Interesting game. Played with moving orb and enemies attacking player. Eyes can be really hard to see, especially when they're on the ground so you can't tell if they're dead or not. I know you can turn on the halos in the options but it seems to be intended to play without it. The enemies didn't really pose any threat at all after figuring out how the combat system works. Blocking feels really awkward with the free movement and how you can block 360 deg, maybe a lock on would work good for the game or having you face the closest enemy when blocking or something. Light attack felt pretty useless, I only used heavy. If you hold right mouse button and then shift you can slide around (no animations) while holding a heavy attack. I like how the camera pans around when paused.
You can bug out the animations by mashing some combination of space, shift, and right mouse button:
There is something wrong with the shadows, some Z fighting in places, and the player and enemies look like they hover a bit most of the time. The IK on stairs work pretty well!
The eyes are a work in progress - they've got a glow to make them visible even from behind, but I added it before I gave them hair, so now it's a little hard to see. Probably oughta make it bigger but the current hair is itself a placeholder. The game's supposed to have moments where you wonder whether an enemy is actually dead or whether you should try to finish it off, but right now it's a little too common.
Individual enemies aren't particularly dangerous, yeah - these are the lowest-level mooks and they're still not quite playing with a full toolbox. Though if you still felt that way past wave 5 or so then wow, I'm impressed.
Blocking, yeah, it's gonna need some fine tuning.
Sprinting speed bonus still applying while holding heavy is a silly oversight on my part, will fix right up. I thought I'd found all the situations where you could get stuck in animations, but I guess not.
Dealing with entities getting on top of each other is still something I'm not entirely sure how I wanna handle. Stunning the lower entity and shoving it sideways is probably the simplest solution.
I think some/most of the appearance of floating is due to the shadows messing up. But yeah, lots to do there, too.
Could you quantify what you don't like about the camera? And please don't apologize.
Though if you still felt that way past wave 5 or so then wow, I'm impressed.
Well as far as I can tell all you need to do is roundhouse kick them as they run up to you and run away if you miss. Even if you get hit you can just run away and you won't die. The hardest part was probably fighting the camera to get good angles. Here's a vid of what I mean:
I guess it would be more difficult if I had set them to attack the orb too though.
Could you quantify what you don't like about the camera? And please don't apologize.
Basically its hard to get it too look where you want it to and it feel inconsistent and changes pitch sometimes by itself for example when you wouldn't expect it to. Like running in a straight line. Your character is most often not in the center and when turning it it just feels awful when it turns around some random pivot point. It lazily pans to the sides while you can barely see whats in front of your character. It all makes it hard to gauge distances with so weird control of the camera, which isn't really a good thing in a fighting game.
...I never once thought to try just sprinting away when you get hit. Oh man.
Yeah no that definitely makes it a lot easier to get out of a bad situation than I'd intended. Thanks a lot for pointing it out.
That's all very fair criticism of the camera. I've got a lot of ambitious ideas for how it's supposed to work, but they're not working out quite like I'd hoped. I'll add an option that takes it down to something Dark Souls-style simple and predictable.
...I never once thought to try just sprinting away when you get hit. Oh man.
Hahaha yeah that's why its so good to have play testers. It'll be a problem if you're always faster than enemies and there not being any ranged. But having something you need to protect like the orb would make the strategy more difficult. From what I've gathered you're not sure where you're going with the game. I think it should be one of your top priorities to figure out now because of to balance and design the game will depend on it going forward. So have a singular vision for it and remove all the sandboxy options like what the enemies attack etc.
One idea would be to make it level based, have the enemies attack both you and the orb, and the orb going on a set path through levels. So the goal would be to protect the orb until it reaches the end of every level. Could have you unlock different moves and stuff if you want to go that route, secrets and stuff to find out in the dark if you dare run from the orb about, etc.
Well, the main thing is that you probably shouldn't get your sprint bonus when you're recovering from a hit; that's a simple oversight on my part that makes the intended ways of surviving a mistake long enough to recover (namely dodging and blocking) completely superfluous. The other thing is AI improvements, which is a little more complicated, but nothing impossible.
I do have a pretty decent idea of the final overall game flow; with the orb leading you through ~5 procedurally generated levels/areas of ~5 waves, with a boss fight/wave at the end of each.
I know I'm gonna want both sections where you have to split your attention to defend the orb and sections where you only have to defend yourself, which is why there's the mode select in the current prototype. The finished game won't let you pick in regular gameplay.
