Art and character design is great. The “pathways” in the perks menu are not obvious (they blend in with the background) which made it difficult to tell what was available – I ended up having to just click on them until one got accepted. I didn’t really want it and I couldn’t undo it. At first, it was difficult to tell what was happening in combat. It seemed as if enemies would just do attacks, they’d move on, and I didn’t really have time to tell what had happened. I didn’t learn until later that you could scroll through the characters’ status and last actions in the lower-left panel during combat. Also I was frustrated that I mistakenly pressed the “Continue” button while I was on a Hallowed Ground stage before I had selected my stat increases. It wasn’t clear to me what “Continue” meant; I guess I wish it had prompted me: “You have unallocated stats, are you sure you want to leave the Hallowed Ground?” or something like that.
And that really sums up what I have to say about this demo: Very cool art and setting, combat was pretty fun, but trying to figure out how to properly use certain menus and features is quite frustrating, especially since there’s no going back once you’ve made a whoopsie.
Thank you for the feedback. I've been thinking about re-doing the perks screen for a while now as it's a mess under the hood so I'll consider some high contrast colors as per your suggestion. The placing should be more intuitive too.
Funnily enough, the warning prompt you suggested was a feature in the DD48 version, but it was removed because I thought it limited choice since some players might want to save their points for later or something. I should definitely add a sound of visual to indicate when unspent skill or perk points are available. That being said, you can always save and quit from the map screen and access the stats menu from the orb in the main hub if you failed to do so at the rest area.
Another feature it seems you sorta missed were the game speed controls, but that's on me. A button on screen to control that has been on my to do list for a while so for the time being the feature is only accessible by pressing Q/E in the keyboard. The tutorial for keyboard shortcuts is available at any time from the pause menu, but I guess it's not intuitive enough that the game can be paused outside of combat by pressing ESC or right click.
Love the battle system. Took me half a battle to understand the meaning of running across the screen but that's quite clever.
Navigating the ui is a bit confusing. It would be nice to have on-screen buttons that advance dialogue or go in and out of sections of the game. Right now every time I got to a new page I feel like I'm hunting for the right place to click. Sometimes "esc" leaves what I'm looking at, but sometimes not? And sometimes it's "space" to advance dialogue but sometimes it's clicking the talking person.
Art is beautiful, although sometimes low-res and sometimes hi-res?
I like your idea of adding a explicit button to advance dialogue. Usually clicking anywhere is enough with the main hub being the exception. Another function which can only be accessed through the keyboard is the speed up/down setting which is something I would like to turn into a button in the screen as well.
I'm glad you liked the art. Nothing is high resolution whatsoever so I'm afraid that might just be inconsistent quality. This project has been a learning experience for me and the visuals are a part of that.
Really nice piece. Aside from having all the basics down, having good UI, tooltips, an ABS combat system that tells you when it is your turn better than bars filling up, it also has an intriguing premise. Pretty damn good.
i have beaten the demo all the way through and saw the cutscene. i like to be restating the same feedback as last demo, but i have to mention again that the setting, writing, atmosphere and direction is absolutely stellar. when people talk about soul, this is what they mean. this game is SOULFUL. if you make it available for purchase i'll be getting it day one. don't change a single thing about the story or how you're writing it.
so now that's out of the way, here's the current demo feedback
there's still a couple of UI shenanigans. the main thing i noticed is on the level up screen. if i mouse over a stat, the information pops up. if i mouse away, the info stays. small things like that tend to build up and become annoying. another example, you gain perks every 2 levels. it would be interesting to have a visual indication every level you have it available, instead of relying on the player being clever.
sometimes in combat, if the enemy (such as the formless wheel guy) have a complex attack, the bottom left descriptions will get cut off. I have no idea what some of the formless skills do since i couldn't read it all. there's also a blue line at the top of the screen that i don't remember before. i'm playing on a fullscreen resolution, and my normal resolution is 1920x1080. i did play it in windowed mode last time, though.
the puzzles were interesting. the first one (directions in the maze) was interesting. took me a bit, but I got it. Is the result randomly generated? i'd hope so.
