SpookShot

This game is really cute and I think has a lot of potential as a 3D platformer! The 2D character contrasted with the 3D environment looked very good and I think the aesthetic of the game is already fairly strong, even though it is a work in progress!

I think the camera and ghost movement mechanics open up the possibility of some fun puzzles, especially if some of the ghost paths are broadened to wider areas so the player needs to think more about the ambush placement.

The movement and camera controls felt very good and were definitely the first thing I noticed. The only improvement I would suggest is tweaking the ghost catching camera control as it can feel a little bit awkward.

I also noticed there is no sign explaining how to ground pound which made it so it took me a while to even realize I could access the rest of the swamp level. I also think the swamp underutilized the ghost mechanics and at time lacked a sense of direction, but the design of the platforming was very good and felt good to get the hang of over time. The time trials did add replayability too which was nice.

Overall I had a lot of fun with it and think it has a lot of potential, looking forward to seeing more!

I love it!! It reminds me so much of my childhood for some reason. The 3d environment + 2D characters really gives it a cute touch. The music is on spot for the levels and everything looks so balanced. The gameplay is simple and enjoyable.
My critique could be about the shadows/ lightning involved with 2d characters. Idk, but you could use blending colors that go with the scenery for the player, like instead of just using one black spot shadow, you can make it a directional shadow, that matches the background.

I know it's still in progress but you could make it look a bit more "physical" if you use more colors / textures

This game is really solid! The overall level designs are really good and make for an interesting game play experience. The music is calm and relaxing the ghost sprites are pretty cute! For a demo this is demo this is some really solid work. 

The mechanic of catching a ghost via the players camera is really cool and unique! It makes for a really fun ghost hunting experience. I wasn't able to hook up a controller in order to play the demo so I had to use keyboard controls and overall they worked pretty well. The only issue was that the camera movement was hard to control at times. I don't know of that is simply a keyboard issue or not, but it made it a little difficult to play the game. 

But overall I am definitely looking forward to what the finished product is going to look like!

Really cool little platformer. My USB Switch controller wasn't picked up by it, but the keyboard controls worked pretty well, although what buttons do what aren't told for keyboard. I assume that'll be fixed, so I'll try to focus on the design itself. 

The camera and trap mechanics are really cool and I could see them being deployed really well. I was hopping the Swamp level would've used it a bit more. What really made this game click is when I discovered that the trap spin effectively doubles as another jump that you can use either before or after the air dash. There could be a lot of potential to string cool stuff together like this. Espiecally if laying a trip mid-air while you're doing your string of jumps is ever part of the gameplay. 

As for the level designs, they were all pretty good. The only notable flaw I saw was in the swamp you need to press a button with your ground pound to make a platform move on the other side of the map. The button itself is kind of hidden and it doesn't really communicate what it actually did. Otherwise it was really fun to traverse through the swamp level and make it to the top of the cave (or whatever it is) 

I'm sure that this wasn't intended, but I found it kinda cool that you can duck underneath the trees and go out of bounds. Making that intentional with a secret would be kinda cool. 

This is a cool game for a demo! Here are some pros and cons I found whilst playing:

Pros:
- The concept of the game is very unique from most current video games, I liked the theme of catching ghosts with your camera!
- The game world artwork looks very clean and gives it a calming Halloween aesthetic.
- I enjoyed the design and animations of the main character as they flowed well with the movement controls.
- The background lo-fi music gave the game a very chill vibe and encouraged me to keep playing.
- The walking sound effect felt realistic and immersive.
- The lighting sources looked very realistic and felt like a professional game.

Things to improve upon:
- The player gets immediately thrown into the game with no controls or instructions, took me a good few minutes to figure out what LT and RB were mapped to on a keyboard.
- The ghosts that constantly move as you get close to them are nearly impossible to capture on the camera (I was trying to catch one for a good 5 minutes running around in a circle before giving up the game completely). Possibly have those ghosts run away a few times before standing still.
- My gaming laptop got hotter than I've ever felt it to the point where I couldn't put it on my lap (not sure if this is something you can control, but it convinced me to only play for a short time).

The art is pretty nice and the controls for jumping, crouching , and sliding are cool and fun. However, I find the sensitivity too high and a little frustrating at times, but besides that, the levels and most factors are great! I can't wait to see the final product!

I actually really enjoyed the art in the game. The 2D paper character in a low-poly world is a cool idea. When moving around though I often swung the camera too far in one direction (I was on mouse and keyboard) so implementing clamping on the camera would be really nice to add. The lofi hip-hop soundtracks in a few of the levels made it very enjoyable to play and super relaxing. I also liked the point and capture element of getting the ghosts instead of just running into them, adds a fun element to the game. I know this is a demo but some more instructions and tutorials on how the game and controls work to make it easier to start. 

I personally think that there is quite a decent amount of creativity that went into this game. With the idea of capturing ghosts, collecting coins, and gaining keys in order to progress through the game, I think with enough levels, this can become an absolutely solid game. However, I personally found the mouse-based controls to be somewhat uncomfortable. This is just me, but I prefer using another set of 4 keys to move the camera (such as an option to use the arrow keys rather than the mouse to move the camera). In addition, I found that the capture function when clicking on the left mouse key is somewhat weird, in my opinion, as I don’t see an indication of where I am capturing when I am playing this game. 

This part of the review may be biased as I prefer being an all-keyboard player or all-mouse player over a keyboard+mouse hybrid game, but I personally think there should be an option where you can play the game with just the keyboard (example: You can use the “z” key to capture and the “x” key as the right-mouse key) function. 

Besides the part where I managed to skip collecting a key with a few well-timed jumps, I think the game is also glitch free, although the UI for using keys may be revamped quite a bit, as I found it to be a bit bland. 

I spent waaaaaaay too long trying to do stuff I wasn't supposed to. After 4 hours of jumping into rock walls, the best I could do was get past the bridge in the tutorial level to see the content past it, find a way to get out of bounds and void out (which just resets you to the start as I found out), and found a unused key out of bounds on a on an untextured column that was just out of reach no matter how hard I tried. The only way I was able to bear with spending 4 hours doing all this is because the movement in the game is very smooth, rewarding, and fun to play with. I was worried a 2d character would be hard to play with for a 3d game, but from what is there at the moment, it is very smooth and I never had any issues. I really enjoyed what was there and hope to see the project progress!

Super cool! Love the 2D art!!

I really liked how cute and fun this demo was! The art and sound are so cute. I also really enjoyed having a guide for what you were supposed to do as that isn't very common (from some of the other games I've seen). I might suggest turning the keys and items into something more 2D so it feels more cohesive with the 2D character.  But overall great work can't wait to see how it turns out!

Hello! I just finished playing the short demo and I really liked it! The animation, art, and music are really nice. I also liked the hints that were given at the start, it made it easier to understand the gameplay. The concept of catching ghosts and gathering the keys was also really fun. Another thing I really liked was that in the platformer section, even after you die, you get to keep the stuff you previously collected. This made the game a really nice experience and not frustrating at all! I can't wait to see the finished product and what other stuff you come up with!