"Man, fuck goblins" works both here and in Goblin Resort.
I found the audio grating at first, but then those weird whiny goblin death sounds grew on me, along with the music. It would be nice if there was audio/visual feedback for slicing a goblin.
How was the speed of the game feeling? Apart from the fact you cant run i mean. Upped it a notch after people complained earlier. Sound revamp as in cleaner cuts for existing ones, additional sfx and also normalizing the volume is something i'd like to do very soon, just gotta get a hold of my sound guy.
Also apologies for not having the UI to be very adjustable to small screen sizes.
Hey, I was thinking about your game earlier. And I realized, I really think it should be twice as zoomed in. I tested it out with a screenshot, and honestly I think the character of the sprites shines through so much more. I then tested it out by doing a 200% browser zoom, and my opinion is that it is a huge improvement. You don't really need a massive field of view for this game. Anyway, try it out and consider it.
Good morning! Im flattered that you randomly think about this game.
The zoom topic came up last DD too, i think you are the third person to propose this. It was on my list but now i need to prioritize this a bit more i guess. I think i know what you mean with the improvement, but honestly im getting blind to these things as ive stared at these sprites for ages now (which makes feedback like this really valuable!).
Hey, thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts!
Could you specify the rmb spell cast bug for NPC interaction? You are not blocked from using your skills while a dialogue is active, the dialogue window should catch clicks on it however.
Starter weapons (including a bow for the ranger) are indeed planned. Hopefully i can fix all the projectiles related bugs until next DD. The speed will be increased at least, that i can promise. More hit confirmation is also planned but im not sure which way i will go there.
Your character should continually walk towards the cursor when you're holding down the button instead of only when you release it.
Combine the buy and sell menus. Also, "Browse shop" doesn't make sense; a shop is a *location* where you buy things.
The framerate is pretty bad. Please make a downloadable version.
Right clicking should go back in menus.
If there's nothing to repair, just gray out the button.
There's a huge delay when issuing a new move order while moving.
There needs to be a button to stop moving where you are.
It seems like all actions are done on release instead of on press. Things should always happen on press if possible.
I know it says the sound effect volume isn't balanced, but they're all too loud compared to the music.
Discovered parts of the map should remain partially visible after you leave them.
Do enemies have a chance to dodge, or are my attacks just whiffing?
Showing a health percentage on a health bar is redundant.
Clicking the XP bar to open the stats page isn't intuitive at all. I thought it would show exactly how much XP you have like hovering over the health does.
Backtracking with this movement speed is pretty tedious.
Disable movement while talking to an NPC so you can't accidentally walk away from them.
I assume level 2 is the end, because there was no exit.
Some good points i havent heard before as feedback!
All speed/delay related thinngs are currently under review. I'd be surprised if the browser was actually a culprit, because i still have a lot of leeway in how fast and responsive it can be. At some point i will take some time to make it a standalone app though.
Tbh im not sure if i keep the current dialogue/shop system, it was just an experiment to replicate diablo1 in most ways, but it feels restrictive. Its a bit lower on the priority liist, but i may redo the whole thing later.
Some attacks are indeed whiffing. There is a little calculation if someone gets hit or not, but i suspect its a bit bugged. Im also planning on doing some visual confirmation for hitting things.
Thanks a lot for playing and giving me your thoughts!
I had more fun the last time, because the dungeon actually generated with goblins. I am glad hp regens on level up, because I found keeping hp high was difficult. HP potions cost too much, and I did not see any enemies dropping them.
Right mouse clicking was attacking, but it did not really attack in direction I as expecting. Attacking by clicking on goblins sometimes missed when enemies were still approaching you. I like the visuals, I wish the game was faster. I am definitely going to play in future, because I like how this is shaping up.
