Awesome game! Very fun! Quick and addictive gameplay.
First off I would like to start out with my highest of praise for this game. I absolutely adore it, and find its gameplay to be super really fun and addictive, as well as engaging and thrilling. Quickly I find myself mobbed by a swarm of enemies and its so much fun keeping on my toes balancing between dodging and attacking as i rapidly defeat them in large amounts.
This game from my perspective is the perfect potential, as I was playing I was so inspired at the concept and i had many ideas pop into my mind which i know would make it exponentially more fun. I will now describe them in hopes of inspiring developers.
I find the power up upgrades to be creative, well thought out and meaningfully used in gameplay.
It would be cool if in further versions there could be more mob types, perhaps animal mobs of different sizes and strengths that come out at certain higher waves. Implementing a sort of armor system would be really fun too, perhaps there can be certain mobs which can rarely spawn in with some armor pieces and once defeated these can be equipped on the player to add a health boost, movement boost, attack boost and other sot of stat alterations. there could even be warped or cursed armors which have negative stats mixed which extremely positive stats which severely alter gameplay.
New mobs -
flower people mobs - a friendly mob, they could be a power up unlock-able through one of the picked up purple power ups, which allow for them to accompany you and fight as well, there could be different colors who are different variations. For example, there could be a purple flower headed person who looks like a lilac and they attack with a long range scythe which is fast in speed, another would be red headed morning lilies which could used cestuses and attack in rapid speed at very short range.
- New mushrooms mobs -
angel of death mushroom mobs - a white mushroom with the head of a death cap, they would do ambient area of effect damage which was an instant kill if it built up (similar to death blight is the DS series),
Morel mushroom headed people who attack with earthen clay bows from a far distance,
Lions Mane mushroom dog beasts - the body of a lion with the head of a lions mane mushroom, who attacks with slashing claw attack at close range, would be a higher wave mob only appearing after wave 20.
slubs mob - they would be very slow and large and would do a lot of damage in the form of a forward thrusting bite attack. there could even be mushroom riders on top of snails who throw javelins.
-Wave Bosses-
Another fun thing to increase gameplay, use, and engagement, would be to implement wave bosses at the top of every tenth wave which is a larger unique mob creature who has significantly heightened health and character size, perhaps slower movement to allow the character a fighting chance.
- Permanent Aesthetic Clothing Unlockables -
once this boss is defeated it has a 22% chance of droping a magic arcane coin which can then be brought to a vault that has machines which in this boss token can be inserted into and then a mechanisms occurs and the player enters a pool of aesthetic items which have no stat benefit yet instead offer customization and incentive to farm the wave bosses which then drives up user engagement and play time. A pool of 50 clothing items, hats jackets, backpacks, suits, helmets, as creative as you can be, fun items. Each token spins a machine which will randomly select one. once one is unlocked it wont be bale to be drawn again thus removing the problem of duplicates.
Achievements!
This game could have a hundred achievements and that would be awesome, it definitely has the potential for a quantity of such, it deserves such love. achievements for engaging with different functions of the game. For example, If there was the employment of the wave bosses there could be an achievement for defeating one, defeating 10, defeating 100, etc. having tiered increments of achievements is ideal for allowing players to feel they are progressing towards something and their hard work, or playtime, is contributing or producing something of permanent value, for example an achievement. also having a diversity of achievements allows other players to see how another player plays a game due to the achievements unlocked, in a way achievements are a form of self expression, and play style.
Achievement ideas to implement in the game which would increase user engagement and playtime as well as overall play experience.
- using different types of weapons - for example "used a sword", "used an axe"
- swing a weapon a thousand times, dash a thousand times, jump a thousand times (rewards the player for simply playing the game for sometime, for trying)
- unlock three outfits, unlock 25, unlock all outfits. have these tiered as bronze, silver, gold.
Character clothing customization has many added benefits to a game. the major benefit is it allows the player to have a more personal feel with the playable character, it allows for one to express themselves and in a sense there is more love and care now invested into this character. this invensted of are brings payers back to the game to witness their creation again and again. In real life clothing shopping can be very fun and very expensive and then closed off to others, in a video game when there is a large wardrobe of aesthetic unlockable clothing options it allows for the player to virtually experience the fun of fashion and shopping and mix/matching new outfits. It allows for more creativity which will drive curiosity which will drive user engagement.
- a short thought on achievements -
achievements are the magic that keeps a player grinding a game they may not even enjoy all because they want that shiny looking achievement, achievements are an under utilized resource which rewards player engagement and gives a sense of meaning to the experience of playing a game. finding the perfect balance between how many achievements to reward is key to any successful game. the over gifting of achievements can make them feel hollow and undeserved. the under use of achievements can create nihilism in player bases, as in whats the point of going above and beyond if none of this will be documented or known.
-Closing thoughts and Offer-
I have slight background in software writing languages python, as well as JavaScript. I see you have a small studio, if you needed help implementing my ideas i could potentially assist in the creations of an update. i see you are a part of a small studio so I figured having one other person helping out could potentially really have a large positive effect.