the second puzzle (the pentagram) was a bit harder. i thought i visited every square, but i still failed and had the Bee UI. i'm glad i failed, that was a fun challenge. i'd also turn the skill names into Bee-speak, since at this point players will know by heart what 'box' does what.
the difficulty was perhaps a bit too low. i think the hardest part of the demo was playing as the other team, dealing with the multiple waves. otherwise, everything felt too easy. i think this was a case of the player being too strong instead of the enemies being too weak, if that makes sense. i usually pump all points into either a main stat, or speed. Dino boy usually acts twice as much as everyone else and puts the team on his back. perhaps the enemies require a buff? some enemies felt threatening (the taurus archer was really tough), but many others were just pushovers. it also sometimes depends on the enemy intentions. it reminds me of how last DD it felt difficult since the enemies would sometimes focusfire a character down in 1-2 turns. this never happened here, and it felt like the damage was always evenly spread, which is what makes it easier. never had to use the protection skill, if that tells you anything.
these are i think only minor issues. the game really is stellar and is by far my favorite DD entry. all the new content was interesting and high quality. it's surprising how fast you're able to make it. keep up the good work and i hope to see you in DD50
also, if you have a high-quality/high-resolution image of your cover image, i'd love to save it
I know I haven't paid enough attention to the UI even though the game is so menu heavy. Also, the issue with text getting cut off will only become a larger as enemies become more complex near the end game. I must address it at some point.
The maze puzzle is indeed random. At first I wanted to make it a Lost Woods reference but then I decided that was lame and stopped. The next one has multiple solutions but it's not that bad if you fail it.
On the topic of difficulty, balancing is hard, especially for the later levels. I'm not that concerned about this because I think unbalanced RPGs are still fun, but I will add harder enemies. The Taurus units in particular do something special which I want to use more often in the future.
Finally, if I had a high resolution cover I would post it, but I don't.
Comments
Hey Bakar, I know you saw the folder link in the thread, but here is the link to just your video:
https://mega.nz/file/WA02RDDS#01AclkOcs-RZdXuouaMrOKW29pjZnN1dj5Vxbj7P0kw
Art and character design is great. The “pathways” in the perks menu are not obvious (they blend in with the background) which made it difficult to tell what was available – I ended up having to just click on them until one got accepted. I didn’t really want it and I couldn’t undo it. At first, it was difficult to tell what was happening in combat. It seemed as if enemies would just do attacks, they’d move on, and I didn’t really have time to tell what had happened. I didn’t learn until later that you could scroll through the characters’ status and last actions in the lower-left panel during combat. Also I was frustrated that I mistakenly pressed the “Continue” button while I was on a Hallowed Ground stage before I had selected my stat increases. It wasn’t clear to me what “Continue” meant; I guess I wish it had prompted me: “You have unallocated stats, are you sure you want to leave the Hallowed Ground?” or something like that.
And that really sums up what I have to say about this demo: Very cool art and setting, combat was pretty fun, but trying to figure out how to properly use certain menus and features is quite frustrating, especially since there’s no going back once you’ve made a whoopsie.
Thank you for the feedback. I've been thinking about re-doing the perks screen for a while now as it's a mess under the hood so I'll consider some high contrast colors as per your suggestion. The placing should be more intuitive too.
Funnily enough, the warning prompt you suggested was a feature in the DD48 version, but it was removed because I thought it limited choice since some players might want to save their points for later or something. I should definitely add a sound of visual to indicate when unspent skill or perk points are available. That being said, you can always save and quit from the map screen and access the stats menu from the orb in the main hub if you failed to do so at the rest area.
Another feature it seems you sorta missed were the game speed controls, but that's on me. A button on screen to control that has been on my to do list for a while so for the time being the feature is only accessible by pressing Q/E in the keyboard. The tutorial for keyboard shortcuts is available at any time from the pause menu, but I guess it's not intuitive enough that the game can be paused outside of combat by pressing ESC or right click.
Love the battle system. Took me half a battle to understand the meaning of running across the screen but that's quite clever.