Negatives: Not a fan of how slow movement is(diagonal speed is more reasonable but still a bit slow). I know it's probably meant to feel nostalgic, but since I don't have that experience it just feels boring having to wait for my guy to walk places. The combat feels bad with how it teleports you back in place if you walk away while getting attacked, and it felt inconsistent when clicking on an enemy from a distance whether it would auto walk and attack or just walk to the tile the enemy was on. I also got disappointed that I chose ranger but couldn't buy or find a bow and arrow. I played until I couldn't find the next floor after scouring for the exit. May have missed it, or the proc gen didn't generate it.
Positives: The mechanics seem decent, and I like the attention to detail on making everything equipped effect the player sprite. Dialogue was fun. UI is barebones, but does the job. The choice to make even basic spells like fireball have a long windup is good I think, makes it have more impact and make it more situational compared to a bow and arrow for ranged attack. In multiplayer I imagine it would be more fun with friends and maybe even with friendly fire. Though I would recommend adding party members to single player so that you don't have to balance two disparate game modes like solo vs 2 player+.
Even though its listed as negatives, im quite happy about them being things others reported as well. So obviously the whole movement and attack thing will get a big overhaul. Sorry about the missing content (like bows), im still trying to secure the foundations as in working systems that are not annoying or bugged to hell.
Regarding your idea of having party members: I dont want to spoil anything, but i've got a few plans for exactly that. Great to hear the casting windup didn't strike you as bad, because its indeed intended for further gameplay reasons (like those "party members"). Its all still very basic though, like the elemental aura while casting was just a first draft and will be improved later on, casting times are also not set in stone and so on. There is also some infrastructure for multiplayer already, but its very bugged. So until the foundations are in a good state, it will stay a single player game.
Hopefully i can deliver enough updates for DD49 already.
I really like the art style. No idea why there are no bows to get even if ranger can be chosen. No idea how to open the inventory. I wish the walk speed was higher. In combat, the outfit flashes on and off after buying armor and sometimes it walks in a direction and not doing anything else. I liked it and I hope you add more to it. It's fun.
Great to hear you had fun and also good that pretty much all the issues you listed are on my list already. The worst problems are things that take you by surprise and have a deep impact.
If i had the art, bows could be added soonish. One of the last things i did before this DD was adding fireballs and a general projectile system. Unfortunately this one is still bugged (collisions dont always deal damage). So fingers crossed, bows could be in as soon as DD 49, just as the fixed flashing armor (which is just missing sprites).
The walking/clunky comabt issues are the highest priority right now.
Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts, hope you will check in next time too.
The art style of the characters and enemies is great. The world tiles could use a little more love I think.
First time I went into the mines, there was nowhere to go, just a small enclosed room. Reloaded the game and then I was able to go onward.
Killing goblins has a nice satisfying feeling to it, especially with the death anim and blood and all that.
Wish the character walk speed was higher. It's been pointed out that the diagonal is faster, remember to use your Pythagorean theorem. But the diagonal speed feels a lot better that the orthogonal speed.
I think you should be able to hold the mouse down and move that way instead of clicking over and over. Thats how I always did it in Diablo.
The camera movement has some cruft that makes things look a bit jarring/laggy. Doesn't seem like actual lag to me, just simulated lag.
More visual and audio effects around combat would be good. That would make it clearer when you have been hit, and when the enemy has been hit. Swords swiping, hitting into flesh, etc... The goblin death sounds are fun but I think you can take it a lot further.
A little more generosity with dropping stuff might be good. I just got through the second level and so far nothing at all has dropped, and no treasure chests either.
I haven't tried out the multiplayer yet, that seems fun. Overall, very nice work. I was starting to get into the orbgroove. The jittering camera and the lack of loot were the main things that could be improved. Keep it up brother.
Oh man im sorry, i should remove the multiplayer button for now instead of just greying out the font. Currently i have no server for some mp action and i was also focussed on other systems. Last time i tested it, there were quite a few problems for syncing multiple players, so this whole part is on hold for now.
Regarding that jitter, its worse than you think:
The hitboxes for hover/click events jitters even more than the rendering, good thing the player wont see that. Since movement in general seems to be a common theme among the bigger issues at the moment, i will also put the jitter in that category when looking at how to fix and improve things.