The things I'm still not sure of is stuff like "how smart should the orb be" and "how do I wanna implement a damage system for the orb".
I think I probably won't have any use for the orb-attack-only mode in the finished game, but it's there for testing purposes for now.
I do have ideas for unlockables, but it'll probably be lore/backstory and costumes/cosmetics, rather than character progression. But all that's way in the future right now. I got basic mechanics to implement, like y'know, walking animations.
Neat little game. The gameplay reminds me of Lugaru/Overgrowth, where they crumple but get back up afterwards, so consider checking those out if you haven't already. I don't particularly play these kind of action games so I can't give much feedback. Controls seem fine enough, camera is interesting but it's serviceable.
checked this thing out, I see it's a early prototype and for that it has potential. I like the audio. The fact that she's naked reminded me somehow of Kingdom Death: Monster, of course I don't know what you have in mind for this but something in a similar universe would be awesome.
The controls: I like the combat, it feels snappy, plus the munchy sounds make it fun to punch enemies. The camera movement is unique but you get used to it quickly. There are some instances where the camera is just showing the obstacle, I think this is hard to get right but it is a good start for what it is. Maybe damping when it would be too close to a wall and avoiding the obstacle moving upwards would be a idea.
The graphics look very placeholder, I guess that's not a surprise to hear. The model has some crazy walking animation, what happening with her hips ? lol I think it only has the training mode, I wasn't able to do anything else but training.
You're the first to catch the KDM plagiarism influence; it's definitely a major inspiration, though it's just gonna be an action game with no monster hunter/settlement management/party stuff.
Camera's a work in progress, yeah, and, well, animation is hard. ;_;
Decent-ish animations are a goal for next demo day.
You should be able to select whether the enemies are punching bags, or if they attack the player, orb or both in the mode select menu screen. If you mean as opposed to a story mode, then yeah, there's just pure fighting in the one scene.
Maybe I’m making this up, but I think this “feels” better than when I played during the previous demo day. I can’t tell if the jank is intentional or not.
Like, the controls feel better? Looking at my change log I haven't changed anything about the player's basic controls since DD48. Maybe you were just better prepared for it this time? Or maybe the Bloody Forever has claimed the mind of its first real-world victim.
I did fix a bit of the visual jank with the walking so her legs don't spaz out as much - maybe that, or the addition of menus, is what makes it feel better?
I'd love to use it as a shield, but no, none of the jank is intentional. I'm gonna make it as smooth and polished as I possibly can.
You're not alone in wishing she wasn't naked. I don't wanna make any promises about if or when it might get implemented, but more SFW costumes/skins for player and enemies instead of silly black censor boxes is definitely on The List.
I don't have time to watch the whole thing or give the response it deserves right now, but I can already tell that this is the single most valuable piece of feedback I have received so far. Thank you. TLDR I've completely failed to explain how health works in the game and I'm gonna have to figure out how to do that.
Okay, I think I can respond properly to this now. Thanks a lot for recording it; written feedback is great, but there's nothing quite like watching someone else play to help you catch the difference in perspective of a new player vs the designer, and I think that's a major part of where I messed up here.
I'll try to respond in a points-ish manner.
1: Enemy health: I've completely failed to explain the health system of the game in the game itself. It's less Devil May Cry and more Super Mario - enemies and the player don't have an HP value, they just have a Damage State; like how a koopa troopa loses its shell when you jump on it, but if it gets back in, it's good as new. Which is obviously very unintuitive when basically every other fighting game or beat-em-up uses HP, and the only health system I actually remembered to explain (the orb) is a numerical value. I've made a quick update to the explanation in the How To Play part of the menu (not uploaded yet), but I think I'm gonna have to make a proper tutorial higher priority. Probably also oughta highlight the importance of the stomp move for dealing with downed enemies.
2: Distinguishing between dead and knocked-down enemies: Currently the only visual difference is the lack of glowing eyes (or halo, if those are enabled), but I intend to get some active ragdoll system in, and obviously knocked-down enemies will need getting-up animations to make the recovery less jarring. There's also a different sound for attacks that knock an enemy down and an attack that kills them, and the player character will look at them if they aren't dead. Again, I think this is more to do with me badly explaining things to the player than system being inherently flawed.
3: Enemy and player health bars. Since there's no HP, having a bar doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, you use the enemies' eyes to gauge their state. There is an option to make this more visible by giving the enemies halos of the same color, but it's under audio/video. Maybe I should move it to the Mode Select screen instead, since it's more like a difficulty modifier.
