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(1 edit) (+1)

Hello there!

Thank you for taking the time to play the game and for writing such a detailed and very useful review!

I found the rendering issue and fixed it:

https://spite-games.itch.io/astartes-wake/devlog/1650740/build-028

Build 0.28 is now online, and you can test it again if you'd like ^^

  • (+1)

    PS: via the Option button you can access all settings such as exiting game.

    (+1)

    I'm back now that the jam has started and I gave it a proper shot!

    So, I think the rendering fix worked, but my computer ended up freezing while I was trying to open the config menu to edit my graphics settings and at that point I gave up playing it on my laptop.

    From here on, my notes are gonna be in the context of playing it on a higher-end gaming PC (I don't know the exact specs right now, but it's comparable to a PS5 so it's very high end). On this device, obviously I had zero performance issues and the graphics look fine. At the very least you can rest assured the game works on higher end computers, but I don't have anything in between my cheap laptop and my gaming PC so I don't actually know where the line is before the game stops working correctly.

    Now, graphically, the game looks very good for its budget, but it's obviously pretty rough around the edges. The shading looks a bit smudgy and the models are a little low-poly but that's totally acceptable for a game of this scope. I do however have a greater critique when it comes to the characters themselves. 

    The character creation options were super robust, there was so much to mess around with, especially with the hair styles, which is appreciated. That said, it's a bit weird having what is effectively only one single body type used across every character in the game (even something as simple as a height slider would have been appropriate, but if you wanted to go above and beyond, other sliders to affect things like wideness could help a lot. Considering the game is a little bit on the ecchi side, even some bust or butt sliders could be appropriate). While I don't necessarily think the lack of customization in body type is a big problem for the player, I do feel it is a bigger problem for the other NPCs because they're all randomly generated off this same character creator. Every character looks uncannily similar especially during combat when it's too zoomed out to appreciate the facial differences.

    What I find stranger than the lack of body customization however is the lack of clothes, like, anywhere. I can understand spawning the player in with the half-naked underwear that she starts off in, but none of the NPCs wear any clothes and there's seemingly no way to acquire clothes of your own either. If this has to be the case, I think I would much rather the player wear something a little more interesting and maybe a bit less uncomfortable to look at, maybe even just a skin-tight body suit. As it is right now, it feels really weird playing the game where all interactions occur exclusively between two women wearing the exact same strips of fabric to cover their bits, and I was frequently worried my roommate would come in at any given time and see me playing a game that looks like this. I do understand that this is a scope matter, and honestly I assume this is probably a placeholder that will get filled out as time goes on, but I figured it would be important to emphasize that this is definitely a weird look.


    Now, the gameplay is where I was really interested, and it did not disappoint! The combat is really fun, it's got a lot of room for strategy. The resource mechanic works pretty well and the blocking and dodging feel very fair to use. I played for about an hour and never found any new cards to place in my deck so I didn't get to mess with the deckbuilding mechanics much which was disappointing, but I really enjoyed fighting enemies. My only complaint, and it's a very small nitpick, is that interacting with cards requires dragging the cards around for seemingly no reason. It would be really nice if I could play this game using a keyboard or controller as well as with my mouse. That said, playing with the mouse feels fine and it was fun to explore around and collect treasure.

    Overall, I really enjoyed this! It's obviously a work in progress and as you develop it more I think it'll become much more polished, but I think the core mechanics work really well.

    Thank you so much for this detailed review!

    This kind of detailed and valuable feedback is rare!


    For context, this is still a very early build. I’m essentially sharing the development process publicly as a way to hold myself accountable and stay consistent.


    Regarding clothing:

    I have a disclaimer on the game page stating that clothing is still in development and has not yet been implemented. I also have a devlog explaining the process of adding clothing.


    However, the clothing feature is now quite close to being ready.


    Regarding body types:

    This is closely linked to animation syncing. I’m adding some more complex animation behaviors, and body-type changes need to adapt to them dynamically. In terms of priorities, I’ll first finish a stable development version—approximately v0.5—before adding a male-coded body type and sliders. This is also because those features greatly affect the clothing system.


    Regarding cards:

    I’m quite surprised by this. You can buy cards, obtain them during certain events, or find plenty of them in treasure chests. The same applies to weapons and items.

    I guess this is a game-design issue that I need to iterate on and communicate more clearly.


    Thank you again for the review!