itch.io

Edited because I left in the morning while I was in the middle of writing this, and came back to see an update only an hour ago! Comments pertain to 0.31 - if it's already been fixed, then my bad! at the very least, hopefully it helps you get a bigger picture.

Hello Again! Hope you're well. Back again with some fresh bug reports, gameplay thoughts, and assorted musings. I'm a huge fan so far, and hope you're taking breaks and taking care of yourself so that developing this game is as positive an experience for you as playing it has been for me! I'm going to attempt to be thorough so that my feedback can be as helpful as possible, so apologies in advance if I'm long winded. Do not mistake the length of this comment for any amount of disappointment on my part, but rather thorough passion and appreciation for the work you've put in!

Bugs:
All of my playtime so far has been in adventure mode, on the downlaoded version for windows 10.
- Still encountering the issue with saves eventually seizing up:
It appears to have something to do with how the game is rendering/calculating the overworld - the game runs just fine when I'm not moving, then chugs as soon as I load the save. Stops chugging once it loads the world and I stand still, then chugs again once I attempt to move. Tends to happen once I've done a certain amount of moving on the overworld map, though in previous versions it was also happening if there were a lot of pink "item" spawns from fighting at a full inventory and traveling. Hitting "New Game" instantly fixes the issue, albeit at the cost of my current save. Is there any way I can locate the save and send it to you to help you out? I've tried disabling/enabling windows's optimizations for windowed games as well as hardware-scheduled GPU acceleration, and it made no difference. Willing to admit it could possibly be a hardware issue, but while I'm not super hardware savvy I don't think it is - task manager isn't showing a lot of strain on my GPU/CPU/Memory, and I wouldn't expect as much from this game. I'm also more than happy to test the browser version to see if I can reproduce it sometime today.

-Possibly related; village jank in 0.32:
Super happy with the changes to villagers, they feel much more alive and I'm glad I can visit a new settlement without the guards deciding to -1 me out of town! I will comment that performance in and around villages has been a little bit worse, and sometimes villagers are getting stuck in the walls of their settlements. I've had success getting them out by talking to them - causing them to phase out of the wall and me into it. Overall, a marked improvement to settlements, more than happy to wait to see it polished!


-Dominion Sieges being unable to destroy structures in adventure mode: Can confirm Tobacoos's report that Dominion sieges can't destroy structures. While they can damage the health bar of a given structure, once that bar reaches zero the structure remains standing, and the healthbar often appears to reset. I'm of a couple of minds on this - on the one hand, sieges being able to destroy settlements is obviously intended design, and a basic wooden shack probably shouldn't be invulnerable to their assaults. On the other, early game is a punishing experience as is, and the ability to safely sleep through nights has been very important to a lot of the overland travel I've been doing. Likewise, I shudder to think of what will happen to the small, wooden settlements I visit on my way to the big cities once sieges start spawning. 

-Possibly related; Phasing enemies inside of walls appear to be unkillable: As of 0.31, it appears that enemies such as ghosts, wraiths, etc which can phase into walls have unlimited health while phased into walls. While I can damage them and even get their drops from "killing" them, they remain in the wall and will continue fighting me. What's more, their healthbars appear to reset just like the walls do - leading to an exploit where one can infinitely farm item drops from a ghost in a wall. Walking away from the wall and killing them fixes the issue. 

-Cursed Items:
A couple of things up with cursed Items. First, I've struggled to remove the curses using purging rinds dropped from mobs in the world - despite being told to "select an item to remove the curse" by the dialogue box on the left side of the screen, my inventory instantly closes upon using the rind, and hovering over the items or clicking them doesn't seem to do anything. Is it supposed to be similar to Affineur's Nose, where eligible items are highlighted and you can click to identify them? Likewise and also likely unintended, reforging cursed items removes the curse, providing an inexpensive way to cleanse curses in the early game. I'm of two minds on this one as well - being able to get rid of cursed items this way, especially with purging rinds being harder to come by from world drops until later days and with churches being something I haven't even seen yet, has been a boon to my playthroughs. However, I'm almost certain it's unintended, and reading in the game guide that larger towns have churches that can remove curses was a big part of my motivation to try and reach them for the first time in the first place!

Gameplay:
The core gameplay is very satisfying, which is part of why I've been so happy to stick around despite needing to reset my save every so often! I'm excited to see what the future holds once I can get settled into a long run. 