4: Orb health display: Almost certainly getting added in one form or another. The orb's damage system is probably getting a revision of some kind to make it more forgiving and in line with the other health systems, so I'm not entirely sure what form it will take.
5: Enemy visibility: Minimaps almost certainly won't be added if I can avoid it, since situational awareness is an intended aspect of the difficulty, but the halo option makes enemies visible at very long distances.
Anyway, that's my overly-long-probably-too-defensive take on the issues you encountered and brought up. If you try the game again, I'd love to hear if knowing this stuff makes it actually fun to play.
1. I think I get it even though I never played DMC and the only Mario I am familiar with is the first one. It's good that me pointing it out helped you notice you did not explain in in the game. The game is surely become clearer the more you flesh it out.
2. I think maybe instead of halos an icon showing state above enemies would be better, but I did not play with halos enabled, so I am not sure. I imagine if people prefer to have less immersion breaking UI, they would prefer halos.
3. Yes, it definitely needs to be in different section.
4. any orb health indication is better that none, so make sure you add it for next DD.
5. Trust me, I get it.
As for the "Fun" part of the game, right now it's just funny how much the animations are broken and of course the wet sounds. I think you're going to need to flesh out the game more for me to see if the actual gameplay is that much fun, but bear in my I don't play games like this. I am happy I can help.
I'm not sure if the punches will still be that fast in future versions, but right now when i spam left click i feel like i'm KEN from HNK (with boobs). i can almost hear AAAAATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA
maybe my comment will give you an animation idea, but i dunno if that's the direction you want to bring your game into though
ahoy. i gave OBF another runthrough this DD and i had fun with it.
my main bits of feedback affect the ability to control the MC. the main issues come mostly from perspective and camera angles. i found it very difficult to orient myself so that my punches/kicks face the enemy. this is especially difficult if the enemy is moving around, and due to the height of some (maybe all?) enemies being lower than yours. i think the main issue is that there's no lock-on or targeting system. perhaps a right click to focus on an enemy or something similar would help.
another thing that makes orienting yourself towards enemies more difficult is the camera control. while i'm sure there's some logic to follow, i couldn't make sense of the way the camera acted. one second, the camera would be quite far away, but it'll be on my shoulder after a 45 degree turn. i was already having trouble lining things up, and now i also have to deal with changing camera values. even on a low difficulty (non punching bag), i had trouble keeping the orb alive due to this.
another issue is that the orb is high up above ground. i think you should copy how other games tackle this, where the orb is groundlevel or on a small pedestal, and perhaps enemies have a windup time to their orb damaging attacks, to give the player a last chance to rescue it
i'm eager to see how you tackle these issues, especially since this is a kind of game i can't predict anything about. anything could happen by next DD, which i think is exciting. since you already have such an unusual setting, feel free to experiment with unusual mechanics as well.
keep up the good work and hope to see more next DD.
Lock-on is definitely in the cards - right now the character should snap to the direction of a nearby enemy in front of her or in the direction the player's telling her to move when she gets an attack input, but it's not quite enough.
The camera issue you got is a bit of a surprise to me. Its maximum distance to the player decreases when you get close to an enemy, but unless there's terrain in the way it should never come particularly close. Could it be there was some terrain feature you didn't notice getting between the camera and the character? Making that transition more gradual is also on the to-do-list. Regarding the orb, yeah, I haven't really adjusted it properly for the new enemies - when I taught them how to jump after an airborne player, I also made them nigh-impossible to intercept when they go for the orb. I have vague plans of how to fix it (Ico-style kidnapping or having to knock the orb down before they can do real damage to it, much like the player's damage states, as well as having segments where the orb is just safely flying out of reach of the enemies so you only have to worry about yourself), but right now it's definitely got problems.
Comments
Interesting game. Played with moving orb and enemies attacking player. Eyes can be really hard to see, especially when they're on the ground so you can't tell if they're dead or not. I know you can turn on the halos in the options but it seems to be intended to play without it. The enemies didn't really pose any threat at all after figuring out how the combat system works. Blocking feels really awkward with the free movement and how you can block 360 deg, maybe a lock on would work good for the game or having you face the closest enemy when blocking or something. Light attack felt pretty useless, I only used heavy. If you hold right mouse button and then shift you can slide around (no animations) while holding a heavy attack. I like how the camera pans around when paused.
