I've just released a patch to make the game way more friendly to controller users and updated the engine version from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5, handheld gamers rejoice ;)
Hi mostly stuff with hit detection, learned a few things with unreal's physics that cleared up when some times when the TK hits against walls didn't fire properly.
Also a quick fix to the explosive barrels, I slightly reduced the speed of bullets and gave a short increase to the time it takes for enemies to shoot the player when they get in view.
This review is not meant to be offensive, I'm just trying to give some feedback as the dev asked for it ingame. I also enjoyed playing the game.
Things that made my experience with the game less enjoyable:
The enemies are insanely strong: They cut corners and boom you're dead, which makes first try runs basically impossible for most levels
The enemies are still rather stupid: If you lure them towards you they will push you even if you've just killed 6 of their mates in the same spot; if they are a little to far away gunshots won't allert them yet if you've crossed an invisible line, they'll push from all directions and know exactly where you're at even though you just used your mind from behind a wall
The first shot of the enemies is hit-scan: There's no delay between a shot and your death. Funnily enough the game tells you to strave to avoid bullets.
enemies and weapons clip through walls on a regular basis.
some levels are just way, way, way too long.
a lot of the gunfights include you waiting behind a wall until you get pushed because you basically can't outgun the instakill-aimbot-no reaction-time enemies
If you don't activate the zoomed out camera perspective the enemies attack you before you see them.
You can't pick up ammo from dropped guns, which meant that sometimes I dragged along a shotgun or an assault rifle behind me to have reserve ammunition. In a game in which you can move the weapons with your mind this doesn't seem to be part of the balancing
the worst thing imo is the missing reliability with the opponents.
Are they going to push me this time around? Maybe.
How often do I have to move them with my telekinesis? From once, where they just drop dead after you clicked on them (good luck if you tried throwing them into another opponent), to 8+ times I've had it all.
"Throw enemies into one another with your mind" is an advertised feature. Does it work reliably? Not at all unfortunately.
are you able to push them over an edge this time? Maybe.
Still it is an enjoyable game, especially for the price. I just believe it could be much more with some fixes. If the dev reads this, please don't take it personal, I just wanted to point out things I didn't like, that doesn't mean that the game is unplayable or bad. Sorry for my English it's not my mother tongue.
The only things that I can point out is that the enemy bullets are still projectiles, there's no hitscan weapons in the game at all, bullets are just fast.
To strafe them you need to be far enough away, like in the area where to tutorial tip tells you that you can strafe them.
As far as enemies attacking before you see them, that's kind of what the zoom out ability is for, they cant shoot at you from off screen but they can still see you if you walk into their line of sight.
One thing I can promise is improvements to the physics and ragdoll hits. It's been driving me crazy but I've learned a lot more about Unreal's physics and managed to make it way more consistent and there will be a patch pretty soon after I port the game to UE5 in the coming weeks.
Thanks a lot for playing and your thoughts on the game!
It did take me some time to get used to the controls, and I didn't understand the story at all, but I really enjoyed it! I really liked the level design and how enemies can one-hit you which made the game more heart beating.
Been putting it through it's paces and I find the challenge just enough to keep me coming back for one more kick at the can. Over and over until I finally get a good sequence down for each level.
I'd love to see it expanded into a larger game with an expanded narrative. But even as is, it's fantastic
I've just started playing this game, and the fact that enemies one-shot you and have insane reaction time is kinda off-putting. I've read the other comments saying that the primary focus is the telekinesis, but I'm only in the tutorial and I'm having trouble managing to juggle stunning enough enemies before shooting them, or trying to throw them into a wall just to be shot by a different person. The fact that they don't even have to be facing me to shoot me, and can shoot instantly after getting up really makes it difficult for me as someone who rarely plays these kinds of games. Makes it feel more like a telekinesis game with a gun than a shooter game with telekinesis.
Hi, that last sentence is somewhat true. TK and shooting both have their strengths and weaknesses. The important part in mastering the gameplay is managing your TK cooldown and transitioning between TK/Gunplay.
The game didn't get a ton of YouTube coverage upon first release (small title from an unknown really) but here's one YouTuber beating the first few levels:
Essentially, there are levels that favor Gunplay over TK and vice versa, the first level is there to display the need for both. Hope this helps.
Yeah, it took me about ten tries to beat the tutorial, and after seeing the next level I just gave up. Way too hard for me, and I managed to beat Hotline Miami. It's such a cool idea, but telekinesis not actually killing enemies makes this way tougher that I think I'm able to deal with at my age. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
Righto, thank you for checking it out. For reference, the TK takes two hits to kill against walls / other enemies and one hit when you throw them into destructible objects like furniture / glass / explosives.
Not sure if the problem is on the games end. But I installed several other games through the itch app and they worked fine, but when trying to install this game through the itch app it presents no file to download and cancels the installation in error
I've just beaten this game! I had a lot of fun. I'm psyched for Menos 2. ;)
It does feel a lot like a prototype though, so players should have a look at a gameplay video first perhaps.
