Venice 2089 - Demo impressions

Hi! I came across Venice 2089 on itch's front page the other day, and the main visuals were so captivating I knew I had to test the demo and see what the game is about! I was able to complete the demo and it was pretty great! I have written below some thoughts, feedback and suggestions.

First of all, I absolutely love the art style. It's the game's strongest aspect and it's really fantastic. The cartoony and colorful visuals immediately caught my attention. They are fresh, they look stylish and full of personality, and they are a very interesting choice for the game's setting and genre. Adventure-style games really benefit from those kinds of more unique art styles in my opinion and since you can spend a good amount of time exploring the locations, it's very neat to have them look so nice.

I also love the MC design. It is very well thought-out and it stands out a lot. The art style itself is already good but you also have some interesting design choices like the mix of rainboots+raincoats and stylish TShirts and the hoverboard, plus the little counterculture stuff with the punk earrings or the skull pin. It's such a neat combination of things that look cool and stylish, fit the character's age range, but also make a lot of sense when it comes to the flooded Venice setting, and all that without being overly complicated (JRPG cosplayer-style) nor unrealistic. Simple yet striking. In-game, she has a bit of a "teenager with an attitude" vibe that kinda reminds me of Ashley Mizuki Robbins from the Another Code games, though a bit gloomier and wackier at the same time, and I dig that a lot.

It might be a pure coincidence but the 2.5D city navigation having you move on the right or left and using up or down to change streets is also reminiscent of Another Code R. While playing the demo, I spent a decent amount of time moving around Venice with the hoverboard and I felt that the movement in the game has a looot of potential. It already is quite fun to explore and perform some tricks, and even if there's not much to do yet it's already a joy to navigate through the beautifully drawn city blocks. When I had my first opportunity to move around the city, I didn't actually pay too much attention to the actual objectives and street indicators. Using the hoverboard was more engrossing. I think this aspect of the game is very cool and it's something that makes it feel way more replayable and with a more exciting gameplay loop than games that are only about the story progression and the character dialogue. You should make sure that the city is fun enough to explore that you could lose minutes if not hours just moving around, performing tricks, and having fun with the hoverboard. As of now, the tricks are limited to only jumping on some guard rails but there's potential for a lot more locations to interact with and ways to make the jump useful.

If you look at skateboarding games like the Tony Hawk or Jet Set Radio series, you can see how the maps are made to make movement fun and fast, and you have lots of different background objects you can slide or jump on. Since they are so numerous, if you're good with your timings you can easily build a long chain of movement techniques by hopping from one guard rail to another, and then mixing it up with some jumps to other structures and city objects that act as improvised rails, platforms, slopes or springboards to grind and jump on to get access to another rail or something like this. Building up speed with each successful grind or trick and allowing you to reach higher heights while jumping opens up a lot of potential too. I wouldn't go full platformer with very hard jumps or anything but having some hidden locations you can only reach with some hoverboard jumps and stuff can be neat as well.

Actually, a Venice that periodically gets flooded is perfect for fun hoverboard movement! Since the city has three "floors" and the floods change what floors are available, it allows you to have two different ways to explore the map depending on the day. As of now you have all the streets of the base floor for both the non-flooded and the flooded versions of the city, with a few ramps to slide on but not much more yet. If you can be able to slide, pick up speed and jump to locations on the floor above said base floor, that means you would be able to explore the base floor and the first floor when the city is not flooded, but when it's flooded you can get the new elevated base floor and the actual second floor which isn't as accessible or not accessible at all otherwise. That means you might be able to see some cool stuff above you that's out of reach because it's on the second floor, but when you play the next day you find out you can now get to them and that can feel rewarding and fun.

So yeah, I think the main idea is that you want Venice to be fun to move around even if you weren't given any objective whatsoever. The simple act of hopping on that hoverboard and sliding on as many things as you can in rapid succession while getting to higher locations should be exciting enough to do it free-roaming style. Story-heavy games usually have the implication that they are not necessarily "fun" games but designing a city where you would want to be regardless of the promise of a story is something that gives you an advantage over every "walking simulator" and most other story games.

The joy of movement and the flexibility in the ways you move around the city can also be very useful for clearing the objectives and visiting the locations you need to go to faster. What that implies is that you may be a bit overwhelmed at first, and want to explore at your own pace but after a while you will know the entire city of Venice like the back of your hand, so every shortcut and location becomes more memorable as you get more and more familiar with the city and its structure. It's definitely early to talk about speedrunning potential or other things like that but it's interesting that the game could have such potential.

From what I understand, the other half of the game is less about movement and more about story, narrative, and characters. I like the general story themes of the game and how people are reacting to the floods taking over Venice while there's still some dedicated enthusiasts fighting to save what can be saved. It's not the kind of location and plot concept you often see and it also doubles as a potentially educational game about Venice and its locations.

