Looks good so far, but there's a couple things I think should have better options:
Disable mouse acceleration. I do not like mouse acceleration anywhere at all. Or am I crazy? Definitely feels like there's some, at least in menus.
Automatic disable of controller vibration. If the game's picking up keyboard inputs instead of controller ones, it should know to turn it off. Vibration on death is also a bit too over the top.
Some other feedback:
Is there any way to actually choose your stats?
The game is pretty hardcore, is it normal for an enemy in the starting room to deal 60% of my hp if not more in one hit? Also, my weapons feel underpowered. It takes me multiple full charged hits to take down an enemy (even with the Madman class), but they'll break after just killing four enemies or so, leaving me to fend for myself with a rock. Am I doing something wrong?
Enemy melee attacks which don't have an animation are too hard to tell timing-wise.
When in windowed mode, hitting "return to title" after dying will change the window from maximized to small, despite my resolution ingame being set to 1080p (Well, or it was, on the demoday version. Where did the resolution option go in the new version?)
I'd like my vertical view angle range to not be so limited - even if it's useless, it's just better-feeling to not have it capped so much.
Thanks for your review! Good thing I just posted a patch an attosecond ago.
There's no mouse acceleration at all, specially on the menus. Sorry if I can't fix that for you.
I left controller vibration as a menu option because some people (like myself) like to play with a controller for the action scenes and a mouse and keyboard for the menus. Also, since death is extremely super bad, I felt like it justified that crazy vibing.
No, just roll away. I didn't want people to go for the same 18-18-2-2 stat builds, or distribute the points poorly. The free , balanced rerolls I feel is a nice middle ground.
You probably got hit with that goat's lightning. Its casting can be interrupted with an attack and you can also take cover from it, which will make the spell backfire. It might feel unfair, but it only appears in the first dungeon and it's a pretty unique spell that's fun to counter. I also JUST buffed the starting weapons to make the early game less brutal, plus increased their durability overall. But the idea is that you should zone enemies properly and avoid hitting walls as much as possible, as they not only slow your recovery but also eat away a lot of durability.
That maybe will be fixed soon, depending on if I feel it'll be worth it to pay an artist to make real attack animations for the enemies. Stay tuned!
I killed the resolution option in order to have better, more consistent visuals. It was worth it I swear! Also, I think that's an engine quirk I'm not sure I can fix. Sorry.
I left it that way to really give off that fake-3D vibe without going for full horizontal control only.
I don't see how giving the option to keep randomly rolling but not assigning points is any good; people are going to keep rolling for a while until they get something that closely matches what they had in mind, why not let them assign points? If balance is a concern, you could implement some system that doesn't let an attribute get too far ahead unless there's another attribute at most X points under it, or something like that. I feel like silly cheesy builds like these can give it more replayability value though, for games like this.
As for the lightning, maybe rock spikes from the ground should block it too? I tried doing that a couple times but it always seemed to go through, even though the rock was right in the middle between us. I get it's not a specially big spiky rock, but I felt like it could've worked.
And about the resolution thing, it's not only that it kicks me back into a tiny tiny window, but afterwards I wasn't able to maximize it at all. It was either fullscreen or a 600x400 or so window.
I'll consider adding the option to directly assign stat points, but I liked that it feels like you are picking a random person from a crowd instead of actually creating a character.
It's magic mang, a hitscan spell even, but the spiky rocks and other props can block projectiles depending on the height.
I'll see what I can do about the resolution and windows. Thanks for the bug report!
Combat is a little too unresponsive. I am also unsure when I need to block and when to dodge. Can you dodge the magic attacks? Can you dodge from the short guys? or are they too short? Also block doesn't always work, do I have to face forward directly? Despite my criticism this is definitely top 3 games this DD for me. Love it.
The combat is supposed to be slow and methodical. Every hit, or miss, counts. You can dodge any attack, including projectiles, but not magic, which you have to take cover from. Block should always work as long as you're holding the button and you're not doing something else, like attacking or dodging. You can even parry attacks if you time your blocks right.