Im still waiting for more audio stuff myself. My brother made all these, but its nice to hear that you like the squealing of my nephew (not even a year old and hes a voice actor!). Similar story with all sprite business, im still missing a ton on that front because of time constraints. Tile details will become more later on, the flowers and the little stones in the mines were just a test for now. Im also planning on giving walls the same kind of love once i figure out how to do them properly in all contexts.
DD 49 will be the day of plentiful loot and more fluidity!
Multiplayer Browser Based Orblike? Could be Fun, depending on how you do your Multiplayer. If its Coop-story, Coop dungeon Crawl, or something else.
After exiting Options for the first Time, the Buttons had no Text for some while. You also really need a Background for the Main Menu I think.
It feels like the Cursor changes too slowly when hovering over NPCs, but maybe thats just because of the big Hitboxes on them or something. Changing movement direction lags. It requires me to walk fully onto the next Tile before applying it I assume. Diagonal movement is faster then Horizontal/Vertical one. To the Point where its faster to move downwards in Zig-Zag then straight. If it wasn't for the Lag on the movement commands making it nearly impossible to do.
I'm hoping your Items like kindling Sword of something are randomly generated. Nice that it changes Visuals on the Equipment. Not nice that it only does so on a few Frames. Also nice Voicelines. Don't sound intense enough tho I think. If that makes Sense for not being able to equip a Sword on your Head or something.
You only cast Spells after having completey your entire movement Command? Together with Melee feeling unresponsive, and sometimes hitting Enemies you didn't target, but that were in front of you, and the unresponsive tile-locked movement, it feels pretty laggy and bad to Play at this Point.
On the Tilesize, it seems your Tiles are around 2mx2m big, assuming the Player is roughly 1.8-2m high aswell. This means if I click somewhere close I don't move at all, but if I click ~1m away, which is the size of one of your visual Flowerfields or one of the Cliff edges i.e. it immediately moves me 2m far over. I'd expect a 1mx1m size on this.
The visible Map should also be the entirety of the Screen, not with such a big black Border around it.
And if you want to have Fog of War in Caves, either make it only hide Enemies, or at least have the Terrain you already explored be visible as a greyed out or darker version or something.
No word about performance/stability issues? Great success!
About the bigger things here: The lag between inputs/movements is a structural issue that i bought into when i decided to mimic the Diablo 1 tile system. For now it was a very basic system that ensured no double occupation of a tile (for simplicity reasons) and no conflicts in managing animations/actions. It is indeed far from good though and probably a big reason why combat feels less fluid than it should be. Hitting someone else than you clicked is an example of a known (big) bug thats probably related to fireballs exploding but not dealing damage. These things are all higher up on the todo list.
Speaking of tiles/movement, tiles are made up of 4 smaller sprites and are 64x32 pixels big in total. A patch of flowers is a quarter of that and thus not a good measurement. Try the patches of dirt, those represent full tiles next to the grass. Because of that halved y-axis, movement on that axis covers less visual ground. Diagonal movement covers the most ground in that regard and seems the fastest because of that. I will look into it nonetheless, as i may have fooled myself and it needs revision anyways as part of the whole movement topic.
I remember someone giving me feedback last time, that on larger screens the scene caused performance issues, so i set a limit. Those black borders are a result of this. At the same time this was the first attempt at bringing "some" responsiveness for multiple screen sizes, which kinda failed in other regards.
Fog of war and lighting is still an unresolved issue from last time. Also i didnt touch the minimap since, which is still very far from good.
