Thank you kindly for playing and the message! I'm really happy to hear you like the game and the designs got you into drawing, that's great!
I believe it would be cool to see the weapon pylons or the weapons inside them on Valeria Sommers' M97A change in appearance depending on what kind of weapon we have equipped, both inn the hanger, and in the mission, like having the pylons extend much further out or have the barrel visibly extending out with something like the Railgun, have them angle themselves up or have segmented box that angles up with the SM launcher and following the arc, and more. You don't need to implement this at all though, I know its probably a lot harder than I think and would probably give you gray hairs, so it's up to you.
I think this would be a nice thing to see as well, but it's very low on the list of things to work on I'm afraid. It's definitely something I'll consider doing towards the end of production where overhauling the sprites or designs won't be a concern anymore.
I feel some sounds for certain parts might need to be more punchy, more brutal, more raw, and more powerful(this is purely my bias speaking, I adore the sound design of Trepang2, each gun sounds violent and brutal, like each one wishes to eviscerate yours or your enemies body).
I can agree with that. Even heavier sound effects for explosions or bullet impacts would be nice, especially since there's no music currently.
Now, I know its still in development, but I cant help but say that I wish there were more mission variety.
There's a bit too much for me to go over one by one, but I appreciate all of the ideas. I'm working on some new missions that will vary the structure and objectives similar to the ones you've written down. I certainly don't want every mission to be like the first six where you go around and kill things mindlessly, it'll get old quite fast.
The armor packages will also likely behave as you said; some offering better speed or protection at the cost of the overdrive ability. At this point I'm kind of considering removing the powerplant system entirely as I don't think I can put enough meaningful change into the handling or movement in the game with them.
Now, onto the lore, and the hinted at story.I like your approach of, well not directly telling it to us, but I think that can only go certain distance. I think it would be interesting to have some elements be told to us, but not in a 100% direct way.
This is being quietly worked on at the moment and there will eventually be cutscenes at the start and end of each mission to explain things. The factions you fight will also (hopefully) have a lot more behind them and a better reason for why you're fighting against them. Right now pretty much all of the mission briefings in the game and the general set up between each one is a placeholder, I intend to change things up a lot. There's also going to be other characters of course, not just Ms. Sommers on her own.
MAC or M/AC being a catchall term for high-speed crawlers is great by the way, I hadn't thought of that.
Thanks again, and I hope the best for you in the future!
I appreciate the kind words and the concern. While I do save and try to consider every suggestion people write to me, at the end of the day I'm still developing this game for myself. If I wasn't, it would probably be finished already...
Hello. Thank you for playing and the feedback! I'll try my best to respond.
The decision to combine bellows and wheels seemed extremely unusual to me. Personally, I find this extremely strange, though. Perhaps this is somehow written into the lore or maybe I just don’t understand something.
This just comes down to the aesthetic choices of the mecha designs in this universe. While perhaps unusual, I think combining legs and wheels makes for interesting visual designs while retaining speed and the style of movement seen in the gameplay.
Another strange thing is physics. Sometimes the mech does not feel like a big killing machine, because this machine can be pushed by a larva or an enemy several times smaller than the player.
Certain things such as scale and movement have been exaggerated for gameplay and readability purposes. It's pretty far from a realistic game like a simulator.
Be that as it may, Project Landsword is exactly the game I've been looking for for so long. and I hope that the game will continue to develop. Personally, I would like to see more variations of weapons, hulls and the like, as well as several classes for mechs (something like heavy, medium, light, support) and AI of allies on some missions (for example, on particularly large maps), as well as artillery weapons.
All of these things are being worked on, particularly AI allied units and larger maps along with new weapons. I know development and updates have been slow, but progress is still being made.
I hope my comment is not too long, thanks for your attention and good luck with the development of the game :D
As for your promo shot that does also look nice but hopefully the game won't go that far into a sort of "anime direction" if that makes any sense.
Don't worry, I'll probably go for something tonally a bit more reserved, that was mostly an experiment with the art.
I think games that constantly overlay screens with faces whenever a voice it talking over the gameplay can get distracting.
I fully agree. The game Bulk Slash was an influence with the pop-up portrait in the corner, but it tends to get pretty repetitive after playing for a long while, so I'll likely tone down the usage of it unless something crazy happens on screen.
Thank you for playing and the in-depth feedback, I appreciate it!
-HE and Fire grenades feel very underwhelming, especially compared to the sheer utility and AOE of smoke, They could both use some generous range buffs. Fire from the grenade could linger a bit longer too. HE feels like a downgrade from Fire. I would personally make HE mid damage and very numerous with relatively low AOE to have it as a way to poke/finish off enemies without leaving cover +cause explosions (clears rubble and attracts NPC's) for as a damage-utility option, while having a Cluster Grenade as a more limited and dedicated AOE option.