However, even after completing the demo I am not entirely sure what the actual story even is about. It feels like the game has this great setting, a cool art style, distinctive characters, but no actual story hook that makes me want to know "what happens next". The game itself also does not do a great job at instantly making you captivated by the general narrative. Instead, the very first thing you start with and read is...having to go to the toilet? What? And without any in-game indication of who even are the characters and the setting? It's not the best way to get interested in the next events. Maybe it's simply because it's a demo/WIP so that's why it feels a bit rushed, but I think you would need some sort of little intro sequence that quickly explains to the player what the general situation is. Has Nova been living in Venice here whole life or isn't it actually recently that she moved here, by the way? I recall she mentioned not having seen her friend Leo for a long time but I don't know if it's because he was the one who left or because she has not been in Venice for a long time. If it's the latter, having Nova herself narrate her life circumstances during the initial train/bus trip to Venice might be a good fit, especially if you can infuse said narration with Nova's personality to make the reading experience super fun and make you more curious to learn more about her and her new life. And then you can jump to the beginning of the game and the first main event in Venice that kicks off the game's narrative.

While I appreciate that the stakes are relatively low (no dramatic murder to solve, no save-the-universe nonsense, no "chosen one" prophecy, no quest around the whole world, just a teenage girl living her new life in Venice), I feel like you still need a little something to get some drama going. Nova's grandfather seems to be involved in demonstrations and other activities to try to save Venice and that's a good source of narrative tension and conflict with other characters. Nova's friend seems to be involved in vandalism and subversive activities, can that lead to some sort of confrontation or problems for him later on? We have all these characters that seem to have interesting personal stories and struggles but the game's narrative flow isn't strong enough yet to make you know for sure that these individual stories will lead to something with a bit more tension and excitement.

This lack of a strong hook can also be seen in the game design and the objectives given to the player. It's all MMO-style fetch quests. Collect X items, go deliver Y item to Z person, bring me back this specific list of items, etc. That's kinda boring. The city exploration was never boring thankfully but the movement, city design and art style are saving the quest design rather than elevating it and allowing it to shine. While it is difficult to come up with clever ideas and actual reasons to explore the entire map that are different from this easy way out, I think it's worth trying to think of more interesting things to do to progress in the game. Having to put posters for your grandpa is one of the quests that makes sense in the game story as well as being useful for city exploration, but since there wasn't a lot of story contextualization and build-up as to why it's important in-universe, it also kinda feels like a fetch quest. The encounter with the priest was pretty interesting though. You didn't have to artificially collect items or go to specific places for the sake of it since the graffiti you wash is just close to you. On top of that, the dialogue and the situation itself are very good examples of showing how the Venice floods affect the people there. It hints at some greater struggle from this passionate person who wants to preserve the city's cultural heritage and showcases Nova's amusing snark too.

It's kinda hard to balance it out because on the one hand, the fetch quests emphasize moving around Venice which helps showcasing your hoverboard mechanics, but on the other hand, stronger character moments with a focus on impacting dialogue and fleshed out personalities through the interactions of each of them with Nova means you won't really move a lot during those scenes. It may not be so bad to have both aspects (exploration and story) be kinda compartmentalized and both very enjoyable in their own right, but if they can prop each other up that would be even better.



And here are some disorganized comments on other specific points :

-You'll need to implement input rebinding at some point in the future. I was able to use a controller and learn the inputs even though they didn't necessarily match the buttons on the on-screen display, but since the moving controls on keyboard are with WASD, it's kinda unplayable on my AZERTY keyboard. And I'm sure other players would also like to have their own control schemes when playing the game, so being able to let anyone rebind their controls is a must-have.

Another issue that will be fixed with rebindable controls is that D-Pads are currently unusable for movement even though the game's 2D lanes should be perfectly compatible with the D-pad directions. I don't think there was any analogue granularity in the controls so a purely digital control with 4 directional buttons should work just the same as the 4 keys you would use on a keyboard


-Nova keeps her default mood through most if not all of the game. I've seen some of the alternate expressions you've posted on twitter and they look very great. They would be perfect to emphasize some specific lines in the dialogue and make the narration feel more lively. It seems to fit Nova not to be overly excited about stuff but having a smug or happy face from time to time can improve the impact of some of the scenes.

-When hovering, Nova remains rather static while moving. It could be more visually appealing to have her sometimes try to maintain her balance or perform some sort of animation even when you aren't jumping. I was about to suggest hitting the floor with the foot to maintain her velocity but that's something that would only work with current skateboards instead.

-The items you collect need to have a short name on top of the description. Maybe it's already programmed in but hidden due to a glitch or something? While most items are relatively self-explanatory and have descriptions that make you easily understand what they do, I for example had absolutely no idea what the Bitcoin item was even supposed to be until after I actually used some of them to buy stuff from the vending machines. The description itself is amusing but without the name of the actual object you can't really guess what it is.

