I know it's an early demo, but already it has a very nice visual style and art direction! I like the simple drag control scheme (my game uses the same interaction in touch mode hehe). I also really enjoy the way friendly and enemy units engage with each other, good job.
a few things to note:
- small stuttering at times from certain actions eg. firing, camera zoom, revealing areas (could be gameobject instantiation related?)
- UI text could be a bit bigger in general
- loading screen to smooth out transitions between scenes
- the dithering is a bit too much especially on effects like smoke etc
- in game dialogue UI could use mouse controls eg. LMB to go to next line
- camera controls could use more options (MMB drag pan, screen edge pan)
This game feels like you're playing as a SWAT tank team the way you're slicing pies, like doorkickers but tanks. It's a bit weird because peeking around corners in a way that doesn't expose you too much takes a lot of finesse with the commands but once combat starts if you're in a good position you just need to sit there and watch as the enemy vehicles funnel themselves in a killzone one after the other. If you turn the corner and there's too many enemies you pop smoke, fall back and wait, if you think you're lose you fire rockets. It plays well so far but I'm wondering how much variety there will be if all engagements can be resolved by baiting an enemy push into a firing squad of tanks.
For the loadout system I moved the big tank's optics to the second "Turret F" slot and used the freed slots to equip more rockets which I used liberally. idk if you can see it here but modules are being placed over eachother might have something to do with me swapping the k-50 for another k-75: I can move modules and place them around but they leave a "fake" module in the background that I cannot click and I can place other modules on top of, those two "R8" modules are the same module and that "3R8" module is actually loaded on the k-75.
Infantry: their current implementation works fine as enemies but I couldn't get much use out of them. If they're caught by an enemy tank they are basically dead. My instincts was to use them as recon and have them spot enemies while hiding but buildings don't seem to give them a camouflage or cover bonus so if an enemy gets LoS they get vaporized.
Doorkickers was a large inspiration for the movement system! I plan to improve enemy AI since currently they 're very easily baited and don't advance with much tactics. Rockets are a little overtuned at the moment too, and once enemies get to use them and countermeasures are added, it'll be less of a "everything here must die" button.
Thanks for catching that bug with the modules, yeah it appears to happen when I switch out tanks, gotta fix that.
I'm still fiddling with how infantry plays so your feedback is very helpful. buildings should be their element.
Very cool, I have only played up to mission 3 so far, I plan to play the rest later.
All in all I like the movement system and controls, I haven't seen it before and its very clean. I wonder if it's possible to queue reverse and forward movement orders? As in "back out of this dead end and then move forward this way" without having to wait for the reverse move to complete before drawing a new forward path.
Gameplay is great, my only concerns are the tonal inconsistency of having an anime girl, seems like the overall vibe of the game lends itself to a more grounded set of characters and the anime girl might not be the best for people I imagine would enjoy this game.
Also it might also be nice to see what the game is like without dithering, maybe a CRT filter instead since the perspective of the player seems to be from some kind of distant satellite or drone. The infantry units being as small as a random dithered pixel makes it hard to tell what you're supposed to be looking at, you just see a healthbar and no indication of anything else. I also noticed the infantry have a habit of hitting walls or corners they're hiding behind with their manpads, which seems like it shouldn't be happening.
I ran this on Linux by adding it as a non-Steam game and forcing it to run through Proton, it ran fine though I noticed some slowdown when popping smoke. Not sure what the actual cause was. Some attention to a Linux build might be good at least for the sake of Steamdeck support.
Cute girls, I assume they're vroid models or something? Probably worth hiring artist in the future to fully flesh em out. I already see the likes of Polilla doing them justice. The method of both aiming and giving move orders is intuitive cool and engaging, I dig it. Gonne be playing the next few days. The Peri discord is in love with it too.
The pixelly look is cool but kinda seem too chonky, can't put my finger on it, it gives me the "mixel" effect.
Ok, checked under the hood. This pro pixelizer thing is weird, so it's a material that pixelizes a mesh with a shader? I think that explains why the unfiltered textures on terrain and the pixellized units seem at odds with each other. I would recommend further refining the look, give the DitherDown package a try. I feel it would make for a more cohesive look.
The UI doesn't scale so part of it is hidden for me(I use a 16:10 monitor) so I was missing part of the objective until i changed the canvas scaler screen match mode to "Expand".
You gotta check if that (I assume) Edit Piaf song is public domain, otherwise, youtubers and streamers trying the game might get hit with a copyright strike, as kino as the armory scene is.
Thanks for playing! The girls are drawn, perhaps the filter muddies their details a bit. Thanks for the tip on the canvas scaler, don't remember why I switched from it. propixelizer does the pixelization calculation as a material and pixelization process as render method which lets it do outlines, shadows, depth. The screen dither is a seperate post process effect with its own pixel size which is why it may look mixely - I haven't polished it up, I'll take a look at ditherdown too.
