Hi!

Im looking for feedback for my topdown shooter/ survival game. Plz download (windows only) and comment below! Too hard,  too easy? Any other suggestions? No install needed.

You play as a survivor (or 2 in local coop with shared keyboard or with controller) and need to travel across US in search for area 61, where your granny is waiting with a space rocket! Loot and shoot boys and girls!

Download link:
Damnation Road, Beta 4b (50 MB) (no need to have dropbox installed)

For those who aren't on Windows, the game also works very well with both Mac and Linux in wine.

The first thing I noticed on beta 4 is that the drop rate of crates is out of control. I choose hard  since I completed beta 3 on normal. At the end of day 1, I had to discard a lot of items. I got a bandit level with a dozen crates in the map and each crate would give 1 to 3 weapon or armor pieces.

This was at the end of day 1:

It's only the drop rate of items in crates that seems ridiculous.

The bandit drops, zombie drops and resource drops seem fine.

Also, the armor indicator is a nice addition.

Odd, when I try it crates seem ok. I get 2 fuel, a pistol, nothing for the 3 I just encountered. Just as expected. If you try again is it the same? Are barrels ok? (they should work exactely as crates)

Did you reach the end? There is a final battle after the one with the marines where loads of zombies spawn and you jump into the rocket once your granny has repaired it

Great game, played all the way to the end and that surprised me.

Guns are useless in the game and need to be balanced better. You can remove the breaking from them. The ammo alone is a huge limiting factor for them.

Also the reloading is wrong. Reloading a AK47 is almost as fast as loading a handgun. Again the high fire rate and ammo limit is enough of a reason not to use guns.

Because the guns either broke, needed to reload(You can't run while reloading) or just run out of ammo I stopped using them after my first try.

Melee weapons last longer, kills better and don't need ammo AND allows you to collect fingers as they drop. This combined with the fact that walking backwards and spamming attack kills all zombies- except the big two -without taking damage means guns are pointless.

When granny told me she found guns, I had to laugh. I was stocked with melee weapons and armor.

So besides my rant about guns. I think that improving the scavenging would also help. I explored some of the places but there really wasn't much reason to hang around after you find food and fuel for the day.

Good points! When fighting shooting enemies (bandits and marines) guns are very good (don't you think?). Otherwise you need to run up to them and get damaged. With guns you can just strafe and shoot them without taking damage.

What do you mean you can collect fingers? You can do that even with ranged weapons.

Are you playing on medium? On hard i cannot make it without ranged weapons, takes too much damage. But i think you have a point nevertheless. Maybe swinging melee should slow you down a little more (or increase stamina cost for them and lower a little for firearms).

Yes, if you have enough resources and a working car it's true you CAN just cruise on, but I think that's ok!

7 hours ago, suliman said:

When fighting shooting enemies (bandits and marines) guns are very good (don't you think?).

Nope. You shoot wide and miss often. So you either run out of ammo, need to reload or the gun breaks.

With melee you just move behind a car or inside a building and the shooters gather in one place. Then you run to them and kill them, it does cause damage but nothing near as much as slowing to reload or the gun breaking and no ammo does.

Loosing your weapon in combat results in heavy damage, guns fail in combat all the time. Even stocking guns so you can swap doesn't work because they also fail when out of ammo.

While running the enemy can't hit the player, making the run melee better than guns against long range enemies.

My 2nd run I had 70 ammo at the end, 40 first aid, 2 fuel(I walked a few times) and 50 food. No guns. 4 stacks of fingers and that was after I stopped a few times to trade.

7 hours ago, suliman said:

What do you mean you can collect fingers? You can do that even with ranged weapons.

Yes but melee picks them up when the enemy dies. When using guns if you kill a enemy you have to go get the fingers, this means that the zombies can swarm you or the enemies can shoot you when your out of breath.

The fingers also end up far from each other, so you have to run far to get them taking more time and using up your breath.

8 hours ago, suliman said:

Are you playing on medium? On hard i cannot make it without ranged weapons

Tried it on hard also. Still easy to win like this, did have a lot less food in the end but still a lot of ammo and first aid; at least I had more fuel this time.

I just kept waiting for the zombies to kill most humans and the road blocks I did take more damage but still much better than using guns.

On hard I die(well quit it takes a while to die) if I try to only use guns and with a gun/ melee combo I just end up using melee again. Guns with no ammo leaves the player defenceless.

8 hours ago, suliman said:

Maybe swinging melee should slow you down a little more (or increase stamina cost for them and lower a little for firearms).

Much simpler don't let the guns break, don't prevent the player from running while reloading, use realistic reload times. No person can break 8 guns by using them normally in one day.

But keep the special reloads for the shotguns and revolvers, that is neat little mechanic in your game.

Guns are weaker than melee against zombies in real life, you don't need extra mechanics to make it so. You also don't need them to break for players to swap them with new ones, people like guns and will try a few of them.

If you want to nurf the melee then you can make the AI humans stand far apart when shooting and if the player takes hit from a bullet they can slow down. This will create a killing zone if the player storms them as they slow down and gets shot at from all sides.

I like your game, I just think you are weakening guns too much and yet the game uses them as a key mechanic.

I agree with you on most points. I've rebalanced a bit. Uploaded beta 4b (same link).

Does it feel more balanced now? I actually needed ranged weapons even before

MELEE
More stamina drain
A little less damage
Slowdown to movement when attacking (just like ranged has). So you take damage now.

RANGED
Allow running while reloading
Less item condition drop when using (still like this feature)
More accuracy overall

The difference in reload times is ok i think. AK47 is almost double the reload time of pistols (2sec vs 3.5 sec). Longest time is LMGs which has 5sec or 6sec. Flamers has 4 or 4.5sec.

6 hours ago, suliman said:

MELEE
More stamina drain
A little less damage
Slowdown to movement when attacking (just like ranged has). So you take damage now.

This sounded like a bad idea but worked really well. The combat against humans feel much better now, like they are fighting back.

One thing, maybe against zombies you can increase the damage and make the stamina drain less. That way you get a rock papers system where guns work on humans and melee on zombies.

6 hours ago, suliman said:

RANGED
Allow running while reloading
Less item condition drop when using (still like this feature)
More accuracy overall

Much better and works well.

I noticed, now that I used both types of weapons, that swapping a broken weapon isn't possible. You have to trash it and then change it. Not the worst thing but it is a bit of a pain.

Sometimes the player gets stuck in the doors when closing them, this is a bit of a pain.

I think it is much better balanced. Had even more fun this time.

There is one large problem and it's with your random function. My one play I got huge amounts of armor and very little else; so I died. My other play I got lots of crossbows and lots of food; this meant I could just keep riding and trading.

There is lots of ways to make more balanced random functions, with lists as the most common way.

7 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

I noticed, now that I used both types of weapons, that swapping a broken weapon isn't possible. You have to trash it and then change it. Not the worst thing but it is a bit of a pain.

What do you mean? You want to be able to drop the item on top of another in the interface? Or that if you have another weapon of the same type it should be auto-equipped from the backpack if the first weapon is "depleted" (condition reduced to zero)

4 hours ago, suliman said:

You want to be able to drop the item on top of another in the interface?

This. So that placing a weapon into the equip slots swaps them.

4 hours ago, suliman said:

weapon of the same type it should be auto-equipped from the backpack if the first weapon is "depleted"

This could work but players saving items could get mad if one is used that they where saving to sell. So maybe not.