Navigating the ui is a bit confusing. It would be nice to have on-screen buttons that advance dialogue or go in and out of sections of the game. Right now every time I got to a new page I feel like I'm hunting for the right place to click. Sometimes "esc" leaves what I'm looking at, but sometimes not? And sometimes it's "space" to advance dialogue but sometimes it's clicking the talking person.
Art is beautiful, although sometimes low-res and sometimes hi-res?
Thank you for trying the game.
I like your idea of adding a explicit button to advance dialogue. Usually clicking anywhere is enough with the main hub being the exception. Another function which can only be accessed through the keyboard is the speed up/down setting which is something I would like to turn into a button in the screen as well.
I'm glad you liked the art. Nothing is high resolution whatsoever so I'm afraid that might just be inconsistent quality. This project has been a learning experience for me and the visuals are a part of that.
Really nice piece. Aside from having all the basics down, having good UI, tooltips, an ABS combat system that tells you when it is your turn better than bars filling up, it also has an intriguing premise. Pretty damn good.
Thank you for playing and your kind comment.
ahoy.
i have beaten the demo all the way through and saw the cutscene. i like to be restating the same feedback as last demo, but i have to mention again that the setting, writing, atmosphere and direction is absolutely stellar. when people talk about soul, this is what they mean. this game is SOULFUL. if you make it available for purchase i'll be getting it day one. don't change a single thing about the story or how you're writing it.
so now that's out of the way, here's the current demo feedback
there's still a couple of UI shenanigans. the main thing i noticed is on the level up screen. if i mouse over a stat, the information pops up. if i mouse away, the info stays. small things like that tend to build up and become annoying. another example, you gain perks every 2 levels. it would be interesting to have a visual indication every level you have it available, instead of relying on the player being clever.
sometimes in combat, if the enemy (such as the formless wheel guy) have a complex attack, the bottom left descriptions will get cut off. I have no idea what some of the formless skills do since i couldn't read it all. there's also a blue line at the top of the screen that i don't remember before. i'm playing on a fullscreen resolution, and my normal resolution is 1920x1080. i did play it in windowed mode last time, though.
the puzzles were interesting. the first one (directions in the maze) was interesting. took me a bit, but I got it. Is the result randomly generated? i'd hope so.
the second puzzle (the pentagram) was a bit harder. i thought i visited every square, but i still failed and had the Bee UI. i'm glad i failed, that was a fun challenge. i'd also turn the skill names into Bee-speak, since at this point players will know by heart what 'box' does what.
the difficulty was perhaps a bit too low. i think the hardest part of the demo was playing as the other team, dealing with the multiple waves. otherwise, everything felt too easy. i think this was a case of the player being too strong instead of the enemies being too weak, if that makes sense. i usually pump all points into either a main stat, or speed. Dino boy usually acts twice as much as everyone else and puts the team on his back. perhaps the enemies require a buff? some enemies felt threatening (the taurus archer was really tough), but many others were just pushovers. it also sometimes depends on the enemy intentions. it reminds me of how last DD it felt difficult since the enemies would sometimes focusfire a character down in 1-2 turns. this never happened here, and it felt like the damage was always evenly spread, which is what makes it easier. never had to use the protection skill, if that tells you anything.
these are i think only minor issues. the game really is stellar and is by far my favorite DD entry. all the new content was interesting and high quality. it's surprising how fast you're able to make it. keep up the good work and i hope to see you in DD50
also, if you have a high-quality/high-resolution image of your cover image, i'd love to save it
Thanks for playing, it means a lot.
I know I haven't paid enough attention to the UI even though the game is so menu heavy. Also, the issue with text getting cut off will only become a larger as enemies become more complex near the end game. I must address it at some point.
The maze puzzle is indeed random. At first I wanted to make it a Lost Woods reference but then I decided that was lame and stopped. The next one has multiple solutions but it's not that bad if you fail it.
On the topic of difficulty, balancing is hard, especially for the later levels. I'm not that concerned about this because I think unbalanced RPGs are still fun, but I will add harder enemies. The Taurus units in particular do something special which I want to use more often in the future.
Finally, if I had a high resolution cover I would post it, but I don't.