AKA Burger Dog Hell Planet, download below!
I spent a few months working on this, trying to force myself to make a “proper videogame” after years of making weird abrasive stuff. Making something so traditional in format made me think it was vital to also fill it with fat furry stuff. So, now this game exists! the demo comprises one Zone and a boss, with some upgrades too! try it out, consider this a public beta test, tell me if there are bugs n stuff i couldn’t find. check out me screenshots
This looks really cool and really well done! The graphics and music are all really great. But the gameplay is brutally frustrating.
There’s 6 health pips, but everything does 2 damage, so there’s really only 3. I think you should probably just let things do 1 damage or double the health. Spikes on the walls of every narrow tunnel, long climbing sessions with enemies shooting down at you while you’re taking 3 seconds to climb every ledge, as well as more spikes, some of which are unavoidable because climbing up a ledge throws you right into them. Putting spikes and enemies directly in your path as you walk or fall into a new area. Also there’s no way to get back to the surface because there’s so many drops that can’t be jumped back up, especially after you’ve collected burgers. All of these are just… not fun.
The two abilities I picked up feel pretty flawed, too. Fattening up the beetles with the bug bullets in the wrong place forces you to leave the room and come back, which also respawns the enemies and you end up shooting the beetle when it’s in the wrong place again. The fattening either needs to be temporary, or you need to be able to push the beetle around somehow, maybe by shooting it, like the fat bats that drop on you. And the Charge Bubble’s is moving way too fast and unpredictably to reliably jump on for a boost, which usually ends with you taking damage when you miss and land on the spikes that are everywhere.
Finally, I’d REALLY like the ability shoot upwards by holding the up button and shooting. Every enemy is always above you, so it feels like it’s kind of necessary. And being able drop through climbable platforms by holding down and pressing jump would be awesome, too.
This looks like a pretty unique and interesting game for the expansion kink scene, with a lot of polish and potential, and it had me pretty excited to try it out. But the level design and gameplay just feel way too unforgiving and unfair for me to come back to if it stays like this.
Amazing game, was dying a lot at the start but the game made me lock in, the protag is very cute and its a shame we are punished to turn into a cute butterball but i understand the challenge. Got 2 weapon upgrades, not sure if you can get the third one and got a total of 18 burgers. I see 2 burgers but even with the bubble, i cant reach them and the red door at Kettle and Belle feels impossible to reach as well, so i feel if its possible to reach there, any tips would be appreciated.
Was able to return to the starting area and used the bubble to jump to the top but reached the null zone and had to quit.
Also, would like to know if it is inteded to use down + jump to lower yourself because some areas become a no way out without it or if its intentional for us to not have that common technique.
Regarding health, most stuff deals 2 damage with some special attacks dealing 3, so unless you get something in the future to reduce damage , it does feel pointless to not be 1 or you could make that the fatter you get you reduce damage taken but also mobility, could be a fun way to fight it.
Just beat it, it was a lot of fun, although got frustrated here and there!! Reminds me a lot of Enviromental Station Alpha, both with the artstyle and gameplay. I struggled here and there, but I’d learn and try other locations and paths if the one I was on wasn’t working out.
The powerups are cool, the first one is cute and surprised me, despite knowing I had to unlock something to be able to jump off of the bugs just from the environmental clues. The other one is sick too and is handy at bigger sizes. It took me a good bit to get used to it, but I finally got used to the physics and angles to be decent with it. Won’t lie it can be a little finicky though.
I was also constantly trying to shoot upwards and being sad I couldn’t, it’d be nice to have but I’m not sure if that’d make the game easier than you’d like. Same with the climbable platforms, but making the platforms climbable both ways would completely break some rooms so it’d be better to just leave them as they are.
If this is meant to be a difficult game, then I think the damage is fine, I don’t think every enemy should do one damage, especially since there’s already several weak enemies who do that. I do think there needs to be some sort of health upgrade sprinkled throughout or something. There are some spots where it feels impossible to get through without taking damage, the worst of these though had an alternate path that allowed you to skip it thankfully.
It generally feels like collecting anymore than two artifacts at a time is a death sentence, definitely understand it’s meant to be harder the more you have, but it feels like the game really encourages you to play it safe. Especially since the health refills increase weight too.
For bugs, the only one I came across was when I got too fat in a two tile wide vertical shaft. I’ve ran into this issue in my own game, and my solution was just that if the character detects clipping, it would revert the fattening.
Also entered the null room, oops >w>
I like the potential this game has but of course as others have said, the whole everything mostly 2 damage is annoying to deal with, as well as often being unable to avoid taking damage in some areas.