Good point about the edith piaf song, looks like it's not public domain.
The screenshots look better than in game, since the effects makes the game look ugly. That's the only thing I can really add since the rest is good. Make the text easier to read too, since it seems the effects applies to the text boxes as well.
i tried tutorial 4, the enemies basically destroyed me very quickly. i don't think i did anything particularly wrong, i was just outgunned from the start. i tried a generated level but the game slowed to a crawl and i wasn't able to progress further i would like to be able to skip to the next line of dialogue by pressing LMB rather than enter. i like playing this kind of games mouse only when i can
Thanks for playing, do you know if you're playing the rc2 or rc3 build? I fixed the tutorial unfairness in the newer build
You can click on the continue text to go to next line of dialogue, I should write that somewhere
Also if you don't mind sharing, what are your specs? The game should run around 60fps but I've heard some people have performance issues on good hardware
i have a 3060, i had that low framerate when trying to generate a level. the framerate kept oscillating between 3 and 5 fps but i never got to see the generated level
okay, its fun. but i feel like the graphics have too much "low res on purpose" and glitch effects. like the text glitching, the black rectangle particles in the mission. TBH when I stopped playing after 2 levels I felt like my eyes were a little bit sore. I think that the graphics effects are a tad too strong, like it is probably better if people don't even directly notice that there are graphical effects they just "feel" that the game has some kind of vibe.
Played previously, so I'm skipping to the new stuff.
-UI goes offscreen on 16:10 monitor.
-New tutorial starts off with like 4 tanks firing at you immediately, so before getting my bearings I already lost a squad and my B-26... oops. Maybe I miss remember, but I don't think the other tutorials start hot like that.
-Squad movement seems to get stuck more often than I'd think around tight turns(using mouse path shaping). Maybe a by-product of using similar pathing to the tanks.
-Now only the main tank and a squad of soldiers, luckily that one tank is busted powerful... I eventually finish the mission.
-I don't like how squads lose their outline when in a building. Just makes it more annoying to click on them.
-Clicking on a portrait or icons of a unit in the garage screen doesn't toggle inspecting said unit, which is mildly annoying. Also, not automatically selecting Modules or Crew on unit inspection is weird, it just seems like a no brainer(and maybe you could have it open to Crew if you click on the portrait then, idk).
-Minor point, but the reference to war crimes in the Mahiri description seems odd given the setting, it seems like there's so such thing in the current conflict.
-Playing mission 4, I told my tank to release a squad and they got squashed on sawn by their own take... I don't really get it. It did a shimmy so I guess there wasn't enough room and ran them over?
-Slightly disappointed with mission 4. I thought it would be a last stand then run, but after the initial wave I had to slowly look around the map to find the stragglers. Though it didn't help I lost all my infantry. Anyways, due to that it ruined the theme of the mission and made it feel like every other one.
Thanks again for your feedback, lots of useful notes here. I've been working on a patch which should also address several issues/bugs, thanks for reporting them.
Tutorial is being reworked, it's unnecessarily unbalanced and also the first squad should not attack immediately.
Armory ui bugs, units randomly shifting near other units bug, inf outlines in buildings, should be fixed.
I'm also taking a look at mission 4 - enemies should come to you, like you noted with the "last stand" sort of thing. I did decrease the difficulty so that may have thrown off the values which let you leave
from what I played, I like the controls. Making a path and aiming the tank with only the mouse is very fun. Keep up the good work, this project is a solid one.
I don't usually play these kinds of games but I really liked the aesthetic and level of polish. If I could change one thing about this demo it'd be to have the dialogue sections in the tutorial be advanced with left clicking or pressing the space bar with the game force paused so I don't have to move my hand across the keyboard back and forth so much. I'd also like to be able to rotate and zoom the maps in and out but that's more because I just wanna look at them because they look so nice :)
Unbelievably good. Not my type of genre so I don't know how much useful feedback i can give on the combat system itself. Something that didn't sit right with me is that at least from what i could tell you can't select units by clicking them in any way with any buttons right? you either hold click to command them or click on their profiles on the left of the screen (or press the number keys but i'm concerned with mouse controls here).
Being able to select them with a click would feel good i think, even if it's with the middle mouse button lol
Comments
I know it's an early demo, but already it has a very nice visual style and art direction! I like the simple drag control scheme (my game uses the same interaction in touch mode hehe). I also really enjoy the way friendly and enemy units engage with each other, good job.
a few things to note:
- small stuttering at times from certain actions eg. firing, camera zoom, revealing areas (could be gameobject instantiation related?)