I think the earlier levels were a lot more fun than the ones near the end. At the start, it felt like stealth was more possible and you could take on every man one by one. Near the end everything got frantic and it felt like there was no way to avoid a firefight since the enemies were standing in groups of three or four. The telekinesis became less and less useful as I went on as well. It isn't predictable whether a wall impact or a throw will kill an enemy, so I felt like I started to cheese it a little bit by firing the gun and just waiting for everybody to run into me. The latter levels were a bit overlong to take any chances.
I'm not very good at this kind of game, but managed to finish it. I don't think some of the obstacles are very fair. I would sometimes make sure to fire a gun off into empty space just in case there were enemies waiting just outside of my field of view (even while using L-Alt). Any time I used the guns felt like a game of luck, sometimes the enemy would die, sometimes we'd die at the same time. There's no grace period where if the PC and an enemy shoot one another simultaneously, the game gives the PC the benefit of the doubt.
The system requirements are a bit high (it really won't run very well on a GTX 750 Ti) so if you have trouble with the later levels, definitely put the graphics settings down: it makes it a lot easier to target enemies or to run away when you need to run away.
I really do think you are so close to having a really enjoyable game here, but its way too punishing as every soldier kills you within a nanosecond of seeing you. It seems like its structured around throwing the people around and using that chaos to grab a weapon and shoot, but even just a half or quarter second longer until the enemies shoot could make a huge difference to still reward planning and using telekinesiswhile making it a bit more fluid overall.
Would love to hear if you already tried this for some balancing ideas (or maybe even an "easy mode".
Hey, thanks for the reply :) I just started it up again to try it out some more and you are right, I was approaching it from a wrong mindset. If I understand it right, the combat is mostly around telekinesis throwing then, right? Guns mostly just as a last resort to finish people off. I am wondering how it would feel to make the Telekinesis a bit more restricted though (like an energy meter that slowly refills or a limited amount of uses per level)? And instead make the gunplay a bit more viable so the two parts might feel a bit more balanced to a new player. I am going to tinker around with it some more though :)
Great! I tinkered ealry on with things like an energy meter. It turned out to just be really frustrating lol.
When you grab, the cursor expands, Telekinesis is unusable until it returns to its original size, a couple of seconds I believe. Quick recharge that keeps you in the action so it can't be spammed but you also don't end up hiding in a corner waiting for a recharge.
I'd quite like to come back to this game for a sequel one day because the response on Steam was really positive. Different modes could be pretty cool.
For now, wait till you get a hold of the shotgun haha. I'm really happy with that one :D
This game is an actual ton of fun, but a higher FOV would certainly help (or an FOV slider). I'm using an ultrawide monitor and it's hard to see enemies sometimes.
Hi! I don't actually have an ultra wide monitor so I haven't been able to test with one.
Could you do me a favor and attach a screenshot of how it looks on your monitor? There might be something else I need to tweak too so that should give me an idea.
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It's like hotline Miami if i had telekinesis.
very cool
I've just released a patch to make the game way more friendly to controller users and updated the engine version from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5, handheld gamers rejoice ;)
Thanks for playing!
New patch is live to make things a bit more responsive, I've also added my Halloween title Wolf Riot from last year to the Itch app for download.
It's a top down werewolf game, it's free and if you enjoyed Menos you should get a kick out of it! It's also on Steam along with Menos.
Thanks for playing and have a good one!
-Jack
What are the differences?
Hi mostly stuff with hit detection, learned a few things with unreal's physics that cleared up when some times when the TK hits against walls didn't fire properly.
Also a quick fix to the explosive barrels, I slightly reduced the speed of bullets and gave a short increase to the time it takes for enemies to shoot the player when they get in view.
Cool. Thanks for the info :)
Cool concept, decent execution
This review is not meant to be offensive, I'm just trying to give some feedback as the dev asked for it ingame. I also enjoyed playing the game.
Things that made my experience with the game less enjoyable:
Still it is an enjoyable game, especially for the price. I just believe it could be much more with some fixes. If the dev reads this, please don't take it personal, I just wanted to point out things I didn't like, that doesn't mean that the game is unplayable or bad. Sorry for my English it's not my mother tongue.
Hi, some good points thank you.
The only things that I can point out is that the enemy bullets are still projectiles, there's no hitscan weapons in the game at all, bullets are just fast.
To strafe them you need to be far enough away, like in the area where to tutorial tip tells you that you can strafe them.
As far as enemies attacking before you see them, that's kind of what the zoom out ability is for, they cant shoot at you from off screen but they can still see you if you walk into their line of sight.
One thing I can promise is improvements to the physics and ragdoll hits. It's been driving me crazy but I've learned a lot more about Unreal's physics and managed to make it way more consistent and there will be a patch pretty soon after I port the game to UE5 in the coming weeks.
Thanks a lot for playing and your thoughts on the game!
-Jack
It did take me some time to get used to the controls, and I didn't understand the story at all, but I really enjoyed it!
I really liked the level design and how enemies can one-hit you which made the game more heart beating.
Been putting it through it's paces and I find the challenge just enough to keep me coming back for one more kick at the can. Over and over until I finally get a good sequence down for each level.
