SAGE 2023 - Demo Bun 'N' Gun - '23 Demo

Not a bad little game, I thought it was pretty fun and I enjoyed my time with it, it's not perfect tho.

The graphics are quite pleasant and the low poly style works quite well, I like how the main character looks, simple yet recognizeable enough, and I can say the same for the backgrounds and the rest of the characters.

The music is very good, while not super memorable it fits the game and has similar vibes to SEGA games of the period like Sonic Adventure or Jet Set Radio, it works well and I like what's there.

The gameplay is my main problem, the level design is fine, I have no major complains on that, but rather how the character controls, it's hard to make precise movement because for how fast they are, and aiming both your weapon or your grappling hook, it can get really awkward when I try to get enemies that move all over the place. I think a way to fix this would be to either make lock-on controlls or allow me to shoot independently where I am aiming the camera, that way I could use both the grappling hook and the gun better, because honestly using autoaim means that I had to get near the boss, which means taking a lot of damage. Actually on an aside, is there any way to die in the game? I guess if you're out of chips.

Nevertheless I like what the game is going for and I think it would be great if those two things were implemented because I want to see the game improved.

Movement and soundtrack are truly excellent in this - It's incredibly fun to just zip around the physics-based playground knowing the grappling hook can always save you even if you dash straight into a pit.

The objective-based gameplay? Ehh not so much fun imo, targets are too small and having to capture them is a bore, I think making them a bit larger and just having the player shoot them (with some small hp bars I reckon) would help a lot in keeping the pace going.

Boss is ok I guess? The camera not really letting you properly move in a circle is kind of annoying when you're trying to aim at a moving target. I don't know if some form of lock-on system would help?

I really enjoy a lot of this game so far! Truth be told, the level of speed is something I actually enjoy a ton, and the grappling hook actually fixes an issue I tend to have with really fast 3-D games - It's a safety net, a fallback for when I screw up a jump or misjudge how far away something is.

The writing is simple and fun so far, and I really like the character designs! They're cute. :3

The level designs work well with the speed for me, lots of broad platforms and curves to use. I will agree that capturing the bats needs a kind of happy medium - I really love the Ape Escape style, but to adapt it to speedy gameplay it feels like a balance of challenge and engagement is needed.

What I mean is that normally, shooting or no, I tend to rocket past a bat or zoom straight into it and catch it no problem. If I miss it, I need to respawn it and try again because it often gets away if it's a moving one. They're pretty small targets. So for the livelier ones, it feels like they need room to run to lead a player on, but a way to keep the player on the trail so they don't zoom off by accident. That's just me though.

The biggest detractor I have is the camera - and that's definitely something that's hard to get working well with the freedom of speed that players have. One option for the game might be allowing players to set themselves a max speed cap for what they feel comfortable with.

Also, one interesting bug I came upon was that the knockback for Bun's charge shot seems to be based around the camera direction, meaning that if you turn and shoot toward the camera, the knockback actually propels you toward the camera.

All that being said, I really want to see where this goes! It's a fun game idea and I'd love to see move of the uniqueness on display poured into it.

This game is so faithful to it's era it even has many of the same issues early 3D games had all those years ago. Here's an example of my experience:

I'm speeding over 200 miles an hour as Bun to clear a cliffside after just clicking the right mouse button, while the camera jerks vertically to match the ground, when suddenly I have to end my momentum entirely so I can aim my gun at a tiny enemy. After missing 2-3 times I finally hit them, and then it's time to go to the next enemy, which requires me to climb a few platforms that were designed for a game like Super Mario 64, but Bun has insane acceleration so they just slip all around just to climb a few rocks. The level design is kinda confusing and I dunno where I'm supposed to go, so I just run around trying to follow Bev showing me where the next baddie, and so on.

I think having bigger enemies, with a slower acceleration and capped top speed for Bun, a shotgun-style weapon, and have Bun aim where the camera is pointing, not where they are pointing could all help a lot. I imagine while running around you're rewarded for shooting baddies with quick reflexes, maybe your weapon is a bit more powerful or has a bit better range the faster you go. Also, avoid having tiny platforms that require slow jumping. This game is super charming, it's just hard to see it make the same mistakes of the era it proudly takes so much inspiration from. Looking forward to seeing what's next!!

This game is adorable! I love the low-poly N64 look. It really invokes the era, and the character designs are adorable in their low-poly form.

The overall gameplay loop is off to a good start, as well. I liked exploring the desert and chasing down those bats. It reminds me of Spyro 1 and Ape Escape. Finding the outlaws wasn't so bad either, since they were along the beaten path and Bev was there to point out where to go next.

