Huntsman

saw cory play it and ive been meaning to get it

SMOKEEBEE MADE A VID ABT THIS GAME NOW I MUST PLAY IT

My thoughts on the game:

First off, before I critique it, I have to say the graphics are gorgeous, really good job for a solo indie developer, rivals that of AAA titles. Now, I understand the game is unfinished, but I will critique the game as it is currently.

To start, I would say that I was kind of disappointed when I played the game, there was a lot of hype for this game, and when I played it, I didn't find myself all that scared. Granted, I'm not an arachnophobe, I'm at least tolerant of spiders (I'm Australian). However, it was only suspenseful for the first 5-10 minutes of playing, and I got a little jump once or twice, but nothing all that impressive.

There are some glaring issues I'd like to address:

Firstly, X-17 (during my playthrough) couldn't go up stairs, meaning that roughly half the game is spent in a location with zero suspense, zero fear factor. Which doesn't make any sense given that it's seems it was born there (or at least contained). Once I figured that out, it became pretty boring.

Secondly, lack of story. The game relies on notes to pass on information to the player, which isn't a bad thing, but it's the fact that there aren't very many in the first place. A lot of questions are left unanswered, like - Why is this lab making giant spiders? How did it escape? Where is everyone? Now, fear of unknown is a factor that'd explain why these questions are unanswered, except it isn't really that scary. I found myself asking these questions, not out of fear, but out of curiosity, and the little answers I found were unsatisfying.

Finally, I personally think the spider AI is underwhelming, in fact, it's so bare bones I could probably tell you how it works with zero research or coding experience. The spider "wanders" in it's given area, it chooses a set point nearby, and walks to it, this repeats until the player enters its line of sight, where it will pause and inspect you, if you sprint, it'll chase you, if you stay still, it will eventually attack you, and if you move out of sight slowly, it won't attack you. Once you exit it's line of sight, it's back to "wandering" aimlessly.

This model doesn't work as well as it could. For starters, encounters are very controllable, I don't feel threatened or uncertain on what might happen, I learned very quickly how to completely avoid conflict all together. Which, realistically, yes, spiders are very predictable when you know what your doing, they won't attack you unless you disturb or provoke it, but this doesn't work for two reasons:

    1.  From a horror aspect, this is boring, plain and simple. If the thing threatening me can be completely avoided by slowly going back around a corner, it's not threatening, especially when it won't even follow me around said corner, it'll just piss off in some other direction, no investigation. A lot of people fear spiders because they are erratic, unpredictable in their movement, you said so yourself in the description, yet the AI for this spider is painfully predictable.

    2. From a realistic standpoint, yes, this works, spiders behave this way. But only towards things dozens of time bigger than it. To a spider the size of a small room, I am prey, I am it's food, I am what keeps it from starving to death, it wants to eat me, less it it's life slowly fickle out to starvation. I am it's prey. It should be actively hunting me, looking for me, sensing the vibrations of my footsteps, following me around corners, waiting for the perfect time to pounce, hiding behind corners or in crawl spaces just big enough for it to fit in.

I could gush about how much potential the AI has, but I'll leave it there.

Some other minor details I would make are:

Procedurally generating footsteps (this is definitely harder than it seems), to help prevent it from clipping through walls, and to make  it feel more real

For the love of god, let it go upstairs.

Have it lie in wait for an ambush, it won't think about whether it'll attack you, it WILL attack you, giving you a reason to check corners your about to turn, it'll add anticipation, you never know when it'll be waiting for you. 

Make it climb walls and on the ceiling, heck, it could wait in ambush on the ceiling.

Have the spider "scuttle" around, instead of just "wandering" from place to place, have it run around sporadically if it spends too much time in one place. I know It kind of already does that, but for further distances.

WHY ARE MY FOOTSTEPS SO FUCKING LOUD-

Make the webs a bit more realistic that "walls of webbing"

PLEASE change the death sfx, the moaning is way too funny to be taken seriously.

A few scripted events in moderation could enhance the suspense.

The game feels a little short, not a lot of content, lot's of empty space with no items. Too few objectives to allow the suspense to settle in.

All in all, really great game, I hope I wasn't too harsh, but I can't help but gush at the potential for this game, I really hope you see this and take the time to read it, because this game is AWESOME.

Does the game automatically update itself or do I need to manually redownload the game whenever it updates