I mean, it felt laggy, but not in a FPSDrops or ConnectionProblems kind of Way, but unresponsive, so I attributed it to the Tiles and general unresponsiveness of the Systems, not to actual Performance Problems.
hark fellow orbdev, it is a good day for it is Demo Day, and it's time for feedback
I played through the first two levels using my previous warrior character. unfortunately for him, he has 70HP and only 11 mana, so I didn't get to see much of fireball. As before, I'll go through my experience in order and mention things I found interesting or broken
First thing's first, I went to the shop to sell some gear from before and buy some cool stuff since I noticed I had 20000+ gold to spend.
firstly, I bought a sword of +3 fire damage. very cool. as I was buying/manipulating the scroll bar on the buy item window, I clicked outside it accidentally which closed the buy menu outright. i thought that was kind of annoying, but I know people who want to be able to quickly leave shop windows by moving who'd disagree. either way, this was an accidental click as I was fiddling with the scrollbar, so I'd say consider having clicks outside the window not register or something since I can see how this would be an issue for many
secondly, I equipped the fire sword and swapped it for my old normal sword. I put it on just fine, but the voiceline of "can't use that" played either way. Strength requirement was met and the item was equipped and usable, but the character would complain every time I got the sword.
bought a book of fireball as well from the 40% priestess and i went on my way
in the dungeon, things went well. i glicked the goblins until they died and had no major issues with regards to combat. a swing/miss/hit sound would help, since there wasn't much feedback on what happened with my attack, but since I play these games often I wasn't confused and things went smoothly
I tried casting one fireball since I had 11 max mana and that was all I could. There was a goblin slowly approaching me that was about to get blasted the fuck away. fireball channeled, projectile spawned, but then it impacted one tile away from him? or it hit him but that's just where the impact animation plays? there wasn't anything between us to soak up the shot so i'm not sure what happened. he was still standing so I assumed it just didn't land, so i kept glicking them instead.
i cleared out the first dungeon quickly - it feels much smaller than the previous iterations. went up to the exit and was met with the single room bug, so I restarted.
cleared out the first floor again with no issues, then went up to floor 2. this time it spawned fine, and i also cleaned it up. didn't notice any differences in content, but it too felt small. i'd advise having levels much bigger than needed to allow for player experimentation, or some target dummies in town or such, to allow players to see any content they'd miss, especially if they end up rolling small dungeons. probably a moot point since I guess you can just restart the game and roll new dungeons, i guess
here's some miscellaneous points from during my playthrough that i wrote down:
>missing walls? some wall visuals just don't appear - shows as if they're not in view range when i'm right next to them? perhaps visual bug or dungeon generation issue
>can mouse over health values but can't force-show them so i can know how much health i have a all times. should be able to click them to force-show
>potions don't drop (often) ? didn't get a single drop. didn't need them since i was already leveled, but perhaps new players would get killed due to attrition if they don't go back to town to resupply
>inaccessible room? pic rel.
otherwise faced no issue. game quality improves with every DD, and I can't wait to play the next one
good work as always. my suggestions for next DD would be the following:
>movement in town should either be faster, or the layout should be positioned so that I don't need to spend time walking. since there's no visual stimuli like Tristram, the distances between points of interest are arbitrary. you can easily put the townsfolk 2 tiles from the cave entrance, or alternatively add some visual detail to give more immersion while walking. otherwise people who already moaned that walking in D1 towns was slow would go into shock while walking from the blacksmith to the priestess
>add ranged goblins to showcase your range targeting mechanic. also incentivizes using fireballs since they're not in melee range
>increase drop rates a bit, especially for magic items. things like this show elements of your game many people might not notice otherwise (ie: i didn't get a single magic item drop playing, but I know they exist since I can buy them). it helps maintain interest ("oh, magic items? i wonder what affixes there are. i'll keep playing to find another!"
this review is already too long so i'll cut it here
Love your thorough feedback and appreciate your thoughts!
Good to hear you had no performance/stability issues, that was still my main goal.
About the other issues: Its somewhat nice that most of that was already on my radar. The fireball thing is one of the weirder things that happened to me too. I have no clue whats happening there (as well as with the 1 room dungeons) and that will be one of the main things for next DD i guess.