It would also be nice to be able to possibly get upgrades to health, ammo, stims and the amount of burgers you can collect before you become immobile (maybe even upgrades to how big you can get before immobility if that’s possible)
Another thing I noticed (unsure if it’s a bug or intended. Also said this in bug reports topic on the itch page) but if you use a stim while in the hub area, you lose that stim permanently from what I’ve seen with no way of getting them back. It would be nice if you maybe had enemies drop pick-ups or have pick-ups in certain areas in the future.
Otherwise I can see the potential in this game if work on it continues and I can’t wait to see what you do with it or whatever else you’ll make.
Reporting here the bug i saw where you lose your health pots if you use them in the hub and save, tough it seems it powered up my bubbles and i was able to reach the <????> zone but couldnt advance since the door didnt open, not sure if you need something or if its only an easter egg.
I think you’re unfortunately vastly overestimating the capabilities of the average player with this game. I have absolutely no experience playing metroidvania games beyond that of Hollow Knight, a game that provides sleek smooth movement at all times, and this game is brutal to me. The momentum is killing me all the time, drops that lead to nothing that I can’t get back up from, enemies shoot fast projectiles that are too fast for me to reliably dodge and manage dodging other enemies as well. You’ve captured the aesthetic of the early metroid games quite well (Maybe a little too well because I don’t know what I am looking at half the time), but little of what makes them fun. I know it’s just a demo but keep this in mind if you don’t already have it locked down, just because you’re making a fetish game does not mean you can skimp out on making it fair and fun.
I’m not trying to be rude or anything, I know I’ll never be able to do what you have done.
hehe yeahhhhh :J some of that I want to change, but some of it is just how the games I make are like, I like games that are weird and annoying sometimes, and I felt an expansion game like that should exist. I was inspired partly by replaying Rainworld, a very difficult and stressful game, with the weight gain mod, and thinking a game like that should exist. If it’s not to your taste there’s no need to force yourself through it. Again, there’s a lot of stuff in it that is just jank and I want to fix it, but I can’t promise all the friction will go away
just a small secret area with some dialogue fr now
it is meant to be a difficult game but it seems like everyone thinks it sucks ass, so i’ll think about toning it down, there are some little things I’ve been meaning to take a look at. Thank you for noticing the Environmental Station Alphaness, this game was made basically just because I was playing ESA and really enjoying it… I’m still figuring out how to design a game like this, but there’s some stuff I’m confident in.
number 1 with a bullet main design conundrum before anything else is properly incentivizing getting more hamburgers, so you actually reach those higher stages. I thought of something like “you can only complete a run if you have 3 burgers” but i worried that would create tons of softlocks
Yeah, I guess if you didn’t want to dumb down your original vision, you could always just add a separate easy mode or some accessibility options. I enjoy playing difficult indie and retro games so I didn’t mind the issues others are having as much, but yeah it won’t be for most people.
I absolutely love ESA!! The movement potential of the charge unlock reminded me of the grapple hook, and just how you shoot and move around feels like that game too.
But yeah, I think a good start is fixing and tweaking the stuff you already know needs worked on, and then if people are still struggling and you want to make your game more accessible, perhaps add some accessibility options. Like reducing all damage by one point or something, anything that isn’t too hard to implement but may help take off that edge if someone needs it.
i still don’t know hot to speak to people
You press “up” when nearby someone, I used the arrow keys but you might be able to do it with W too if you’re using WASD controls?
I played a little bit, and it is pretty fun! it reminded me about Cave Story like the shooting and platforming, but the inablity to shoot straight up kinda sucks, and make it so enemies doesn’t deal two damage on hit, im pretty good at Metroidvanias, but two hits from every foe is pretty annoying
i did actually fully put in the ability to shoot up, but at smoe point i took it out, forget why : /
I accidentally noticed a bug: when I found myself on a level with blue barrels that made you bigger, I couldn’t jump to the last one, poking all the buttons in the hope that these barrels could be thrown away, I restarted the game, clicking on continue I found myself in a black void in which I was falling, which led nowhere
yeah when you quit the tutorial and pick continue it kinda breaks the game i’ll have to fix that
i have an iq of 2 apparently XD
Wowowow that demo was awesome.
the difficulty curve was crazy but tbh the game was hard but that’s cause I don’t play metroidvanias so I just needed to explore a bit to find charge up but as soon as I did I was locked in. tbh If you plan on making it easier plz keep a harder mode. (However FUCK that one spike at the base TP when I’m walking back that’s there because you HATE me)
