xposting from indie thread, game released on Steam today.
My Quick Look on Cross Of The Dutchman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-MIPhvWtzw
Quick Impressions: Imagine Torchlight or Diablo but remove the item hunt, focus on the hack and slash, and base it on the legend of Pier Gerlofs Donia and what you have is Cross of the Dutchman.
It's an okay game. It's not bad, it's just mindless. Also it breaks one of my 'bad game design rules': which is to limit the amount of backtracking. Lots of artificial padding on game time. Additionally, considering the game is a hack-n-slash there is astounding little variety in terms of combat for the complete first hour of the game. And even after that it is still barebones.
The visuals have a nice distinctive stylized look. Audio is well done. All of the other systems like mini-maps, highlighted words in dialogue, character outline when foreground object obscures the player are nice.
The game feels like a paint-by-numbers how to make a hack-n-slash. It's not bad. If they removed all of the artificial game padding by just teleporting you to where you needed to go after a quest instead of forcing the player to run everywhere, I would be able to focus on the story (which does seem interesting, since it is apparently based off a true story) and hence be able to enjoy the game.
I understand the worry that your game would appear short, but lengthening the game with filler is not the way.
This is coming off far more critical than I wanted it to. The game is solid, it either needs to spruce up the combat or laser focus on the story and right now it does neither.