This is going to sound crazy, but I think you should edit your dialogue and give the characters fake historical accents and some fantasy flair.
You look ready! It is a strange feeling to be sending you off to danger as your sworn bodyguard… Take care not to ruin the hide though. Lord Woadstrider could craft a fine piece of armor from such a tough one.
Becomes:
Ye seem ready, princeling, tis a strange feeling taeh be sending you off tha´ battle as your sworn protector. Take care not tha´ ruin the hide, lad. Lord Woadstrider could craft aeh mighty piece of armor from such a tough beast.
The graphics on the missions are very nice and I appreciate all the animations. I get what you meant with “warcraft3” now, similar map structure, I think. It has been many years since I played that game.
requests:
Make a pretty textbox and make it look like wood paneling with some artisan borders.
Put the controls and such in the description of your project, I am stupid and forgot them immediately
Consider using right mouse click instead of left for movement.
Small text popups, like speechbubbles, over characters in mission maps. “These foul hounds shall taste my blade!”
Just make the camera follow you, and keep the wasd if you want to look ahead a bit.
Not entirely sure if this is a good idea, but what if clicking on an enemy repeatedly while you are engaged in combat deals a very minor amount of damage? Could possibly be fun.
This needs “game of thrones-like” 80s synthesizer music.
Instead of picking up drops by clicking they should be sucked in with a satisfying noise. “Aha, this eve we shall feast on the spoils of war! DONG bell sound."
Bugs:
Game crashed while I was fighting the bats in mission 1.
It gets a bit fucky when you have a large amount of troops and some of them get stuck on trees.
Game crashed in mission 2 as well, while “chewbacca” was part of the combat.
Game crashed as mission 2 was finishing, this might not be stable enough yet if you want people to get engaged in testing.
Thoughts:
That glow-up when you go from one prince hunting in the woods to the big ass gang bout to fuck shit up.
You are definitely on to something cool, but you need to make this more stable, otherwise testing it will be hell for other people.
Regarding the writing, this is a fun idea. I've been easing into this by trying to make a distinction between the commoners and nobility with Anglish / Norman vocabularies. Some Thee's, Thy's and Thou's would be pretty fun too in the style of Dark Souls. I'll experiment with this next time I'm writing dialogue.
I am glad you like the animations.
Regarding these requests:
I do plan on overhauling the visuals, I'd like to go for something a little more like fire emblem meets dungeon siege. I don't want to go particularly desaturated though, since the bright colours make my neurons go brr.
The camera controls seem to be a sticking point for many people, I am contemplating solutions. It is a thorny problem because of the hybrid RTS/RPG nature of the game. For the dungeon crawling sequences the camera lock is preferable, but for the mass combat sequences you will definitely want a traditional RTS camera. I liked the idea of pressing space to toggle a camera lock on the prince. I also think maybe a zoom in/out function would make it a little easier on people as well. I shall continue to meditate upon this.
Regarding speech bubbles and sound effects, I plan on having some "order confirmation" effects, as seen in warcraft/starcraft. This is essentially what you were talking about, but with audio in the stead of speech bubbles. I'd also like to have some warcries as you see in Total War, so there's a nice din of battle when the camera is panned over.
I was considering making the entire magic system based upon riddles, poems, & songs, (I suppose it already is if I just say the spell books are songbooks, and add singing sound effects for each spell) and having morale mechanics based around standard bearers and marching music, but I haven't implemented those ideas yet. These ideas are currently in the "probably not going to be included in the first release" pile unless I find some awesome musicians to collaborate with.
On the music front, I've been listening to Electromedieval playlists (it is quite hard to find good ones however), Wardruna/Amon Amarth/Corvus Corax, and the Dune & Mechanicus Soundtracks while coding, for inspiration. I'll happily add the game of thrones soundtrack to the rotation and see how I feel.
I'm also big fan of mass bagpipes.
The bugs have been driving me nuts. I spent the past week, about 20% of the total time I've spent on this project, polishing it up to be nice and stable for testers, and never came across any of these. I even set up a Windows partition on my Mac to test in that environment. I must be subconsciously playing in a fashion that "avoids the skeletons" so to speak.
Did you play the version I uploaded last night? I suppose you might not know, since I've been deleting the old versions as I upload the hotfixes. I'll start including version numbers. I'm open to feedback on how to better test my game for stability before handing it over to testers.
I lol'd at the "glow up" comment.
Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions, it is motivating to see your enthusiasm
I experienced a few crashes. Not sure what exactly caused them I was just walking or fighting and suddenly the window closes. My character also get stuck on enemies/terrain quite often.
Also I'm assuming they're just placeholders but the dad being palette swapped Vigarde is very strange, same with the rest of the recolored/asset bashed FE sprites but that one just stood out the most.
I don't really feel like I got a good feel for how the game actually plays at all from the first mission since you just have one guy, but I'm assuming that's the end of the demo since it quits out when you return to the boat.
I think I've now fixed the crashes with combat and completing the level. Regarding the pathfinding issues, I'll add that to my todos.
