Post by randomg on Oct 18, 2012 22:20:58 GMT -5
At this point, I have around 5 or 6 hours play time(sorry), and 8 of the tanks unlocked. I'll post another feedback when I finish the unlocks.
First Impressions:
Upon starting, I had no clue what to do. Following the tutorial, I picked up the very basics - enough to get around in game, at least.
When I entered the realm, I headed out to face the world. Basically, I drove around and killed stuff, which took a solid 15 minutes(difficulty has since been buffed, a lot). I fought the big turrets, and the little turrets that make bombs, and the tank spawners. I rolled through everything, with no appreciable change in difficulty, but I couldn't figure out a purpose.
I headed back to Origin and found out I could use my points, but I didn't know what anything did. I saw the colors corresponded, but I didn't know how to increase my bonuses. I later found out that leveling structures only adds to the range of the powerups, but I still don't know how to tell what that range is, or how to make it stack higher. It took me a while to realize that hovering over lenses picked them up - I just thought they were glitched powerups. Maybe adding hover over lenses to tooltips would help?
As a lazy 'new' player, I looked at all the stats on the left and ignored them immediately, it was very busy. The icons on the right also looked like obvious powerups, but I wasn't sure if I could increase them more.
I have not yet been there for a 'win', so I can't comment yet, but about half of what I learned I learned from other players. I like this, and I think it's a great mechanic for players to teach others, until the community becomes to big to do so, at which point a deeper tutorial may be necessary. Half the fun at the beginning was in finding new mechanics, so it shouldn't be too obvious.
Controls:
The controls are just right, and perfect for this sort of thing. Having my right hand on the mouse freed up the left to type, so I could chat while I played, or talk on the phone. Some gameplay was also suited for true focus, and I expect with greater enemy diversity there will be more options for diverse gameplay.
The only problem I have right now is targeting. It would be nice to be able to select maybe 'shoot to nearest, shoot to most HP, shoot to most damaging' from a toggle menu. I know one of the core principles is no aiming, I *like* that. It both takes away from and adds to the tension in the game.
"Catch"
At first, I picked the game up, played for 30 minutes, used up my lenses, and stopped when I died with 20k more lenses. The enemy counts were fairly low, so things weren't very exciting. Pumping up those counts has certainly helped. There is, however, a lot of catch to killing 'one more base' to get that 5th lens. I'm sure the shards as craftables will improve this feature as well, and I have some ideas for another post.
Overall
Overall, this game has been a blast. I have a list of 'issues' that I've found that I'll throw up probably tomorrow, but for now I'm just interested to see what happens with the next build. If I have any other experiences of note, I'll be sure to toss them up.
First Impressions:
Upon starting, I had no clue what to do. Following the tutorial, I picked up the very basics - enough to get around in game, at least.
When I entered the realm, I headed out to face the world. Basically, I drove around and killed stuff, which took a solid 15 minutes(difficulty has since been buffed, a lot). I fought the big turrets, and the little turrets that make bombs, and the tank spawners. I rolled through everything, with no appreciable change in difficulty, but I couldn't figure out a purpose.
I headed back to Origin and found out I could use my points, but I didn't know what anything did. I saw the colors corresponded, but I didn't know how to increase my bonuses. I later found out that leveling structures only adds to the range of the powerups, but I still don't know how to tell what that range is, or how to make it stack higher. It took me a while to realize that hovering over lenses picked them up - I just thought they were glitched powerups. Maybe adding hover over lenses to tooltips would help?
As a lazy 'new' player, I looked at all the stats on the left and ignored them immediately, it was very busy. The icons on the right also looked like obvious powerups, but I wasn't sure if I could increase them more.
I have not yet been there for a 'win', so I can't comment yet, but about half of what I learned I learned from other players. I like this, and I think it's a great mechanic for players to teach others, until the community becomes to big to do so, at which point a deeper tutorial may be necessary. Half the fun at the beginning was in finding new mechanics, so it shouldn't be too obvious.
Controls:
The controls are just right, and perfect for this sort of thing. Having my right hand on the mouse freed up the left to type, so I could chat while I played, or talk on the phone. Some gameplay was also suited for true focus, and I expect with greater enemy diversity there will be more options for diverse gameplay.
The only problem I have right now is targeting. It would be nice to be able to select maybe 'shoot to nearest, shoot to most HP, shoot to most damaging' from a toggle menu. I know one of the core principles is no aiming, I *like* that. It both takes away from and adds to the tension in the game.
"Catch"
At first, I picked the game up, played for 30 minutes, used up my lenses, and stopped when I died with 20k more lenses. The enemy counts were fairly low, so things weren't very exciting. Pumping up those counts has certainly helped. There is, however, a lot of catch to killing 'one more base' to get that 5th lens. I'm sure the shards as craftables will improve this feature as well, and I have some ideas for another post.
Overall
Overall, this game has been a blast. I have a list of 'issues' that I've found that I'll throw up probably tomorrow, but for now I'm just interested to see what happens with the next build. If I have any other experiences of note, I'll be sure to toss them up.