Horror Game Beta Testing - The Insane

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Hello Everyone, I have been continuing working on a horror game non stop this whole month. Ever since 2020, I started this game and have been on and off about it. Now it’s finally in beta testing and I believe that it’s becoming way better than the Alpha version. I’ve been working almost everyday until 12am to push these updates out cause I literally can’t sleep until I feel satisfied with my work. (I am currently up at 12:20am making this post as well lol).
I will very much appreciate any and all feedback that is given to me. Thank you! (PC Only).

Story/Objective

The story of the game is set when you are from an agency that recruits trained military personel for hire. The Government (Yes it’s a company name) has hired you to go down into one of their secret bunkers to clear it out of hostiles, which are hostile death row inmates, and to only do that. But when you enter the elevator to go to the 10th floor, it suddenly breaks and goes all the way down to the 1st floor! Now you must get out and survive, and maybe uncover some secrets along the way… Enjoy!
(Note that the inmates might be different than normal )

Link to Game

Pictures of the gameplay

There is way more content than the pictures and I encourage everyone to try out my game! I don’t want to spoil too much of it for you.

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

Some feedback (Mainly on the lobby):

Your Ui in the lobby & at the start of game stating Gore and blood isn’t great.
And yes, you may say that this is small. But first impressions are important as it needs to hook your audience into playing it. Any small inperfection in a title / Play can make or break your player count… So here is some ideas:

Make your Uis all consistent and the Same style. Each Ui looks like they were made by a different person, Pick a style and commit on it. And don’t be scared to be bold. Your using a lot of greys. Instead why not Black with some transparency on the background. It looks like your half comitting on the color.

Make the Ui Non-static. The Ui right now just makes things appear and disappear. Add some Tweens using Tween service. Add some Animations to elements (Ex: Make the buttons rotate a little to the left and right when hovering over the button; Make the Uis like The donation or credits Ui Tween in so they move from off the screen, onto the screen once clicked) Also add some Ui sounds, Like hovering and Clicking when they click a button.

Also make it so only One “Menu Ui” is visible at a time. For example, if I click credits, then Donation, Make the credits Ui disappear. Also make it so if they click a button twice (The credits and then Credits on the Main Ui) that the Ui will disappear if the Ui is already visible.

Also consider making your mouse position Allow you to move around the Scene. If you ever had joined the Mimic game (A horror game on the platform) they have this as soon as you join the lobby.

I also want to suggest a party system with the play button. Everything is always a little more fun with friends! Also it encourages people to join with friends! (I would also invest if you could make this game more compatible with other devices like mobile as that will make your player count higher)

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With the little time I have left, I did do a quick small play through. I like the idea, although I was annoyed when I forgot what key does what action. Making that somewhat visible always would be really nice (like click “c” for all controls) (You may had this and I maybe didn’t figure it out too!) !

I also wished I had a flashlight tool that wasn’t connected to anything. The flashlight on the gun was really fall and off centered, and while it was nice. I would rather had used a Normal flashlight tool for exploring and then switched to weapon when there a was threat.

I would also suggest a Custom Inventory Ui as the roblox Inventory is Eh

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Other then that I like the idea and good game!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Thank you for taking the time give me all this feedback! I really appreciate it
The UI suggestions are actually really good, I didn’t think of making the screen move with the mouse, that’s clever.

I’ve always had trouble with UI design and can never seem to get my style down correctly. So I was thinking of changing all of the font to Merriweather (the font I use the most in game and in the lobby for the title) except for the title buttons. Do you have any suggestions as to how to figure my style out? I do use a lot of greys and I’ll make all the backgrounds black and slightly transparent. I’ll reply back with results when I get home.

Also the reason I don’t make it compatible with mobile is because there will be too much on one screen for the player, and they’ll feel overwhelmed. There’ll be a sprint button, a reload button, a check ammo button, a shoot button, a zoom button, flash light button, use item button, and proximity prompts. Personally, I feel like that’s too much for the mobile player. I think it’s possible for console though, so I’ll think about it!

As for the party system, I have gotten the same suggestion to make it multiplayer a lot of times. When I come out with this game in early access, I will make a two player mode, separate from the one player mode and take out the player dialogue . Since it might cause a lot of bugs and I wouldn’t want the player talking to themselves with another person lol.

