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

WOOOOHOOOO!!!

HUGE SPOILER ALERT! DON'T READ BELOW UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO.


Ok, I will have one more run a little bit later, but, for now, I'd like to express my emotions and make a few statements. Miro, if you would decide to read the things below, please note - I do not doubt your competence as a game developer, these are my personal opinions and they may be completely ignored.

First of all, Marksmanship skill for Outlander. Nerf it. Enemy Instakills ruin the difficuilty too much. Make them move really slow instead, like they do when they fall for the bear trap in addition to losing one of their limbs.

Second of all, the crude sword that is dropped by lizards. Its ridiculous damage is unhindered by accuracy, so there is no reason to not use it as the main weapon (apart from losing one of the arms). Add a minor accuracy penalty to it. As for the claymore that is given to you by the Pocketcat, i have no issue with it because of the dangerous bargain invonlved, so there is no need to change it in  any way.

Third of all, I think this game needs a vendor of sort. The RNG here is just too goddamn unfair sometimes. I'd suggest the creation of an NPC on the 3'rd level (the prisons are too empty anyway) that can give you 1 needed item in exchange for 5 other. His item list excludes: opium powder (the trader near the altar of darkness sells it), cooked food, iron arrows (the trader near the altar sells it), books of any kind (we have Pocket Cat for that), whiskey (strong mind-restorative that is unfair to be given in such a way, ale is fine though), weapons of any kind, competent armor (trash armor is fine, but it must be allowed to be usable in trading), any kind of liquid that can be obtained by filling the glass vial (glass vials themselves should be allowed, though) and no explosive vials too.

Lastly, i'd like to talk about bosses. In the current version, they are too inclined to be DPS races - all you need to do is compile 4 party members and hack away at the torso. With a few exceptions, bosses here are too straightforward - hacking Salmonsnake's limbs off is not as reliable as an all-out attack on the torso (thanks to the overpowered crude sword), same for the cavemother, the head of the wizard is made only to give exposition and to be ran away from with no second encounter and the Crowmauler, oh the Crowmauler, was too disappointing for me.

Maybe that's my problem, but for a guy that is first introduced as this game's pyramidhead, he just didn't live up to my expectations: hacked off his arm and DPSed his torso till he fell. He should be causing the main character hysteria just by being in your sight, teleporting behind you if you ever start to outrun him like he was in the tattered note and, should one decide to face him in battle and not escaping on the first turn (that can easily fail), unleash myriad of debuffs coupled with weak AoE attack to give you slow and painfull death.

The solution for others? Make their torsos' defence much higher and decrease it for a certain percent for each limb hacked off.

For the Salmonsnake specifically - leave its limb attack spams as they are now, but introduce some sort of gimmick to give a player the ability to stop their actions without dismemberment. For example - now, destroying the eye seems to lower the accuracy of attacks for a bit, but it can be made a little bit more interesting - destroying the eye will actually make a battle harder, as opposed to saving, as in doing so you lose the ability to throw a red vial into it and to make it's limbs to do"tries to clean the eye" action for a few turns instead.

As for the Cavemother, the main issue that prevents the player from aproaching the battle carefully is "One Tooth Peck" (uh... sorry, can't remember the exact name) attack - instant limb loss is just too unfair. Make it use this attack only when its breasts are cut off - that way the player will be stimulated to act more strategically by having to pay attention to weak but tolerable cavegnomes.

Whew, that's a lot to read through. Despite the above, traversing the game was really fun. Can't wait to know more... What is the reason the new gods entered the dungeons of fear and hunger? Who is the God of Depth and is he in any way connected to the fifth member of the fellowship? Will Norasmus open up to us and tell what his role in this madness is? And finally, what is the purpose of the girl in this mess?

Man, i hate waiting) But, in the end, it will all be worth it...