You can bug out the animations by mashing some combination of space, shift, and right mouse button:
https://files.catbox.moe/tjlyu9.webm
Only goes back to normal after restarting the game.
Enemies can jump on top of you and stand there, they seem to stop moving then. You can also get on top of them and their AI bugs out:
https://files.catbox.moe/64f8zx.webm
There is something wrong with the shadows, some Z fighting in places, and the player and enemies look like they hover a bit most of the time. The IK on stairs work pretty well!
https://files.catbox.moe/bkumoi.webm
I really hate the camera... Sorry.
Hey, thanks for playing!
The eyes are a work in progress - they've got a glow to make them visible even from behind, but I added it before I gave them hair, so now it's a little hard to see. Probably oughta make it bigger but the current hair is itself a placeholder. The game's supposed to have moments where you wonder whether an enemy is actually dead or whether you should try to finish it off, but right now it's a little too common.
Individual enemies aren't particularly dangerous, yeah - these are the lowest-level mooks and they're still not quite playing with a full toolbox. Though if you still felt that way past wave 5 or so then wow, I'm impressed.
Blocking, yeah, it's gonna need some fine tuning.
Sprinting speed bonus still applying while holding heavy is a silly oversight on my part, will fix right up. I thought I'd found all the situations where you could get stuck in animations, but I guess not.
Dealing with entities getting on top of each other is still something I'm not entirely sure how I wanna handle. Stunning the lower entity and shoving it sideways is probably the simplest solution.
I think some/most of the appearance of floating is due to the shadows messing up. But yeah, lots to do there, too.
Could you quantify what you don't like about the camera? And please don't apologize.
Well as far as I can tell all you need to do is roundhouse kick them as they run up to you and run away if you miss. Even if you get hit you can just run away and you won't die. The hardest part was probably fighting the camera to get good angles. Here's a vid of what I mean:
https://files.catbox.moe/1cgzga.webm
I guess it would be more difficult if I had set them to attack the orb too though.
Basically its hard to get it too look where you want it to and it feel inconsistent and changes pitch sometimes by itself for example when you wouldn't expect it to. Like running in a straight line. Your character is most often not in the center and when turning it it just feels awful when it turns around some random pivot point. It lazily pans to the sides while you can barely see whats in front of your character. It all makes it hard to gauge distances with so weird control of the camera, which isn't really a good thing in a fighting game.
...I never once thought to try just sprinting away when you get hit. Oh man.
Yeah no that definitely makes it a lot easier to get out of a bad situation than I'd intended. Thanks a lot for pointing it out.
That's all very fair criticism of the camera. I've got a lot of ambitious ideas for how it's supposed to work, but they're not working out quite like I'd hoped. I'll add an option that takes it down to something Dark Souls-style simple and predictable.
Hahaha yeah that's why its so good to have play testers. It'll be a problem if you're always faster than enemies and there not being any ranged. But having something you need to protect like the orb would make the strategy more difficult. From what I've gathered you're not sure where you're going with the game. I think it should be one of your top priorities to figure out now because of to balance and design the game will depend on it going forward. So have a singular vision for it and remove all the sandboxy options like what the enemies attack etc.
One idea would be to make it level based, have the enemies attack both you and the orb, and the orb going on a set path through levels. So the goal would be to protect the orb until it reaches the end of every level. Could have you unlock different moves and stuff if you want to go that route, secrets and stuff to find out in the dark if you dare run from the orb about, etc.
Well, the main thing is that you probably shouldn't get your sprint bonus when you're recovering from a hit; that's a simple oversight on my part that makes the intended ways of surviving a mistake long enough to recover (namely dodging and blocking) completely superfluous. The other thing is AI improvements, which is a little more complicated, but nothing impossible.
I do have a pretty decent idea of the final overall game flow; with the orb leading you through ~5 procedurally generated levels/areas of ~5 waves, with a boss fight/wave at the end of each.
I know I'm gonna want both sections where you have to split your attention to defend the orb and sections where you only have to defend yourself, which is why there's the mode select in the current prototype. The finished game won't let you pick in regular gameplay.
The things I'm still not sure of is stuff like "how smart should the orb be" and "how do I wanna implement a damage system for the orb".
I think I probably won't have any use for the orb-attack-only mode in the finished game, but it's there for testing purposes for now.
I do have ideas for unlockables, but it'll probably be lore/backstory and costumes/cosmetics, rather than character progression.
But all that's way in the future right now. I got basic mechanics to implement, like y'know, walking animations.
