Nice demo, I like the environment art and creating an interesting atmosphere. PC controls are rough, but I can imagine it was designed with gamepad input in mind. I appreciate the effort you put into creating interactions with various NPCs.
MOSCA! in the tunnels, sometimes the next place you should go to can be hard to read. after defeating the first scorpio i almost went my way back up because i couldn't find how to progress katrina very easily blocks your way, easy to get stuck with her around. she should move out of my way when i walk towards her or maybe straight up remove collision with her most of my bugs were in common with everyone else. enemies very rarely managed to hit me, it's annoying having to lock on manually most importantly, there is a sizable delay between turns. you should make it as short as possible, it's a common annoyance with turn based games at the very least allow the player to press a button to skip to the next npc/enemy attack when one is done when i equipped my axe i became unable to use blade skills. it makes sense in hindsight but it was very annoying to realize it later. i love your style of dialogue, the characters always feel lively and fun!
Your feedback does echo a lot of the same issues other people had. At this point I'll have to nail a sign that reads "beware the pathfinding" to my wall.
I need to come up with more ways to subtly guide the player in the right direction. In particular, because I'll open up the environment more later. Currently the only indication that a tunnel is near are the wooden beams and the light rails.
I wasn't sure what to do with the skills if the player has the wrong weapon equipped. If they got unequipped automatically I think that would be annoying but maybe the problem will fix itself once there are more reasons to visit the stats screen.
-Canceling an Act/Attack also cancels the movement you made. In some cases that could be useful, but is overreaching by default. What I'd expect is just going back to the previous menu state.
-When making the fore wall invisible inside a building, like the smithy, denoting the shape of the doorway is nice so you don't walk into the wall like a dummy.
-I meet the bugs.
-I wish I could cancel out of the first layer of menus in combat so I can instead pan the camera to see the battle. I got into a fight while in a tunnel and I can't see any of the enemies.
-Blocking input while menu slide animations play is annoying. I want to be able to 'buffer' the inputs for the menuing or be able to press cancel and it immediately start reversing.
-I died to the big bug because I forgot about HP potions. Oddly enough, on respawn I was able to waltz in and take the sword without triggering the encounter. Oh looking at it again all the spiders respawned, at first I thought most of them were dead bodies.
-I can't seem to exit the tunnels, since the ladder takes me to the main menu.
New stuff is fun, combat is still a little lack luster though. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for playing. You actually reached the end of the demo. Next time I ought to have a message there but I don't even have a game over screen yet.
I hadn't thought about input buffering, that could be good. From the feedback I've received I think it would be safe to make things faster in general. I was afraid to do that before having some sort of tutorial and a proper combat journal.
There will be more consequences for losing a fight later, but I haven't quite figured out fights yet...
Also, there should be a doorway at the smithy just like in every other building. That is a bug so thanks for telling me.
- Walking noise is a little loud, also could maybe use some pitch shifting?
- I've played before, so I know I need to lock on first, but it'd be great if it locks on to start
- The characters are really funny and cute. Love the dialog
- Enemies sometimes attack but do no damage? Are they missing, or maybe a bug?
- I did use one healing spell, not sure if needed or note
- Would be cool if the Queen had special attacks
After play notes
I still love the atmosphere, characters and the lore that's getting hinted at here. I see in the comments you're dealing with lots of issues in the tactics engine, which I hope gets better. That's my main negative feedback is the enemies whiffing attacks. With that fixed, I think the combat would be a lot more challenging and fun.
Great progress! The crash on unequipping the armor didnt happen this time.
The initial fight after picking up the stick became way way easier, which is great for a tutorial. However, once that fight started the music stopped. I think i remember a real banger playing in battle last time, wish it played this time too. From this point the whole game had no music for me.
After waking up in bed in full armor (just like in real life), i stepped out of it and heard a lot of steps being spammed by the game. Probably some collision stuff?
The dialogue is great, but i only spoke to each NPC once. Next time i will annoy all of them at least twice. Its nice to have references to AG and some humor in it. The 2d illustrations are great too. Im still wondering about the skill system, which was already present in the last version. Hopefully this will be usable in the near future.
Not gonna talk about clunkyness, QoL or UX stuff, which seems already known. Keep it up!
I decided to alter the damage formula for weapons so strength is more significant. Melee damage should be higher across the board.
I removed the battle music for now because I'm not sure if heavy metal is adequate for a nightmare sequence. I'm behind on sound design for sure.