For the control screen, I didn’t think of putting a controls screen in game. That was actually really smart! I’ll put it as c for the controls screen in game and tell the player that c is to open the control screen, instead of showing basic controls at the start of the game.

As for the flashlight, I thought it would make it more dynamic if I attached it to the gun. I guess not, because some of my testers prefer the flashlight attached to the head. Honestly now that you say it, it makes sense to me and I tried to make a roundabout way by adding more static light in the hallways.

Also the custom backpack is a really hard thing for me to code, I tried it at one point when I wasn’t that good at coding. But now I’ll make it as perfect as I can.

Finally, thank you again for taking the time for your feedback and play time! I hope you’ll like my game more when I finish your suggestions!

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

@ninjablaze22

Do you have any suggestions as to how to figure my style out?

Well so My main issue is that the Gui looks different. You have 3 UI main colors. A grey (Donation), A black-Grey (Controls), and then black (Credits). While I’m not saying that All UI have to be exactly the same, it looks like they were made by different people. Personally I like a Full on black (Credits Ui), and possibly Adding some transparency. There is also other things that I would consider adding (The following are Instances) which are UiCorner (Makes the corners of Uis round) and UiStroke (Which allows some Border Options). These are nice to mess with. Sometimes they are needed. Sometimes not. I would also consider the usage of ImageLabels, as Images allow you to use an external platform and upload it to Roblox, to advance your Uis skills more.

@ninjablaze22

There’ll be a sprint button, a reload button, a check ammo button, a shoot button, a zoom button, flash light button, use item button, and proximity prompts.

While yes it can seem overwhelming. How you organize can be important. If you don’t want mobile then ok. However if you would consider it that would help expand your game to other players. The concern you mentioned here is how many buttons. Personally, I would make it so, Only a sprint button is there, and the toolbar. When a Player equips the Weapon, all unnecessary buttons are removed, and the buttons you would would be ammo button and a zoom button (And a light button if you keep that in the game). A click on the screen would assume that the player is shooting a target, unless the player is clicking on a Ui or using the move / Jump wheel (These can be detected). While 3 buttons sounds like a lot. Putting them next to the movement wheel won’t look bad, and you can assign Images to Mobile buttons (Assuming your using ContrxtActionService). Images are a nice and simple design. For example a flashlight icon is pretty self explanatory to the player that when they click it, they will be light. Proximity prompt and other Ui like the chat can be disabled and isn’t displayed all the time and I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

I would push for mobile even if it’s a little bit work, as you would be cutting a big audience out. I would atleast try and see if you can organize the buttons, into a simple style and easy to understand. You can always cut it out if you don’t like it.

@ninjablaze22

Also the custom backpack is a really hard thing for me to code, I tried it at one point when I wasn’t that good at coding. But now I’ll make it as perfect as I can.

And yea. There is also tutorials and resources already out there. The Roblox menu is ok, but it would look nice if you have a custom one. I also recommend if you make a custom one that you have images of the Item and/Or Viewport frames if we want to get fancy (although they are really complex so I wouldn’t worry about it too much if you can’t do it)!

When I get home I’ll share some Examples of Ui Ideas / Menus and see if that gives you any ideas! Hopefully this feedback will be helpful in making your game a bit better and I’ll definitely check it out again if these changes were added!

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

This is a game I worked on. You can how the background moves and how the buttons have a line animation when you hover over them, as well as some sound. Also as well as a Nice smooth transition into gameplay

Hopefully this may give you some ideas on how to make the lobby Ui a tad better!

Edit…

I made What it would like like for mobile compatible… with my idea…

This is what it could look like in a resting state:

Assuming you Add a flashlight, This is what it could look like with a flashlight Equipped:

This is what it could look like with your current Weapon (If you kept the flashlight):

This is just an Idea of this concept. You can expand more, so long as your willing to add mobile support. If you don’t want mobile support then ok. But I would just think about it, and if organization is holding you back, There are ways to simplify it and organize it. (Like, these buttons only appear if the object is equipped, besides sprint)

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Oh wow, I’ll be honest that the menu is really clean and nice. I like it!
As for the mobile buttons, they seem a little small but I’ll try my best to insert mobile into my game once I figure out all of this Gui stuff. So far I scaled the UI and I made the Credits, Donate, and Controls UI appear one at a time if you press multiple at a time! Then I’ll work on the mouse moving around the screen. Oh I’ve also made the backgrounds transparent black with some ui corners. Then I’ll make the button sounds and animations.
Next I’ll make a controls screen in game when you press C.
Then I will make the custom backpack, which might take awhile.
Thank you for taking the time to send me feedback!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

I have another question if you don’t mind answering. What animation should I use when the mouse hovers over the button? Right now, the outline of the button lights up when it hovers.

