Atmosphere is good and the controls felt solid. I think the damage from swinging the sword comes a little early, animation wise, but besides that I liked combat. Though I never did find a use for using particular swings on enemies, besides stabbing at floor-guys. I wish there were some sort of map, whether it's a diablo-style one or a tradition physical map, that way I knew where I had been and what was left to explore as I feel like I missed a lot. I look forward to more!
The game is still a little unfinished, but already perfectly conveys the atmosphere. I went through it in about 15 minutes. Several times I even got scared because of the skeletons, they sneak up silently! It would be cool if their bones make a sound when they fall. When I was given the opportunity to jump off the walls and ride a little through the cave, I was glad :) Good luck with your project!
Actually this turned out to be too funny and I feel like this wasn't the intention at all. That is because you have these meme-looking skeletons running at you and you don't need to actually fight them but instead just run around ramming one after the other.
I don't if there was an end because since the hallways are very similar I ended up getting lost. A map would be nice to help travel around the corridors.
Keep devving, it looks good and the movement feels good. The combat itself needs to be more responsive too.
I enjoyed exploring the dungeon. I was a bit frustrated by the invisible walls at the beginning but visually It was quite nice. I couldn't get the game to work with an xbox controller I got stuck after I died, I lost my sword and i couldn't attack anymore. There's a nice scare that caught me by surprise. Spoopy/10
Sappy already laid out what I was going to post pretty thoroughly. Combat need a bit of work, enemies need more sound, and its easy to get turned around in the environment. Still, I've enjoyed seeing your progress posts and I want to see how this shapes up.
This is the very first game I played and am reviewing on here so I'm not sure if I missed anything in regards to controls or instructions, but heres my review.
As of now I felt like there was no way to really avoid damage. Each group of enemies I fought, I lost some hp, and I didnt find any way to regain health. So it was basically a matter of killing as many skeletons as possible before dying then having to run through the maze again to try and progress further. I only made it a bit past the swinging axes.
Combat is really basic, its basically just spam left click. If you hold left click I think it does a stab attack, but Im not sure the benefit of that compared to the normal attack. Blocking and the block charge also seems kind of useless because you are fighting a swarm of enemies that attack quickly and die in 1 hit, so you are better off just spam attacking instead of trying to block them. I think if you made the enemies slower, have more hitpoints, spawned fewer, and made it so there attacks were more telegraphed, it would make the combat much more interesting.
Enemies need some sound to them, even if its just rattling or something. They were super sneaky and sometimes I didnt even realize I was getting smacked in the back until I saw my health dropping. Basically everything needs more sound, though Im sure you are aware of that.
The environment, models and animations looked really good. My only real complaint is that its a maze where every room looks alike. Maybe block off some more of the empty rooms so the path is clearer.
Thanks for playing and leaving feedback!! Yea my combat and enemies are super basic at the moment. I have some ideas on how to make it more interesting for the next demo. There is a healing item but I left it disabled for the demo to gauge difficulty. Unfortunately a few damage related bugs made it harder than intended... New sounds are on the way! I fully agree I need some good rattling bones in there somewhere. It will happen. I will also revisit the level with some new rooms and set dressing so it doesn't look so repetitive and maze-like. The next demo will be even better!
My sword was glowing for like five seconds then stopped after one magic slash. Really wanted to have that magic slash for further exploration. Very easy to get lost in, not in a good way, just walking into dead ends in the darkness and stuff, getting disoriented after a pincer swarm. Maybe I underestimated the shield but felt like I could take zero damage as long as I had room to backpedal swing, and would die if I got cornered.
But even with the overall lack of sound was very spooky and enjoyed the skeletons a ton. Good sound would make it so much tenser. Maybe add a "prism stone" mechanic for exploration? Or i'm just a zoomer
The sword 'powers up' for three swings after reaching a checkpoint at the moment. I will probably change that to work differently. It is definitely too samey looking at the moment. A few new unique larger rooms and some set dressing should help there. I am on the hunt for good sounds constantly, but it has been surprisingly tough to find what I want. Will definitely add prism stones.
