Razorlocks Was Near GDC!
I’m posting this a few days late but I’m excited to share that I had the opportunity to have some folks try out Razorlocks in-person at an after party hosted by Gamera Games near the Game Developers Conference!
This was the first time I’ve been able to see someone else play the game in person other than my brother. I also gained some very valuable feedback.
The good:
- Everyone likes the core movement mechanics. ✔
- Everyone likes the art style and animations. ✔
- People who only watched the latest video with the race against Doublelocks think the game looks good enough to have a public Steam page. ✔
- Reactions felt genuine and not just polite. ✔
The bad:
- Most people did not know what to do/where to go in each level (most only played the first one). ❌
- (The current set of levels are planned to be scrapped anyways and I have a new goal structure planned.)
- People struggled with the lack of a tutorial. ❌
- People tended to accidentally make the camera zoom in/out with the triggers, causing confusion. ❌
- I thought these controls would be nice to have but I’ll disable them by default.
- Razorlocks blends in somewhat with the ground. ❌
What’s next?
The Steam demo/alpha version is planned to have two completely new levels and a tutorial area in the hub. I want the quality to be representative of the final game featuring things like redesigned UI, new sound effects, a new level entering/exiting sequence, progression, localization, online leaderboards (and maybe replay ghost sharing), etc. There’s still a lot of work to be done to reach that point, but afterwards all that will remain is producing levels and content for the final release. Hopefully the Steam page + demo can be up in the next year as this experience has strongly motivated me to put more time into it. I also plan to attend more events like this and eventually set up a booth where I can get more feedback.
P.S. If you’re someone I met at GDC that does game audio I may reach out in the near future since Razorlocks is sorely lacking in the audio department and I’ve had a hard time making it sound good and not just decent.