The dungeons are indeed smaller as i downscaled them from 100x100 to 75x75 in order to see how that feels. Got the feedback last time that levels are really big. Since content wasnt a priority, these numbers will change just as much as projectile speed etc. So let me say for all your (appreciated and noted) comments about content: that will all come in time. ;)
Missing walls are a thing im still thinking about how to do it in an elegant way. Right now i only render walls that would NOT block the view. So single wall tiles in the middle of a room will just be that black, empty tile. Walls will need a closer look anyways, because they need a) variations like ground tiles and b) corners/pillars should look different than "regular" walls.
Showcase friendly arrangements are a good point though and will go on my todo list. Will do my best to bring as many improvements as possible to next DD.
Thanks for the input again and keep working on ToK, its inspiring to see progress on a similar project.
Comments
"Man, fuck goblins" works both here and in Goblin Resort.
I found the audio grating at first, but then those weird whiny goblin death sounds grew on me, along with the music. It would be nice if there was audio/visual feedback for slicing a goblin.
Great to hear(read)!
How was the speed of the game feeling? Apart from the fact you cant run i mean. Upped it a notch after people complained earlier. Sound revamp as in cleaner cuts for existing ones, additional sfx and also normalizing the volume is something i'd like to do very soon, just gotta get a hold of my sound guy.
Also apologies for not having the UI to be very adjustable to small screen sizes.
The speed of the game itself seemed just fine to me. If it was faster, I think it would feel awkward and unwieldy.
Hey, I was thinking about your game earlier. And I realized, I really think it should be twice as zoomed in. I tested it out with a screenshot, and honestly I think the character of the sprites shines through so much more. I then tested it out by doing a 200% browser zoom, and my opinion is that it is a huge improvement. You don't really need a massive field of view for this game. Anyway, try it out and consider it.
Good morning! Im flattered that you randomly think about this game.
The zoom topic came up last DD too, i think you are the third person to propose this. It was on my list but now i need to prioritize this a bit more i guess. I think i know what you mean with the improvement, but honestly im getting blind to these things as ive stared at these sprites for ages now (which makes feedback like this really valuable!).
welp, my game just froze when I killed a goblin with a fireball. UI still works but the main game is frozen.
I will play more of this if you make the movement speed faster.
Hey, thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts!
Could you specify the rmb spell cast bug for NPC interaction? You are not blocked from using your skills while a dialogue is active, the dialogue window should catch clicks on it however.
Starter weapons (including a bow for the ranger) are indeed planned. Hopefully i can fix all the projectiles related bugs until next DD. The speed will be increased at least, that i can promise. More hit confirmation is also planned but im not sure which way i will go there.
I assume level 2 is the end, because there was no exit.
Some good points i havent heard before as feedback!
All speed/delay related thinngs are currently under review. I'd be surprised if the browser was actually a culprit, because i still have a lot of leeway in how fast and responsive it can be. At some point i will take some time to make it a standalone app though.
Tbh im not sure if i keep the current dialogue/shop system, it was just an experiment to replicate diablo1 in most ways, but it feels restrictive. Its a bit lower on the priority liist, but i may redo the whole thing later.
Some attacks are indeed whiffing. There is a little calculation if someone gets hit or not, but i suspect its a bit bugged. Im also planning on doing some visual confirmation for hitting things.
Thanks a lot for playing and giving me your thoughts!
I had more fun the last time, because the dungeon actually generated with goblins. I am glad hp regens on level up, because I found keeping hp high was difficult. HP potions cost too much, and I did not see any enemies dropping them.
Right mouse clicking was attacking, but it did not really attack in direction I as expecting. Attacking by clicking on goblins sometimes missed when enemies were still approaching you. I like the visuals, I wish the game was faster. I am definitely going to play in future, because I like how this is shaping up.