Wearing full armor in bed is something the protagonist would do. I think I know the source of the sound, it's because I'm missing a falling animation so it's playing the walking one instead. Animations are hard.
There will be skills next time, in fact, you can level up some skills already if you were to stall a fight forever with the ridiculous cheap healing spell, but only a madman would discover that. Either way, it's one of the few major systems that are missing from the game but now I have saving so it's coming soon.
Action selection UI disappeared, but seems like it still responds so stuff like moving around is possible.
Attacks just never seem to hit no matter what.
The guy on the right gets stuck on the campfire and continues walking for a couple seconds until it gives up. Probably needs to have some kind of pathfinding.
This has some great potential but there’s a few QoL things I’ve noticed immediately.
Running has this awkward momentum to it where it takes a noticeable amount of time to change direction compared to walking where you turn on a dime. It makes the animation look more goofy than it otherwise would, like you’re fumbling around on ice.
Dialog is revealed with some sort of easing so that you spend a long time on the first couple of words and then it speeds up. Definitely need to make that constant it’s really irritating. Otherwise, I like the dialog box, especially the golden borders. You just need something like a gradient or a pattern or some noise to fill in the main panel. Combine the borders with that everywhere in the UI and it should look super polished with little effort.
One minor thing is that I’m used to the cancel button being the sprint button rather than having a separate one for it entirely.
There’s a lot of transitional time in the combat, it’s not too bad right now with few enemies but if you’re fighting like ten dudes it’ll really drag to wait for their portrait to come up, walk over, wait a second, and then attack. You’ll either want sprint to speed the game up during this or make some option to do it more fluidly, like having the portrait ease in while the enemy is already moving. Probably keep the current way as the default though, you wouldn’t want somebody new to miss something important.
I only ever got hit once by an enemy, most of the time they would come in close but not line up their attacks properly and just end up whiffing. The camera also doesn’t pan over to show what they’re doing. I can get if you want to allow for some mystery in their moves but it would at least be good to move the camera to the nearest party member.
Would be good if you could pick movement while visualizing your attack at the same time. The collision is a bit buggy and you can easily commit to a move that won’t allow any hits.
At some point you’ll want to add controller support, shouldn’t be too hard with there already being keyboard controls only. Would also be really good to hide the mouse cursor if you can’t use it for anything. Preferably just set it to invisible.
I had to stop in the tunnels fighting three of the bugs because I had funneled them into a narrow passage that only two of them could hit Alexander through, so when the third one tried to line up an attack without hitting one of the other two he just kept yawing all the way to the right until he stopped and then the game soft-locked. Probably should just give them a timeout if they can’t figure out what move to make in time. This was also the only time any of the enemies could actually hit me.
This is very intriguing, I’m looking forward to seeing where you go with it. The Linux version worked fine, I don’t think any of my problems were to do with that.
Sadly, I'm very aware of a lot of the polish issues but the backlog for this project has been brutal. The problems with the enemy AI in particular keep piling on too. I've never seen enemies whiff attacks myself but other people have and that's concerning. Also, there is a timeout but it's not working correctly and that bothers me.
Implementing a save system was particularly important because at least this way the player can restart the level if something goes wrong.
The combat is a little faster than last time but I need to make a setting for it at some point because I do want to have large battles later on.
You also correctly predicted that I wish to implement gamepad controls at one point. Aiming the attack areas is way more precise with an analog stick.
Finally, thanks for the comments on the UI. I never know what to do with that.
Comments
Nice demo, I like the environment art and creating an interesting atmosphere. PC controls are rough, but I can imagine it was designed with gamepad input in mind. I appreciate the effort you put into creating interactions with various NPCs.
Good job and keep it up!
Thanks for playing.
I forgot to add the mule noises.
Found a huge issue. I got softlocked within the first 1 min of playing the game.
The AI gets stuck behind the bonfire and goes into a walk/wait loop
Thanks for playing.
It's a pathfinding issue that I overlooked.
You actually screencapped another bug I hadn't seen before too.
MOSCA!
in the tunnels, sometimes the next place you should go to can be hard to read. after defeating the first scorpio i almost went my way back up because i couldn't find how to progress
katrina very easily blocks your way, easy to get stuck with her around. she should move out of my way when i walk towards her
or maybe straight up remove collision with her
most of my bugs were in common with everyone else. enemies very rarely managed to hit me, it's annoying having to lock on manually
most importantly, there is a sizable delay between turns. you should make it as short as possible, it's a common annoyance with turn based games
at the very least allow the player to press a button to skip to the next npc/enemy attack when one is done
when i equipped my axe i became unable to use blade skills. it makes sense in hindsight but it was very annoying to realize it later.
i love your style of dialogue, the characters always feel lively and fun!
