Christmas SAGE 2023 SAL (C.SAGE 23' DEMO)

I played this demo a few times, as well as the one from September. I like the art style, I think it has some nice color choices and the characters are pretty expressive. It's a cute, straightforward scenario. I liked how 1-4 started having art elements in the stage, like statues and paintings. I feel like that would be a fun theme to keep exploring. The sound design is fine too, even if it's nothing crazy.

The gameplay is fine, movement is feels alright, it's satisfying jumping/kicking most enemies. Main thing is it's kinda plain, and I hope that it can lean into more puzzley aspects in the future, or maybe incorporate the painting theme into gameplay. Like, say, hitting objects/enemies with paint to change their movements/attributes, akin to Sutte Hakkun for the SNES. I think that isn't too crazy to code, and would give it more of a unique identity from contemporaries like Anton and Annalynn.

I'd extend the same suggestion to the 2-player mode too. Instead of collecting coins, what if each player's movement would paint the blocks they touched, and the powerups could aid with that? Something like splatoon, where it tallies up who painted the most blocks?

Speaking of the 2 player mode... what are the controls for player 2? I was hitting WASD, the number pad, but I wasn't able to get Cal to move. Does it require 2 controllers specifically? it might be good to allow players to set what the controls are for 1 and 2 so they can play on the same keyboard if they want.

Another suggestion I have is maybe points could grant 1-ups. That would go a long way into encouraging picking up the milk-looking guys. I'd also suggest having the game be based around collecting 1 or more of those keys, instead of doing that AND killing all the enemies. Knocking out all the artlings feels redundant, especially as some levels feel like it's gating you to go in the rooms in a certain order anyway. Having to replay it a few times made it a bit boring, so having the option whether or not to do it would go a small way in player choice.

Lastly, the bonus round feels redundant as well given all the stages are about knocking out all the artlings to begin with. If anything, I would take another queue from the Mario arcade game and add a timer to bonus levels to encourage you going through it as fast as possible, then awarding you points based on how much time was left.

As for what's actually in the game design-wise, I think it would help to convey which enemies can/can't be jumped on. I was a little confused on 1-3 cause I didn't assume I could jump on the yellow guys. Maybe the non-jumpable ones have spiked helmets, or you could establish some color-coding rule like "blue enemies can't be jumped on".

The biggest issue is the lives system. 4 doesn't sound that bad for 5 levels, but I had to retry a few times due to some mistakes. I hope that the final game, you are given the option to continue after the last boss you defeated.

What was kinda frustrating were the pits. They gave me ah instant game over, which doesn't feel intended. If it's an issue with figuring out where to respawn the player, I would suggest tracking the last stable platform they were on before jumping, and zipping them back there.

The boss has a lot of health, I felt like it went on one phase too long?

1-2 it's possible to "soft-lock" by hopping on the guy that kills all the red dudes without killing the art ling on the top platform. I selected "Quick Restart" as that was the only option, hoping it would restart the current level, but instead put me back at 1-1. If you're going to have design elements like that, I think a level restart would be good... even if it costs a life.

All in all the game is still fine, just a bit plain, but the personality holds a lot of potential. I think there's some design stuff that would likely prevent someone from retrying it after getting a game over, so I hope that can get addressed if the game continues.

thank you so much for the review, I will make sure to fix the issues in the full game/ next demo