actions sometimes take too long to execute - characters will have their hand with the magenta particle effect, but the game seems to halt while still animating. this is especially annoying in the enemy turn. my laptop is old and weak, so maybe its doing some `thinking` in a background thread ?
dialogue should be a bit slower, preferably only advance if i press something
the game seems high detail enough that i could zoom in a bit to see the characters and demons better, or even let me see the demon models if i double click or click on the portrait
there is a bit too much of a tutorial dump in the area with the buildings and a green background. it seems that a lot is taught all at once.
so i kinda liked the game, but having only 3 actions means that more people makes the battles harder, which is very strange. this is especially strange considering that the first 3 available missions require me to take 7 or 8 characters already. the only game i played in this genre was Wakfu and i don`t really see why this mechanic could be making the game more interesting
i liked the aesthethic of the hell/battlefield, but i can see it becoming boring over time
the player characters could use a bit more of identity in their models so i can identify more easily what they can do...
game is a bit too loud, i saw it that playing the game sounds should peak at the -6db in the audio bus scale, i have been using this rule and it seems to work for consistency with other sounds in the system
i wish i could attack and then move
units quite often get stuck with the run animation
i think the game could start with easier missions, or perhaps losing/sacrificing units is kinda expected ?
so i kinda liked the game, but having only 3 actions means that more people makes the battles harder, which is very strange. this is especially strange considering that the first 3 available missions require me to take 7 or 8 characters already.
Yeah, it is kind of counter-intuitive that bringing more dudes makes for a harder mission. Just something I'll need to acclimate players to. I do think I'll lower the initial minimum and maximum squad sizes though, as a way of reducing difficulty.
units quite often get stuck with the run animation
I get that bug rarely, but I can never consistently reproduce it. It'll get fixed when I rework the unit animator.
I like the combo of into the breach + XCOM. For the amount of depth with abilities and management stuff, the tutorial does a good job of explaining the core stuff right off the bat and it's pretty intuitive if you've played either of those games before. The 3 order limit places a good constraint on being smart with your turns, and the variety of moves gives a lot of options for approaching the fight. That being said having the full 7 guys on the field at once feels like a bit much; it seems like you can cheese it by just bringing 3-4 guys and moving out of danger each turn - without immovable buildings like into the breach the number of things you have to protect is just limited to your team. These kinds of games can be UI heavy but the shortcuts and clean menus made things clear. Stylistically I think the art + fonts + color can be done better; the target selection/move indicator colors clash with the dark red everywhere and a more "space age" font would probably look better. Would be interested to see how the 7 deadly sin theme fits in with the different armies, are you planning on having more unit types between them?
That being said having the full 7 guys on the field at once feels like a bit much; it seems like you can cheese it by just bringing 3-4 guys and moving out of danger each turn - without immovable buildings like into the breach the number of things you have to protect is just limited to your team.
Yeah, I force the player to bring a minimum number of guys on each mission so they can't cheese it, and the units you give orders to have to protect the units that you couldn't give orders to. I'm still on the lookout for ways to incentivize the player to bring more guys than they have to outside of giving out more exp.
Would be interested to see how the 7 deadly sin theme fits in with the different armies, are you planning on having more unit types between them?
That's the goal. My priorities are (from will-be-implemented to would-be-nice):
Each army gets a unique demon lord.
Armies have different spawn weights of various types of enemy.
Each army gets a number of units unique to that army.
Each army has a distinct visual theme for their units.
This was fun! I played up to and killed a demon lord, and took heavy casualities. Pretty punishing but didn't seem too hard, although maybe you could take it even a bit slower after the tutorial. Feels like XCom meets Into The Breach. Are any of the assets placeholders or do you consider it set?
Tutorial was fine.
The sound when changing volume is very grating, please change it. Didn't like the sound after selecting an ability much either.
Seems kind of odd that there's water inside the rifts but alright.
Alt-tabbing makes the enemy turn order display stuck, tapping alt again fixes it. Does it matter? Dunno.
Inactive skills being in an "Inventory" feels pretty odd, should probably be named something else.
