Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+1)

Thanks for playing and thanks for the comment.

Only just realized that this game and its name is inspired by Heart of Darkness. Even moreso with the original roguelike version, where it was a linear river.

Yeah the riverine theme is getting a little lost with all these updates. Heart of evil is getting ship of ship of theseus'd pretty hard. I should change the name too since there's a half life 1 mod themed after apocalypse now with the same name.

 dart throwers

I've been trying to refine ground combat so that enemies ask something of the player. The ranged enemies make the player dodge now. I suppose their aim being thrown off by jumping kinda defeats that, I can make it so they only lead their target horizontally.

I pressed Onwards and nothing changed?

Yes I removed level 2 and 3 because this build was meant as a boatless test and I didn't want to potentially leave new testers confused.

I didn't really enjoy it as much as last time, when the boat was still a thing.

Sorry to hear that but would you say is the boat you miss or just the freedom and calmer pace of the disconnected island encounters?

Either way thanks so much for taking the time to play again!

Sorry to hear that but would you say is the boat you miss or just the freedom and calmer pace of the disconnected island encounters?

Sure thing, ought to have included my reasoning. Just to be straight up, I was in a bad mood at the time so for example I rage quit from the worm dog shotgun encounter, then came back later.

One thing I didn't mention about the dart throwers: when I didn't know about the jumping trick and was annoyed by the predicting, it was  because they could do it from so far away, their bodies small targets while they easily hit me when strafing from far away. Felt ridiculous, and so I had to do an awkward zigzag just to close the distance(perhaps I should have taken pot shots instead, but I usually had too little ammo after doing so). Due to all this added difficulty to base enemies, I gave up on meleeing anything besides the crabs. Just a thought, but I'd rather make this sniping belong to a higher tier enemy, so it's less common.

I liked the boat since it added a lot of exploration(and choice of assault location) to the level, which just isn't possible in a standard fps map. It is also 'home base', so it feels more like you're conquering the map as you push up your base, rather than just razing it and moving on. Though the controls were slightly awkward, sailing around felt cool and having the oh shit moment of an ambush to fight or run from was nice. One of my favorite parts of the previous demo was the last level: destroying patrol boats then docking under the big tower, and when low on supplies gliding back down to the boat to grab the ammo box.

Though, I can understand having issues with the boat, since it can allow bad form by the player. Like rat holing by looking for secrets in the wrong area, getting the boat stuck, or using it to cheese something. If you really don't want to pursue the boat stuff then so be it, but I thought it was the aspect that set this game apart from other FPS and was a main selling point.

Due to only being 1 level long, I felt wanting for more guns to shoot with. Now that I think about it, in the boss room I think there was a weapon on the center pedestal, but I couldn't figure out a way to get enough air to grab it. Speaking of, I didn't like this boss much at all. Very chaotic, felt more like a 2nd or 3rd boss. The lock on attack means you can't stay in eyesight for very long, so you hide. But you have to keep moving or else the lightning gets you, or the summons do. Also your cover is destroyed. He randomly teleports so you have to run jump across the map for a few more shots at him. In the end I mostly just spammed everything at him and spam healed in the open since it was killing me inside. I did realize at some point that the pedestal with the gun on it was invincible to the explosion spell, which is something.

After all that complaining, I should mention that the new enemy models are nice, looking more mutated. And, the strange fishing/bestiary minigame is something I haven't seen before, neat. Also the angular-piranha-fish jumping at you onto land is a fun enemy, and visual. Probably forgetting a few things, hope I'm not being too negative but it was my experienceTM. Keep on trucking, regardless of my opinion I'm sure the game will keep getting better as you flesh it out.

Thanks for trying the game more and for giving me more feedback, very much appreciated.

You already mentioned most of the problems with the boat, there was also the fact that it was not intuitive to control and how awkward combat was on it. I made the mistake of thinking I could make an FPS game and add a vehicle to it and then figure things out but levels suffered because of the boat and the boat suffered because the game only really happened on land.
I had to decide which part to throw away and I decided to keep land combat but as I said I think the boat could have a special section later with its own bosses and challenges. 
Even after deciding to do away with (or at east delay) the boat I still think the ground sections are barely just okay.
Maybe I'm cramming too many tough combat encounters next to each other because I'm "stress testing" combat and the game would have better pacing with quieter sections between tougher ones, kinda like half life does it.

Balancing on all skill levels is hard too and having difficulty levels don't always work because people refuse to lower it when they're having trouble. But like you're probably right that the javelin enemies need more spread so they don't sniper you at all ranges. The boss I think only needs an easier arena and maybe less summon, but yeah it's probably not level 1 material or could have an easier arena with more cover for him to blow up.

hope I'm not being too negative but it was my experienceTM

Don't worry about it man, it's always useful. Thanks again.