It feels like the game is following that "submarine horror" trend, but without the actual submarine, you just in some undisclosed location. The character is forcefully held in a working facility with the promise of getting out if you keep doing your job. Takes about 20 minutes to finish, just managing various mundane tasks like fixing pipes and figuring out how to interact with the consoles. I believe there are 2 endings.
The biggest problem for "The Vessel" is that this narrative has been done before several times, not just in terms of mechanics that you see in similar games, but also in terms of having the same story. Isolania comes to mind for example, which had 6+ hours of virtually the same experience with more depth, among several others. Even though I think you handled the isolation/horror vibes decently, you just kinda did exact same thing as similar games, just less of it, so it's just another one of these games in the end. I am not saying you have to reinvent the wheel every time you make a game, but there has to be something about the game, either in terms of story or game mechanics that other games do not have.
I like that little psychological effect you had with the doors, maybe that is something you could use to come up with different ideas, use it to create more navigation or location variety to show more angles to the character. Also, the shadow jump scares you did are fine, but make sure the player does not get a good chance to look at them, it can break immersion, especially if they get stuck.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) The game had good use of texture and sound effects, I think the isolation and oppression vibes worked for what you were going for.
(+) Had a few okay psychological effects, but you do need more of them overall
(+) A few endings
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u]Bugs/other:[/u]
- missing collision at the bottom of the stairs, and the shadow can show up at the wrong time
- the items are a bit hard to see on the floor if you drop them, and sometimes they can get out of range
- Is the console menu displaying correctly when you reduce numbers to zero?
[u] Narrative [/u] - there are a couple of games with virtually the same narrative, and they did it better. It's okay to start the game with the same concept, but I think you need to take some risks and push the game into other directions by the end.
On a side note, if you only using AI for achievements, just don't use AI in a first place, that disclaimer is not worth having, just draw your damn icons, it's not a big deal if they don't look pretty.
[b] Overall Thoughts: 6/10 [/b]
If this is your first horror game it's not bad for $2, you still got the vibes and the retro look, and you can feel that ambiance with the feeling of isolation. That said, the story would probably be okay 20 years ago, but this has been done before and it has been done better than this. So, I would say just take some risks, you can follow a trend, and add something personal or unique to it.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