I used a very nice tool called FireEmblemCharacterCreator to kit bash the FE GBA sprites. They are indeed placeholders, I find it a lot easier to work on my games when the placeholders are a bit more high-fidelity. I do quite like the Fire Emblem GBA art style so I'll probably go for something along those lines for the final release. I'd even like to get some sprites that invoke that FE GBA sprite feel, but animated as you might see in a game like Ultima Online for isometric movement.
I made three levels for the demo. The second level gives you command of an army to play around with the formation movement and controls. The third level is a poison swamp that plays a bit more like a Dungeon Siege level with a small party of 3 characters. I was experimenting with some different level designs to get a feel for what was fun and what wasn't.
I'm quite disappointed nobody was able to make it to those levels, as the first level was really just meant to quickly familiarize people with the base mechanics before going into what I considered to be the more interesting mechanics of mass combat and party management...
Oh well, maybe next demo day.
In any case, I appreciate you taking the time to play my game and provide feedback.
The first problem I encountered was that my monitor's resolution (native 1440 x 900) was too small to display the entire screen. I managed to partially fix that by setting my resolution to 1920 x 1080, and even that wasn't quite large enough (cut off the bottom of the mission description, and could only see part of the formation command panel), but it was enough to start the game.
The other problem was that the game would keep crashing. I'm not sure what caused the crashes, though I was always in combat when a crash occurred.
Moving on from bugs, I found it mildly irritating that the prince would rush enemies to attack them, even right after I had given an order. Having melee units move to engage the enemy on their own is great, but only if they were idle beforehand. Ordering the prince to move, only for him to charge the nearest enemy right after I give an order, repeatedly, is annoying.
Maybe I just have an unusually large monitor here, I suppose it is pretty large. None the less, I've just gone through and refactored all the UI for 1440x900 resolution and re-uploaded it. I zoomed the camera out a bit as well, since with a screen that small it felt a bit too zoomed in.
Very peculiar about the crashing during combat. Had you switched around the gear at all? I haven't locked down the equipment slots yet, so I could imagine if you equipped a weapon as armour, or armour as a shield, something could go awry. The icons in the top row may not be very clear I suppose. The first row is Weapon - Shield/Torch - Armour.
Thanks for the feedback on the movement. I've got the default move command working as an "Attack Move" command, but perhaps it would be better to move that to a hotkey as seen in games like Starcraft.
Thanks for the new build, I can see the whole screen now. Here's a log of all the times the game crashed:
Aggroed the skeletons, ended up using a fireball at point-blank range, reduced self to 0 hp before the game crashed.
Fighting the wolf (it drops a wolf hide at least, the sprite looks like more like a moose), was getting my butt kicked, game crashed after using my third potion (I may have died here, not sure).
Defeated the wolf and the boar, returned to the ship, game crashed after I clicked the Complete Mission button. (This happened twice)
Now that I've "completed" the first mission, some thoughts:
I'd prefer that the inventory window was attached to the camera rather than the unit. Or at least, I'd prefer to never have to move the camera to view the entire inventory window.
Dunno how this would work out when there are more party members, but I'd like a notification for when equipment runs out of durability or a tome runs out of magic, as opposed to checking equipment after each fight.
It does look a bit like a moose... Perhaps some she-wolf came across an especially handsome moose? I'm sure her father was disappointed.
I believe I've resolved the bugs with the game crashing when the prince is slain and when the mission is completed, and I've just re-uploaded a new version.
Regarding the inventory, I considered having it fold out from the character's portrait, but it becomes somewhat difficult to swap items between party members when handling it this way. It's especially a nuisance if you're trying to re-equip an entire formation of men, which is why I went with attaching the inventory to the unit. Such a formation still must be spread out for this to work though, so I'll probably have to contemplate a better solution on this front.
Regarding equipment durability & charge indicators, that's a great idea. Perhaps I'll add some indicators on the character portraits and sound effects for "weapon dulled", "shield broken", "armour broken", and "tome depleted" when I add sound.
Comments
I recorded some feedback for you. You can find it at
https://mega.nz/folder/WQ91HBxL#X4-j8Mj7H30Ai3aevWFEmA
This is going to sound crazy, but I think you should edit your dialogue and give the characters fake historical accents and some fantasy flair.
You look ready! It is a strange feeling to be sending you off to danger as your sworn bodyguard… Take care not to ruin the hide though. Lord Woadstrider could craft a fine piece of armor from such a tough one.
Becomes:
Ye seem ready, princeling, tis a strange feeling taeh be sending you off tha´ battle as your sworn protector. Take care not tha´ ruin the hide, lad. Lord Woadstrider could craft aeh mighty piece of armor from such a tough beast.
The graphics on the missions are very nice and I appreciate all the animations. I get what you meant with “warcraft3” now, similar map structure, I think. It has been many years since I played that game.
requests:
Bugs:
Thoughts:
Hey Hobror, nice to see you. Thanks for playing.
