itch.io

Believe it or not, this comment is exactly why I decided to upload the game in its state as it is now here. I've been waiting for feedback like this for about 2 months now. 

Thanks for writing this all up, and for the second pass. You were right about the hounds - one can start its charge while off-screen so the warning/windup plays out where you can't actually see it. That's a bug/or something that I hadn't noticed - and I'll get on fixing now.

The enemy-vs-ground colors are next on my list to check properly;

A stats/build screen is the second request I've had for it, so I'll move it up in priority;

And yes, Fire Rate does speed up the Elder Sign and the wording should say so.

I also agree on the cryptic text - the idea was to chase immersion, but I may have overdone it.

Overall this is very useful - thanks again. About your footage - I'd really like to see it if you'd be bothered to upload somewhere; an unlisted youtube link or any file host(google drive, whatever) works for me

That's a good idea - and it would definitely help some players. But I'm deferring it for now, for 2 reasons:

1) I'm literally changing something every other day. Last night I rewrote 11 card descriptions, for example, and every change would have to be made in every language.

2) I can't comfortably ship an AI translation unless native speakers of each language can vouch for it first.

Once the text settles, though, I'd like to do it as a joint effort: I'd make a first draft with AI, and fluent players(who are willing to invest their time and help) would check it and propose changes. If you'd be up for that for any of those languages, let me know!

Yep, you're right. Damage and fire rate bonuses multiply each other, so a focused build can end up way stronger than how much the enemies scale, and after minute 8 or so nothing can touch you. I don't want to take the power away (that's the fun part), but the late game definitely needs things that make you move and think, not just enemies with more health. It's on my todo list.

Ok, I saw it and this also happened to another player as well; you found a real problem. When enemies spawned faster than your build could kill them, the crowd kept growing until the browser couldn't keep up. I just pushed an update that caps how many enemies can be on the field at once, which should stop that from happening. If you still hit slowdown, tell me roughly when and I'll dig in.

And congrats on the win!

Also in today's update(using this reply as a pseudo-changelog, sorry :D):

- Elites arrive later, at 8:00 instead of 6:00. They used to show up at the same moment the game got hardest.

- The hound ambush around 4:30 on the docks map is smaller. It was the single biggest killer in the first five minutes.

- The death screen now tells you what killed you, with a one-line tip on how to deal with it.

- Browsers running without a graphics card switch to a lighter mode on their own, with no fog and a lower render resolution, so slower machines can actually play.

Hey, thanks for even more feedback. I'm looking at the trails from players who opted in to telemetry right now, if you did - I'll be able to spot the issue. I'll get back to you with more info (hopefully) soon

Hey, thanks so much for giving this a shot and leaving a comment. The part about it being hard to understand is genuinely helpful because so far I've been the only one playing this and since I'm also making it - I know what is everything supposed to do and why. I suppose some of the stuff is intentionally cryptic to add to that.

I'll see what I can do to improve the new player experience without ruining the immersion. 

Regarding stats - if you refer to more build options, the game has somewhat of an achievement system where you can unlock more weapons naturally by playing. If you meant more stats as in "getting stronger(i.e more %dmg) by permanent unlockable upgrades" - this is something that's been on and off the table, but I'm not 100% ready to commit to or against it yet. 

..and, if you meant that you'd like to be able to see your current stats (i.e dmg, ms, attack speed and so on) - it's in the backlog, not prioritized, but coming soon(tm)

Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to play and leaving a comment, it means a lot!

https://burnt-rope.itch.io/the-stars-were-wrong?secret=1FhKqz8AKO47Lsz2nVVh5IQAP...

Lovecraftian 1920s Survivors-like: you move, the guns handle themselves, you try to reach dawn.

Reciprocity: post your project in a reply and I'll give it a proper written pass within a day, not a

drive-by. I'd rather trade than ask.

What I'm after is:

1. How far did you get, what killed you, and did you know why?

2. If a friend asked what this game is, what would you say?

3. There are two bars in the top-left. What does each one do? ("No idea" is a real answer and a

   useful one.)

Two one-word extras: headphones or speakers, and mouse/keyboard or gamepad?

And anything else that struck you, good or bad - I'd rather hear it than not.

Go in blind if you can; no looking it up. I'll answer anything you want to know afterwards. And if

the game asks whether it may send me data, yes gives me your death locations without you having to

write them down(full explanation on what's collected on the page itself)

If the browser build won't start, there are Windows and Linux downloads on the page.

