DreadFall

Right off the bat the game has no music on the main menu screen? No idea why that is the case. Had me a bit sus at the start. In game there arent many sound effects at all. The only sound you get is fromt the background music and that even cuts out randomly. The game also crashed at least 2 times durin' my playthrough. The platformin' etc was fine but the small things it could use more of (sound effects). The price tag is also a bit much. The game gets a middle thumb from me for now. Gameplay impressions: https://youtu.be/xWd4MEviLbI

Honestly I would love to just give this a thumbs up and leave it at that but I have to add a few things here... (Summary at the end) (For transparency sake: I was a kickstarter backer which is why i got the game for a reduced price) ----------------------- The good: - DreadFall is a challenging 2D plattformer, which feels great and rewarding when it behaves like you expect it to. - With upgrades from the shop you can buy a attack dash that launches you in the direction of the cursor, which creates the following to consequences: -- The attack dash can be used in plattforming. Using it to just dash through the levels like a speedrunner, skipping a hard jump or just using it to save yourself after missing a jump; All three movement options mentioned make the plattforming really elegant - when it works like you expect it to. -- The attack dash also makes the normal combat more exciting. While there isn't that much combat at least til the point I played to, it feels great zooming through the air to hit an enemy. - The downward dash is also a nice addition that I want to add mention. - The boss takes a bit of figuring out, but once you know what to do it's actually a cool fight. - The second level and the ones after the boss are actually quiet well done. ----------------------- But there are also some bad things that I have to mention: - My main criticism is consistency. Often times when you die it feels like the game is at fault rather than yourself. Some parts of those are: -- Getting eaten by an enemy shortly after you killed him or because the dash somehow missed them by like a pixel. -- Getting shot while attacking one of those shooters. Once you figure out the timing of them they are somewhat find, except for the plattform in the catacombs where there are two of them. -- There are a lot of random invisible death barriers that are total bs (like the one between the first plattforms in the boss level). -- The attack dash stops when you hit anything, which is fine when applied to enemys, but when you want to save yourself on a plattforming challenge where the ceiling is really close you can't get back up because the dash gets cancelled as soon as the tip hits it ceilling while you are still below the smaller plattform. Even worse: While you can dash through SOME floating plattforms you can't dash through others, making it so that you won't even hit the ceiling... - The second level (the level of the boss) is just confusing and not well made from a gameplay perspective. How would a player know that they should go there without "trial and error"-ing at every single point only to die to a invisible death barrier. ----------------------- I want to mention a few suggestions that would improve the game by a lot: - Change the invisible death barriers a bit (like adding a gas or a "darkness" cloud) so that the player actually knows where not to go and why they died there. - Split the hitbox for the sword into two: One for the enemys which is on/close to the tip of the sword and one for the environment, which is closer to the handle. This would make plattforming way tighter and feel a lot (and I mean A LOT) better. - Remove the sword hitting hitbox on the floating plattforms. - Add a small delay to the shooting of the shooters and maybe add like a small charge-up animation before they shoot so that the player can either attack last second or move out of the way. - And some smaller things that aren't that important, but I want to mention them anyway: -- Maybe add some kind of environmental clues so that the player knows where to go (which isn't needed most of the time, but definitely in the second level). -- A small introduction to the shop (i.e. "You can find me when pressing the escape button") would be nice. -- More checkpoints would be cool and maybe a way to see beforehand where they are. -- I've had three crashes within the first 10 minutes of playing. Two of them while the game changed from gameplay to the lore screen (once at the "asdd" screen ^^). After those three I didn't have any more crashes until I quit at the 60 minute mark/at the catacombs. ----------------------- So to summarize it a bit: DreadFall is a cool and challenging 2D plattformer that is rewarding when it works and infuriating when it doesn't. The attack dash ability that you can buy in the shop is a great addition to both the combat at the plattforming itself. You can absolutely tell that the developer had passion while making the game, but it needs a bit of ironing out some of the mechanics to make the whole package more well-rounded. I only finished about 40% of the game (I would guess) and got stuck in the catacombs level right after the double shooters. I would actually recommend the game at a lowered price, but as is (with both the price and the lack of consistency) I would give it a thumb to the side basically. (I might update this review when/if the game gets updated and resolve some of the things mentioned above)