Tamara

Really enjoyed the hell out of this demo, super charming and really fun. Very much looking forward to more, whether it's another demo or a full game or whatever. You have my support.

Really awesome Crusader reference. But you know what this most reminded me of? Ecstatica! 

Hello, I like your game a lot, and I wish to contact you if you are the author of this project let me know where I could contact you >.<

Crusader No Remorse with an Elf , lulz ... haha At first i was , nah my pattern recognition must be playing tricks ... then saw the boxes , lockers, those maps 1:1 .. and those teleporters, logos (not to mention consoles and that android) ... haha .You should change it a little since dunno how EA is about "Inspired Homage Games"... by the way completed the whole Test run of 0.1.3 ... those destructible walls should glow or have some more highlight on them (white box hint "she senses they are destructible") ...same with "I can grab\climb thing" without using the "Yellow Paint" meme ...

I've had this wishlisted since mid last year so I was really excited to hear you guys had a playtest available. I really love the character and enemy designs, environmental details, as well as the overall art direction.

First off, I played with a gamepad using the modern control scheme. For the most part I had no significant issues with that setup aside from some camera shifts and how that affected the controls. It's hard for me to describe exactly what was happening, but there was some awkwardness at times with that. Whenever the camera would change I would deliberately stop moving and then start moving again and that felt smoother. I've played quite a few fixed-cam RE inspired games this past year so this feeling wasn't exactly foreign. It isn't a huge issue for me personally.

I really enjoyed using the environment to avoid enemies with guns; having shootouts involving destructible cover in a game like this was unexpected but feels really refreshing and unique. 

I didn't feel any resource pressure until the last little stretch of the demo. It wasn't until the early areas of the demo "repopulated" with new enemies did things get intense. Due to how connected and non-linear the map is, it felt kind of random as to why new enemies even showed up, it even felt like new enemies spawned in a room that I was currently in already! Since the resources in these areas were already looted I was worried I'd completely run out of ammo before getting to the end. The sudden jump in difficulty felt very stark mostly because there wasn't much indication as to what triggered new enemies to show up. All in all it wasn't really that bad; the combat is manageable and fun and enemy patterns can be clearly recognized.

If there is one piece of feedback that I really want to give it's feedback pertaing to the clothing system. I REALLY like the clothing mechanic in this game and I would say it's one the major draws for me (other than the goblins). I find that the durability system does not really make sense to me. Clothes and armor seem to break quickly, which is nice, but I couldn't gauge exactly how the game determines which clothing item takes damage when getting hit. I would check my clothes after almost every fight and it seemed random. For me it impacts immersion when underwear ends up breaking first (lmao, I know) despite being decked out in shirt, pants, and a suit of armor. The game would feel a lot more satisfying to me if clothing would take damage in a more logical way, with outer layers like armor and backpacks degrading first, and then layers like shirt and pants, eventually leaving undergarments as the last line of defence.

A couple bonus notes about the clothing, I noticed that when fighting the short imp-like dudes, my pants would usually end up breaking when taking damage. Does this game actually have positional damage with clothes? If so that is very interesting. Another thing I noted was that any shoes I found did not last very long at all, this almost felt like a running joke considering how relieved Tamara was whenever I found footwear.

One last small piece of feedback I wanted to mention concerns the mc herself. Something that was odd to me was how her voice sounded. It came off as inconsistent to me as if various lines were pitch shifted at random. Sometimes she sounds more mature and even-pitched but othertimes she would have almost a cutesy high-pitch voice. It just didn't feel consistent and stood out to me. 

As of now that's all that comes to mind concerning feedback. I ought to do another run soon to get a better feel for the game but as far as first impressions go this was very good. I'm very excited to see what you guys bring to Tamara in the future (goblins espescially)!

edit: after writing I noticed the tone was a bit whiny and a bit too overthought, forgive me, long trip and such.

Very well made and engaging RE2-like, the style is impeccable and the setting, while somewhat minimalist, sucked me in.

While the level design was certainly decent and played well to tension building (but not to camera shenanigans), the map held an unintuitive sense of direction, and I found myself stumped when a room I thought I needed to go had its space occupied by a pre-existing room, or found an entirely new segment of the map that I couldn't clearly see.

3D metroidvanias need to maintain a 'guess-able' sense of direction through both set and level design if they're planning to maintain a fog of war; I didn't really know where to go to progress.
This is despite recognizable, segmented and well color-coded sets that have differentiable styles, this may be down to the game's contrast making everything kind of mush together mentally even when the environments themselves aren't similar.

I actually kind of liked the silence, it breaks in a recently noticeable pattern of games, including horror games, audibly bombarding you in what feels like an effort to numb you into a flow state, maybe non-stagnant and changing low ambience would be a good compromise.

I really hated the direction scheme not changing between levels, even if I understood why it's implemented, maybe a buffer before the directions are changed is best instead of waiting for the player to not make any inputs (or easing), there were multiple times where I was threatened by and aimed at enemies that were off-screen, which usually doesn't feel fair even if intentional.

As for the difficulty, I never really died or dropped below half health, the armor doesn't degrade proportionally to how much we're warned about it, the organization doesn't really matter since there is no limited inventory system and the hotbar fits all the weapons, though 2,3 and 4 are in reverse order(also, the SMG and pistol have overlap in usage), supplies are overaccommodating (at first, they're very early-loaded) and enemies neither deal nor take much damage, though they can stun lock you.

The clothes are...weird? it's the kind of thing I would expect as parody.
Like, they're good, they look great, they're tied into the gameplay and I like finding them, but they pose such a thematic break with the survival horror tension that it feels almost absurdly funny?