Negatives: Not a fan of how slow movement is(diagonal speed is more reasonable but still a bit slow). I know it's probably meant to feel nostalgic, but since I don't have that experience it just feels boring having to wait for my guy to walk places. The combat feels bad with how it teleports you back in place if you walk away while getting attacked, and it felt inconsistent when clicking on an enemy from a distance whether it would auto walk and attack or just walk to the tile the enemy was on. I also got disappointed that I chose ranger but couldn't buy or find a bow and arrow. I played until I couldn't find the next floor after scouring for the exit. May have missed it, or the proc gen didn't generate it.
Positives: The mechanics seem decent, and I like the attention to detail on making everything equipped effect the player sprite. Dialogue was fun. UI is barebones, but does the job. The choice to make even basic spells like fireball have a long windup is good I think, makes it have more impact and make it more situational compared to a bow and arrow for ranged attack. In multiplayer I imagine it would be more fun with friends and maybe even with friendly fire. Though I would recommend adding party members to single player so that you don't have to balance two disparate game modes like solo vs 2 player+.
Hope to see your improvements next time.
Hey thanks for playing and leaving some feedback!
Even though its listed as negatives, im quite happy about them being things others reported as well. So obviously the whole movement and attack thing will get a big overhaul. Sorry about the missing content (like bows), im still trying to secure the foundations as in working systems that are not annoying or bugged to hell.
Regarding your idea of having party members: I dont want to spoil anything, but i've got a few plans for exactly that. Great to hear the casting windup didn't strike you as bad, because its indeed intended for further gameplay reasons (like those "party members"). Its all still very basic though, like the elemental aura while casting was just a first draft and will be improved later on, casting times are also not set in stone and so on. There is also some infrastructure for multiplayer already, but its very bugged. So until the foundations are in a good state, it will stay a single player game.
Hopefully i can deliver enough updates for DD49 already.
I really like the art style. No idea why there are no bows to get even if ranger can be chosen. No idea how to open the inventory. I wish the walk speed was higher. In combat, the outfit flashes on and off after buying armor and sometimes it walks in a direction and not doing anything else. I liked it and I hope you add more to it. It's fun.
Great to hear you had fun and also good that pretty much all the issues you listed are on my list already. The worst problems are things that take you by surprise and have a deep impact.
If i had the art, bows could be added soonish. One of the last things i did before this DD was adding fireballs and a general projectile system. Unfortunately this one is still bugged (collisions dont always deal damage). So fingers crossed, bows could be in as soon as DD 49, just as the fixed flashing armor (which is just missing sprites).
The walking/clunky comabt issues are the highest priority right now.
Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts, hope you will check in next time too.
Do what you can to make things optimized. It has a real shot of being really good with how it feels like Diablo.
I like how this is shaping up.
I haven't tried out the multiplayer yet, that seems fun. Overall, very nice work. I was starting to get into the orbgroove. The jittering camera and the lack of loot were the main things that could be improved. Keep it up brother.
Thanks for the feedback!
Oh man im sorry, i should remove the multiplayer button for now instead of just greying out the font. Currently i have no server for some mp action and i was also focussed on other systems. Last time i tested it, there were quite a few problems for syncing multiple players, so this whole part is on hold for now.
Regarding that jitter, its worse than you think:
The hitboxes for hover/click events jitters even more than the rendering, good thing the player wont see that. Since movement in general seems to be a common theme among the bigger issues at the moment, i will also put the jitter in that category when looking at how to fix and improve things.
Im still waiting for more audio stuff myself. My brother made all these, but its nice to hear that you like the squealing of my nephew (not even a year old and hes a voice actor!). Similar story with all sprite business, im still missing a ton on that front because of time constraints. Tile details will become more later on, the flowers and the little stones in the mines were just a test for now. Im also planning on giving walls the same kind of love once i figure out how to do them properly in all contexts.
DD 49 will be the day of plentiful loot and more fluidity!
Multiplayer Browser Based Orblike? Could be Fun, depending on how you do your Multiplayer. If its Coop-story, Coop dungeon Crawl, or something else.
After exiting Options for the first Time, the Buttons had no Text for some while. You also really need a Background for the Main Menu I think.