Thanks for playing.
Your feedback does echo a lot of the same issues other people had. At this point I'll have to nail a sign that reads "beware the pathfinding" to my wall.
I need to come up with more ways to subtly guide the player in the right direction. In particular, because I'll open up the environment more later. Currently the only indication that a tunnel is near are the wooden beams and the light rails.
I wasn't sure what to do with the skills if the player has the wrong weapon equipped. If they got unequipped automatically I think that would be annoying but maybe the problem will fix itself once there are more reasons to visit the stats screen.
-Canceling an Act/Attack also cancels the movement you made. In some cases that could be useful, but is overreaching by default. What I'd expect is just going back to the previous menu state.
-When making the fore wall invisible inside a building, like the smithy, denoting the shape of the doorway is nice so you don't walk into the wall like a dummy.
-I meet the bugs.
-I wish I could cancel out of the first layer of menus in combat so I can instead pan the camera to see the battle. I got into a fight while in a tunnel and I can't see any of the enemies.
-Blocking input while menu slide animations play is annoying. I want to be able to 'buffer' the inputs for the menuing or be able to press cancel and it immediately start reversing.
-I died to the big bug because I forgot about HP potions. Oddly enough, on respawn I was able to waltz in and take the sword without triggering the encounter. Oh looking at it again all the spiders respawned, at first I thought most of them were dead bodies.
-I can't seem to exit the tunnels, since the ladder takes me to the main menu.
New stuff is fun, combat is still a little lack luster though. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for playing. You actually reached the end of the demo. Next time I ought to have a message there but I don't even have a game over screen yet.
I hadn't thought about input buffering, that could be good. From the feedback I've received I think it would be safe to make things faster in general. I was afraid to do that before having some sort of tutorial and a proper combat journal.
There will be more consequences for losing a fight later, but I haven't quite figured out fights yet...
Also, there should be a doorway at the smithy just like in every other building. That is a bug so thanks for telling me.
In game notes
- Walking noise is a little loud, also could maybe use some pitch shifting?
- I've played before, so I know I need to lock on first, but it'd be great if it locks on to start
- The characters are really funny and cute. Love the dialog
- Enemies sometimes attack but do no damage? Are they missing, or maybe a bug?
- I did use one healing spell, not sure if needed or note
- Would be cool if the Queen had special attacks
After play notes
I still love the atmosphere, characters and the lore that's getting hinted at here. I see in the comments you're dealing with lots of issues in the tactics engine, which I hope gets better. That's my main negative feedback is the enemies whiffing attacks. With that fixed, I think the combat would be a lot more challenging and fun.
Good work, I can see the improvements!
Gameplay video:
Thanks for playing the game again.
Enemy AI is shaping up to be the biggest issue I'll have to deal with, at least in the short term.
The healing spell was intended. It doesn't have animations yet but now I have area targeted area techniques, and that's progress.
Great progress! The crash on unequipping the armor didnt happen this time.
The initial fight after picking up the stick became way way easier, which is great for a tutorial. However, once that fight started the music stopped. I think i remember a real banger playing in battle last time, wish it played this time too. From this point the whole game had no music for me.
After waking up in bed in full armor (just like in real life), i stepped out of it and heard a lot of steps being spammed by the game. Probably some collision stuff?
The dialogue is great, but i only spoke to each NPC once. Next time i will annoy all of them at least twice. Its nice to have references to AG and some humor in it. The 2d illustrations are great too. Im still wondering about the skill system, which was already present in the last version. Hopefully this will be usable in the near future.
Not gonna talk about clunkyness, QoL or UX stuff, which seems already known. Keep it up!
Thanks for playing.
I decided to alter the damage formula for weapons so strength is more significant. Melee damage should be higher across the board.
I removed the battle music for now because I'm not sure if heavy metal is adequate for a nightmare sequence. I'm behind on sound design for sure.
Wearing full armor in bed is something the protagonist would do. I think I know the source of the sound, it's because I'm missing a falling animation so it's playing the walking one instead. Animations are hard.