Neat little game. The gameplay reminds me of Lugaru/Overgrowth, where they crumple but get back up afterwards, so consider checking those out if you haven't already. I don't particularly play these kind of action games so I can't give much feedback. Controls seem fine enough, camera is interesting but it's serviceable.
Seems very WIP, hope to see it improved upon.
Thanks for playing!
It's funny you should mention Overgrowth - I've had it wishlisted for forever, but I've never gotten around to playing it. I probably should.
And yeah, I hope to see it improved upon too.
checked this thing out, I see it's a early prototype and for that it has potential. I like the audio. The fact that she's naked reminded me somehow of Kingdom Death: Monster, of course I don't know what you have in mind for this but something in a similar universe would be awesome.
The controls: I like the combat, it feels snappy, plus the munchy sounds make it fun to punch enemies. The camera movement is unique but you get used to it quickly. There are some instances where the camera is just showing the obstacle, I think this is hard to get right but it is a good start for what it is. Maybe damping when it would be too close to a wall and avoiding the obstacle moving upwards would be a idea.
The graphics look very placeholder, I guess that's not a surprise to hear. The model has some crazy walking animation, what happening with her hips ? lol
I think it only has the training mode, I wasn't able to do anything else but training.
You're the first to catch the KDM
plagiarisminfluence; it's definitely a major inspiration, though it's just gonna be an action game with no monster hunter/settlement management/party stuff.Camera's a work in progress, yeah, and, well, animation is hard. ;_;
Decent-ish animations are a goal for next demo day.
You should be able to select whether the enemies are punching bags, or if they attack the player, orb or both in the mode select menu screen. If you mean as opposed to a story mode, then yeah, there's just pure fighting in the one scene.
Maybe I’m making this up, but I think this “feels” better than when I played during the previous demo day. I can’t tell if the jank is intentional or not.
She’s cute but I wish she wasn’t naked.
Like, the controls feel better? Looking at my change log I haven't changed anything about the player's basic controls since DD48. Maybe you were just better prepared for it this time? Or maybe the Bloody Forever has claimed the mind of its first real-world victim.
I did fix a bit of the visual jank with the walking so her legs don't spaz out as much - maybe that, or the addition of menus, is what makes it feel better?
I'd love to use it as a shield, but no, none of the jank is intentional. I'm gonna make it as smooth and polished as I possibly can.
You're not alone in wishing she wasn't naked. I don't wanna make any promises about if or when it might get implemented, but more SFW costumes/skins for player and enemies instead of silly black censor boxes is definitely on The List.
I recorded gameplay on linux
https://mega.nz/file/uMFByCCD#gF6bCUsLZCp8o1zQsu_7GvbGhIdWKjGpcUwTPfUKxrI
I hope you find it useful
I don't have time to watch the whole thing or give the response it deserves right now, but I can already tell that this is the single most valuable piece of feedback I have received so far. Thank you. TLDR I've completely failed to explain how health works in the game and I'm gonna have to figure out how to do that.
Okay, I think I can respond properly to this now. Thanks a lot for recording it; written feedback is great, but there's nothing quite like watching someone else play to help you catch the difference in perspective of a new player vs the designer, and I think that's a major part of where I messed up here.
I'll try to respond in a points-ish manner.
1: Enemy health: I've completely failed to explain the health system of the game in the game itself. It's less Devil May Cry and more Super Mario - enemies and the player don't have an HP value, they just have a Damage State; like how a koopa troopa loses its shell when you jump on it, but if it gets back in, it's good as new. Which is obviously very unintuitive when basically every other fighting game or beat-em-up uses HP, and the only health system I actually remembered to explain (the orb) is a numerical value. I've made a quick update to the explanation in the How To Play part of the menu (not uploaded yet), but I think I'm gonna have to make a proper tutorial higher priority. Probably also oughta highlight the importance of the stomp move for dealing with downed enemies.
2: Distinguishing between dead and knocked-down enemies: Currently the only visual difference is the lack of glowing eyes (or halo, if those are enabled), but I intend to get some active ragdoll system in, and obviously knocked-down enemies will need getting-up animations to make the recovery less jarring. There's also a different sound for attacks that knock an enemy down and an attack that kills them, and the player character will look at them if they aren't dead. Again, I think this is more to do with me badly explaining things to the player than system being inherently flawed.
3: Enemy and player health bars. Since there's no HP, having a bar doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, you use the enemies' eyes to gauge their state. There is an option to make this more visible by giving the enemies halos of the same color, but it's under audio/video. Maybe I should move it to the Mode Select screen instead, since it's more like a difficulty modifier.