It feels like the Cursor changes too slowly when hovering over NPCs, but maybe thats just because of the big Hitboxes on them or something. Changing movement direction lags. It requires me to walk fully onto the next Tile before applying it I assume. Diagonal movement is faster then Horizontal/Vertical one. To the Point where its faster to move downwards in Zig-Zag then straight. If it wasn't for the Lag on the movement commands making it nearly impossible to do.
I'm hoping your Items like kindling Sword of something are randomly generated. Nice that it changes Visuals on the Equipment. Not nice that it only does so on a few Frames. Also nice Voicelines. Don't sound intense enough tho I think. If that makes Sense for not being able to equip a Sword on your Head or something.
You only cast Spells after having completey your entire movement Command? Together with Melee feeling unresponsive, and sometimes hitting Enemies you didn't target, but that were in front of you, and the unresponsive tile-locked movement, it feels pretty laggy and bad to Play at this Point.
On the Tilesize, it seems your Tiles are around 2mx2m big, assuming the Player is roughly 1.8-2m high aswell. This means if I click somewhere close I don't move at all, but if I click ~1m away, which is the size of one of your visual Flowerfields or one of the Cliff edges i.e. it immediately moves me 2m far over. I'd expect a 1mx1m size on this.
The visible Map should also be the entirety of the Screen, not with such a big black Border around it.
And if you want to have Fog of War in Caves, either make it only hide Enemies, or at least have the Terrain you already explored be visible as a greyed out or darker version or something.
Magic Shield looks nice tho.
No word about performance/stability issues? Great success!
About the bigger things here: The lag between inputs/movements is a structural issue that i bought into when i decided to mimic the Diablo 1 tile system. For now it was a very basic system that ensured no double occupation of a tile (for simplicity reasons) and no conflicts in managing animations/actions. It is indeed far from good though and probably a big reason why combat feels less fluid than it should be. Hitting someone else than you clicked is an example of a known (big) bug thats probably related to fireballs exploding but not dealing damage. These things are all higher up on the todo list.
Speaking of tiles/movement, tiles are made up of 4 smaller sprites and are 64x32 pixels big in total. A patch of flowers is a quarter of that and thus not a good measurement. Try the patches of dirt, those represent full tiles next to the grass. Because of that halved y-axis, movement on that axis covers less visual ground. Diagonal movement covers the most ground in that regard and seems the fastest because of that. I will look into it nonetheless, as i may have fooled myself and it needs revision anyways as part of the whole movement topic.
I remember someone giving me feedback last time, that on larger screens the scene caused performance issues, so i set a limit. Those black borders are a result of this. At the same time this was the first attempt at bringing "some" responsiveness for multiple screen sizes, which kinda failed in other regards.
Fog of war and lighting is still an unresolved issue from last time. Also i didnt touch the minimap since, which is still very far from good.
Thx for your feedback and thoughts
I mean, it felt laggy, but not in a FPSDrops or ConnectionProblems kind of Way, but unresponsive, so I attributed it to the Tiles and general unresponsiveness of the Systems, not to actual Performance Problems.
hark fellow orbdev, it is a good day for it is Demo Day, and it's time for feedback
I played through the first two levels using my previous warrior character. unfortunately for him, he has 70HP and only 11 mana, so I didn't get to see much of fireball. As before, I'll go through my experience in order and mention things I found interesting or broken
First thing's first, I went to the shop to sell some gear from before and buy some cool stuff since I noticed I had 20000+ gold to spend.
firstly, I bought a sword of +3 fire damage. very cool. as I was buying/manipulating the scroll bar on the buy item window, I clicked outside it accidentally which closed the buy menu outright. i thought that was kind of annoying, but I know people who want to be able to quickly leave shop windows by moving who'd disagree. either way, this was an accidental click as I was fiddling with the scrollbar, so I'd say consider having clicks outside the window not register or something since I can see how this would be an issue for many
secondly, I equipped the fire sword and swapped it for my old normal sword. I put it on just fine, but the voiceline of "can't use that" played either way. Strength requirement was met and the item was equipped and usable, but the character would complain every time I got the sword.