I enjoyed every second! I swear there is mouse accel or something... It's a little annoying when spike traps are on your floor and it sounds like they are right next to you the whole time. I'm not sure why I found 1101 throwing daggers, but each throw uses 30 of them. The level after the slime boss had a store and dead enemies right from the start, did the the mysterious salesman clear it out for me but leave the treasures? What a gentleman. I'd love to see more secrets on each floor!
Thanks! The mouse acceleration feel might be that you look around more slowly when sprinting. The spike trap thing seems like a bug and I'll work on it. The durability of ranged weapons is kind of a mix between ammo and actual durability, but I left it as one number to keep it simple.
And while that salesman did wipe the floor for you, he might've just taken some of the treasure to sell it back to you too.
There's a lot of things to discover in this game, not only item-wise, but mechanic wise, and I hope you have fun mastering it.
I really liked the atmosphere, you absolutely nailed it. This reminds me a lot of Shadow Tower actually, with the enemy sounds around you. It's kinda terrifying when you're low on health and you keep hearing this goat jumping around and you can't find it, neat stuff.
I think the movement is fine but it wouldn't hurt to make it a little bit faster. I do have to agree with the other in that the combat is too slow, even for a King's Field inspired game. The speed is fine when you're fighting only one enemy but add another one and there's very little you can do about it. I'd often get blasted by the goat because it would attack me from a distance while I was dodging the throwing knife goat. It also makes blocking kinda useless since by the time you can block after attacking you already took damage. The dodge mechanic is fine though, just takes a while to get used to the timing and is very useful.
One thing I didn't like is how long it took me to get the tutorial message on how to repair items. I wish I knew I could do that earlier, could have saved me in a few runs. I assume people will complain about the durability because they didn't know about the repair mechanic.
I also couldn't find more than a single health potion. I got loads and loads of mana potions but only one health potion. Same for the wells, only one of them healed me the others I assume either were curing posion or recovering mp. Healing seems to be very scarce which makes the game really hard. I managed to get to the slime(?) boss but I ended up dying before I could kill it and I had no way of healing.
I really liked the randomness of the levels and everything and also the weapons. The throwing daggers were pretty badass. I can't wait to see more of this in the future and it's already really fun to play. Keep it up.
While it can be frustrating to play at times, a lot of the game's progression is discovering all the small stuff in it that can help a lot, like, for example, that you can combine potions to get the effect you want.
From items, to equipment, and even gameplay stuff (like using special doors and traps against enemies, getting them to hit one another, positioning to avoid hitting walls, animation cancelling with dodge, etc). There's a lot to learn that will make the climb go from impossible to consistently doable, and that's one of the things I'm going for.
Still seeing how it goes, though, as I may be asking people to give it way too many chances before it (and they) get good.
Love the monsters, they're the best part about the game. Both funny and creepy, would play just to see the bestiary. Not a big fan of character portraits though.... just stick helmets on them. Movement a little slow but gameplay is serviceable. The biggest strength of the atmosphere is definitely the monsters though.
-For some reason the whole game seems to be running in slow motion. Everything can't be THIS slow, right?
-Attacking takes over a full second for the whole animation. Whew this is slow.
-It's amusing that sprinting is still slow as hell (albeit faster) and yet you have the speed lines.
-For a game running in slow mo, that mushroom is fast as hell. It also took out over half my HP.
-The durability of weapons are nonexistent, good lord.
-No idea why there's a block button when all the enemies' attacks are faster than yours, meaning your only option is actually to tank hits. I got a spear as my old weapon broke and the whole attack takes like 3 seconds.
-Balance is all over the place, against the player. I can see no possible way to actually beat the game without getting lucky. Would be nice to see more emphasis on some skill based things like blocking.
Overall, the only real positive things I have to say about the current state of the gameplay is that it's a good core to work with once you iron everything out. Anything that's not gameplay is pretty fine. This'll be a good game for sure, just has some rough patches atm. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the criticism, but the game is unapologetically slow, and it's already pretty fast if compared to the games that inspired it (King's Field series).
Although you might've just been stuck with a low Agi character and slow, fragile weapons.