Regarding the writing, this is a fun idea. I've been easing into this by trying to make a distinction between the commoners and nobility with Anglish / Norman vocabularies. Some Thee's, Thy's and Thou's would be pretty fun too in the style of Dark Souls. I'll experiment with this next time I'm writing dialogue.
I am glad you like the animations.
Regarding these requests:
The bugs have been driving me nuts. I spent the past week, about 20% of the total time I've spent on this project, polishing it up to be nice and stable for testers, and never came across any of these. I even set up a Windows partition on my Mac to test in that environment. I must be subconsciously playing in a fashion that "avoids the skeletons" so to speak.
Did you play the version I uploaded last night? I suppose you might not know, since I've been deleting the old versions as I upload the hotfixes. I'll start including version numbers. I'm open to feedback on how to better test my game for stability before handing it over to testers.
I lol'd at the "glow up" comment.
Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions, it is motivating to see your enthusiasm
I am not sure which version I played, Ill give it another shot during the week. Busy working through my own bug/request list at the moment.
Hello,
I experienced a few crashes. Not sure what exactly caused them I was just walking or fighting and suddenly the window closes. My character also get stuck on enemies/terrain quite often.
Also I'm assuming they're just placeholders but the dad being palette swapped Vigarde is very strange, same with the rest of the recolored/asset bashed FE sprites but that one just stood out the most.
I don't really feel like I got a good feel for how the game actually plays at all from the first mission since you just have one guy, but I'm assuming that's the end of the demo since it quits out when you return to the boat.
Hey Kurikaeshi, thanks for playing.
I think I've now fixed the crashes with combat and completing the level. Regarding the pathfinding issues, I'll add that to my todos.
I used a very nice tool called FireEmblemCharacterCreator to kit bash the FE GBA sprites. They are indeed placeholders, I find it a lot easier to work on my games when the placeholders are a bit more high-fidelity. I do quite like the Fire Emblem GBA art style so I'll probably go for something along those lines for the final release. I'd even like to get some sprites that invoke that FE GBA sprite feel, but animated as you might see in a game like Ultima Online for isometric movement.
I made three levels for the demo. The second level gives you command of an army to play around with the formation movement and controls. The third level is a poison swamp that plays a bit more like a Dungeon Siege level with a small party of 3 characters. I was experimenting with some different level designs to get a feel for what was fun and what wasn't.
I'm quite disappointed nobody was able to make it to those levels, as the first level was really just meant to quickly familiarize people with the base mechanics before going into what I considered to be the more interesting mechanics of mass combat and party management...
Oh well, maybe next demo day.
In any case, I appreciate you taking the time to play my game and provide feedback.
I didn't get very far.
The first problem I encountered was that my monitor's resolution (native 1440 x 900) was too small to display the entire screen. I managed to partially fix that by setting my resolution to 1920 x 1080, and even that wasn't quite large enough (cut off the bottom of the mission description, and could only see part of the formation command panel), but it was enough to start the game.
The other problem was that the game would keep crashing. I'm not sure what caused the crashes, though I was always in combat when a crash occurred.
Moving on from bugs, I found it mildly irritating that the prince would rush enemies to attack them, even right after I had given an order. Having melee units move to engage the enemy on their own is great, but only if they were idle beforehand. Ordering the prince to move, only for him to charge the nearest enemy right after I give an order, repeatedly, is annoying.
Hey Zorch, thanks for playing.
Maybe I just have an unusually large monitor here, I suppose it is pretty large. None the less, I've just gone through and refactored all the UI for 1440x900 resolution and re-uploaded it. I zoomed the camera out a bit as well, since with a screen that small it felt a bit too zoomed in.
Very peculiar about the crashing during combat. Had you switched around the gear at all? I haven't locked down the equipment slots yet, so I could imagine if you equipped a weapon as armour, or armour as a shield, something could go awry. The icons in the top row may not be very clear I suppose. The first row is Weapon - Shield/Torch - Armour.
Thanks for the feedback on the movement. I've got the default move command working as an "Attack Move" command, but perhaps it would be better to move that to a hotkey as seen in games like Starcraft.
Thanks for the new build, I can see the whole screen now. Here's a log of all the times the game crashed:
Now that I've "completed" the first mission, some thoughts:
It does look a bit like a moose... Perhaps some she-wolf came across an especially handsome moose? I'm sure her father was disappointed.
I believe I've resolved the bugs with the game crashing when the prince is slain and when the mission is completed, and I've just re-uploaded a new version.
Regarding the inventory, I considered having it fold out from the character's portrait, but it becomes somewhat difficult to swap items between party members when handling it this way. It's especially a nuisance if you're trying to re-equip an entire formation of men, which is why I went with attaching the inventory to the unit. Such a formation still must be spread out for this to work though, so I'll probably have to contemplate a better solution on this front.
Regarding equipment durability & charge indicators, that's a great idea. Perhaps I'll add some indicators on the character portraits and sound effects for "weapon dulled", "shield broken", "armour broken", and "tome depleted" when I add sound.
Thanks again for your feedback.