Myrical's arc review
Menu screen
Ok, firstly, when I opened up the game the menu screen was a little messed up. The buttons were all out of line, as was the HUD in the actual game. Music in the menu screens was good, although you won't be able to use it if it's copyrighted. Loading time was OK.
LEVEL 1
Gameplay
Firstly, I noticed I only had 50 HP. This was good as I realised I couldn't just run and gun the level however, bugs made this very annoying. Everytime I spawned, I lost almost half my health. When I walked down stairs, I lost half my health. This really annoyed me, especially in level one where you had to jump over the spikes: The enemy in the doorway killed me everytime because I had so little health. Mabye decrease his accuracy a bit? Ammo and enemy placement was good except for that enemy I just told you about. When I came up the lift, the left side of the room was extremely laggy. I don't know why, but I was getting about 1 fps
I have a very good computer btw. The gun was not suitable for this game as right clicking gave me a useless aiming HUD. This meant that picking up objects became impossible because the HUD came up everytime I right clicked. I know you can just press 0 and put the gun away but this didn't help when enemies were shooting me. A secondary weapon would also be nice like a pistol.
Graphics
This demo DID NOT look like the screen shots. It looked bog standard FPSC with practically no lighting and bad quality textures etc. Perhaps this was because you didn't have full light mapping and high textures on? Go and read Creator Of Zombies lightmapping tutorial. It's really good. You had alot of static and dynamic entities mixed together and this made the areas look messy as some objects had shadows and some were very bright. The entity placement was OK but could have been better. The level was very grey and a little boring.
Atmosphere
There was a very quiet ambience in the background, however I couldn't hear it. The character is supposed to be fighting a war here, so I would suggest war ambience in the background. Guns and explosions in the distance etc. The lightmapping wasn't good so it didn't help create any feeling in the game. Also, where was this place? Where was the character? It was as if all back story was lost when the game began.
LEVEL 2
Gameplay
Much the same as level 1. The explosive barrels in the final room killed me all the time. The door into the room had to be open to be able to shoot them and this meant I was too close to them and got killed. If I went too far away, the doors closed and I couldn't shoot. The male enemy in the final room killed me instantly. Decrease his accuracy or something please. The loss of HP everytime I spawned meant I was just cannon fodder for him. This level was criminally short aswell and there wasn't much to do in it ;/
Graphics
The wall texture on all the entities was a big mistake I think. It really didn't work, I would suggest creating brand new textures. Entities where crammed in together which looked a bit unrealistic. There was a desk in the first room that must have been for a midget. Explosive barrels were everywhere. Why? :S Why would the enemies have explosives everywhere? Lightmaps did not flow. They were boring I'm sorry to say.
Atmosphere
Same as level one.
This was a bog standard FPSC game. You really need to work on your skills. The fact that full lightmaps and textures was not turned on didn't help matters. The demo was a bad showcase for this game.
YOU NEED:
Interesting lightmaps, using different tones of colour in every room as highlights.
Light sources!!!
Retextured enemies
Scripted events - The game was far too predictable and basic for what FPSC can do these days. I'll send you a list of simple story events.
More user friendly weapons. (The HUD)
More thought out entity placement and more interesting entities on the walls etc.
Fix the bugs and mabye give us more health
Level design: Make it more realistic and longer! Don't mix static and dynamic entities!
SOUND! We are fighting a war here son! Let's get some war ambience and stuff! Make it feel like a warzone.
Phew! That took a while. Sorry if this seems harsh in any way. It's all meant to be constructive crit, so you can make the best possible game.
Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in Hell!