It has really solid legs, but it has some deformities that make it a bit unenjoyable to play for a long session.

wow really well done even for an alpha release. played on kb+m. yes technically a map wouldve helped but without a map it made the game feel so much more expansive and looming. i loop back and i think "woah this really is a big map, theres a lot to explore, i probably missed something and that means i get to explore more :)"

Still though, yes a map would be helpful. I'm glad I played without it though. 

I like the jank, i like that 3d controls bug out on camera transitions, i like that audio is incorrectly sourced from the camera and not from the player, i like that zooming in sometimes goes into 3rd person over the shoulder and sometimes doesn't. I like that we can find random clothes all over the place and that it automatically equips them and that we can change the clothing. I like that picking up a key card plays a noise that is too loud. or that the footsteps feel too loud and heavy for such a perceivably light character

Things you should probably change
- audio sourcing from player instead of camera
- have more consistent aiming camera behavior
- lower noise for picking up keycard
- different footfall sounds for walking on bare feet vs shoes
- cull certain light fixtures when the camera is behind the wall. the light/wall object still appears in view even though the wall is invisible from the opposite side
- enemies spotting you sooner when running, have better line of sight to spot you

amazing map layout, great enemies, great weapons, great varied animations, love that enemies walk around after you die. amazing game, keep going at your own pace

Very fun game! i loved the customization sfw lol
the gameplay is good, i loved the aesthetics like retro resident evil type of game, but i really disliked the way that aiming weapons worked, i mean i get it is like that to make it more easy to shoot? but the way camera goes everywhere makes it impossible to see what you are shooting at.
Thaat, and the movement maybe feels a bit sticky at some corners or walls. 
And maybe some kind of indicator of what to do in case of you get stuck?
Other than that, it has so much potential and i'm very excited to see this game develop in the future!

This is a very enjoyable demo! I look incredibly forward for the finished product!

Some things that stood out to me is how noticeably stiff the movement works together with the camera. Since your character is restricted to a fixed 8 directions, this makes manoevering around very tricky, especially in tandem with the alternating fixed cameras. Trying to avoid incoming ranged attacks gets especially tricky when positioned somewhere the camera is guraranteed to switch, which can turn even your movement keys against you. In unprepared moments where you have to think fast, you may end up getting damage that could have been preventable as you try to wrestle against the controls to get outta dodge.

I've also had moments when I entered a new room or hallway where apparently an enemy was overseeing the door I just entered and didn't found out because the camera was facing away from everything completely, until I got shot from offscreen. Aiming has occasionally remedied this, but can become cumbersome if you encounter an enemy you'd prefer to face with a different weapon than the one you're currently aiming with.

That's currently all I have to offer for feedback! I'm looking forward to the rest of this game's development and I wish you good luck! My impression is overall good!

Love the power of weapons, emphasis on ammo conservation, item durability, aesthetic and animations

Very meh on the checkpoint system, and damn this game needs more audio. Not necessarily music, but more ambience like the hum of machinery, flowing water, etc.

Hate the movement system mixed with camera, lack of aim precision, confusing layout, and the truckloads of enemies.

I'm surprised the movement system is so bad because I thought it was just going to be tank controls which work fine with a jumping camera since your brain's logic works differently. Not sure if you intend to keep the free movement or not, but the cinematic camera angles don't work with the movement currently.

Oddly enough, there was a moment in time when I entered a doorway only to be met with some enemies roaming around and a big door in the way. Apparently I was behind the door and there was an enemy there with me. Speaking of, it's very difficult to tell when an enemy can/cannot see you or shoot at you.

The aim system isn't atrocious, but with so many enemies and asking you to react so quickly, it just doesn't work with the camera jumping in and out. There were so many times that I had to restart areas and just pull corners and snipe then retreat and reload checkpoint if I hit the wrong enemy. (Effectively going into a room, killing one enemy, then leaving to save) Which eventually I was at what I think is the final room slowly taking out enemies, leaving and then coming back after a good 'run of that room' and I actually hit 'restart game' and so I didn't finish. I dropped it at that point.

Also not sure how I feel about the shotgun doing additional damage to enemies behind the target. That feels like you want to emphasize player positioning, but enemy functionality where they just lock on and track you 100% + the shotgun short range just does not work. It felt more like a random bonus to discover dead enemies behind the target I was dumping shells into.

Map layout was very confusing. I had originally thought that blue and red were sectors and had some kind of logical layout at first. Like there is a red sector which might be connected to the blue sector which is connected to the green sector, but it does not appear to be the case. I don't know what the end goal is, but if a map won't come included then I'd recommend thinking about organizing map appearance to flow a certain way. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I really couldn't find a pattern. I also managed to miss the blue key right up until the very end which resulted in looking around for possibly an hour just trying to find the room with the robot in it.

I am just going to assume the rooms being filled to the brim with enemies was to provide a challenge.

Also final complaints but I was sad that the rocket launcher felt weak and that the laser cannon seemed to miss frequently. I assume the rocket launcher has been relegated to room clearing.

Hope this feedback is valuable!

Thanks for this playtest/demo!
So far so good overall most things feel proper. Only complaint I've got, you'll get a lot probably, and that's the tank controls and how disorienting some camera angles can be. This really messed with my sense of direction at times. Collecting clothing and swapping clothes around was cheeky! 👍

cool

This was enjoyable, I see a lot of potential here. the few issues I see is the movement cotrols don't react to sudden camera angle change if I keep holding the keys. It was also a bit unsual that I had to come close to an edge in order to jump, and also hold right click and then R in order to reload, perhaps there's a reason for two buttons to reload, but it was a bit uncomfortable, other than that I liked it