Ant Mill

The game concept seems pretty solid. Would it require 4 players every time? Are players supposed to be able to communicate via voice somehow or they might be able to use some basic dialogue figures in-game (follow me, hide, this door not correct, ...)? Given that the reaper is faster, how do the souls avoid it, can they hide somehow, maybe in dark corners or inside some objects, or they cannot without using abilities? It seems to me that the deception component can make the game very fun. Maybe you can get some extra ideas from some board games, "Escape from aliens in outer space" comes to my mind.

I like the big idea of the game. It reminds me of Dead By Deadlight combined with the online version of SCP where if a monster gets you, you have a small minigame to escape its realm. However, I think this is A LOT. Alone with the Reaper it can become a great game! I love the idea of the different souls having to work together but being scattered throughout the map. I would concentrate on that and polish it as much as possible and then seing if adding the hell mini game or the abilities is neccessary. 

I really enjoyed reading the report. 
What I really liked:

• The idea is very smart. This is kind of a game that you can extend indefinitely and be made into a full-fledged steam game. I can see it actually becoming a reality.
• The document is very thorough, explaining all mechanics and every step of the game in detail.
• A huge fan of the art style you chose and what you want to do with the game. I think it fits the type of game you are making.
• Really liked the ability system, as it gives you the idea of how many possibilities are for the gameplay and unique playstyles.

What Can I Suggest:

• The document definitely lacked any kind of correlation between the theme and the game (I understand how concept relates, however it was not documented)
• Please use Unity's Multiplayer System rather developing your own. This will take all your time and its definitely not worth the time and effort. Unity has quite a robust multiplayer system, if you want to do small scale multiplayer (up-to like 10-15 people), its called Unity Netcode for Gameobjects. You can extend to use Unity Relay + Unity Lobby System to easily get all the features your game needs in one place and get it going. What I have read through, using Netcode is the ideal scenario.
• Not really fond of the name. I believe it can better define the game and be unique to the game itself. (The In-Between, Beyond the Gates, Divine Exit)
• You are definitely aiming very high. Be careful, its better to have playable and simple alpha then not have it at all. (or to not meet expectations)

Conclusion:

Love the idea, this is definitely something I would love to develop into a full-fledged game, report looks clean and detailed and I am rooting for you guys!

I really like the idea and the art style, Dead by Daylight meets Don’t Starve, it seems pretty cool! The PvP and randomly generated map is a nice combination, but I think for a game like this, the "randomly generated map" needs to be really balanced. It should have a solid ruleset behind the randomness to make sure the gameplay feels good every time.

The abilities are really creative, and I think they'll add a lot of nice variation to the game. Also, your Backup Idea 1 about the closed gate alerting the Reaper feels like it fits perfectly; if I had the time for a full version, I'd definitely try to implement that too.

One thing I’d be cautious about is writing your own multiplayer backend, it’s a really ambitious goal for a ~2-month timeframe. I’d also suggest using "Unity’s Netcode for Gameobjects" system instead; it could make development a lot smoother.

I really like the idea of your game and I think it fits the chosen art style really well. However, in order for a game like this to be fun, I think it needs to be really balanced which will require a lot of playtesting. Although creating your own multiplayer system is going to be a great learning experience, it's not an easy task and can take a lot of time. Personally, I would consider using Unity's multiplayer system instead, so you can focus on creating the mechanics and making them balanced. 
I also found the documentation to be quite thorough. However, I couldn't find information about the number of players required to play the game. Do you always need a minimum of four players? The only related detail I saw was under "Win conditions", where it mentions that more than two souls need to escape in order for the souls to win.

The game idea seems very inspired, pulling it off would result is a very fun game to play with friends. Except for the already mentioned suggestion to not make a whole multiplayer backend from scratch, I have only one doubt about the game: The Player Incentives. Obviously both parties want to win, but the conditions you highlighted create a contraddiction. Individual goals, group goals and the goals that one would think are true if put is such a situation seem to be completely different. 

As you describe it the "Heaven Gate" has no minigame to it, and you need to check wether a gate is the correct one only by entering it. This basically dooms any soul that finds it first. Going over some example scenarios to explain what I mean:

- A player finds the heaven gate at the first try (25% chance):
    Now one player is out of the game, it becomes a 2v1 in favor of the souls but the reaper has less people that they need to focus on, a single kill garantees a tie because you need 2 people to revive a soul. So finding the correct gate essentially doomed the souls to not be able to win the game. In this scenario the player that "escaped" still loses.
    Finding a Heaven gate always puts more of a burden on the remaining souls than the reaper. 

This kind of problem is even more apparent if you add the "betrayer" souls that you mention in your extra:
- One soul faints/escapes:
    This creates a 2v1. Then here the best move for the 2 remaining is to immediately betray each other, assuming that the first soul does not want to betray, then the first soul remaining to let themselves get killed by the reaper can betray and create a 2v1 mathematically ensuring that the souls lose and the game plays as a 2v1 in favor of the reaper. 
    If the first soul betrays, still by your rules the souls can at best tie, and it's a 2v2, but the reaper is way stronger and it becomes unbalanced. 

I really like the artstyle! And the idea seems really fun These would be my 2 questions:
Balancing Asymmetric Gameplay:
The Reaper's limited sight and attack cooldowns create one really fun cat-and-mouse dynamic. How do you envision the Reaper maintaining pressure against coordinated soul teams, especially when they utilize abilities like the Psychologist's gate checks or the Detective's navigation? Are there systems in place to ensure the Reaper remains a threatening presence throughout the match?

Procedural Level Design:
Your maze-like map generation sounds exciting for replayability. How are you ensuring the random layouts maintain fair opportunities for both sides? For instance, how do you prevent souls from potentially spawning too close to heaven gates, or guarantee the Reaper has viable patrol routes between key objectives?