Water, campfires, and overland travel:
Overland travel has been what I've spent a lot of my time doing, and I'm quite fond of exploring the world you've crafted. That being said, while the core is satisfying, it has some growing to do. The biggest thing is water - Before I attempt to journey from one settlement to the next, I usually fill one of my hotbars and 2/3rds of my inventory with water. Even still, I often find myself running out of water partway through the journey. I think there are a couple of culprits - first, while roads give a boost to movement speed, overland travel involves fighting enough mobs that I still end up bogged down. If I can't travel along a lake or river, I can basically count on running out of water at some point, and I usually plan my routes around bodies of water before I plan them around the roads. This is all on foot - I haven't gotten late enough into the game to use ships yet due to the aforementioned save issues. I think this could be alleviated with maybe a slight increase in the amount waterskins can hold to help save inventory space (like 1 or at most 2 uses would do the trick), as well as some easier water to find in the overworld. Some scarcity should be expected, but the frontier is teeming with water and wildlife - surely some small lakes, puddles, or tributaries should be a little more common. As things stand right now, I don't find water unless I'm at a river or lake marked on the world map, or by the starting puddles.

 Similarly, Placing campfires with some degree of frequency becomes an absolute necessity after a certain amount of traveling on the road. It doesn't matter if I'm geared enough to 1-2 shot wyverns and endure a huge amount of hits, the fact of the matter is fighting them requires me to waste my already scarce water and time. This is even more true if I've run out of water and don't have a weapon with lifesteal - at that point, campfires every 50 or 100 tiles are the only thing keeping me alive.

I don't necessarily think the idea of resource scarcity in overworld travel is a bad idea - quite the opposite. But I've found that rather than methodically plan my routes and manage my resources, I've sort of resorted to accepting that travelling overland is racing against the clock - mobs, water, campfires, and my limited inventory space. Rather than slow down and explore the world or hunt or forage for supplies, I tend to blitz along the roads and rivers and pray when I have to bushwhack. I think that fewer, slightly tougher daytime overworld spawns might be better suited to the exploration adventure mode wants to focus on. One wyvern or bear being able to easily KO me once I got far enough wasn't necessarily the issue, it was the fact that at 150-200 tiles, I have a dozen of the former and handful of the latter breathing down my neck. Likewise, holding more water would be good, but it would be even better if we had better access to it in the overworld and better tools for finding it - maybe a dowsing rod, or a way to dig for it or get it from rain or trees. Finally, as a stretch goal/wild idea, I think it would be cool to have a small equivalent to the boats for traveling on roads - like a wagon or pack animals. This could help alleviate the inventory issues, incentivize exploration, and give players more reason and means to move around.

Farming - Moving some of the stuff from homestead to farm was a great start - it means if I want to play agriculturally early, I can, and it got me to try some of those systems! Unfortunately, A couple of things could use some tweaking. As of now, I couldn't find a way to destroy/demolish farm structures as opposed to regular ones. Furthermore, while I was able to find seeds and plant them, and place and fill a water barrel, I had no idea how to water my crops! I tried placing them next to water barrels, bumping them with waterskins in my inventory, placing them next to water, and even waiting for rain, and couldn't seem to get the ground to be anything other than dry! Could be I'm missing something, but if so, that means a lot of other people are likely missing it too. 

General Musings: I actually have some background in Philosophy of food, and I have to admit that the notion of a world where Terroir is literal magic is part of what has kept me so hooked. I don't know what your exposure to the concept is, and I'll admit mine is mostly academic, but that's probably one of the most intriguing and exciting things about this game. Terroir as I understand it encompasses not just the land, but also the cultures and traditions of cultivating that land and the people who live on it - how they interact with and form each other. I've also heard efforts to preserve Terroir, however, used to push away people whose food supposedly does not match the land or its traditions. The example that comes to mind was an article explaining how at-the-time recent French laws about Terroir and street food had negatively impacted the businesses of immigrants. An example closer to my home is the chili pepper; it has been grown in my home for centuries and part of our food for just as long, but the land is far older than centuries - the chili pepper itself is an immigrant. But we are formerly a spanish colony, and before that inhabited by native peoples, and many of us do not technically "originally" belong to this land either, despite having been here for generations. 

All that is to say, Terroir and its relation to ecology, economy, and politics are an extroardinarily ripe subject, especially for a game like this. Likewise, Magic is literally power - an abstraction of spiritual beliefs, cultural practices, and the abilities of people to change the world. I've only heard the peasants of your game speak of the Terroir, how it runs deep in these lands. I'm excited to see what the nobles, guilds, and scholars think, and how they wield it, use it, and misuse it for their own ends. 

That being said, I only have ever even heard the word "Terroir" due to having an academic background where it was relevant. I doubt any of my peers would even know what it meant. At best, they might know it's why we have to call it "sparkling wine" if it's not made in Champagne, France. At worst, they'd probably assume you misspelt "terror." I think having a primer on Terroir in the game guide, and maybe even a small introduction to it or loading screen tips about it in game, might be a big help so that others can see just how interesting the concept for this world really is, and enable them to engage with the setting all the more. 

Long-winded comments concluded, I'm genuinely having a blast with everything I've seen so far. I'm excited for what this game has in store, and more than happy to see it grow. The game is in need of polishing and finishing - aging. But the authenticity, passion, and craft present within it - its Terroir - is palpable, and if it is magic then I find myself thoroughly charmed.