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Thanks for your support and feedback! Off-screen indicators are a great idea! I can extend our existing targeting indicator system to include indicators for all nearby hostile enemies. In the next patch cycle, we will unleash the inventory system, procedural weapons, and (eventually) new enemies. As such, you can expect a lot of balance changes, including your suggestion. Along those lines, was there anything specific about the flying enemies that make them difficult? I could adjust their AI and flight behaviors to make them easier to fight. Cheers!

Update! I finally had the chance to drive out to a location with high speed internet and successfully pushed a build without any issues.  While that doesn't bode well for hot-fixes, I'll just have to deal with it and schedule more trips to civilization. Thank you for the help!

Despite the difference in computers, the connection to the internet is the same.  Although that internet connection is painfully slow, I never had any issues pushing builds before this. If it is an issue with the connection, I could try to push a build from a location with a faster connection that's about an hour away from where I work/live. While that won't be a sustainable method of updating the game, it wouldn't hurt to test the hypothesis. 

Satellite internet is the bane of my existence...

yes, a little more than two seconds pass before the message comes up.

The obvious follow up question is: does that mean something is wrong with my API key?

Update:  I now get the same error with the "butler login" command, much to my dismay.

For about two weeks I've been unable to push a new build of my game using Butler.

If I enter the following command line:

butler push "C:\UnityBuilds\MyGameName" mycompany/my-game-name:win-beta

I immediately get the following response:

creating build on remote server: Post https://api.itch.io/wharf/builds: context deadline exceeded

The game and company names shown here are placeholders, but have confirmed that the ones I entered didn't have any typos. I'm using Butler v15.17.0, which the "butler upgrade" command shows to be the latest version.  Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to migrate everything to a new PC and development was on hiatus for several months, so perhaps it's an API key issue? Thanks in advance for your help!

Regarding number 4: I just noticed that I accidentally disabled the new text message in the live version. Will be active in the next patch since it's not game-breaking.

Whoa, that's quite a rig. I'm a little jealous. Slows down for me using a single instance of Obs, but not below 30 fps unless I'm in massive caves (using a single 680ti, i7-2700k, and 16GB RAM).

Nevertheless, I'm currently working on some performance improvements that will go in the next patch.  Reducing the number of enemies kills two birds with one stone, since they are pretty performance heavy and doing so addresses your concerns about combat vs too many monsters. That, along with some changes to the post-processing effects, prop density, particle effects, and some UI systems should round off the first wave of performance adjustments.

Good luck with school! Getting into game development reflects a big industry change for me (I studied mechanical engineering) and I certainly wish I had taken some courses on game design before diving into my first project (this). Janky-animations and bugs notwithstanding, I'd be happy to answer any questions regarding game development in Unity!

Cavernous Clusterf*ck, I love it! Thank you so much for your video review! 

I didn't think about skipping the tutorial in the middle of it based on following the instructions... Which is honestly just embarrassing. The whole info dump was meant as an interim thing for the early access while I can sort things out with a tutorial level. 

Combat is definitely a work in progress, obviously. I'll get to work on changing the dodge functionality, since double tapping annoys me, as well. However, target lock is in there, but requires you to press the middle mouse button with a target selected. Similarly, grappling enemies requires targeting them. From your video, I also just noticed that you don't take damage while rag-dolled... So yeah, clunky is probably an apt description.

I'll forward your comments about the sound design to Paul (he does the audio and sfx). While the sounds themselves are out of my hands, I agree that the enemy attacks could use more obvious "tells" aside from the animation wind ups. Using sound to do so is an excellent suggestion. I may also use enemy lighting effects to indicate attacks (e.g. the glowing pattern on the pillbugs will pulse brightly prior to an attack). That type of indication is already implemented on the fireflies, but is easy to get lost when sh*t hits the fan and a million enemies pour out of the woodwork. Adding more sounds to the mix would certainly help.

Speaking of a million enemies. Balance... yeah. It's incredibly useful for me to see how other people play the game, so I can't thank you enough for posting a video. As the one who developed the character controller, combat systems, and enemy ai, it's good to know what is and isn't working from someone without bias or hundreds of hours of play testing. Your comments about the single enemy focus stands out to me for that reason. For the time being, I may have to simply turn down the number of enemies while I tackle the rest of the issues. 

The performance issues are something that I haven't had many chances to get real feedback on, beyond what I can self-inflict. Along those lines, it would be helpful for me to know (generally) what your PC specs are so that I can at least use that as a benchmark for the performance issues. One thing that I've noticed is that some of the post processing effects we use can lead to pretty poor fps. There are some in-game sliders to adjust or disable those effects, but I may disable them by default based on your input. In my experience, screen space reflections and motion blur lead to the biggest performance hit. However, toning down the number of enemies will certainly also help with performance. You didn't even get to the really big caves, which is a little concerning. 

In any event, thank you so much for the criticisms (you're our first review!), and we'll do our best to improve Rite of Tephra using your input. Cheers!

We are very excited to announce the early access release Rite of Tephra! Explore dangerous caverns with your grappling hook while fending off swarms of unrelenting monsters!

Rite of Tephra is an action-rpg with a focus on exploration and arcade style combat. Customize your character to suit your play-style and don't let death get in the way of progression! After all, death is just a part of life and you may be able to recover that which was lost... 

No two levels are identical! As you delve deeper into the caverns, they will steadily grow and become more labyrinthine. The harmony of the music is generated along with the shape and color of the caves, and changes as you move through it!

Did we mention that you get a grappling hook? Traverse the caverns in style, or smack against a stalagmite and go rag-dolling! Reel in distant enemies for a quick kill or catch a free ride.

Download it (for free!) at: https://platypusgames.itch.io/rite-of-tephra