Game looks pretty deep with a bunch of different skills and things to do.
Some dialogue boxes go away too fast.
Fights are really fun with a lot of different options to you, good job. Seems like they will get very crowded later though.
Are any of the assets placeholders or do you consider it set?
I'd LIKE to replace almost everything with better assets, but well...
The strategy background buildings are definitely getting replaced at some point, as are the unit weapon props, ability effects, and all of the sound effects.
Cool premise and the strong start in the tutorial. That opening mission felt nicely crafted, with clear objectives and a good learning curve. I just wish more of the main missions had that same level of care. Once you're past the tutorial, the difficulty spikes hard almost to a punishing degree.
For how specific and unique the units were they seemed very frail and disposable. This may be a skill issue on my part but some of them seemed doomed to death from the start of the map. I feel as though I may have been softlocked due to too many KIA in the missions. A lot of them died before I even used their abilities once, which is a shame because of the whole deal with upgrading them during the base sections.
For a menu heavy RPG such as this the UI could be a lot more responsive in terms of the little things. Mouse over and click sounds and animations. It was a pain to have the skill buttons on the bottom left of the screen when the units are in the middle, some kind of popup around the character might've helped to better assess all my choices. Especially since it's most likely the first and only time I will get to use their abilities.
The combat screen worked well, but visually hard to parse. I can't tell who is on what team. I'm not sure if there were different types of enemies, as they look the same.
Thanks for playing! Seriously, thanks posting that video of you getting brutalized, it is very helpful.
For how specific and unique the units were they seemed very frail and disposable. This may be a skill issue on my part but some of them seemed doomed to death from the start of the map. I feel as though I may have been softlocked due to too many KIA in the missions. A lot of them died before I even used their abilities once, which is a shame because of the whole deal with upgrading them during the base sections.
My takeaway from your playthrough was that you consistently made plays that damaged the enemy over minimizing damage to your units, whether that was from moving your units out of the way, pushing attacking enemies out of position, or killing attacking enemies before they strike. I may add a section to the tutorial that clues the player into (what I consider) basic tactics. Of course, being familiar with what all of the abilities do is also really helpful for giving good orders, and the difficulty curve should probably account for that.
For a menu heavy RPG such as this the UI could be a lot more responsive in terms of the little things. Mouse over and click sounds and animations.
SOON(TM)
It was a pain to have the skill buttons on the bottom left of the screen when the units are in the middle, some kind of popup around the character might've helped to better assess all my choices. It was a pain to have the skill buttons on the bottom left of the screen when the units are in the middle, some kind of popup around the character might've helped to better assess all my choices.
Given that I use the hotkeys nearly exclusively at this point, I agree. I'll see what I can whip up in the upcoming UI refactor.
The combat screen worked well, but visually hard to parse. I can't tell who is on what team. I'm not sure if there were different types of enemies, as they look the same.
Comments
played the linux build
actions sometimes take too long to execute - characters will have their hand with the magenta particle effect, but the game seems to halt while still animating. this is especially annoying in the enemy turn. my laptop is old and weak, so maybe its doing some `thinking` in a background thread ?
dialogue should be a bit slower, preferably only advance if i press something
the game seems high detail enough that i could zoom in a bit to see the characters and demons better, or even let me see the demon models if i double click or click on the portrait
there is a bit too much of a tutorial dump in the area with the buildings and a green background. it seems that a lot is taught all at once.
so i kinda liked the game, but having only 3 actions means that more people makes the battles harder, which is very strange. this is especially strange considering that the first 3 available missions require me to take 7 or 8 characters already. the only game i played in this genre was Wakfu and i don`t really see why this mechanic could be making the game more interesting
i liked the aesthethic of the hell/battlefield, but i can see it becoming boring over time
the player characters could use a bit more of identity in their models so i can identify more easily what they can do...
game is a bit too loud, i saw it that playing the game sounds should peak at the -6db in the audio bus scale, i have been using this rule and it seems to work for consistency with other sounds in the system
i wish i could attack and then move
units quite often get stuck with the run animation
i think the game could start with easier missions, or perhaps losing/sacrificing units is kinda expected ?