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

There is many different Styles. Its nice to have a “Hover sound effect” regardless of which option you pick. The common ones I see is that the size of the button increases, or the rotation of the button is changed and Tweened, to rotate to the left and right a bit. Changing Text color or thickness is another option, and or adding a hover only Gui element, such as the little line I had in my example, Although I don’t think that would be a good option with this.

Just some ideas, and you can find more online!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

I was thinking of changing the text box color when the mouse hovers over the buttons. Like the background changes from black to light grey. Thoughts?

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

Yes although All I would recommend is that you Tween it Using TweenService instead of it being Changed right away (It can be a quick Tween)… And if the players mouse leaves while the Tween is playing, you stop the Tween and turn it black. These little things count and can be nice

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Alright, thank you! I’ll let you know when I finish this and publish it. Along with starting to work on the custom backpack.

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

Awesome. I joined a little bit again and they are starting to look nicer!

Some things:

The Teleporting Holder Gui Needs a glow up with the same Style you did with your other Guis. Also the Teleport frame Just appears out of Nowhere. I also Recommend you using the TweenService to Tween the Transparency of the Loading Frame from 1 to 0. It again doesn’t have to be a super long Tween, just something like 0.3-0.8 seconds is all it needs. But It would look a lot more nicer as it will have this “Fade” effect!

(It would also be nice if the loading Text dots where changing like: “Loading.” to “Loading…” to “Loading…” to “Loading.” etc.)

@ninjablaze22

So far I scaled the UI and I made the Credits, Donate, and Controls UI appear one at a time if you press multiple at a time!

I saw this… But I would consider also making it so if I click the Same button Twice on the Menu it would close the Ui. Again this is a small feature, But Its nice to have.

(So It I click it and the Gui is Visible, It becomes Invisible. If I click it and the Gui is invisible, then the Gui is visible)

Small edits but the menu is coming along really nicely!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

By the teleporting screen, do you mean the loading screen when you press play? If it is, then do you think I should gradually make it visible or make a tween to slide it into view?

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

@ninjablaze22

By the teleporting screen, do you mean the loading screen when you press play?

Yes.

@ninjablaze22

If it is, then do you think I should gradually make it visible or make a tween to slide it into view?

Personally I like Fade over Slide, especially when the context is horror based. To me, Slide feels more cartoony and Fade makes it feel dramatic. I had a black fade in my Gui example and I think something like that would fit nicely with yours as both of our games are around horror

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

I’ve made the main menu where if you click the same button twice, it will close it (Slide it out of frame).
I also made the loading screen fade in instead of just appearing.
Now I will make the controls screen for the player while they’re in game, then I’ll continue more tomorrow since it’s 1am right now lol. Thank you for all the help so far!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Finally made the new custom backpack, it took more time than I thought it would.
Here it is! I made the backpack so you open it with Tab and you can only put on 3 items at a time on your hotbar. Also I’m going to add a physical backpack in the game to add more slots in the hotbar. What do you think?

[OfficialPogCat (POG_Cat)]

It looks much nicer then the default one… I like it!

Also btw the main menu has some bugs. I think you only tested each element by themsevels, but when you try the features I recommended together, they get whacky.

(The Ui Appears to then Tween to leave the screen, when it should be coming onto the screen since it was invisible)

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Oh I see, I will fix that immediately when I get home! I didn’t notice that it disappears like that, it does look weird. Thank you for noticing!

[ninjablaze22 (Yang)]

Ok so I couldn’t make the buttons go away when you click them twice cause the logic wasn’t fitting in for me in the code and would do weird stuff.

But I did make an intro screen so please let me know how it looks. The intro screen is a little plain for me but I don’t know what to add.

Also a few more people played my game but the average playtime was 2-4 minutes, I don’t know what happened but if my game is really that uninteresting, how do I change it?
Thank you