-Good lord I had to take out a loan to buy a new HDD to fit this game on it!
-Sprint isn't bindable in settings. You also have 2 Interacts.
-I got spooked like hell by my skelearm drawing its sword. Lol.
-Enemy design is honestly not great. Especially with the tools the player has at their disposal like the shield bash. It'd be better if you didn't go the "let's spawn a million skeletons and call it a battle" route.
Seems like it'll be pretty good! Keep it up! I also got filtered by the swarm of bees that was the skeleton army.
Oh no, someone looked at the hotkey menu. My greatest fear has come true. It doesn't work at all, lol. I've looked at it once in the past month. But no more, I will fix it! The skeleton arm scaring people is great, its probably the unsheath noise being too loud. And you are right, my enemies suck at the moment. One of my top priorities now is making more interesting designs that will keep the combat fresh. Thanks for playing!!
It came off kinda vague, but I meant to say that you have a fairly good core for making interesting enemies with the Attack-Block-Shield Bash trio of moves. If you can focus on those three things and make interesting enemies for sure!
Quite enjoyed the game up until the first checkpoint, then I got filtered by the grabbing skeletons and couldn't get much further than the pile of bones after the pendulum axes. Will endeavour to go further.
Some more sound dev would do wonders (Rattling bones for the skeletons, attack sounds for the skeletons, more ambience to set in that you are deep in the dungeons.)
Being able to interact more with the environment with the sword or shield would be good too. (Clanging your sword against the rock, being able to break boxes and pots that were in the construction section of the dungeon, being able to cut through the webs and have them fall apart, rather than them just disappearing as you walk through them).
The first person view is a little disorienting, you can look down and see you have no body, but you can see from shadows that you have a sword, a shield, and a lantern. The shield is a little too far down to tell when you have it raised or lowered (May be down to the FOV? I did not change any settings upon launch).
I didn't know I had even reached a checkpoint and that my health and stamina had refilled until after I died further on, so perhaps some player feedback that they are in a safe location? (A change in the ambience, maybe have the candle on a table rather than on the floor, etc.).
The grabbing skeletons are a little obnoxious, as shields don't seem to deter them, their hitbox can only be interacted with when they are immediately upon you, and they can grab you through doors and bars. (An example being in the corridor of doors after you reach the first checkpoint, before you reach the pendulum axes).
There are some issues with the skeleton spawning, sometimes they'll spawn conjoined and be stuck in the air, and sometimes they'll spawn on the player midway through the room.
The demo is actually much harder than intended at the moment. The grabbing skeletons are dealing a lot of extra damage due to a bug. (And as you pointed out, they grab through stuff.) It's not impossible, just a little unfair. I'm glad you enjoyed it regardless!! New sounds are on the way, definitely. More interaction with the environment is totally happening, I was thinking the same thing: Smashing barrels, cutting webs, etc. I will take another look at the shield positioning, it was initially too high. Maybe I lowered it too much. I would love to add skeleton legs, but it will be tough because of how I made my first person character. I might try something out though. Checkpoints will get a little flash effect and sound when you reach them so they are more obvious. And yea, it has been a long war against my spawning system smushing my skeletons into floating piles, but I will fix it sooner or later!! Thanks again for trying out the game and leaving feed back!
A bit resource intensive and enemies are simple... BUT the scenario looks gorgeous and seeing a flailing skeleton definitely makes you want to throw your sword, get to the nearest inn and stay there with the lights on but you can't because you're a skeleton yourself.
Although they are bone creatures, having meatier attack/hit animations would be wonderful.
Give them a daggerfall scream, add some immersive sounds and a few new skeletal tricks they can play on you and you've got the spookiest game of the last years. Keep up!
Thanks! I agree, they need meatier attacks. I will try out some different attack animations before the next demo. And a daggerfall scream sounds great too. Skeleton noises are hard to source.