Hey there - tbh, I haven't played anything like this so far - just pointing that out of the gate. I did 1 run, it was pretty chill, relaxing even  - until I decided to throw something off to the bottom right of the board(which resulted in the endgame screen)

What I'm missing is some sort of pressure for this to click and make me want to do consecutive runs(just my personal take, if your idea is to have a chill experience in-game, don't think too much of it). I think this answers question 1; about question 2 - honestly, aiming and launching felt satisfying and precise - I had to switch to fullscreen for this to apply though. I hope this helps you in any way - good luck with the project and most importantly - have fun building it

Glad it runs, and that's a genuinely useful writeup, thank you.

On the reporting thing, since you mention it: your crash report is the reason there are downloads on the page at all. There were none before you posted, my initial take was browser build or nothing. So it didn't go into a pit. It's why you were able to check it out tonight, and why the next person whose browser chokes has somewhere to go instead of a stack trace. Worth knowing before you decide the reports aren't landing anywhere. For what it's worth, I have a similar experience in reporting bugs/issues - and if my opinion matters to you - keep doing it as long as it doesn't cost you too much energy.

You're right about the card, too. The Third Eye cuts your maximum sanity rather than draining it, and nothing on screen tells you which of those just happened - the bar gets shorter and you reasonably assume something's eating it. That's the second time a card's wording has made a mechanic look broken, so it's going on the list as a pattern rather than a one-off.

The blunt read on the premise is more useful than a polite one would have been, so thanks for that as well.

Six minutes with a cultist finishing you off is around the middle of what I've seen, for whatever that's worth, you're not the outlier you think you are.

Hi again, 

As much as I want to, I just wasn't able to recreate the bug you're facing - tried both on my Linux box(arch btw) and on my steam deck - no issue on Firefox whatsoever. 

While I can't hold you hostage in debugging this for me, what I did was I uploaded downloadable builds for both Win and Linux. The Linux build I've tested both as just running the executable and adding in steam as a non-steam game. I realize this may put you and other people off(myself included, not really into running random executables from the internet), but that's honestly what I can do for now.

Worth saying: the Deck runs(if I'm not terribly mistaken) the same GPU family and driver stack as your 6500 XT, so not reproducing there is a bit more meaningful than "works on my machine"; it makes me suspect something recent in Mesa rather than your card. You're on 26.1.6, which is well ahead of what SteamOS ships, so might be worth a retry after your next Mesa update.

Also: the Linux download may need a chmod +x before it'll run; 

last but not least, even if you don't end up trying the game - many thanks for the provided feedback, it's all been very useful to me

That's perfect, thank you - and it rules out what I expected. Your driver's fine, RDNA2 on Mesa 26.1 supports everything the engine is asking for. Something more specific is going on and I better dig in and try to recreate on my end so I can troubleshoot properly. If you're still interested, I can update here when I've got more info and hopefully, a fix.

Thanks - that's something I haven't hit yet. That error is the engine failing to create its main render target: it asks for an RGB10_A2 color buffer, and your browser's WebGL2 is refusing it. It's below my code, so I can't patch it directly, but I'd like to pin down which configs it hits.

If you don't mind,could you open about:support in Firefox, scroll to Graphics, and paste that block? The GPU/driver lines and whether it says WebGL2 is hardware or software is what I need. And if you get a moment(sorry for asking too much) does it start on a chromium-based browser on the same machine?

Sorry it dumped a wall of stack at you instead of saying something useful. Fixing that part is on me.

https://burnt-rope.itch.io/the-stars-were-wrong?secret=1FhKqz8AKO47Lsz2nVVh5IQAP...

It's a survivors-like: you move, your weapons fire on their own, and you're trying to last until dawn. One run is max 20 mins in-game time, not counting picking upgrades, etc.

I've watched two people play this and both times I learned it explains itself far worse than I thought it did. If you give it a run or two, I'd love one-line answers to three things:

1. How far did you get, what killed you, and did you know why?

2. If a friend asked what this game is, what would you say?

3. There are two bars in the top-left. What does each one do? (Best guess - "no idea" is a genuinely useful answer.)

Please go in blind, don't look anything up first, that's the whole point. Happy to answer anything at all after you've played, just not before.

If it asks whether it can send me data, saying yes tells me where you died so you don't have to remember.