i played through the update from 5 hours ago as of this writing (version 33). you already know i had a blast, although i am not experience in soulslike. in fact, i don't think i know of any soulslike with a camera such as this. it's very fun, but it takes a while to get the hang of the controls right.
here are my thoughts in chronological order. i've fucked around in the north road a bit. i needed to cheese the red guys in tight corridors otherwise they'd beat me to death. i was unable to successfully return the sheep.
>game opened on my 2nd monitor. this is the first game that did that in forever. no clue what's up with that. wasn't a big deal, just unusual.
>set subtitles to on in the options menu. no clue if they're actually on, since it's just a box with no "tick" or checkmark in it. i assume it's on?
>a lot of audiosources have scene-wide radii. very noticeable with the tutorial guard cheering you on towards victory, and the blacksmith/horses in the camp. the guy was fine, but the blacksmith can get a bit grating, especially when you have such a nice soundtrack playing. i want him to die so i stop getting my music interrupted.
>the bloodsplatter effect is really, really nice. well done.
>ESC isn't the main menu key? for what purpose?
>mouse cursor disappears (sometimes?) when opening the inventory, and sometimes when placing items in inventory slots. resetting fixed this, so not a major issue.
>the guy in the spawn arena doesn't die when his health drops to 0. makes sense lore-wise, but he can still hit me! he should deaggro when defeated.
>the centurion doesnt have a voice, and it turns out the subtitles were off! so i was very confused as to where to get the key from, until i reset subs and talked to him again. i think subs should be on by default (and untoggleable!) until you get all the major questgives a voice.
>it's dark out! this is fine, but the minimap shouldn't be affected by the world lighting. it's supposed to be a map, after all. just set that camera to ignore the scene light or something like that, so i can still orient myself a bit in the dark
>those red guys are no fucking joke. they can also rotate in the middle of their power attacks (and even if they're finished with the animation - ie they extended their sword forward and are current not moving, the collider of the sword will still damage you ! very deadly)
>explored a bit, played for about 45mins. could use a bit more save spots in the early game, especially considering the first bit is a gauntlet, with many guys outside the camp, and many guys in the north road camps. i wouldn't mind a save outside the north road camp, for example.
i suck at these games, so take my gameplay thoughts with a massive grain of salt.
either way, excellent work. with some polish, you will have something very enjoyable on your hands. eager to see how it develops, and i will gladly see you next DD.
Okay, going to give this a thorough look this time.
Chest at the camp seems a bit hard to trigger.
Love the music, it feels really appropriate, if you have made this you are a genius, if not, you have good taste.
Character menu looks a bit confusing, I think it's the color of the text and the background image rather than the information presented.
Shield clips through the character head while running.
I would make the text which pops up when you are near a character and the prompts to open/take something a lot bigger.
Night is perhaps a bit too dark.
Using the arrows to change gear feels unintuitive when you use both the mouse and wasd at the same time, perhaps put in on 1234 or something instead.
I could not find the northern wall key… so I clipped through the gate with a horse.
Combat feels good and seems complicated, it's very hard to judge it at this point as I am guessing equipment and leveling will make a great impact later on in production.
Trees made the game stutter for me.
Lightning guy killed me. I will give this another shot later today.
I honestly assumed the music either came from some pack or was submissioned, it is actually extremely well done. You need to make it available somewhere so I can listen to it while I work.
I really appreciate that, I will recommend bandcamp to you as well. Easy, you can make your music free if you want to and it's both streamable and downloadable.
This has great promise! Cool setting and idea, but uuhh no orbs..?
Seems to be pretty early in development, although there is a lot of stuff already, so I'll try to keep it pretty brief because there's almost an overwhelming amount of little janky things to point out and fix. I think you are aware of pretty much all of it already so.
Backspace for menu not escape? Very odd.
The "press to use" text is very hard to see.
I clipped through a palisade gate with a horse.
Sprinting isn't in the list of controls.
Mouse2 doesn't toggle cursor, sometimes (like entering a new area) it shows the cursor and you have to bring up the menu and close it again to remove it.
Ambient bird sounds are pretty loud.
Changing lock on targets by moving the mouse around while locked on would be nice.
Various lighting issues (like shadows being way too dark) and the grass can look pretty awkward:
Stealth kill did no damage once.
Maybe its stat-based but enemies don't seem to flinch when using charge attack which is strange and makes it pretty useless.
Hey Vita, glad to see you back after setting down Samsara. I tried to play the game, but was having issues moving around. WASD would only sort of wiggle my guy forward a little bit at a time. If I got clear of any obstacles, holding W would eventually get him moving. But then hitting A or D would make him stop, and make the camera zoom in. Not sure what the issues was, the framerate seemed fine and everything.
heya clyde!! nice to hear from you and thanks for trying to play!... that is bizarre, i have not encountered such a bug in all my playtesting, and couldn't seem to replicate. is this with the latest build (12)?
i really hope you get a chance to play and i really look forward to playing the latest version of necrovale!... i must say, your thoughtful comments on samsara really had a big impact on me and ultimately led me to creating this new game. so i especially hope you can get a chance to play a working version! !
Comments
greetings
i played through the update from 5 hours ago as of this writing (version 33). you already know i had a blast, although i am not experience in soulslike. in fact, i don't think i know of any soulslike with a camera such as this. it's very fun, but it takes a while to get the hang of the controls right.
here are my thoughts in chronological order. i've fucked around in the north road a bit. i needed to cheese the red guys in tight corridors otherwise they'd beat me to death. i was unable to successfully return the sheep.