There will be skills next time, in fact, you can level up some skills already if you were to stall a fight forever with the ridiculous cheap healing spell, but only a madman would discover that. Either way, it's one of the few major systems that are missing from the game but now I have saving so it's coming soon.
It is clunky but clunky fun. Need more work for easing the combat as it is too clunky to be fun as of now.
Thanks for trying the game.
I'm indeed rough and thirsty, that is, in dire need of polish and juice.
Ran into loads of bugs on the first fight.
Thanks for trying out the game.
Sorry about the clunkyness. If you want to break the UI at this stage of development, you totally can.
This has some great potential but there’s a few QoL things I’ve noticed immediately.
Running has this awkward momentum to it where it takes a noticeable amount of time to change direction compared to walking where you turn on a dime. It makes the animation look more goofy than it otherwise would, like you’re fumbling around on ice.
Dialog is revealed with some sort of easing so that you spend a long time on the first couple of words and then it speeds up. Definitely need to make that constant it’s really irritating. Otherwise, I like the dialog box, especially the golden borders. You just need something like a gradient or a pattern or some noise to fill in the main panel. Combine the borders with that everywhere in the UI and it should look super polished with little effort.
One minor thing is that I’m used to the cancel button being the sprint button rather than having a separate one for it entirely.
There’s a lot of transitional time in the combat, it’s not too bad right now with few enemies but if you’re fighting like ten dudes it’ll really drag to wait for their portrait to come up, walk over, wait a second, and then attack. You’ll either want sprint to speed the game up during this or make some option to do it more fluidly, like having the portrait ease in while the enemy is already moving. Probably keep the current way as the default though, you wouldn’t want somebody new to miss something important.
I only ever got hit once by an enemy, most of the time they would come in close but not line up their attacks properly and just end up whiffing. The camera also doesn’t pan over to show what they’re doing. I can get if you want to allow for some mystery in their moves but it would at least be good to move the camera to the nearest party member.
Would be good if you could pick movement while visualizing your attack at the same time. The collision is a bit buggy and you can easily commit to a move that won’t allow any hits.
At some point you’ll want to add controller support, shouldn’t be too hard with there already being keyboard controls only. Would also be really good to hide the mouse cursor if you can’t use it for anything. Preferably just set it to invisible.
I had to stop in the tunnels fighting three of the bugs because I had funneled them into a narrow passage that only two of them could hit Alexander through, so when the third one tried to line up an attack without hitting one of the other two he just kept yawing all the way to the right until he stopped and then the game soft-locked. Probably should just give them a timeout if they can’t figure out what move to make in time. This was also the only time any of the enemies could actually hit me.
This is very intriguing, I’m looking forward to seeing where you go with it. The Linux version worked fine, I don’t think any of my problems were to do with that.
Thanks for the detailed feedback.
Sadly, I'm very aware of a lot of the polish issues but the backlog for this project has been brutal. The problems with the enemy AI in particular keep piling on too. I've never seen enemies whiff attacks myself but other people have and that's concerning. Also, there is a timeout but it's not working correctly and that bothers me.
Implementing a save system was particularly important because at least this way the player can restart the level if something goes wrong.
The combat is a little faster than last time but I need to make a setting for it at some point because I do want to have large battles later on.
You also correctly predicted that I wish to implement gamepad controls at one point. Aiming the attack areas is way more precise with an analog stick.
Finally, thanks for the comments on the UI. I never know what to do with that.
Game softlocked itself in 1st fight
Oh man...
Thanks for playing, that is useful information.
I like it a lot—the vibe, the characters, the art, and the writing.
While outside of combat, I think it's better for the team members to not have collision, or there will be awkward blocking in narrow spaces.
The bugs seem bugged. They can attack, but don't actually hit anything.
Not sure if after killing the big bug and reaching the stair it's the end? I got back to the title screen after hitting the stair.
That's all the complaints for now. Nice work, mate.
Thanks for trying the game.
You reached the end of the demo. I've been slowly building up the systems I need for the full game and I wish I had more but there's always next time.
>I think it's better for the team members to not have collision
That's a possibility I've considered, and surely I'll consider it even harder once I have all 5 party members.
>The bugs seem bugged. They can attack, but don't actually hit anything.
That is weird, they should be trying to kill you. I'll make sure they are more dangerous next time.
What's new since last time?
Actual content. Walk around, talk to characters, recruit a new party member and go into the first dungeon in the game.
Expect jank, and a noticeable lack of sounds.