Very interesting concept and love the graphical style, the atmosphere is top notch.
I'd advise easing into the difficulty more slowly; curves are brutal straight away and I never get to feel like I'm full speed and in control. If it was me at least, I'd let the player get a taste for faster and easier races, and then start making more interesting and complicated courses.
Either way, I think there's potential here for a cool game!
That’s a good idea. I’m planning to add a short scripted segment at the beginning, and I think that would be a great time to give the player some simpler tracks. Thanks!
hey! congrats on the game! I played for 1h, 1h30min and really enjoyed. There's true potential to be a very good to spend some hours when you add everything you want.
Here are some notes I made:
Drive preset
normal: for me, very hard to control the car while avoiding the red stuff on the ground and making turns. lost all scrap and almost got killed by the entity every run hehe.
easy (slippy drift): better control and gameplay flow for me. not easy, as I got hit by the entity a few times on the runback and lost some scraps and health. nice difficulty balance.
easy (mid speed steer/accel): well balanced for me too. slightly easier than the slippy drift, but still challenging (missing one turn means the entity gets to you). maybe when you add more difficult variations (the risk/reward you mentioned) this preset would be the best to enjoy playing for a longer time
very easy: yeah, it’s easy, but depending on the road layout, hard enough to lose some scraps to the entity
General notes
is there a motivation to get faster at the loot place? like a bonus percentage chance of collecting better loot, better conditions to escape the entity on the runback? that way, you reward risky gameplay
maybe the road could be a little wider? or make the road width part of the branching choices on the route map?
in some runs, the boosters are too close to each other and sometimes cluttered in a sequence of hard turns. this makes them more of a hazard than power ups. If it’s intended that way, good.
I didn’t get what Theseus mean in the garage menu
I liked
vehicle control is nice. drifting in the two easy modes felt good. I wouldn’t make many changes here
loved the art and theme
possibility to add much more content (different vehicles, entities, hazards, boosters, roads, characters, loot etc)
gameplay loop is easy to understand: garage > go get loot > go back and not get caught by the entity > spend scraps in the garage. with a good progression system and a narrative, this loop won’t feel repetitive
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I’m really glad the game was already able to keep you engaged for 1-1.5 hours at this stage. That honestly means a lot to me.
About the driving presets: in the next update I’m planning to simplify and rename them a bit:
Hard = old normal
Normal = old easy (slippy drift)
Easy = old very easy
I agree that easy (slippy drift) currently feels like the most comfortable and enjoyable preset, so that’s probably the direction I want to build around.
About your notes:
I’ve been thinking about giving the player more incentive to reach the POI faster. My current idea is to limit the total run time: drive to the POI + time spent looting. Once the looting layer is more developed, I think that could make faster and riskier driving feel more rewarding.
I also like the idea of road width variation. I’ve been considering making roads vary more, and in the future I want the route map to show different road modifiers like length, danger level, night driving, and so on. Road width could definitely be one of them.
For boosters, I was originally thinking of them more as part of the world than just a straightforward power-up. Sometimes they help, sometimes they make things more dangerous, and the player has to decide whether using them is worth it. But I’m still not fully decided on that. Do you think adding a minimum distance between boosters would be a better approach?
Theseus will be tied to the story later on. It probably won’t have much direct gameplay impact. Right now it’s more of a mysterious placeholder.
I also have the next update almost ready, but right now it’s mostly focused on QoL, UX, and UI improvements. I’d prefer not to release it without at least some gameplay changes too, so hopefully I can squeeze in a bit more gameplay work before pushing it out.
Thanks again for taking the time to write all this. Feedback like this is genuinely super valuable to me.
Hi! I'm happy that you liked my feedback! here to help! =)
I agree about the new drive presets/difficulty. Slippy drift feels like a good balence for players to understand the mechanics and enjoy playing since the beginning. And them you can make it more difficult as the player progresses.
About the boosters, since you plan in making them a part of the world, and not just a power up, I don't think you need to add a minimum distance between them. The number of boosters and where they are in the road can be attached to the road modifiers you mentioned.
Eager to play it again when the new update launches!
The core gameplay loop feels solid and engaging, and the atmosphere is fantastic. I especially enjoyed the tension of trying to escape the pursuing anomaly. It really keeps you on edge. It would be amazing to see even more variety in environments and upgrades in future updates!
Very interesting game, like the vibe, but better to use Enter for start Also please add more straight roads on the map to run faster Even maybe consider to have a free world map
Yeah, I plan to improve the controls. Regarding straight roads, maybe on a low difficulty level. But I think that would make driving less interesting. An open world is not planned yet, but there will be a global map with branches, objectives, and the possibility of obtaining more valuable loot.
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Very interesting concept and love the graphical style, the atmosphere is top notch.
I'd advise easing into the difficulty more slowly; curves are brutal straight away and I never get to feel like I'm full speed and in control. If it was me at least, I'd let the player get a taste for faster and easier races, and then start making more interesting and complicated courses.
Either way, I think there's potential here for a cool game!
That’s a good idea. I’m planning to add a short scripted segment at the beginning, and I think that would be a great time to give the player some simpler tracks. Thanks!
hey! congrats on the game! I played for 1h, 1h30min and really enjoyed. There's true potential to be a very good to spend some hours when you add everything you want.
Here are some notes I made:
Drive preset
General notes
I liked
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I’m really glad the game was already able to keep you engaged for 1-1.5 hours at this stage. That honestly means a lot to me.
About the driving presets: in the next update I’m planning to simplify and rename them a bit:
I agree that easy (slippy drift) currently feels like the most comfortable and enjoyable preset, so that’s probably the direction I want to build around.
About your notes:
I also have the next update almost ready, but right now it’s mostly focused on QoL, UX, and UI improvements. I’d prefer not to release it without at least some gameplay changes too, so hopefully I can squeeze in a bit more gameplay work before pushing it out.
Thanks again for taking the time to write all this. Feedback like this is genuinely super valuable to me.
Hi! I'm happy that you liked my feedback! here to help! =)
I agree about the new drive presets/difficulty. Slippy drift feels like a good balence for players to understand the mechanics and enjoy playing since the beginning. And them you can make it more difficult as the player progresses.
About the boosters, since you plan in making them a part of the world, and not just a power up, I don't think you need to add a minimum distance between them. The number of boosters and where they are in the road can be attached to the road modifiers you mentioned.
Eager to play it again when the new update launches!
again, congrats on the game! cheers!
I've already uploaded a small QOL update. But there are no gameplay changes yet. By the way, you're in the credits now!
wow. thanks a lot for including me in the credits! =)
played the new update here. main menu makes it easier to navigate and change options before going to the garage.
I noticed you can go over 100 fuel if you keep collecting it even if it's full. I don't know if that's intended or a bug. =)
Yeah, I know, I'll turn it off in the next update
The core gameplay loop feels solid and engaging, and the atmosphere is fantastic. I especially enjoyed the tension of trying to escape the pursuing anomaly. It really keeps you on edge. It would be amazing to see even more variety in environments and upgrades in future updates!
I’m really happy the core loop and the atmosphere are working for you.
More environment variety and upgrades are definitely on the roadmap. Thanks for playing and feedback!
Very interesting game, like the vibe, but better to use Enter for start
Also please add more straight roads on the map to run faster
Even maybe consider to have a free world map
Yeah, I plan to improve the controls.
Regarding straight roads, maybe on a low difficulty level. But I think that would make driving less interesting.
An open world is not planned yet, but there will be a global map with branches, objectives, and the possibility of obtaining more valuable loot.
Stay tuned for updates! Thank you!