fact, this is what made me quit the game. It was in the level in which there are almost only single cubes in a grid. It was also somewhat derivative of the previous one that was like that.
To get the roast going a bit: I am not quite sure what the learning curve is here. It appears to me that you have a bunch of mechanics A B C D, and the levels go like ABCDABCDABCD. That is: A is stationary enemies, B is flying enemies, C is firewalls, D is single cube grids.
At first I thought this is because it's a demo and you only have like one level for each mechanic. But then the mechanics started all over, and I realized there is some kind of cycle of mechanics.
It's an interesting approach to keep the player on his toes, but it resets the player skill a bit. I felt like I was an expert in firewalls now, and then suddenly firewalls became irrelevant again. Then enemy flying cubes reappeared instead. Then single cube grids made their reprise.
I would look into sticking with a new mechanic for a few levels in a row to keep the player incrementing all the time. But that's just my thoughts on level design, I am sure everyone has their own beliefs.
Cheers!