Another issue is that the name isn't displayed when you collect said items so if you aren't sure what they are, you have to stop your flow, go in the inventory and check the item list. Having the name appear alongside the item visual when you collect one would solve this potential problem

-The font used for the text is rather small and thin. It fits with the atmosphere and visuals but is also kinda hard to read and parse at times. Dots and commas are noticeably small and make some sentences more confusing than they should.

-Speaking of sentences, I suggest getting in touch with native English speakers to make sure that the dialogue and text always feels natural and fluent. I recall some sentences being kinda awkward or a bit incorrect like the use of "suspects" instead of "suspicion" or "distrust" in one of the later Nova dialogues with her grandpa. From what I understand, the whole team is Italian, so most of you only know English as a secondary language. What's there is not bad at all and I always understood the ideas, but you can really benefit from additional polish to make the characters' personality be free to express themselves, unshackled from potentially stiff and unnatural sentences.

-I think some of the dialogue boxes are assigned to the incorrect character. I seem to recall one of them in Nova's conversation with Leo about the cameras that is wrongly given to him, and a similar thing happened in the last day's last conversation with grandpa. I'm not 100% sure though.

-The pineapple pizza segment is hilarious! That's such a funny secret hahaha.

-If you activate the robot, it makes you get off the hoverboard, which means you have to get on it again afterwards, and there's no reason for Nova not to stay on the hoverboard while you move the robot around.

-Speaking of the robot, I am not sure what to think of its integration in the story. I like the design and how it adds a little something to Nova as well (girl + robot is a lovely combination!), but her randomly stumbling upon it at the very beginning of the game but then having it be a non-entity for almost the rest of the entire game is a bit strange. If it's something that she instead already has with her when the game starts it might feel more natural and less contrived than how it is here.

I am also not too sure about how its integration in the game loop fares. When you are not interacting with characters, the main gameplay feature is city exploration and hoverboard movement. However, whenever you use the robot, movement stops completely and the fun of navigating the city comes to a halt. The robot allows you to reach places you wouldn't get to otherwise but it still feels like it's fighting against the hoverboard as a provider of fun and enjoyment.

If you make the robot more prominent and require the player to use it more, it'll feel more important but it comes at the detriment of the movement mechanics you wanted to focus on as well. And if you reduce its mandatory uses, it may come off as gimmicky or unnecessary. It's kind of a tricky situation. Perhaps you could also make the robot also be part of the platforming/hoverboarding game loop somehow? I am not sure what kind of tricks and movement tech you could pull off with it but if it actively participates in said hoverboard game loop then it will justify its presence way more easily and can feel more fun too. Otherwise, the robot might be interesting if it allows you to grab stuff that's surrounded by water and is actually unreachable with the hoverboard? In this case the two tools wouldn't compete against each other that much given that the hoverboard is ruled out for solving that kind of problem.

-It can be kinda surprising not to have a map at first, but after a while I realized it was probably for the better. The city is not gigantic enough that you would easily get lost in it, you have multiple indications and signposts to tell you where the important locations are, and it really contributes to the concept of exploring Venice and learning about its structure while moving around.

Some games have massive worlds to move through but since they also have a minimap that's way more convenient than the actual visuals of said world and their movement options aren't especially fleshed out and intrinsically fun, you end up always looking at this tiny mini map in a corner of the screen instead of trying to appreciate the visuals in front of you. Venice 2089's lack of minimap ensures that the beautiful art is not wasted and always remains in your line of sight and focus. I like that.

-If you paused the game during a conversation and press the button to select the "Resume" option, it'll also be registered by the conversation handler and count as a button press to move to the next line of dialogue

-The boat house in which we start is kinda confusing when it comes to locating it in Venice itself. You see the top half of the house with the boat, and the very bottom of it on the lowest floor of the city, but since the transition between the boat and the ground is indoors and you never see the entire building at once with the boat and the building being connected, it's never really clear that said boat is actually on top of the building you leave from when you are first sent outside of home. You can see some buildings in the background but I don't feel like it's prominent enough for you to make the logical connection. Since I had to focus on the birds the first time I left my room and was on that boat, I didn't really pay attention to the background.

As a result, without any explanations, the boat could make you believe that you were on top of water, at sea level or something and that you just left the boat on the same floor instead of going down the building that you can see behind you when you start exploring the city.

