INSPIRE Reviews

I'm going to hold onto this game in the hopes that it gets more updates, but as of the moment, I don't know if I can recommend it in its current state. As i know this is made by one developer and I understand how difficult game development can be, I hope this review is helpful in making the product better. Firstly, the world, artwork, and music are all pretty good and got me into wanting to try the game out, they do not disappoint. I also like the survival elements, looting, and most of the enemy types you run into. The whole idea kinda makes me feel like this is sortof a Jak & Daxter/Farcry kind of game and I really enjoy that idea. The idea of upgrades mixed with an inventory system with weapons and a jetpack makes for some interesting fun all around. However, I have a few criticisms that hopefully help in guiding the game into a more precise vision. Firstly, what is the goal of this game? In the description it reads: INSPIRE is a Stylized Top-Down Shooter set in the near future. Customize your arsenal, soar through the skies with your jetpack, and shoot your way through an alien invasion alongside your transformable backpack companion. Most of this in my playthrough was technically correct, but I wasn't sure necessarily what the object of the game was until the aliens invaded (basically what I imagine to be getting out of the tutorial) which was about 10-20 minutes into the game. Long enough to lose the attention of the average gamer. I would categorize the game as a top-down looter shooter with survival elements, but to be honest, its hard to understand what the game is until you PLAY it, and that's not really good from a marketing perspective. My advice would be that the games marketing needs to very easily show what the gameplay loop is, and the ultimate goal. Is it to survive? To beat the aliens? Explore the world? What's the goal? My second criticism is with the tutorial. I think it serves its purpose just fine, but I don't think it does a good job at bringing in the plot of the game itself- the aliens. Instead of starting the game BEFORE the aliens invade, you should just start the game with the alien invasion happening, and the tutorial taking you through the gameplay loop of the game (go out, kill stuff, loot, take back land, return to Realle). Right now the tutorial feels like I am almost playing an entirely different game when I actually get to the cool stuff. My third criticism is with the news broadcasts. They're a cool addition to the game and should stay in, but I think that some of the dialogue can be a bit cheesy... "Aliens landed on earth, now we need everyone to fight those bastards!" Up to that point, the humor just feels a little out of place with the rest of the game. I think a reporter that had more dry humor would help keep the theme of the game a little better, but that's just my opinion. I also think there may be too many companions in the game, or perhaps I just don't understand? The marketing talks about your backpack being an ultimate companion, but is SEAN your backpack? or is that a different character alltogether? I am just confused on that aspect. I didn't see anything that would indicate that my backpack was my companion other than the ability to customize the abilities, perhaps SEAN could just be the backpack companion? Enemies just spawning out of nowhere and instantly tracking to the player is a bit annoying, especially when you're just travelling from one point to another. I kindof wish that enemies wouldnt start attacking you until after a moment or two of spotting the player, so that the player always initiates combat first. Finally, I think that the player model is a little too basic. Nothing about the character really stands out to me like the Sentiens or the city of Realle, and I think that a redesign would go a long way. I also think that maybe it would be cool down the road to have a customizable player model too so that the player can express themself in their own ways instead of being limited to one look. Maybe that is in the game and I just didn't get to it, but that's my final big criticism. FEATURE REQUESTS: -Autosave feature. -Waypoint system on the map. -Player model customization. -Hotkey to use items from your inventory, like food/meds/etc. -Hotkey to change weapons. -More music on the radio. BUGS I FOUND: -Dialogue audio is super loud and cannot be changed. -Quest complete audio sound is super loud and cannot be changed. -Some terrain in the snowy area was bugged for the obelisks and was floating. -The guns in the players hands is not aiming "straight", the player holds the weapon offcenter to the right. -The player turned invisible once, not sure what happened but reloading the map by going back to Realle then back to the Wilds fixed it. Hopefully this review is helpful, I wish I could put an im-between positive and negative. The game isn't bad, but it needs more polish and a tighter vision, in my opinion. This could be a tough sell for $15.00 in the current state of the game.