But everything seems in check with what the game is going for, so it might just not be your cup of tea. I appreciate the time you've put into testing and reviewing it though, so thanks!
If this is an AGI thing, you'd think you'd have an explanation of stats somewhere, yeah? That's kinda neat in itself but I thought I was having performance issues lol. Other than that, if you're happy with it, I guess that's fine. Happy devving!
The best part of it is that it reminds me of Witchaven, but hits here feel meatier and overal better.
The weapons are all pretty good, the spear in particular, although I am not a big fan of the rock.
Movement still feels a bit slow sometimes, but that might be just me. The speed effect when you run cannot be seen properly in the first area, but this game has both charm and potential.
Adding something that makes the dungeon even more atmospheric would be great, for example lightning. The monster graphics and how they respond to your hits is GREAT. Oh, and very good work with the sound effects, these little details make your game special.
This is mostly my impression of it, overall it works and it's fun, exploring areas and finding out what lies ahead feels wonderful.
Comments
Looks good so far, but there's a couple things I think should have better options:
Some other feedback:
Thanks for your review! Good thing I just posted a patch an attosecond ago.
I don't see how giving the option to keep randomly rolling but not assigning points is any good; people are going to keep rolling for a while until they get something that closely matches what they had in mind, why not let them assign points? If balance is a concern, you could implement some system that doesn't let an attribute get too far ahead unless there's another attribute at most X points under it, or something like that. I feel like silly cheesy builds like these can give it more replayability value though, for games like this.
As for the lightning, maybe rock spikes from the ground should block it too? I tried doing that a couple times but it always seemed to go through, even though the rock was right in the middle between us. I get it's not a specially big spiky rock, but I felt like it could've worked.
And about the resolution thing, it's not only that it kicks me back into a tiny tiny window, but afterwards I wasn't able to maximize it at all. It was either fullscreen or a 600x400 or so window.
I'll consider adding the option to directly assign stat points, but I liked that it feels like you are picking a random person from a crowd instead of actually creating a character.
It's magic mang, a hitscan spell even, but the spiky rocks and other props can block projectiles depending on the height.
I'll see what I can do about the resolution and windows. Thanks for the bug report!
Combat is a little too unresponsive. I am also unsure when I need to block and when to dodge. Can you dodge the magic attacks? Can you dodge from the short guys? or are they too short? Also block doesn't always work, do I have to face forward directly? Despite my criticism this is definitely top 3 games this DD for me. Love it.
The combat is supposed to be slow and methodical. Every hit, or miss, counts. You can dodge any attack, including projectiles, but not magic, which you have to take cover from. Block should always work as long as you're holding the button and you're not doing something else, like attacking or dodging. You can even parry attacks if you time your blocks right.
I enjoyed every second! I swear there is mouse accel or something... It's a little annoying when spike traps are on your floor and it sounds like they are right next to you the whole time. I'm not sure why I found 1101 throwing daggers, but each throw uses 30 of them. The level after the slime boss had a store and dead enemies right from the start, did the the mysterious salesman clear it out for me but leave the treasures? What a gentleman. I'd love to see more secrets on each floor!
Thanks! The mouse acceleration feel might be that you look around more slowly when sprinting. The spike trap thing seems like a bug and I'll work on it. The durability of ranged weapons is kind of a mix between ammo and actual durability, but I left it as one number to keep it simple.
And while that salesman did wipe the floor for you, he might've just taken some of the treasure to sell it back to you too.
There's a lot of things to discover in this game, not only item-wise, but mechanic wise, and I hope you have fun mastering it.
I really liked the atmosphere, you absolutely nailed it. This reminds me a lot of Shadow Tower actually, with the enemy sounds around you. It's kinda terrifying when you're low on health and you keep hearing this goat jumping around and you can't find it, neat stuff.
I think the movement is fine but it wouldn't hurt to make it a little bit faster. I do have to agree with the other in that the combat is too slow, even for a King's Field inspired game. The speed is fine when you're fighting only one enemy but add another one and there's very little you can do about it. I'd often get blasted by the goat because it would attack me from a distance while I was dodging the throwing knife goat. It also makes blocking kinda useless since by the time you can block after attacking you already took damage. The dodge mechanic is fine though, just takes a while to get used to the timing and is very useful.