Comments
Atmosphere is good and the controls felt solid. I think the damage from swinging the sword comes a little early, animation wise, but besides that I liked combat. Though I never did find a use for using particular swings on enemies, besides stabbing at floor-guys. I wish there were some sort of map, whether it's a diablo-style one or a tradition physical map, that way I knew where I had been and what was left to explore as I feel like I missed a lot. I look forward to more!
The game is still a little unfinished, but already perfectly conveys the atmosphere. I went through it in about 15 minutes. Several times I even got scared because of the skeletons, they sneak up silently! It would be cool if their bones make a sound when they fall. When I was given the opportunity to jump off the walls and ride a little through the cave, I was glad :)
Good luck with your project!
Actually this turned out to be too funny and I feel like this wasn't the intention at all. That is because you have these meme-looking skeletons running at you and you don't need to actually fight them but instead just run around ramming one after the other.
I don't if there was an end because since the hallways are very similar I ended up getting lost. A map would be nice to help travel around the corridors.
Keep devving, it looks good and the movement feels good. The combat itself needs to be more responsive too.
I enjoyed exploring the dungeon. I was a bit frustrated by the invisible walls at the beginning but visually It was quite nice. I couldn't get the game to work with an xbox controller I got stuck after I died, I lost my sword and i couldn't attack anymore. There's a nice scare that caught me by surprise. Spoopy/10
Sappy already laid out what I was going to post pretty thoroughly. Combat need a bit of work, enemies need more sound, and its easy to get turned around in the environment. Still, I've enjoyed seeing your progress posts and I want to see how this shapes up.
This is the very first game I played and am reviewing on here so I'm not sure if I missed anything in regards to controls or instructions, but heres my review.
As of now I felt like there was no way to really avoid damage. Each group of enemies I fought, I lost some hp, and I didnt find any way to regain health. So it was basically a matter of killing as many skeletons as possible before dying then having to run through the maze again to try and progress further. I only made it a bit past the swinging axes.
Combat is really basic, its basically just spam left click. If you hold left click I think it does a stab attack, but Im not sure the benefit of that compared to the normal attack. Blocking and the block charge also seems kind of useless because you are fighting a swarm of enemies that attack quickly and die in 1 hit, so you are better off just spam attacking instead of trying to block them. I think if you made the enemies slower, have more hitpoints, spawned fewer, and made it so there attacks were more telegraphed, it would make the combat much more interesting.
Enemies need some sound to them, even if its just rattling or something. They were super sneaky and sometimes I didnt even realize I was getting smacked in the back until I saw my health dropping. Basically everything needs more sound, though Im sure you are aware of that.
The environment, models and animations looked really good. My only real complaint is that its a maze where every room looks alike. Maybe block off some more of the empty rooms so the path is clearer.
Looks promising so far.
Thanks for playing and leaving feedback!! Yea my combat and enemies are super basic at the moment. I have some ideas on how to make it more interesting for the next demo. There is a healing item but I left it disabled for the demo to gauge difficulty. Unfortunately a few damage related bugs made it harder than intended... New sounds are on the way! I fully agree I need some good rattling bones in there somewhere. It will happen. I will also revisit the level with some new rooms and set dressing so it doesn't look so repetitive and maze-like. The next demo will be even better!
My sword was glowing for like five seconds then stopped after one magic slash. Really wanted to have that magic slash for further exploration. Very easy to get lost in, not in a good way, just walking into dead ends in the darkness and stuff, getting disoriented after a pincer swarm. Maybe I underestimated the shield but felt like I could take zero damage as long as I had room to backpedal swing, and would die if I got cornered.
But even with the overall lack of sound was very spooky and enjoyed the skeletons a ton. Good sound would make it so much tenser. Maybe add a "prism stone" mechanic for exploration? Or i'm just a zoomer
The sword 'powers up' for three swings after reaching a checkpoint at the moment. I will probably change that to work differently. It is definitely too samey looking at the moment. A few new unique larger rooms and some set dressing should help there. I am on the hunt for good sounds constantly, but it has been surprisingly tough to find what I want. Will definitely add prism stones.