At the moment, the smoke is honestly way too overpowered. It stops enemies dead in their trail and let's the player shoot at them with almost no penalty. I'll probably have to rework them very heavily and maybe reduce the total count that's launched to just two or three instead of five. The incendiary grenades will basically be an upgrade that you purchase later on, but the standard HE grenades will still likely be useful in missions where you're trying to keep collateral damage down.
-Stacked Launcher feels over-tuned. Great AOE, DPS and the ability to shoot over cover with minimal downsides. The last ability is most powerful, and I think the minimum range for it should be increased to the point where you have to leave yourself open if you want to shoot over a piece of cover, to make shooting over cover a choice to make rather than objectively better than leaving the cover to shoot. Also more min range means you would have to be farther from the enemy to shoot them over cover, which reduces the range at which you can SOC (shoot over cover), because enemy far away from the cover that you want to shoot over would be offscreen. I also think the reload should be longer (reloads in general should be) and firing it should alert the enemies to your position like real artillery.
It's easily the most overpowered weapon after the laser. I do think it really should alert enemies, the massive craters it makes creating no reaction is something I'll try to fix, thanks for the suggestion. Longer reload time would be a good balance as well.
-I hate mines but I think this is more of a skill issue on my part. Still I think they should have a bigger detonation range (and a slight delay to blowing up so they detonate in a group of enemies rather than at the edge of one.)
They seem to be very unpopular. I'll consider giving them a delay, that'll perhaps make them more satisfying to use.
-Scatter Gun could use more kick. Not even like a buff just a bigger feeling of impact because it just feels flaccid to use. -Guided missile can't hit anything in remotely dense areas, they should mow down weaker objects like trees
The scattergun will certainly have a major buff in the next update, and guided missiles will hopefully become more useful in some of the more open stages I'm planning. I like your idea of balancing the laser by slowing down movement and having a reload when it's switching batteries, I'll experiment with that.
(Also where can I sign up for translating the game? I would like to translate it to Turkish)
Will let you know when the time comes, I might put out a post asking for translators.
1. Flame, laser, stacked munitions, and smoke all work underwater for some reason. I think that there should either be a diegetic reason for this or the weapons should be disabled (or just not work properly when brought in).
I don't see why these wouldn't work while in water? You're not under the water, you're floating over it, so they should all be just fine.
2. When smoke is deployed, it can't be shot through. At least not with the laser. It's like there's this hitbox blocking projectiles from passing. I think there's the same issue with other grenade types.
This is an issue that'll be fixed in the next build. The system I'm using currently for the smoke clouds basically has them as solid objects, so the laser ends up treating it like a building object. Same thing with the spider mines, it's not great.
3. I also don't know how to use the melee, so... how?
Press the F key or check the settings menu, you should be able to rebind it.
Suggestion: when you get intel, the notification could preview what it’s about.
I agree. I've been considering overhauling the whole system and way it's displayed at all though, perhaps it'll go to a separate section entirely rather than the PDA on the overworld.
I hope there will be an upgrade for dash instead of acceleration.
This is planned. I really want to have different movement options.
I got an S rank on level 7 using a shotgun and spider mines, but it was very difficult compared to other levels. I was too curious about the new intel to step back. The pixel art there looks great.
Nice job! Level 7 is very hard to get an S rank on, I've only done it a few times myself.
Is collateral damage bad for the rating?
Currently there's no penalty at all, rank is strictly determined by number of hits taken and your total mission time. In the future certain levels will require you to keep a collateral damage threshold down though.
I assuem a rough idea would be for the player to eb doing a beach defense against waves of crabs?
I've been thinking the objective will be that you'll actually need to wipe out some nests in an area, or perhaps retrieve a crate similar to the seventh mission in the demo. There would likely be allied support units as well.
Also loving that artwork and especially that cockpit view! The telephone really reminds me of Cowboy Bebop.
Thank you for the comment. The weapon idea sounds kind of like an EMP to me, and the concept of fighting in a level that's already been destroyed from previous combat in the area will show up too. I'm glad you like the technical manual too!
Thanks for the report! I'll need to figure out a way to have Game Maker detect if you're alt tabbed. It's supposed to only be rendering what's on screen but if nothing is then everything despawns.
Also I love this game but getting an S rank on level 6 and 7 is so difficult, especially with the targetting difficulties of level 7. Very fun tho. Keep up the good work!
It is indeed very difficult right now, but you'll be able to come back to those levels later on with upgrades!
