Solianiko

After playing this fun game I have quite a few things to share!

First of all – I fell in love with the very concept. A robot time-traveller, who happened to be stuck in Ukraine in the 17th century and has to adapt himself to the local culture? Give me more!

Now to pros and cons.
The demo is long enough to show the main mechanics and translate the game's feeling, which are great in their own way. The upgrades in UI are certainly yet to come, because it's tricky to understand the main mechanic with the battery's charge from the beginning. I felt a lack of explanations during my first steps – for example, it wasn't obvious to me that the yellow stone is the rarest one and that you cannot upgrade anything without it.

I liked the idea of time gambling when you have to calculate the charge you have left to go back. Sometimes, however, rocks are positioned too closely to each other, and the robot occasionally decides to mine them without the player's intention, which can mess up your strategy. It doesn’t happen too often, but still.

The robot’s animation during the side walk feels a bit choppy — it would be great to add a few more frames to smooth it out.

Combat is fun, but the difficulty curve isn’t very gradual. It starts off pretty tough, but once you buy the first base and gun upgrades, it becomes fairly easy to defend. Also, the enemy spawn logic is quite predictable — for example, I quickly figured out that after dropping the hive, the rat would appear from the other side, so I started shooting in advance.

The mine’s layout is well done — both visually and in terms of navigation.

The idea with the cat was interesting, though a bit confusing. Zmiy claims he got rid of the cat and sealed it away a long time ago, and we’re supposed to collect bones to resurrect it — but then why do we see a living cat when falling through one of the tunnels? That storyline is intriguing, but unclear. Zmiy’s aggressive dialogue toward the cat also felt a bit over-the-top and lacked context. It gave me the impression that the devs ran out of ideas at that moment and just decided to go with “Bastard!” as a catch-all. Please give those characters more personality! :D

Some smaller points:

• The animation in the main menu is great, but the day-night cycle could use a visual rework.

• The opening scene is creative and interesting, but the audio mixing needs work — the voice-over is barely audible.

• The idea with the character’s name is super cool, but non-Ukrainian speakers likely won’t understand the wordplay.

• In the full version, the gameplay mechanics could use some upgrades or variety to prevent repetition.

• The bull (spaceship) design is awesome — I’d love to see more of its personality and more scenes with it! Maybe it could give the robot system updates or comments during gameplay, which could be both useful and fun.

• I’d also really like to see more of Solianiko’s backstory and personality!

Overall, you guys have done an amazing job in just 3 months! I'm happy you can show more of the Ukraine culture in such a creative way. Keep it up!

Привіт! Спочатку хотілося б більше часу для ознайомлення з грою та підземною локацією або б більш нав'язливий гайд для початківця на початку гри.

Пропозиції по ворогам:
1. Додати крота, який би вилазив із землі серед локації та кидався камінням.
2. Ведмідь, якого будять бджоли, яких не вбив гравець.
3. Лісовик, що надуває жаб, які підлітають вгору та з часом взриваються, шкодячи своїми залишками базу.
4. Бджолина матка (міні бос), що може стріляти з жала кислотою чи медом.
5. Ведмедка (міні бос), яка жбурляє серією камінчиків.

Музика під час бою - більш динамічна.

Сподобалися - незвична приваблива графіка в грі, харизматичний та дивакуватий головний герой.
Дякую!

Ця гра дуже цікава! Мені сподобалося хороше управління роботом і хороша анімація. Зміна дня на ніч додає ворогам таємничості

Very fun game! Interesting setting and reconciliation of Ukrainian culture. Funny animation of mining ore

Nice! I'd love to have more dungeon trials to upgrade weapons b4 the night though. So that I could grind a bit more gold in order to have the rifle

Overall it is very pleasant to play. Great mix of mechanics