-Good lord I had to take out a loan to buy a new HDD to fit this game on it!
-Sprint isn't bindable in settings. You also have 2 Interacts.
-I got spooked like hell by my skelearm drawing its sword. Lol.
-Enemy design is honestly not great. Especially with the tools the player has at their disposal like the shield bash. It'd be better if you didn't go the "let's spawn a million skeletons and call it a battle" route.
Seems like it'll be pretty good! Keep it up! I also got filtered by the swarm of bees that was the skeleton army.
Oh no, someone looked at the hotkey menu. My greatest fear has come true. It doesn't work at all, lol. I've looked at it once in the past month. But no more, I will fix it! The skeleton arm scaring people is great, its probably the unsheath noise being too loud. And you are right, my enemies suck at the moment. One of my top priorities now is making more interesting designs that will keep the combat fresh. Thanks for playing!!
It came off kinda vague, but I meant to say that you have a fairly good core for making interesting enemies with the Attack-Block-Shield Bash trio of moves. If you can focus on those three things and make interesting enemies for sure!
Quite enjoyed the game up until the first checkpoint, then I got filtered by the grabbing skeletons and couldn't get much further than the pile of bones after the pendulum axes. Will endeavour to go further.
Some more sound dev would do wonders (Rattling bones for the skeletons, attack sounds for the skeletons, more ambience to set in that you are deep in the dungeons.)
Being able to interact more with the environment with the sword or shield would be good too. (Clanging your sword against the rock, being able to break boxes and pots that were in the construction section of the dungeon, being able to cut through the webs and have them fall apart, rather than them just disappearing as you walk through them).
The first person view is a little disorienting, you can look down and see you have no body, but you can see from shadows that you have a sword, a shield, and a lantern. The shield is a little too far down to tell when you have it raised or lowered (May be down to the FOV? I did not change any settings upon launch).
I didn't know I had even reached a checkpoint and that my health and stamina had refilled until after I died further on, so perhaps some player feedback that they are in a safe location? (A change in the ambience, maybe have the candle on a table rather than on the floor, etc.).
The grabbing skeletons are a little obnoxious, as shields don't seem to deter them, their hitbox can only be interacted with when they are immediately upon you, and they can grab you through doors and bars. (An example being in the corridor of doors after you reach the first checkpoint, before you reach the pendulum axes).
There are some issues with the skeleton spawning, sometimes they'll spawn conjoined and be stuck in the air, and sometimes they'll spawn on the player midway through the room.
The demo is actually much harder than intended at the moment. The grabbing skeletons are dealing a lot of extra damage due to a bug. (And as you pointed out, they grab through stuff.) It's not impossible, just a little unfair. I'm glad you enjoyed it regardless!! New sounds are on the way, definitely. More interaction with the environment is totally happening, I was thinking the same thing: Smashing barrels, cutting webs, etc. I will take another look at the shield positioning, it was initially too high. Maybe I lowered it too much. I would love to add skeleton legs, but it will be tough because of how I made my first person character. I might try something out though. Checkpoints will get a little flash effect and sound when you reach them so they are more obvious. And yea, it has been a long war against my spawning system smushing my skeletons into floating piles, but I will fix it sooner or later!! Thanks again for trying out the game and leaving feed back!
A bit resource intensive and enemies are simple... BUT the scenario looks gorgeous and seeing a flailing skeleton definitely makes you want to throw your sword, get to the nearest inn and stay there with the lights on but you can't because you're a skeleton yourself.
Although they are bone creatures, having meatier attack/hit animations would be wonderful.
Give them a daggerfall scream, add some immersive sounds and a few new skeletal tricks they can play on you and you've got the spookiest game of the last years. Keep up!
Thanks! I agree, they need meatier attacks. I will try out some different attack animations before the next demo. And a daggerfall scream sounds great too. Skeleton noises are hard to source.