One thing I didn't like is how long it took me to get the tutorial message on how to repair items. I wish I knew I could do that earlier, could have saved me in a few runs. I assume people will complain about the durability because they didn't know about the repair mechanic.
I also couldn't find more than a single health potion. I got loads and loads of mana potions but only one health potion. Same for the wells, only one of them healed me the others I assume either were curing posion or recovering mp. Healing seems to be very scarce which makes the game really hard. I managed to get to the slime(?) boss but I ended up dying before I could kill it and I had no way of healing.
I really liked the randomness of the levels and everything and also the weapons. The throwing daggers were pretty badass. I can't wait to see more of this in the future and it's already really fun to play. Keep it up.
Thanks man, glad you liked it.
While it can be frustrating to play at times, a lot of the game's progression is discovering all the small stuff in it that can help a lot, like, for example, that you can combine potions to get the effect you want.
From items, to equipment, and even gameplay stuff (like using special doors and traps against enemies, getting them to hit one another, positioning to avoid hitting walls, animation cancelling with dodge, etc). There's a lot to learn that will make the climb go from impossible to consistently doable, and that's one of the things I'm going for.
Still seeing how it goes, though, as I may be asking people to give it way too many chances before it (and they) get good.
Love the monsters, they're the best part about the game. Both funny and creepy, would play just to see the bestiary. Not a big fan of character portraits though.... just stick helmets on them. Movement a little slow but gameplay is serviceable. The biggest strength of the atmosphere is definitely the monsters though.
Just you wait for tomorrow when I upload the new version with much better visuals, including the monsters.
Character portraits will remain ugly for a little while more, though.
-For some reason the whole game seems to be running in slow motion. Everything can't be THIS slow, right?
-Attacking takes over a full second for the whole animation. Whew this is slow.
-It's amusing that sprinting is still slow as hell (albeit faster) and yet you have the speed lines.
-For a game running in slow mo, that mushroom is fast as hell. It also took out over half my HP.
-The durability of weapons are nonexistent, good lord.
-No idea why there's a block button when all the enemies' attacks are faster than yours, meaning your only option is actually to tank hits. I got a spear as my old weapon broke and the whole attack takes like 3 seconds.
-Balance is all over the place, against the player. I can see no possible way to actually beat the game without getting lucky. Would be nice to see more emphasis on some skill based things like blocking.
Overall, the only real positive things I have to say about the current state of the gameplay is that it's a good core to work with once you iron everything out. Anything that's not gameplay is pretty fine. This'll be a good game for sure, just has some rough patches atm. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the criticism, but the game is unapologetically slow, and it's already pretty fast if compared to the games that inspired it (King's Field series).
Although you might've just been stuck with a low Agi character and slow, fragile weapons.
But everything seems in check with what the game is going for, so it might just not be your cup of tea. I appreciate the time you've put into testing and reviewing it though, so thanks!
If this is an AGI thing, you'd think you'd have an explanation of stats somewhere, yeah? That's kinda neat in itself but I thought I was having performance issues lol. Other than that, if you're happy with it, I guess that's fine. Happy devving!
The best part of it is that it reminds me of Witchaven, but hits here feel meatier and overal better.
The weapons are all pretty good, the spear in particular, although I am not a big fan of the rock.
Movement still feels a bit slow sometimes, but that might be just me.
The speed effect when you run cannot be seen properly in the first area, but this game has both charm and potential.
Adding something that makes the dungeon even more atmospheric would be great, for example lightning. The monster graphics and how they respond to your hits is GREAT. Oh, and very good work with the sound effects, these little details make your game special.
This is mostly my impression of it, overall it works and it's fun, exploring areas and finding out what lies ahead feels wonderful.
Thanks for your review, I'm glad you liked it!
I'll post a much better version of the game after I'm done fixing these damned last minute bugs.
Hope you'll check it out then!