-It took me a while to notice the surveillance cameras whose wires I was supposed to cut. Even if the wires themselves had some flashier colors, the cameras themselves don't stand out at all and there's no way to see what are all the objects of interest in the area (which may nor not may be a problem depending on whether said objects naturally stand out or not). Besides, talking to Leo again has Nova say she didn't need any more help even though I, as a player, would have liked being able to review the instructions again, so it was a bit weird. Once I noticed one of the cameras and understood what I was supposed to look for, the others went down veeeery quickly though. Since the city size is manageable and the cameras are located at specific heights, it's not too bad. Maybe a visual reference of what the cameras look like before we encounter one could help so that we know what to actually look for?

The fact that you need the robot to obtain said camera wires also shows how artificial it is that Nova has it randomly activate as soon as the game begins, even though said event isn't really an important enough thing in the story to justify it being its starting point. What if it didn't reactivate? How would Nova be able to complete that task?

On the other hand, you can always have Leo mention the robot during one of the conversations, as if noticing said robot is what gave him the idea to use it to grab some wires. Maybe he actually does this during Day 2, I don't actually remember. Either way, I think it would feel more organic if he actually notices the robot and thus makes it also exist as part of the world, outside of the mere game mechanics. If the two characters discuss the robot a bit, it can also be a useful way to have some little world-building here : How many people actually have that kind of robot? Since no other character is seen with one, is there a reason why they wouldn't want to use one? Is it really seen as nothing but a toy for kids? And so on and so forth. Since the game takes place in the future, it can be a rather natural way to show what being in the future entails for the characters aside from the Venice floods. No need to dwell on it too much for sure but some lines here and there can help a lot flesh out your world.

-The game size is huge. Are those 3GBs fully necessary? Is it due to how huge the visual assets are? I think Unity kinda creates big files when compiling 2D images, but you may want to look at compression options in the importer settings and stuff like that.

It may also be my own expectations that are too low, and it's possible that the game art really needs to be this size, but seeing if there can be a way to decrease the overall game size without compromising the look and quality of the art can be worth it I think.

-While the visuals are pretty fantastic, the music is unfortunately anther story. I like the idea of having the little items and the tricks you perform with the hoverboard create some sounds as it encourages the player to use those mechanics as much as possible even if it's just for the satisfaction of hearing those sounds, but the tracks there aren't very pleasant. The basic loop that plays during most city exploration segments is too simple and repetitive. It gets old veeeery quickly even though you re going to hear it a lot while exploring the environment. And the other loops or sounds that are played on top aren't that rewarding either. One of the additional layers sounds like random xylophone notes played without any specific catchiness nor purpose to them, while the other beat is better composed but also a bit unfitting. After a while I had to play my own music on top of the game.

The issue with how bare the main loop is is that instead of rewarding the players with cool effects for engaging with your hoverboard movement mechanics, it punishes both those who don't do that and those who prefer walking peacefully with this extremely repetitive music loop. And even those who actually try to get the full track don't end up with a great experience either. On top of that, it's never made clear what exactly triggers the additional music layers and how to have the colored trail behind the hoverboard. Moving in a single direction long enough? Collecting enough rings? There could be long stretches where I don't have any trail activation, but at times I'll quickly get it to work and I never really feel like I did that on purpose. It feels random.

Besides, the trail and the music layers also get disabled/reset when you trigger an event and talk to a character, or whenever you need the robot since using it currently disables the hoverboard. This means the game's own progression objectives and requirements are clashing with this mechanic and fighting against it.

I think it would be better if the basic track that plays in the city is already a finished, complete, and pleasant track that doesn't need additional layers to be enjoyable and listenable on its own. That way, even the most basic level of interaction with the hoverboard mechanic will ensure that you will positively remember Venice 2089's sound and music. And any additional sound effects you want to add on top of this track by performing specific hoverboard actions will be a great bonus instead of mandatory to start enjoying the track a bit.

As for the music choice, you don't have to go full Jet Set Radio or The World Ends With You and give us the actual funky music Nova would be listening to since it could clash with the more relaxed atmosphere you want to provide, but something that has more to it than the current music would still be a lot better for the overall experience.

-I noticed after playing that the Unity output log contains a few errors and Debug.Log() calls. While the Debug calls are not a big issue but don't forget to clean them up for the final releases since they have a little performance cost after all. There were some Exceptions which should be more important to fix, though I don't recall any instance of actual glitches or crashes in the game, thankfully. You can find the contents of said log here if it helps you :

https://pastebin.com/iUeEDpPv


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In the end I really enjoyed my time with Venice 2089. It's a very beautiful and attention-grabbing game with lots of personality, and you have a very interesting lead character and setting. Thanks to the hoverboard you also differentiate yourself from classic adventure/point&click games since the exploration itself is its own game in a way, and a pretty fun one to boot. There's lots of potential in the formula and I think that with a more expansive map (not necessarily a much bigger one, but one with more movement options and stuff to do) and a more involved narrative, you have something really great on your hands.

I look forward to playing more of this game and wish you the best of luck for this awesome project!