[h1]First Impressions[/h1] Played the game a bit , saw yesterday the release video on TikTok. Had to try it cause he is a fellow Dutch person. [h1]After playing it :[/h1] I really played it now.. No sense in leveling up. No sense in how get money. Killing spiders / wolfs doesnot do anything.. No visual aid of picking up stuff. Only saw the popup that I got my first coffee. No popups with items looted from dead enemy's Also is there a level systeem? Killing MOBS doesnot seem to get you anywhere.. besides keeping you from dying. Also a minimap might be a good idea. Better controller support also seems like a great thing.. Make sure once using a controller , you dont have to use the mouse anymore. But still lovely game vibe. Job nicely done.. Will keep on playing.. Also if you want to make the people feel , like you are invested , I would really start interact more to people here on steam.. I know you are only alone.. But not all posts here are answered by you. Show the people , which you do offcource , care what the people think. Esp the first month after a game release , it is important to show your face on steam :) Not all steam users have TikTok.. [b]Pro's[/b] [list] [*]Impressive gameplay , for a single Indie Dev [*]Amazing graphics [*]It looks totally fresh , keeps me entertained. [*]Music superB [*]Impressive job for an one man's team. [/list] [b]Con's[/b] [list] [*]Camera placement (to many options to go off camera) [*]Not a biggy.. But please also add Xbox Buttons layout in the game [*]Funky ,none custumable , controls [*]No leveling up , XP or any kind [*]Graphical Glitches [*]Missing simple features (minimap etc) [/list] But Mr Dev. I am impressed what you have produced. I will recommend this game to all my steam friends. So even if the con's are more then the pro's , I will still recommend it for this price.. Why we got to support the Indie Dev's

I am always looking for top down shooters and Inspire peaked my interest during the Autumn sale. I am not super into the game so far and will continue to give it a shot, but for now I would not recommended it at full price but can say on sale it has enough fun to give it a shot. Pros -Fun movement abilities. -Interesting active abilities. -Interesting vertical movement with jet pack -Easy to pick up Cons -Guns feel bland. I have use 5 at this point and only the shotgun feels fun -Modifications are unclear, adding some numerical values would be nice - Very hard to see attacks, I am colorblind and am facing death because I just cant see attacks. - Map and quest tracking is poor - Doesnt do a good job of highlighting shop locations etc.

Excellent game! The combat loop is really fun and engaging, the open world is pretty big and encourages exploration. The enemy variety is shockingly good, I wish some AAA games put this kind of effort into designing their enemy types. Overall the game offers quite a lot - from enemy types to gun types to power-ups and abilities, it has a lot of room to experiment and find your own play style. The combat is not easy, but not gratuitously hard, I think enemies' spawn rate and sponginess are pretty well balanced. I was playing on "Normal" difficulty and some regions were quite challenging and forced me to experiment with weapon choices and abilities. Love it! I also love that the game doesn't hold your hand and points you to exact coordinates with exact steps to solve a problem, like a lot of modern and big budget games do. It actually lets you figure things out on you own, which I really appreciate. And of course there's the music! This game is easily in my top-3 favorite video game soundtracks. Music and sound design in this are absolutely top notch! My only issue is I want more regions to explore and more enemies to kill :D Overall I definitely recommend this game! For a solo developer's first title, this is a quality bar that's extremely hard to reach 🔥

Despite asking twice on the Discussion boards about an issue with the controller (the right trigger regularly doesn't work, despite there being NO issue with the controller [I've tested it]; and the first time asked was 6+ weeks ago, at the time of writing), no support or response has been provided. The game has seemingly been abandoned in a less-than-functional state in a way that, frankly, isn't acceptable. The game looked really interesting, but to receive NO response or help is incredibly disappointing. Requested a refund, which I didn't want to do, as I was wanting to actually play the game, but its abandonment, and the inability to properly play the game, has left me with no choice.