>game opened on my 2nd monitor. this is the first game that did that in forever. no clue what's up with that. wasn't a big deal, just unusual.
>set subtitles to on in the options menu. no clue if they're actually on, since it's just a box with no "tick" or checkmark in it. i assume it's on?
>a lot of audiosources have scene-wide radii. very noticeable with the tutorial guard cheering you on towards victory, and the blacksmith/horses in the camp. the guy was fine, but the blacksmith can get a bit grating, especially when you have such a nice soundtrack playing. i want him to die so i stop getting my music interrupted.
>the bloodsplatter effect is really, really nice. well done.
>ESC isn't the main menu key? for what purpose?
>mouse cursor disappears (sometimes?) when opening the inventory, and sometimes when placing items in inventory slots. resetting fixed this, so not a major issue.
>the guy in the spawn arena doesn't die when his health drops to 0. makes sense lore-wise, but he can still hit me! he should deaggro when defeated.
>the centurion doesnt have a voice, and it turns out the subtitles were off! so i was very confused as to where to get the key from, until i reset subs and talked to him again. i think subs should be on by default (and untoggleable!) until you get all the major questgives a voice.
>it's dark out! this is fine, but the minimap shouldn't be affected by the world lighting. it's supposed to be a map, after all. just set that camera to ignore the scene light or something like that, so i can still orient myself a bit in the dark
>those red guys are no fucking joke. they can also rotate in the middle of their power attacks (and even if they're finished with the animation - ie they extended their sword forward and are current not moving, the collider of the sword will still damage you ! very deadly)
>explored a bit, played for about 45mins. could use a bit more save spots in the early game, especially considering the first bit is a gauntlet, with many guys outside the camp, and many guys in the north road camps. i wouldn't mind a save outside the north road camp, for example.
i suck at these games, so take my gameplay thoughts with a massive grain of salt.
either way, excellent work. with some polish, you will have something very enjoyable on your hands. eager to see how it develops, and i will gladly see you next DD.
I want my special prize.
https://files.catbox.moe/zq7j7w.webm
ladies and gentlemen, patricians and plebeians: we have a victor.
great hero, you have unlocked the OST for yourself and everyone else. included in the latest build.
Sweet.
Okay, going to give this a thorough look this time.
Chest at the camp seems a bit hard to trigger.
Love the music, it feels really appropriate, if you have made this you are a genius, if not, you have good taste.
Character menu looks a bit confusing, I think it's the color of the text and the background image rather than the information presented.
Shield clips through the character head while running.
I would make the text which pops up when you are near a character and the prompts to open/take something a lot bigger.
Night is perhaps a bit too dark.
Using the arrows to change gear feels unintuitive when you use both the mouse and wasd at the same time, perhaps put in on 1234 or something instead.
I could not find the northern wall key… so I clipped through the gate with a horse.
Combat feels good and seems complicated, it's very hard to judge it at this point as I am guessing equipment and leveling will make a great impact later on in production.
Trees made the game stutter for me.
Lightning guy killed me. I will give this another shot later today.
the music is my own yes. that is a huge compliment coming from you. thank you
i am just now pushing out a new build addressing several of these things!!
thank you for sharing your observations. i agree with you and all will be addressed in due time.
congrats on your game, it is quite an expansive achievement.
I honestly assumed the music either came from some pack or was submissioned, it is actually extremely well done. You need to make it available somewhere so I can listen to it while I work.
i'm floored, music is something i cherish so much. i'll include some free ost mp3 folders in the next build just for you !
I really appreciate that, I will recommend bandcamp to you as well. Easy, you can make your music free if you want to and it's both streamable and downloadable.
This has great promise! Cool setting and idea, but uuhh no orbs..?
Seems to be pretty early in development, although there is a lot of stuff already, so I'll try to keep it pretty brief because there's almost an overwhelming amount of little janky things to point out and fix. I think you are aware of pretty much all of it already so.
Backspace for menu not escape? Very odd.
The "press to use" text is very hard to see.
I clipped through a palisade gate with a horse.
Sprinting isn't in the list of controls.
Mouse2 doesn't toggle cursor, sometimes (like entering a new area) it shows the cursor and you have to bring up the menu and close it again to remove it.
Ambient bird sounds are pretty loud.
Changing lock on targets by moving the mouse around while locked on would be nice.
Various lighting issues (like shadows being way too dark) and the grass can look pretty awkward:
Stealth kill did no damage once.
Maybe its stat-based but enemies don't seem to flinch when using charge attack which is strange and makes it pretty useless.
Putting points into vitality lowered my HP?
https://files.catbox.moe/xfedor.webm
Pressed some buttons and got this screen, I guess its some debug thing?
I really hope you keep working on the game, its even got horse riding!
Hey Vita, glad to see you back after setting down Samsara. I tried to play the game, but was having issues moving around. WASD would only sort of wiggle my guy forward a little bit at a time. If I got clear of any obstacles, holding W would eventually get him moving. But then hitting A or D would make him stop, and make the camera zoom in. Not sure what the issues was, the framerate seemed fine and everything.
heya clyde!! nice to hear from you and thanks for trying to play!... that is bizarre, i have not encountered such a bug in all my playtesting, and couldn't seem to replicate. is this with the latest build (12)?
i really hope you get a chance to play and i really look forward to playing the latest version of necrovale!... i must say, your thoughtful comments on samsara really had a big impact on me and ultimately led me to creating this new game. so i especially hope you can get a chance to play a working version! !
When downloading this game I didn't expect to find myself in a soulslike fight with a lighting knight.
After reloading a save the northen gate was locked and I had to phase through by jumping on horseback
Not my cup of tea tbh