As a new player, my brother and I immediately thought we had made a mistake on this game. And the only reason was because of bicycling. There are two reasons I’ll go into below: it doesn’t look good and it doesn’t handle well at all.
The way the character sits on the bike looks way too stiff and upright and doesn’t look natural. Watch people ride a bike and you’ll see the bike tilt from side to side when pedaling. Peoples bodies move forward when riding as well. It looks like it was put together too quickly, and not enough coding was put into it. Considering this is one of the only ways to see your character, this is a very important moment the devs should focus on a little more. Players should be able to envision themselves in their character, and that’s not the way I would ever ride a bike.
The handling needs some work as well. When riding a bike you’re able to turn back and forth much quicker than in this game. Turning in and back forward takes way too long and it makes it very hard to handle, and again, not natural at all. I ride mountain bikes myself and immediately realized how realistic riding over bumps is on a bike, crashing on stumps, and riding up hills are as well. But because there is so much detail here, why is there no detail with handling? I would think the handling should match that level of detail. Maybe it’s complete coincidence that bumps, crashing, and hills match reality. But if it is, then at a minimum the handling should be reworked anyways. It’s funny at first to watch a buddy crash and even yourself. But when it happens again and again, it becomes very frustrating and ruins the experience. Reworking the handling to turn quicker would lower the amount of crashes and be much appreciated.
Also I’m confused why there is so much detail when going over bumps and sticks and not making it up hills etc. It requires players to think kind of hard about things to avoid and how to maneuver the bike. This effort it takes makes players think that this is a huge part of the game. Which if it is, then advertise it as such. Include a bicycle on the cover so players know what they’re getting into. But when it’s not included and players are blindsided with a task that causes frustration, it ruins the game. I think players should be able to go off-road without worrying that any stick they roll over could throw them off of it. I think the animation should be that the bike is just barely above all sticks but it just slows us down. Bumps are ok, but not one that throws you off the bike. Cars, large logs, etc. are fine. Throw us off those, we deserve it at that point 😂.
Maybe include a mountain bike that can handle the off-road better as well. This site talks about the history of Swedish bicycles and how popular mountain bikes were in 1989.
http://cykelhistoriska.se/old/historyeng.htm
I say all this because this single-handedly caused my brother to return the game on Steam. He said he thought the combat experience was great but hated biking. And because of that and random game crashes he returned it. I stuck it out and love the game but I will say the early levels make it difficult to like it. The gameplay didn’t start to shine for me until level 15-20+. I think making these changes with bicycling would help players like my brother stick around long enough to understand how great this game is.
Let me know your thoughts 🙂.