4: Orb health display: Almost certainly getting added in one form or another. The orb's damage system is probably getting a revision of some kind to make it more forgiving and in line with the other health systems, so I'm not entirely sure what form it will take.
5: Enemy visibility: Minimaps almost certainly won't be added if I can avoid it, since situational awareness is an intended aspect of the difficulty, but the halo option makes enemies visible at very long distances.
Anyway, that's my overly-long-probably-too-defensive take on the issues you encountered and brought up. If you try the game again, I'd love to hear if knowing this stuff makes it actually fun to play.
Again, thanks a lot for the video.
1. I think I get it even though I never played DMC and the only Mario I am familiar with is the first one. It's good that me pointing it out helped you notice you did not explain in in the game. The game is surely become clearer the more you flesh it out.
2. I think maybe instead of halos an icon showing state above enemies would be better, but I did not play with halos enabled, so I am not sure. I imagine if people prefer to have less immersion breaking UI, they would prefer halos.
3. Yes, it definitely needs to be in different section.
4. any orb health indication is better that none, so make sure you add it for next DD.
5. Trust me, I get it.
As for the "Fun" part of the game, right now it's just funny how much the animations are broken and of course the wet sounds. I think you're going to need to flesh out the game more for me to see if the actual gameplay is that much fun, but bear in my I don't play games like this. I am happy I can help.
The way I see it, halos are basically just icons that render behind the enemy's head. You can see them in one of the screenshots.
Well, I hope I'll be able to show you how much fun the game in my head is someday soon.
I'm not sure if the punches will still be that fast in future versions, but right now when i spam left click i feel like i'm KEN from HNK (with boobs). i can almost hear AAAAATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA
maybe my comment will give you an animation idea, but i dunno if that's the direction you want to bring your game into though
The basic punch speed is unlikely to change -it's kinda foundational to everything else in the combat system. I'm glad you like it!
Personally I see her more as a MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA type girl.
booba.
I like the spooky atmosphere, not much more to say beyond what osur said. Works great on linux.
Glad to hear it works. I'll write a 2x next to my notes on Osur's feedback.
ahoy. i gave OBF another runthrough this DD and i had fun with it.
my main bits of feedback affect the ability to control the MC. the main issues come mostly from perspective and camera angles. i found it very difficult to orient myself so that my punches/kicks face the enemy. this is especially difficult if the enemy is moving around, and due to the height of some (maybe all?) enemies being lower than yours. i think the main issue is that there's no lock-on or targeting system. perhaps a right click to focus on an enemy or something similar would help.
another thing that makes orienting yourself towards enemies more difficult is the camera control. while i'm sure there's some logic to follow, i couldn't make sense of the way the camera acted. one second, the camera would be quite far away, but it'll be on my shoulder after a 45 degree turn. i was already having trouble lining things up, and now i also have to deal with changing camera values. even on a low difficulty (non punching bag), i had trouble keeping the orb alive due to this.
another issue is that the orb is high up above ground. i think you should copy how other games tackle this, where the orb is groundlevel or on a small pedestal, and perhaps enemies have a windup time to their orb damaging attacks, to give the player a last chance to rescue it
i'm eager to see how you tackle these issues, especially since this is a kind of game i can't predict anything about. anything could happen by next DD, which i think is exciting. since you already have such an unusual setting, feel free to experiment with unusual mechanics as well.
keep up the good work and hope to see more next DD.
Thanks for giving it a try!
Lock-on is definitely in the cards - right now the character should snap to the direction of a nearby enemy in front of her or in the direction the player's telling her to move when she gets an attack input, but it's not quite enough.
The camera issue you got is a bit of a surprise to me. Its maximum distance to the player decreases when you get close to an enemy, but unless there's terrain in the way it should never come particularly close. Could it be there was some terrain feature you didn't notice getting between the camera and the character? Making that transition more gradual is also on the to-do-list.
Regarding the orb, yeah, I haven't really adjusted it properly for the new enemies - when I taught them how to jump after an airborne player, I also made them nigh-impossible to intercept when they go for the orb. I have vague plans of how to fix it (Ico-style kidnapping or having to knock the orb down before they can do real damage to it, much like the player's damage states, as well as having segments where the orb is just safely flying out of reach of the enemies so you only have to worry about yourself), but right now it's definitely got problems.
I hope to see you at DD50 as well :)