Thanks for playing!
Yeah, it is kind of counter-intuitive that bringing more dudes makes for a harder mission. Just something I'll need to acclimate players to. I do think I'll lower the initial minimum and maximum squad sizes though, as a way of reducing difficulty.
I get that bug rarely, but I can never consistently reproduce it. It'll get fixed when I rework the unit animator.
I like the combo of into the breach + XCOM. For the amount of depth with abilities and management stuff, the tutorial does a good job of explaining the core stuff right off the bat and it's pretty intuitive if you've played either of those games before. The 3 order limit places a good constraint on being smart with your turns, and the variety of moves gives a lot of options for approaching the fight. That being said having the full 7 guys on the field at once feels like a bit much; it seems like you can cheese it by just bringing 3-4 guys and moving out of danger each turn - without immovable buildings like into the breach the number of things you have to protect is just limited to your team. These kinds of games can be UI heavy but the shortcuts and clean menus made things clear. Stylistically I think the art + fonts + color can be done better; the target selection/move indicator colors clash with the dark red everywhere and a more "space age" font would probably look better. Would be interested to see how the 7 deadly sin theme fits in with the different armies, are you planning on having more unit types between them?
Thanks for playing!
Yeah, I force the player to bring a minimum number of guys on each mission so they can't cheese it, and the units you give orders to have to protect the units that you couldn't give orders to. I'm still on the lookout for ways to incentivize the player to bring more guys than they have to outside of giving out more exp.
That's the goal. My priorities are (from will-be-implemented to would-be-nice):
This was fun! I played up to and killed a demon lord, and took heavy casualities. Pretty punishing but didn't seem too hard, although maybe you could take it even a bit slower after the tutorial. Feels like XCom meets Into The Breach. Are any of the assets placeholders or do you consider it set?
Tutorial was fine.
The sound when changing volume is very grating, please change it. Didn't like the sound after selecting an ability much either.
Seems kind of odd that there's water inside the rifts but alright.
Alt-tabbing makes the enemy turn order display stuck, tapping alt again fixes it. Does it matter? Dunno.
Inactive skills being in an "Inventory" feels pretty odd, should probably be named something else.
Game looks pretty deep with a bunch of different skills and things to do.
Some dialogue boxes go away too fast.
Fights are really fun with a lot of different options to you, good job. Seems like they will get very crowded later though.
Minor things:
Thank for playing!
I'd LIKE to replace almost everything with better assets, but well...
The strategy background buildings are definitely getting replaced at some point, as are the unit weapon props, ability effects, and all of the sound effects.
Heh that's kind of what I figured. I think just more different ability effects would go a long way.
For how specific and unique the units were they seemed very frail and disposable. This may be a skill issue on my part but some of them seemed doomed to death from the start of the map. I feel as though I may have been softlocked due to too many KIA in the missions. A lot of them died before I even used their abilities once, which is a shame because of the whole deal with upgrading them during the base sections.
For a menu heavy RPG such as this the UI could be a lot more responsive in terms of the little things. Mouse over and click sounds and animations. It was a pain to have the skill buttons on the bottom left of the screen when the units are in the middle, some kind of popup around the character might've helped to better assess all my choices. Especially since it's most likely the first and only time I will get to use their abilities.
The combat screen worked well, but visually hard to parse. I can't tell who is on what team. I'm not sure if there were different types of enemies, as they look the same.
Thanks for playing! Seriously, thanks posting that video of you getting brutalized, it is very helpful.
My takeaway from your playthrough was that you consistently made plays that damaged the enemy over minimizing damage to your units, whether that was from moving your units out of the way, pushing attacking enemies out of position, or killing attacking enemies before they strike. I may add a section to the tutorial that clues the player into (what I consider) basic tactics. Of course, being familiar with what all of the abilities do is also really helpful for giving good orders, and the difficulty curve should probably account for that.
SOON(TM)
Given that I use the hotkeys nearly exclusively at this point, I agree. I'll see what I can whip up in the upcoming UI refactor.
Noted.
New this build: