M-Bot The Game Ambitious, But Not Fun
If you were to ask me to sum up what this game really needs, its a round of vigorous and honest playtesting.
Now, I know Mindchamber is big on Newgrounds and probably has a substantial support network, and hence the game likely -did- go through a lot of playtesting. But if that was the case, then it needs more. I'm not saying the game is in any way broken - in fact I'd say the exact opposite: the game functioned beautifully. There were no glitches, and everything you put in worked and was responsive and very dynamic. That aside however, there are still some problems that end up seriously dragging it down.
Mindchamber's art is beautiful as always, it has an incredibly distinct and unique style that is seen in very few places, especially in mediums like this. However, while the art and style were impressive, it felt like it needed some more thought before it was translated into a moving, action-filled game like this. The simplistic color palette made the game incredibly hard to follow - it was blue, on blue, on yet even more blue, with occasional yellow details. This looks really great in illustrations and in the concept work that the game is wrapped in, but when everything is moving and you have a half dozen elements to keep track of on screen (character, enemies, pickups, score, hazards, etc), everything ends up completely disappearing into a confusing mess. The red outline around the main character helped a little, but not nearly enough. Absence of things like clear shadows under all the elements that weren't marked with red crosshairs, and a -very- low camera perspective that made the ever-critical z-axis movement difficult makes for an experience that's very hard to get used to and not incredibly appealing after the first few minutes.
Which brings me to the next point: the 3D, or 2-and-a-half-D that you guys reached for was ambitious, and I commend you guys a huge amount for pulling it off. I know 3D elements in Flash are tricky enough without having to deal with interactivity. That said, however, while it looked alright, it really did a lot to make confusing and difficult to play. Keeping track of the character's position on the ground plane was difficult with so much going on, and the red indicators that helped you do so weren't nearly enough. This wouldn't be a problem if precise movement on the z-axis wasn't such a critical part of gameplay...unfortunately as it turned out, it was the -most- critical part of gameplay, as dodging, firing accurately, and scoring combos all relied on the player being able to track M-Bot and the enemies' movements quickly and accurately on the z-axis. Unfortuantely, the way its set up, the players capabilities in this sense are going to be anything but. And with things like weapon upgrades and M-Bot's score (and hence health) tied to being able to keep your nose clean, it can make gameplay frustrating.
Effectively combo-ing under all of these conditions also becomes a chore at best, and as its one of the primary features of gameplay, it leaves very little in the game that can really be called 'fun'.
Other issues like pacing can also be addressed, the min and wall dodge sequences felt too long and only served to keep the player from accomplishing anything as he risks losing score and upgrades if he misses even a single step.
Couple this with the enormous filesize and the whole game just becomes unfortunately unwieldly.
For the sake of the game, my recommendation would have been to raise the camera angle a little bit, or even abandon the 3D entirely - this game would be much smaller and smoother and more enjoyable with just 2D. Some adjustments to the color palette wouldn't hurt either.
You guys are really very talented (that isn't even debatable at this point).
I totally dig that this game is ambitious and experimental, and it seemed like you guys were trying out a whole lot of new things... but unfortunately none of them really worked to make a fun game.
3/10