I'd love to see it expanded into a larger game with an expanded narrative. But even as is, it's fantastic
I've just started playing this game, and the fact that enemies one-shot you and have insane reaction time is kinda off-putting. I've read the other comments saying that the primary focus is the telekinesis, but I'm only in the tutorial and I'm having trouble managing to juggle stunning enough enemies before shooting them, or trying to throw them into a wall just to be shot by a different person. The fact that they don't even have to be facing me to shoot me, and can shoot instantly after getting up really makes it difficult for me as someone who rarely plays these kinds of games. Makes it feel more like a telekinesis game with a gun than a shooter game with telekinesis.
Hi, that last sentence is somewhat true. TK and shooting both have their strengths and weaknesses. The important part in mastering the gameplay is managing your TK cooldown and transitioning between TK/Gunplay.
The game didn't get a ton of YouTube coverage upon first release (small title from an unknown really) but here's one YouTuber beating the first few levels:
Essentially, there are levels that favor Gunplay over TK and vice versa, the first level is there to display the need for both. Hope this helps.Yeah, it took me about ten tries to beat the tutorial, and after seeing the next level I just gave up. Way too hard for me, and I managed to beat Hotline Miami. It's such a cool idea, but telekinesis not actually killing enemies makes this way tougher that I think I'm able to deal with at my age. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
Righto, thank you for checking it out. For reference, the TK takes two hits to kill against walls / other enemies and one hit when you throw them into destructible objects like furniture / glass / explosives.
Not sure if the problem is on the games end. But I installed several other games through the itch app and they worked fine, but when trying to install this game through the itch app it presents no file to download and cancels the installation in error
Hi, I didn't actually know that Itch had an app until this comment lol.
I've downloaded and set everything up for pushing builds and it's now working at my end. Let me know if there are any more issues.
looks like it's working now!
I've just beaten this game! I had a lot of fun. I'm psyched for Menos 2. ;)
It does feel a lot like a prototype though, so players should have a look at a gameplay video first perhaps.
I think the earlier levels were a lot more fun than the ones near the end. At the start, it felt like stealth was more possible and you could take on every man one by one. Near the end everything got frantic and it felt like there was no way to avoid a firefight since the enemies were standing in groups of three or four. The telekinesis became less and less useful as I went on as well. It isn't predictable whether a wall impact or a throw will kill an enemy, so I felt like I started to cheese it a little bit by firing the gun and just waiting for everybody to run into me. The latter levels were a bit overlong to take any chances.
I'm not very good at this kind of game, but managed to finish it. I don't think some of the obstacles are very fair. I would sometimes make sure to fire a gun off into empty space just in case there were enemies waiting just outside of my field of view (even while using L-Alt). Any time I used the guns felt like a game of luck, sometimes the enemy would die, sometimes we'd die at the same time. There's no grace period where if the PC and an enemy shoot one another simultaneously, the game gives the PC the benefit of the doubt.
The system requirements are a bit high (it really won't run very well on a GTX 750 Ti) so if you have trouble with the later levels, definitely put the graphics settings down: it makes it a lot easier to target enemies or to run away when you need to run away.
I really do think you are so close to having a really enjoyable game here, but its way too punishing as every soldier kills you within a nanosecond of seeing you. It seems like its structured around throwing the people around and using that chaos to grab a weapon and shoot, but even just a half or quarter second longer until the enemies shoot could make a huge difference to still reward planning and using telekinesiswhile making it a bit more fluid overall.
Would love to hear if you already tried this for some balancing ideas (or maybe even an "easy mode".
Regards from Germany,
Marco
Hi, thanks for checking it out.
The key reason for this balancing is because the player can kill enemies through walls but enemies have to get line of sight.
Using cover and staying on the move is the strat here, hope that helps.
Hey, thanks for the reply :) I just started it up again to try it out some more and you are right, I was approaching it from a wrong mindset. If I understand it right, the combat is mostly around telekinesis throwing then, right? Guns mostly just as a last resort to finish people off.
I am wondering how it would feel to make the Telekinesis a bit more restricted though (like an energy meter that slowly refills or a limited amount of uses per level)? And instead make the gunplay a bit more viable so the two parts might feel a bit more balanced to a new player. I am going to tinker around with it some more though :)
Great! I tinkered ealry on with things like an energy meter. It turned out to just be really frustrating lol.
When you grab, the cursor expands, Telekinesis is unusable until it returns to its original size, a couple of seconds I believe. Quick recharge that keeps you in the action so it can't be spammed but you also don't end up hiding in a corner waiting for a recharge.
I'd quite like to come back to this game for a sequel one day because the response on Steam was really positive. Different modes could be pretty cool.
For now, wait till you get a hold of the shotgun haha. I'm really happy with that one :D
This game is an actual ton of fun, but a higher FOV would certainly help (or an FOV slider). I'm using an ultrawide monitor and it's hard to see enemies sometimes.
Hi! I don't actually have an ultra wide monitor so I haven't been able to test with one.
Could you do me a favor and attach a screenshot of how it looks on your monitor? There might be something else I need to tweak too so that should give me an idea.
Thank you for checking it out.