Executive Summary
Overall Sentiment: Highly Positive. All reviewers agree that the Vertical Slice is functional, the features work as intended, and the art/music implementation is fantastic. The core systems (pathfinding, abilities, transitions) are solid. The majority of criticisms revolve around camera controls, UI feedback (especially turn indication), and targeting logic bugs.
🔴 Critical Bugs & Logic Issues
- Input Leaks (Turn Management): Players can use WASD, move units, or cast abilities during the Enemy’s Turn.
- Game Loop/State:
- Softlock: Dying, returning to the Main Menu, and re-entering the game results in a softlock where nothing can be selected.
- Action Economy: Units can currently move multiple times in a single turn.
- Targeting Logic:
- Dead Units: Killed units (allies/enemies) still occupy grid cells. Dead allies can still be selected and use abilities (though sprites are removed).
- Friendly Fire/Self-Cast: All units can target themselves or allies with damaging moves (e.g., Construct using Bash on self).
- Construct Ram: Can damage enemies behind the first target in line.
- Status Effects: Hacker’s Combust removes the burn logic but fails to remove the visual status sprite.
🎮 UX & Controls
- Camera Controls:
- Middle-Mouse Drag: Universally requested feature. Players want to drag the camera (Civ VI style).
- Camera Pan Speed: Automatic camera panning to a selected unit is too slow; requested speed increase (approx. 0.25s duration).
- Camera Clamping: Camera stops instantly when hitting bounds; needs to clamp the target position within bounds to prevent jarring stops (specifically noted on Hacker spawn).
- Follow Cam: Suggestion for the camera to follow the unit during movement execution.
- Input Mapping:
- Right-Click Cancel: Universally requested. Players want to right-click to deselect units or cancel a pending move/ability.
- Dev Console: Multiple reports of the console not opening/keys being unknown.
👁️ UI & Visual Feedback
- Turn Indication: No clear visual indicator for “Enemy Turn” or “Player Turn” (besides camera zoom). Text or banner suggested.
- Targeting/Range:
- AoE Indicators: Need visual feedback for “Nearby” or area-of-effect abilities before clicking.
- Ability Hover: Ability names disappear when hovered over; button backgrounds are white, causing white text to blend in.
- HUD:
- Main HUD scaling issues on resolutions >1080p (Known Issue).
- Selected Unit UI needs constant sizing regardless of zoom level (Known Issue).
- Shield Bug: Shields visually initialize at 99 (but don’t actually exist until applied).
- Grid Visibility: Tile lines are very thin and hard to see.
🤖 Unit-Specific Feedback
Hacker
- Animation: Idle animation jerks at the loop point.
- Abilities:
- Combust: Visual bug (burn icon persists).
- Immolate: AoE burn is radius-based vs. square-based (needs GDD clarification).
- Pistol: Range requires clarification (radius vs. tiles).
Construct
- Movement: Report of a bug where Construct could not move at all on Turn 2 (v0.1.0).
- Ram: Audio issues when selecting out-of-range enemies.
- Description: Update text to specify “Enemies” rather than “Units” to avoid confusion.
Idol
- Warcry: Range is unclear (“Nearby” needs visual definition).
- Pistol: Targeting ignores cardinal direction rules.
📝 General Design Notes & Polish
- Movement Animation: Currently linear; desired “popping” style (Premiere reference) to be implemented later.
- Content: Reviewers wanted more levels (positive sign of engagement).
- Clarification: GDD needs updates regarding “Square” vs “Radius” targeting for specific abilities to align with implementation.
Suggested Next Steps (Quick Wins)
- Implement Right-Click Cancel (High UX value).
- Fix Input Locking: Disable player input processing during the Enemy Turn coroutine.
- Visual Feedback: Add a simple “Enemy Turn” UI banner.
- Targeting: Add a check to prevent
SelforAllytargeting on damaging abilities.