(1 edit)

I have to totally agree with you on that one, most of your suggestions or as I like to call it "constructive critiscm", are mostly the ones I was gonna ask about.  All that lore and the backstory Miro put into the game does mean he/or she is passionate about this "project" but as he said before,  he has to deal with his real life situations before he/or she can get to this. Oh and one more thing to add on the table, maybe make the scrolls as a temporary save, or some sort of scroll where you sort of "embed" your memories in the scroll for the time being. I understand how the save oppurtunities are really rare and you have to sacrafice alot for even one slot. Maybe make that save option avalible for a certain time or something. And if you get the chance to add this on steam, give me a free copy ;D

Personally, I don't mind the current save system, as the acqurement of the Book of Enlightment allows to make the game easier if used strategically. For example, getting to Nosramus and using it there as soon as you arrive allows you to generate necronomicons, books of forgotten memories and even light blue potion vials for more convenience. 

Also, Kill_Switch-X, may i ask you a favour? Could you write here what your encounter with the book "Passage of Ma'Habre" was like if you ever encounter one? I used it once but i didn't manage to get a good grasp at the location due to the time limit and i have problems generating the book, even by using save-scumming. I really want to know whether it is randomly generated, whether battling spider-torso is worth it and if that place has a boss to beat.

(1 edit)

Sure, i first got the passage of Ma'Habre when I wa splaying as the Mercenary, thinking it was just the book Ma'Habere, I didn't think too much about it. When I realized it was a special book, I read it and I got transported to the Ancient City of Ma'Habere. The New Gods spoke to me about how I was gonna be chosen and stuff and i was on my way. I walked around and looted abunch of goodies from the urns and crates. Then I saw that creepy dead spider-person [I later was looking in local files and saw that apparently you can encounter a live one]. I didn't make it that far due to the time limit but I ended up looting those two chests, I did get it twice and just now when I'm playing too, well I usually always get it if I make the coin flip in one of the bookshelfs in the catacombs library, where I'm struggling to recruit the dark priest. Sometimes I belive pocketcat has it

I also fail to see why the human hydra is there, I guess its for the laughs

(1 edit)

Might be the same as the Altar of darkness - sacrificing party members to it gives nothing in return and praying to the God Of Depth gives no benefit either. Malevolent creatures don't really like to share, it seems. That makes me think - perhaps the Old Gods chose to be unresponsive to humans BECAUSE they stopped making actual requests to them and the new gods, while being presented as the heralds of salvation, provide no actual help at all as they have no wish to squander their newly acquired godly powers.


Also, thanks for the feedback, i'll make a mercenary and try to study the Ma'Habre's layout - I'll try to go deeper ignoring all the chests and barrels and see what it has to offer.

Yeah sure, free copies are on your way, if Steam was ever to accept this game, being full of awful awful stuff. ;D

You can get the book of enlightenment with the empty scrolls too. I wonder if anyone figured those out yet...?

nope i never knew lol now i need to see somehow

You can?

Is it

"O LORD

TEACH

ENLIGHTMENT"

invocation?

Nice. Close. There are only 2 invocations currently available in the demo: TEACH and GIVE.

Okay first of all, Fed, I'm really grateful for the time you've spent on the game and the interest you've shown. Reading through your texts has given me a lot to think about. 

People got every right to question my competence as a game developer (even if you said that you didn't) because I do a lot of things out of a whim and just for the sake of having some traditional game design breaking elements haha :D And also my game development is very reliant on the feedback I get from you guys. I just throw things together the best way I see fit, without that much game testing, and see what comes out of it. I'm sure every professional game developer would just shake their head if they saw me working on this :D

I'll take your points with Crude sword and Marksmanship and tweak those. As for the vendor - There's probably going to be an option at the beginning of the game where you get to choose an item or another goodie to start the game with. Kinda similar as in Dark Souls. This way the player can strategize a little bit more at the character select screen. Another vendor or something would be good too. You are right that the cells are a little bit too empty as they are now.

Finally, that's some really good insight about the bosses. I'm considering everything you said seriously. Especially the Crow Mauler. He was supposed to be more fleshed out, but I had to nerf some of my plans to get the demo out.

Thanks for taking your time with the writing ! :)

Well, I wouldn't be writing if i wasn't sure that the message would get to you)

Kinda ironic, really - there are a ton of people making bright, colorful games with good morals who turn out to be complete jerks to their audiences,  and the person whose creation is a vile, nihilistic and unforgiving experience turns out to be on the good side of spectrum. Life is too goddamn peculiar sometimes...

"Life is peculiar when your peculiar"

haha this is awesome! You guys made my day :-D