bought a book of fireball as well from the 40% priestess and i went on my way
in the dungeon, things went well. i glicked the goblins until they died and had no major issues with regards to combat. a swing/miss/hit sound would help, since there wasn't much feedback on what happened with my attack, but since I play these games often I wasn't confused and things went smoothly
I tried casting one fireball since I had 11 max mana and that was all I could. There was a goblin slowly approaching me that was about to get blasted the fuck away. fireball channeled, projectile spawned, but then it impacted one tile away from him? or it hit him but that's just where the impact animation plays? there wasn't anything between us to soak up the shot so i'm not sure what happened. he was still standing so I assumed it just didn't land, so i kept glicking them instead.
i cleared out the first dungeon quickly - it feels much smaller than the previous iterations. went up to the exit and was met with the single room bug, so I restarted.
cleared out the first floor again with no issues, then went up to floor 2. this time it spawned fine, and i also cleaned it up. didn't notice any differences in content, but it too felt small. i'd advise having levels much bigger than needed to allow for player experimentation, or some target dummies in town or such, to allow players to see any content they'd miss, especially if they end up rolling small dungeons. probably a moot point since I guess you can just restart the game and roll new dungeons, i guess
here's some miscellaneous points from during my playthrough that i wrote down:
>missing walls? some wall visuals just don't appear - shows as if they're not in view range when i'm right next to them? perhaps visual bug or dungeon generation issue
>can mouse over health values but can't force-show them so i can know how much health i have a all times. should be able to click them to force-show
>potions don't drop (often) ? didn't get a single drop. didn't need them since i was already leveled, but perhaps new players would get killed due to attrition if they don't go back to town to resupply
>inaccessible room? pic rel.
otherwise faced no issue. game quality improves with every DD, and I can't wait to play the next one
good work as always. my suggestions for next DD would be the following:
>movement in town should either be faster, or the layout should be positioned so that I don't need to spend time walking. since there's no visual stimuli like Tristram, the distances between points of interest are arbitrary. you can easily put the townsfolk 2 tiles from the cave entrance, or alternatively add some visual detail to give more immersion while walking. otherwise people who already moaned that walking in D1 towns was slow would go into shock while walking from the blacksmith to the priestess
>add ranged goblins to showcase your range targeting mechanic. also incentivizes using fireballs since they're not in melee range
>increase drop rates a bit, especially for magic items. things like this show elements of your game many people might not notice otherwise (ie: i didn't get a single magic item drop playing, but I know they exist since I can buy them). it helps maintain interest ("oh, magic items? i wonder what affixes there are. i'll keep playing to find another!"
this review is already too long so i'll cut it here
'til next time!
Love your thorough feedback and appreciate your thoughts!
Good to hear you had no performance/stability issues, that was still my main goal.
About the other issues: Its somewhat nice that most of that was already on my radar. The fireball thing is one of the weirder things that happened to me too. I have no clue whats happening there (as well as with the 1 room dungeons) and that will be one of the main things for next DD i guess.
The dungeons are indeed smaller as i downscaled them from 100x100 to 75x75 in order to see how that feels. Got the feedback last time that levels are really big. Since content wasnt a priority, these numbers will change just as much as projectile speed etc. So let me say for all your (appreciated and noted) comments about content: that will all come in time. ;)
Missing walls are a thing im still thinking about how to do it in an elegant way. Right now i only render walls that would NOT block the view. So single wall tiles in the middle of a room will just be that black, empty tile. Walls will need a closer look anyways, because they need a) variations like ground tiles and b) corners/pillars should look different than "regular" walls.
Showcase friendly arrangements are a good point though and will go on my todo list. Will do my best to bring as many improvements as possible to next DD.
Thanks for the input again and keep working on ToK, its inspiring to see progress on a similar project.