I like the idea, seems like it could be a fun multiplayer game to add to the rotation with friends. I think more one-time abilities would add to its replayability, maybe soul-specific ones (e.g. Soul trails last longer for The Dog)

I am a fan of the soul marking ability, as even though your intended use is marking gates, from my experience limiting communication methods can often lead to players coming up with innovative ways of using them beyond what the devs intended. 

Game balance will be tricky as with any multiplayer game so I would advise you to get a prototype running asap so you can playtest and iterate. 

Feedback Pitch:

- Love the overall concept/theme

- Doing both multiplayer & procedural generation is ambitious

- Possibly scale back on the content to manage scope (maybe start out symmetric -> asymmetric)

Love the game idea, big fan of asymmetric multiplayer games and have worked on a similar myself, it's very fun and full of its own set of problems, good luck balancing that.

I like the dynamic lighting for the reaper and the mini games aspect, although I'm not sure about taking the player completely off the map what if all players for example enter a hell-gate does that leave the reaper hanging in there for a while?.

Handling a custom multiplayer system can be a bit ambitious in my opinion as having a robust multiplayer experience should be high priority for the game But I'm pretty much looking forward to your updates on this aspect.

The procedural level design also sounds interesting but how do you aim to balance the encounter between the players? I imagine Altar placements, powerups, dead line of sights...etc would be a little hard to maintain balanced in such a game.

Overall great idea an pitch, looking forward to play the game and try both sides :) 

I think the game has a lot of potential. The game mechanics seem straightforward and I can imagine that the players will find it easy to understand how to play, and yet the game would feel like a lot of fun because of its concept.

When I saw your technological achievements, they seem very ambitious in my opinion. The randomly generated map alone might have its challenges in terms of ensuring that the game stays balance. I am not sure how far you want the maps to be generated randomly, but it must be taken into account that all generated maps keep the balance of the game (so players won't start losing interest). I am not sure about how much commitment you would need to implement the multiplayer PVP, but I can also imagine that it would take some time to do it. With both of these as technical achievements, it looks like a bit of a steep hill to climb.

So I would just advise to make sure that the achievements can be implemented in due time. I love the game idea, so I hope that everything will turn out to go well. 

What I Really Like:

• The whole reaper theme fits quite well with the concept of "Road to Nowhere."

• The game mechanics and asymmetric multiplayer sound extremely promising to me.

Challenges:

• Balancing a PvP game around procedurally generated maps will probably be quite difficult.
  However, if you manage to make it work, it would obviously be amazing for replayability.

What I Would Change:

• Unless you believe that custom multiplayer offers a unique advantage, carefully consider whether it's worth pursuing.
  It requires a lot of effort that might be better spent on balancing and refining the core mechanics.

I think it's good that you have several game mechanics references and back-up ideas - however your idea seems very complex and I couldn't identify your low targets and which parts of the game make up the minimal core and which parts flesh out the minimal core. I think you should think about this so that the development doesn't end up being too overwhelming for you.

Really like the game idea!
Especially the asymetric playing stly with the ifferent abilities adds a lot of variety.

Regarding the Multiplayer framework, i would really suggest to use an exisitng framework instead of creating your own. Unity Netcode offers mostly anything you might need, especially Server hosting or client / host communication could be quite time intensive to develop from scratch.

Otherwise im looking forward to the result! :)

- Loved the idea about the asymmetric PVP aspect.
- Did not fully catch onto all the mechanics and it seemed like a lot of different things mixed together sometimes on top of the main game aspect. Maybe it would make sense in different game modes in a later stage of the game.
- Voice comms could be an interesting aspect of the game but might be out of scope of this course.
- The map generation part seems very ambitious but could be a very fun and essential part of the game.

I'm a big fan of the overall concept — it instantly reminded me of Dead by Daylight, which is a great reference point. The asymmetric PVP has a lot of potential for tense and fun gameplay, and it feels like you're on the right track by focusing on that first.

The part I would be careful with the most is the procedural map generation. It is definitely a very cool feature, but in a game like this, map layout seems incredibly important for balanced gameplay. It could make or break the game.

While you already have it as the second ring in your tech bullseye, I would reinforce the idea that you maybe start with 2-3 handcrafted maps at first, to really fine-tune the gameplay and balance. Then once the PVP mechanics are solid, it would make sense to start experimenting with procedural map generation.

All in all, looking forward to playing your game!

This is a cool idea for a multiplyer game. It reminds me of a local multiplyer game I was playing on the Nintendo DS as a kid where basically one player controlled Pac-Man and the rest of the players controlled the ghosts; good times. I find it entertaining because you get excited upon getting the "special" role, but also it's motivating to cooperate with the rest of the players once you get the other role.

Just like other students here mentioned, as with many multiplayer games that involve special abilities, I think balancing might be hard. I believe especially combined with the fact that you include procedural generation, there might be gameplay styles or exploits that are either too overpowered or not fun to play against (although that's usually common within multiplayer games, whether they are luck or skill based).
This isn't too big of a deal if you have enough time to test things out and know how to playtest well.

Looking forward to beating you at your own game on the demo day!

The game idea of an asymmetric PvP is really nice, because I think it is quite a niche (i only know Dead by Daylight so far that uses this technique)
A challenge will definitly be the balancing with the special abilities of each role.
I'm rooting for you because it sounds like a really promising idea that can easily be published in my opinion.

I like that you plan to implement your own multiplayer structure. While it definitely sounds like a lot of work, I think it will give you valuable insights into how such systems work.

Have you already chosen a framework or language for the implementation? Will it be integrated directly into your Unity application, or developed as a separate program? Also, will the game only be playable over LAN, or are you planning to implement an open lobby system or maybe use Unity Relay for online matchmaking?