- UI text could be a bit bigger in general
- loading screen to smooth out transitions between scenes
- the dithering is a bit too much especially on effects like smoke etc
- in game dialogue UI could use mouse controls eg. LMB to go to next line
- camera controls could use more options (MMB drag pan, screen edge pan)
Look at this CLEAN breakout:
This game feels like you're playing as a SWAT tank team the way you're slicing pies, like doorkickers but tanks.
It's a bit weird because peeking around corners in a way that doesn't expose you too much takes a lot of finesse with the commands but once combat starts if you're in a good position you just need to sit there and watch as the enemy vehicles funnel themselves in a killzone one after the other. If you turn the corner and there's too many enemies you pop smoke, fall back and wait, if you think you're lose you fire rockets. It plays well so far but I'm wondering how much variety there will be if all engagements can be resolved by baiting an enemy push into a firing squad of tanks.
For the loadout system I moved the big tank's optics to the second "Turret F" slot and used the freed slots to equip more rockets which I used liberally.
idk if you can see it here but modules are being placed over eachother might have something to do with me swapping the k-50 for another k-75:
I can move modules and place them around but they leave a "fake" module in the background that I cannot click and I can place other modules on top of, those two "R8" modules are the same module and that "3R8" module is actually loaded on the k-75.
Infantry: their current implementation works fine as enemies but I couldn't get much use out of them. If they're caught by an enemy tank they are basically dead. My instincts was to use them as recon and have them spot enemies while hiding but buildings don't seem to give them a camouflage or cover bonus so if an enemy gets LoS they get vaporized.
Anyways, fun demo.
Doorkickers was a large inspiration for the movement system! I plan to improve enemy AI since currently they 're very easily baited and don't advance with much tactics. Rockets are a little overtuned at the moment too, and once enemies get to use them and countermeasures are added, it'll be less of a "everything here must die" button.
Thanks for catching that bug with the modules, yeah it appears to happen when I switch out tanks, gotta fix that.
I'm still fiddling with how infantry plays so your feedback is very helpful. buildings should be their element.
Very cool, I have only played up to mission 3 so far, I plan to play the rest later.
All in all I like the movement system and controls, I haven't seen it before and its very clean. I wonder if it's possible to queue reverse and forward movement orders? As in "back out of this dead end and then move forward this way" without having to wait for the reverse move to complete before drawing a new forward path.
Gameplay is great, my only concerns are the tonal inconsistency of having an anime girl, seems like the overall vibe of the game lends itself to a more grounded set of characters and the anime girl might not be the best for people I imagine would enjoy this game.
Also it might also be nice to see what the game is like without dithering, maybe a CRT filter instead since the perspective of the player seems to be from some kind of distant satellite or drone. The infantry units being as small as a random dithered pixel makes it hard to tell what you're supposed to be looking at, you just see a healthbar and no indication of anything else. I also noticed the infantry have a habit of hitting walls or corners they're hiding behind with their manpads, which seems like it shouldn't be happening.
I ran this on Linux by adding it as a non-Steam game and forcing it to run through Proton, it ran fine though I noticed some slowdown when popping smoke. Not sure what the actual cause was. Some attention to a Linux build might be good at least for the sake of Steamdeck support.
Cute girls, I assume they're vroid models or something? Probably worth hiring artist in the future to fully flesh em out. I already see the likes of Polilla doing them justice. The method of both aiming and giving move orders is intuitive cool and engaging, I dig it. Gonne be playing the next few days. The Peri discord is in love with it too.
The pixelly look is cool but kinda seem too chonky, can't put my finger on it, it gives me the "mixel" effect.
Ok, checked under the hood. This pro pixelizer thing is weird, so it's a material that pixelizes a mesh with a shader? I think that explains why the unfiltered textures on terrain and the pixellized units seem at odds with each other. I would recommend further refining the look, give the DitherDown package a try. I feel it would make for a more cohesive look.
The UI doesn't scale so part of it is hidden for me(I use a 16:10 monitor) so I was missing part of the objective until i changed the canvas scaler screen match mode to "Expand".
You gotta check if that (I assume) Edit Piaf song is public domain, otherwise, youtubers and streamers trying the game might get hit with a copyright strike, as kino as the armory scene is.
Thanks for playing! The girls are drawn, perhaps the filter muddies their details a bit. Thanks for the tip on the canvas scaler, don't remember why I switched from it. propixelizer does the pixelization calculation as a material and pixelization process as render method which lets it do outlines, shadows, depth. The screen dither is a seperate post process effect with its own pixel size which is why it may look mixely - I haven't polished it up, I'll take a look at ditherdown too.
Good point about the edith piaf song, looks like it's not public domain.