Review Update 5/2/2024 --------------------------------- I recommend wishlisting this but do not recommend purchasing it in its current state. It's clear for a solo dev to put this together, they care about the game very much. But at $14.99 this is only $5 less than a fully cooked game with hours of game play. I would have refunded this within 5 minutes if it wasn't a solo dev project. This should not be in early release yet. It is really in alpha. There are features there but they don't come together into a cohesive game. Basic things like: earning money to buy stuff, healing / damage balance, combat balance, XP / leveling. I would feel silly for having paid $5 for this...let alone three times that. I get it. development takes time, even more so as a solo developer. And you have this thing that is sitting on your computer and you're like "I want to get feedback, I want people to play this thing I've been putting money and time into for a year." But you have one first impression to make for your game, and in its current state this is just an assortment of ideas that haven't been fully realized into a fun game with a high price tag. It's not beyond saving, but probably the worst thing for this game right now is that it would get played by more people who are less forgiving and review bomb it into oblivion. Original Review --------------------------------- Here's the deal. This is a very early alpha mode game. I got about 45 minutes into it and that's about all I can handle with the current state of things. I will come back and play more, but really I feel like I paid $14 to be a play tester for this. Since it's a solo dev, and I myself have experience developing, I'm begrudgingly OK with that. If it were a studio, I'd be annoyed. Most people are gonna refund and freak out with the current state of the game. Suggestions to dev: In short, polish this. Should have been more polished before early access so you wouldn't get flamed. As a solo dev put all your time into 1) hooking me with a story. Right now, do not care. 2) Making where I'm supposed to go / what I'm supposed to do clearer 3) making combat balanced and "feel good" 4) improving the sense of progression so I "feel like I'm leveling up." Good stuff: - Graphic style. Don't waste time on making your graphics look better, it's not the problem. - Movement. Feels pretty responsive and fluid. - Arcade combat. Yea, it's kitey. Yea, every mob just rushes you. But right now, it's OK. - Fast travel. Thank you. Don't mess with this. Bad stuff: - When the game is not my active window / app, nothing happens. Like things aren't continuing to load. I don't know if this is a me thing or a game thing. But it is weird. Like I can hit fast travel, alt+tab, come back and the travel meter is at the same spot as when I left the game. - Aiming makes no difference I don't think. Bind something else to right-click if it has no effect. - I have no idea if I'm leveling, if there are levels, if there is experience...or what I'm gaining from killing dudes. I think completing quests levels you but I don't know what's going on. - Add prices to weapon vendors. No idea how much anything costs. - Add a purchase confirmation pop-up. Accidentally bought the same gun I had by clicking it. - Default journal / missions to the latest mission or store selected mission. Currently keeps defaulting to the very first completed mission which is confusing. I will have a white mission at the top, greyed out ones after it, but then the text showing is for the very first mission I ever got. - More linear opening...had no idea what I was doing at first, ran around the whole city before realizing I was supposed to talk to the person next door. - Satellite not obvious. Ran around entire map, beat spider queen in cave before realizing where the satellite was. - Teleport is weird skill to get because jetpack is your fast travel ability already. So you have two methods of fast travel right away? I get its use in combat but I would tie the dodging into the jetpack instead of having it as a separate ability. - Preferably, I would press space to jump, and hold space to jet pack. Then you could use Shift to "dodge" with the jetpack, or if you want to limit it to combat, tap space to dodge instead of jump. Put it on a cooldown timer, eliminate the teleport skill. - Alien visitor cutscene is bizarre. I'm talking to a dude, he says "what the..." then suddenly I'm in outer space watching some things really far from earth moving around...I can't tell what is happening, then I'm like POV of maybe a death star thing, then I get the title screen which makes me think that was the end of the early access game....then suddenly I'm back talking to the guy and I have a new quest. Super weird! Alternative could be just cut to the breaking news right away...no cutscene needed whatsoever. - I have no idea how to get to Mount Crater. I'm guessing the game is linear so I'm gonna try to go through Wildwood. But right away, no idea where to go. - OK I ended up running through at least two other zones and still no Mount Crater so NO IDEA but guessing I'm supposed to just keep running to new zones and will eventually find it. - Teleport skill is borked. When out of combat, it teleports in the direction of travel (WASD) while in combat, it teleports you in the direction of the cursor. This leads to dying and not knowing what is going on with the teleport ability until you figure this mechanic out. I don't know if this is intentional, but my suggestion is keep it set to WASD / direction of travel. Or eliminate teleport and replace with jet pack dodge as mentioned above.