My biggest complaint about the game is how fast the player character runs. Not only is it difficult to stay on the course, but it also trivializes the rest of the game. The grappling hook and the gun are much less effective when you can launch yourself just about anywhere with a single push of the dash button.

In my opinion, the level design and the physics are already so good that slowing the player down and letting them experiment with gathering speed using the terrain would be better.

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing this game come together! It's full of potential, and I can't wait to see what ideas you have in store.

I enjoyed this game but I feel like some more can be done to improve upon it.
The momentum-based physics platforming is great and I really enjoyed running and rolling around the level! Though, the other aspects of the game tend to detract from it. Tagging bats is difficult due to how small they are and how evasive and unpredictable their AI is, and the player's movement doesn't accommodate the precise movement necessary for this well, which doesn't help. Additionally, some mechanics seem entirely unnecessary- the thing of collecting tokens to go faster is rather unintuitive even after it's explained to you. At certain checkpoints tokens can drop right off cliffs, which just feels unfair. Also, the game doesn't really provide any opportunities to use the grappling hook. Shooting is also unpredictable, you have no idea whether it'll slow a bat down or knock them off a nearby cliff.

To improve the game I would suggest you lean more into the physics-based platforming and let the other gameplay mechanics take a back seat. Shooting is in the name of the game so I don't expect you to remove it, but I feel it should be significantly redesigned to better fit the fast-paced movement rather than requiring the player to slow down to a near stop.

The moveset is insanely fun and OH MY GAWD the soundtrack is amazing but the game is quite flawed at the moment.
- Camera is like insanely weird, I can see what the game was going for (convey speed via the camera movement) but it isn’t really executed good.
- Level design does not fit the moveset, there are parts of the level where you have to jump on small platforms which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do with a speedy character that quickly builds momentum.
- It’s very easy to get into a “needle in a haystack” situation. There should be some way to see where each of the bats are at so you’re not left just aimlessly wandering around.

With that said, I see huge potential in this and wish y’all the best!

This is a game I really want to like, but in a way it feels like a victim of its own ambition - it's trying way too many things at once and not doing an especially good job at most of them. And it makes me feel horrible to say that, because there is clearly love put into the concept despite its design issues.

The basic gameplay loop can be described as "emerald hunting with a grappling hook and a gun". I know that inspires a lot of dread in the Sonic players here, so let me reassure them - I would rather be emerald hunting. At least there you were only hunting three things at any given time instead of ten. At least there you were actually given a means of tracking them. At least those things usually didn't move, and the ones that did, did so in a way that could be anticipated and accounted for. And one would think having a gun would make capturing things simple once you *do* find them, theoretically just stunning them with gunshots so you can close distance, but it's not entirely clear what shooting capturable targets even does. In some cases it even seemed to work against you, launching them directly upwards into the air where you could no longer reach them, and it's not entirely clear why only some of them do this.

Part of the reason for this seems to be the game's presentation. The characters in this game are absolutely microscopic, which is a pretty bad contrast against the positively gargantuan geometry of the levels and how quickly your character moves. And the pixellated look - I assume intended stylistically for a PSX-esque vibe - ends up making things all the worse, often leaving you struggling to discern targets that are only rendered as like four pixels on your screen at most given times. Honestly, scaling up the models to somewhere between 2-4x alone would do this game a lot of favours, though even then the camera work and the AI of the capturable targets would leave a lot to be desired. Making them jump off cliffs into previous sections of labyrinthine stage design to force me to backtrack, or worse still into bottomless pits, is something that can only try my patience so much.

The gunplay, for that matter, struggles for much the same reason it did in Shadow the Hedgehog - much of the time it contradicts the ridiculous speed you're expected to attain. Even WITH an autoaim mechanic, you don't get much done unless you come to a near complete stop when you're shooting, and that's even assuming you don't just slide right past them while you're trying to attack something and have to keep shooting at something now completely offscreen. Maybe you could free up one of the two grapple hook buttons for a camera lock function of some kind, or just increase the range that you can autoaim from? I really don't know how else one could work around that - moving ridiculously fast *and* still being able to accurately aim at things is a big ask that very few people have ever had a decent solution for.

To probably almost no surprise at all, Bun N Gun works best when simple momentum is the consideration. Its take on rolling works great as long as that's your only job at any given time, and although using it to gain or regain height takes a little fiddling, the grapple mechanic works great for what it's trying to be. Had the game been more or less just this with some platforming sprinkled it? I probably would EASILY have given another two stars back for that alone. As it stands though, the game does too much that requires stop and start in an engine clearly built for absolutely letting loose and blazing all over the place, and imo it has some serious soul searching to do, to reassess exactly what they're hoping to achieve with its design.