Browse GamesGame JamsUpload GameDeveloper LogsCommunity
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
Sandeklaus5 years ago(+1)

My experience with this game:

  1. Start game. Sit and stare at still map as music plays. Assuming the game is frozen, restart. Same result. Move mouse around, eventually stumble on the need to click one specific landmark to start the story.
  2. First cutscene. Told the princess is the going to the forest. Back to the map. Still no prompts, but considering the last map screen, I try to highlight or click the forest areas. Nothing. Eventually discover I am actually meant to click on the top of the mountain.
  3. Told I need to explore. Click "Explore". No response. Move mouse around, discover forest area can be highlighted. Click there, next cutscene.
  4. Cutscenes. Told I need to explore to find tentacle skin. Click "Explore". Forest is no longer highlightable. No areas are highlightable. Eventually realize I am now meant to just click on random pixels of the  map, for some reason.
  5. Nothing in the forest, which is the one area I have previously explored and found tentacle skin in. Days pass. I receive no feedback or guidance.
  6. I explore "with" my tentacle monster, and begin to receive feedback. I am told to go Northwest. I click to the top-left of the map. I am told to go Southwest. I click to the bottom left. I am told to go Northwest. A pixel hunt begins, broken up by resting. It never ends. I find nothing.
  7. At some point, I am told I can form a Royal Army and kill "my enemies". I see a Royal Army button, and click it. I can add tentacle monsters to my Royal Army. I do so. Nothing happens. I cannot tell why I am meant to do this, or how I am meant to kill my enemies.
  8. I finally give up on the forest, and start clicking randomly elsewhere. I find a tentacle skin near my house! I make dresses with these, right? No option appears to make a dress. 
  9. I check my Journal. It says I have 1 Tentacle Skin. The "Knowledge" button, which I eventually worked out was "Help", gives none. I explore again, and find another Tentacle Skin. I check my Journal. It still says I have 1 Tentacle Skin.
  10. I send my monster hunting, because he eats Food. He comes back with 1 Food, but is tired. After a while, he has 30 Stamina. Hunting costs 30 Stamina, so it should be fine. I send him hunting. Now he is Injured 10.
  11. Nothing explains what Injured means. I decide he will heal overnight, and go to rest. I check him again. He is now Injured 50. I cannot use him for anything. I use the Nurse option to make him less Injured. I still cannot hunt for food. He leaves.
  12. I get fucked and have a new tentacle monster. I continue to explore, hoping to trigger an event that will explain how to do something, anything. Every time I explore, I find nothing, or I find a tentacle skin that I do not "pick up" and cannot use, or I get fucked. If I get fucked, I get pregnant. If I am pregnant, I cannot explore. 
  13. My attempts to explore eventually bring me enough tentacle monsters that I physically cannot hunt enough food each turn. They drain my reserves, and run away in the night. I am left with a manageable number of monsters. I try to explore again. I get fucked. I cannot explore, and will soon have another monster.
  14. I should try going Northwest.

Please, for the love of fucking god, explain something. Explain ANYTHING. Maybe I'm a blind moron who needs his hand constantly held, but right now this game seems opaque and self-contradictory, giving no feedback and teaching no lessons, and doesn't make it easy to experiment independently. Just spell it out if you have to. That "knowledge" button is already there, and literally the only useful thing in the game right now - don't be afraid to expand it.

Oh, and the map scaling is fucked.

Reply
Frenchip5 years ago

Long answer : All of this is to be expected with an ALPHA build. Most games are made public during beta stages of development, when most core features are implemented and somewhat complete. Alpha stages are more to be looked at like proof of concept, not like complete games and for most cases not even like the final game itself. A tutorial is very time consuming and a complete waste of time when you are still defining what the core features are and what they are meant to be.

My advice is to think of this release as an opportunity to watch the game evolve and grow as it yet has to grow before becoming the game it aims to be, like minecraft, 7DTD, ARK and many other indie games did before it. (example : in minecraft alpha you had to throw iron in a fire to make iron ingots, most of time leading to nothing as the ingots burned to nothingness. Also the giant steves were a ugly, giganormous pain, ruining your camps when they walked on it with their telescopic hitboxes of doom. Yet it was fair : it was an alpha build, made to share work progress and check in with people if what worked was cool.)

Short answer : nobody is a moron in this case, we are just looking at a (brace for personal opinion in 3...2...1...) very promising project that is still being fleshed out and therefore incomplete, as to be expected from an alpha stage of development.

Reply
AboutFAQBlogContact us
Copyright © 2024 itch corp · Directory · Terms · Privacy · Cookies