I have a lot of issues with this game, which sucks because I love the other Infectonator games. My first issue comes across kind of vain, but I couldn't overlook it. "A scientist, a construction worker, a cop...and a GIRL." Really, 'a girl'? The other characters are named by their occupation, but she is just the girl? That really annoyed me. It stands out majorly and it's the first thing I saw.

My other issues relate to the gameplay (or lack thereof). The major flaw I noticed right off the bat is that the game is supremely picky about exactly when you can click on your survivors, and it's also very snooty about whether or not it will listen to you. It seems mostly content to ignore my input. The extremely limited time you get to plan for the arrival of zombies is ridiculous, made even more so by the clunky, floundering controls. The tutorial gave me what felt like a year, but the next mission I went out on gave me all of 5 seconds. I wrestled so much with simply getting this game to respond to my clicks that my entire party was dead by day two. The frustration of clicking and clicking only to be ignored made this game unplayable.

I'm upset that I can't like this, because I love the idea of it. The mix of gameplay styles is really interesting, and reminds me of State of Decay in a positive way. But the very basic mechanics of the game barely function half the time, and that makes me sad. I would never give you money, even for early access, knowing that this is the product I'd be getting. That's just the honest truth about it.

To be fair, after playing around with this for a bit, I can sort of see why he did not wish to pay you. I know that seems like a heavy insult, but it's really not. He should have messaged you, and he definitely SHOULD have paid you for your effort and time. As a commission artist myself, I will always defend an artist's right to get paid for their work.

But... this is a very poorly made game. Despite the Stencyl problems you described, there is almost no variety in clothing whatsoever. Not even multiple colors of the same item. The body bases are all the same (even eye color) with only a different hair style. The skin tone doesn't change at all. Perhaps I missed it, but there is no option to change eye color either. Two dresses, a single pair of pants, two pairs of shoes, one (misaligned) pair of gloves... It does not look like you put any real effort into this at all. When I look at the effort you put into the eyes on the model, and then look at the complete lack of detail in all of the clothing.... It's really quite a disappointing difference.

Your commissioner should have paid you for your work, don't let him get away with that. But this dress up game is very lacking.

Survived to Week 30 on my first go, but I only had about ten Morale left. I don't feel good having 'beat' this game, because it felt more like luck than strategy or survival.

The events triggered in this game are far too plentiful. I only had one "uneventful week", and it was not useful for resource management. It seems like you had the beginnings of an idea to increase the number of survivors in the bunker, but then you abandoned it. Unfortunately, you left out that mechanic without adjusting the rest of the game for it. So the game increases sharply in difficulty each turn, but the player's ability to combat this always stays at Level 1. It's fake difficulty. The game penalizes the player very heavily without also giving the player any way to overcome the challenge. Even in notoriously difficult games like Dark Souls, you are given better weaponry and level upgrades in order to prepare against the challenges present.

Not that this game is anything at all like Dark Souls, but it certainly feels like you were going for that kind of steep difficulty curve.

It isn't being weak or "babying" the player of a game to give them more ways to meet the challenges you throw at them. It's basic game making. It's not YOU who decides if the player can beat your game...that's the player's job. If you want to make a strategy survival sim, there has to be strategy in it.

Speedpainting is the best way to get an idea down in more than just a doodle that will later be forgotten. It's definitely a great thing, but it's also a very useful tool. You now have the foundation for an image that can be fleshed out to completion with ease, because everything is right in front of you.

This is great for a speedpaint, and I would love to see you take it further, into a finished piece!

love, anne.

I love this for the idea, and that you remembered Googie, who is not a very well remembered Scooby Doo character. I also love the attention to detail and the lighting hue that make it obvious its movie night at Shaggy's house despite the fact that the television is not shown. You stayed very true to the look of the characters, and Scooby seems especially accurate. His design is simple, but the line placement is key for him to look like himself. You did a great job with that.

However, I find that the composition lacks a bit. The characters are very small in the frame, and get swallowed up by the horizontal lines of the background, couch, and foreground. Cropping the picture closer to the characters will pull the focus in to them, and make it easier to see Velma's jealous, sneering expression. With so much empty space, the feeling of "Look out, she's behind you!" disappears because the eye can look so many other places. The empty space seems unnecessary for the work.

Nice job overall, and keep it up!