Now I feel embarassed about the gorl comment, I'd love yo see full rez pics of em on your twitter or #artdev
The screenshots look better than in game, since the effects makes the game look ugly. That's the only thing I can really add since the rest is good. Make the text easier to read too, since it seems the effects applies to the text boxes as well.
i tried tutorial 4, the enemies basically destroyed me very quickly. i don't think i did anything particularly wrong, i was just outgunned from the start.
i tried a generated level but the game slowed to a crawl and i wasn't able to progress further
i would like to be able to skip to the next line of dialogue by pressing LMB rather than enter. i like playing this kind of games mouse only when i can
Thanks for playing, do you know if you're playing the rc2 or rc3 build? I fixed the tutorial unfairness in the newer build
You can click on the continue text to go to next line of dialogue, I should write that somewhere
Also if you don't mind sharing, what are your specs? The game should run around 60fps but I've heard some people have performance issues on good hardware
i have a 3060, i had that low framerate when trying to generate a level. the framerate kept oscillating between 3 and 5 fps but i never got to see the generated level
gotcha, i think it was the rc1 build, that one had a broken simulator
okay, its fun. but i feel like the graphics have too much "low res on purpose" and glitch effects. like the text glitching, the black rectangle particles in the mission. TBH when I stopped playing after 2 levels I felt like my eyes were a little bit sore. I think that the graphics effects are a tad too strong, like it is probably better if people don't even directly notice that there are graphical effects they just "feel" that the game has some kind of vibe.
Played previously, so I'm skipping to the new stuff.
-UI goes offscreen on 16:10 monitor.
-New tutorial starts off with like 4 tanks firing at you immediately, so before getting my bearings I already lost a squad and my B-26... oops. Maybe I miss remember, but I don't think the other tutorials start hot like that.
-Squad movement seems to get stuck more often than I'd think around tight turns(using mouse path shaping). Maybe a by-product of using similar pathing to the tanks.
-Now only the main tank and a squad of soldiers, luckily that one tank is busted powerful... I eventually finish the mission.
-I don't like how squads lose their outline when in a building. Just makes it more annoying to click on them.
-Clicking on a portrait or icons of a unit in the garage screen doesn't toggle inspecting said unit, which is mildly annoying. Also, not automatically selecting Modules or Crew on unit inspection is weird, it just seems like a no brainer(and maybe you could have it open to Crew if you click on the portrait then, idk).
-Minor point, but the reference to war crimes in the Mahiri description seems odd given the setting, it seems like there's so such thing in the current conflict.
-Playing mission 4, I told my tank to release a squad and they got squashed on sawn by their own take... I don't really get it. It did a shimmy so I guess there wasn't enough room and ran them over?
-Slightly disappointed with mission 4. I thought it would be a last stand then run, but after the initial wave I had to slowly look around the map to find the stragglers. Though it didn't help I lost all my infantry. Anyways, due to that it ruined the theme of the mission and made it feel like every other one.
That's it I guess. Keep up the good work.
Thanks again for your feedback, lots of useful notes here. I've been working on a patch which should also address several issues/bugs, thanks for reporting them.
Tutorial is being reworked, it's unnecessarily unbalanced and also the first squad should not attack immediately.
Armory ui bugs, units randomly shifting near other units bug, inf outlines in buildings, should be fixed.
I'm also taking a look at mission 4 - enemies should come to you, like you noted with the "last stand" sort of thing. I did decrease the difficulty so that may have thrown off the values which let you leave
from what I played, I like the controls. Making a path and aiming the tank with only the mouse is very fun. Keep up the good work, this project is a solid one.
I don't usually play these kinds of games but I really liked the aesthetic and level of polish. If I could change one thing about this demo it'd be to have the dialogue sections in the tutorial be advanced with left clicking or pressing the space bar with the game force paused so I don't have to move my hand across the keyboard back and forth so much. I'd also like to be able to rotate and zoom the maps in and out but that's more because I just wanna look at them because they look so nice :)
Unbelievably good. Not my type of genre so I don't know how much useful feedback i can give on the combat system itself. Something that didn't sit right with me is that at least from what i could tell you can't select units by clicking them in any way with any buttons right? you either hold click to command them or click on their profiles on the left of the screen (or press the number keys but i'm concerned with mouse controls here).
Being able to select them with a click would feel good i think, even if it's with the middle mouse button lol
Thank for the linux build
-limited to 12 fps
-no sound
No playable for me but I appreciate that you tried
Nice atmosphere.
It is unpleasant to release left hand to go press enter to confirm.
It does not allows to press ESC to start simulator mission for some reason.
i died in the 3rd tutorial because i'm bad, but this is really well made. very solid aesthetics and music
Can you build a linux version?
added a linux build
Briefly tested with WSL, the shaders are broken but that might be cause i didn't install gpu drivers
let me know if it works!
this dd update introduces infantry systems, a major armory rework, along with an upgrade to buildings.
Plus, crew members with special crew, modular loadout system, overall map graphical improvements, and QOL additions. probably many new bugs too.
There is a new tutorial mission for infantry, and a new 4th mission.