-No menu or option to restart if you get softlocked
-player doesn't die when HP reaches 0 -if you throw 4 wooden wall blocks in a cross pattern around the character while holding 14 or more to begin with, you get softlocked - you can't pick up the ones you've thrown and there is no space to add the new ones, because the limit as to how much you can hold at the same time supposed to be 10 -can hold unlimited amount of wooden wall blocks by crafting them with the workbench -workbench doesn't consume wood when making a wall, but repairing the axe consumes stones -can pick up both the football, the workbench and the wooden wall at the same time for some reason -holding the direction with an item equipped, then cancelling the action with spacebar will place a yellow indicator on the ground and even tapping J/K/L/I will result in a long throw next time instead of placing the item beside the player -collisions on entryways in the house are a bit too tight -can't throw/place stuff diagonally
-Animations make sense with those 2 nubs player possesses to interact with stuff, but seem a bit too rubbery -Why is the flask marked as 100/10 instead of 100/100? -Cute bed animation! -Shadows around corners feel a bit TOO sharp -Looks like a flash game, colors are too flat
It works as well as it can be, providing how early the thing is, but I actually thought about American/Canadian version of Darkwood when I saw the name, was a little bit disappointed to find out that it isn't. For now it seems like only the most basic things are included, there is no actual "survival" and construction/crafting is absolutely barebones.
Controlling the character and interacting with objects feels just fine, but it's incredibly limited interaction so far. No enemies, no way to destroy stuff you've created (not counting logs), only 2 little playground areas and only 1 type of construction you can really place down. Can't even put the fire out with the flask (which would be a logical thing that should be possible, imo)
-From every screenshot of this game I thought it was a Rimworld like, but no it's a survival action game.
-Tween animations are cute. Interaction using the IJKL feels better than I thought it would. The interactions with objects like the ball and axe are fun and feel intuitive with a little poking. Main exception is the water cup, which you have to press the reload key to figure out it heals you. And you only know that if you happen to be damaged at the time, I can see people missing that for a long time.
-Blocks in shadow become fully shaded or fully lit in a unsatisfying way, when turning around its corner. Most obvious when walking circles around the blocks by the fire under the building. There are other things but you get it. Not a deal breaker of course.
-Picking up and moving the wood walls is pretty fun, I like how you can throw it instead of just placing it. I find it a bit odd that I can't destroy the walls, I would assume the axe would do the trick but it doesn't.
-Sprint is a bit weird feeling, because it's suppose to slow down when you turn around while sprinting, but if you instead make a right/left turn then immediately go the full 180 there's no slow down, so it can be inconsistent
-Also pulling the covers up for the bed is really cute.
Implementing this lighting system was very difficult. The walls are selected to be visible using a roguelike shadowcasting algorithm, and the shadows done by dynamically spawning Godot light occluders. This is about the limit I can achieve using Godot's systems, and I have no idea how to make it look better without writing my own lighting engine. I can make the wood walls destructible, but there's zero reason to do so (you can pick them up and reuse them instead), so I feel that would just screw over players.
I can make the wood walls destructible, but there's zero reason to do so
Well it takes up a resource to build the wall, so I was thinking that with later wall recipes the cost could go up and by that point you might want to destroy a wall for material so you can build something else. That, or you make too many walls and you want to delete one so the build doesn't have stragglers. Of course that depends on the direction of the game, I don't even know if it's going to have monsters to defend from or what.
Games not bad, but its still obviously very early in development so, not a lot to talk about yet.
The controls weren't... horrible, in that I could pretty reliably do the things i expected to do. But I think you should be asking yourself why you would want to have a control scheme like that? if its to be unique for the sake of being unique, i don't think it really adds anything to the experience that your players would find worthwhile, at least at this stage thats the impression anyway. I think a simple mouse direction / thumbstick for interacting, click-and-hold, etc. would work a lot better.
I liked your use of the fog-of-war effect, i'm sure once theres more to explore there will be some fun stuff! keep it up!
My immediate impression of the controls is that they're kind of awkward. I have to pull my keyboard way over to the right and my hands are too close together. WASD + arrow keys or 8456 would be a lot more comfortable.
I don't like how you have to press a button or interact with something again to make descriptions disappear. It should go away on its own and interacting with something else should replace it with the new description. The text also needs to be faster and it needs to be more out of the way.
"A thick wall of trees. I'm no Lumber-Jack, I can't clear these." --> "A thick wall of trees. I'm no lumberjack; I can't clear these." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_splice
Having two health bars is redundant. If you think the regular healthbar isn't noticeable enough, then make it more noticeable or move it somewhere else.
"Reloading" happens when you release the key instead of when you press it—I don't know if holding it is going to be used for something, but actions should always happen on press if possible.
I spoiled myself and read that the getting stuck when sprinting diagonally into walls is intentional. It feels like a glitch and is not a good solution to that problem at all. Make the player get stunned for a moment when running into a wall and decrease deceleration when sprinting or something.
It takes some time for the character to accelerate when switching to the opposite direction while sprinting, but you can skip it by quickly tapping a perpendicular direction first.
Health bars should be drawn above the character. You can't see the health bars of the logs if you're below them. The durability meter also blocks them from the left.
-the control scheme damaged my spine and gave me carpal tunnel
-i was trying to figure out why my axe wasn't strong enough to get me through the wooden barrier but then i saw the "M" on the hat and realized my bare hands are obviously stronger than the axe
Cool. Not much to do, but I liked the subtle animations. Does interacting really need a button for each directions? I think you could keep a single interact button and make it so it aims at the last direction you moved to.
This should have been 3D I hate 2D pixelshit. Make sure you add online and local multiplayer or you're not gonna make it. Charming gameplay and the fog of war with shadows reminds of me dark wood. You know what fucker play darkwood and come back to making this game and make sure you make cute dark wood if you're gonna go 2D route still and appeal to Californians unlike me at least this isn't a fucking puzzle platformer like my trash.
-The axe hand controls like flipping tools is great looking. Very soulful. Animations here and there are fantastic like pulling bed sheets and the little character with his trump hat is charming.
-Needs music. Go find some non-American audio stock website and find non-commonly used music and buy it and use it. *(including ambient audio)* what kinda survival game doesn't have crickets and birds going wild making forest sounds you forgot that kinda comfy shit. I'd hook you up with my audio bros from nipland but I dont want to share my secret sauces for kino find it yourself DO NOT make your own music I bet you cant do it you cant even do 3D.
-ADD GUNS YOU NEED GUNS play darkwood you hack.
-Add giant scary monsters to survive from. You need iconic spooky monsters that you can fit in your key art and survive/fight agasnt.
-Add footsteps and make sure there is support for all textures and whatnot footsteps for grass/wood.
-Add a ghost that stalks you hiding in the trees of the forest and relates to a story or some shit.
The game is actually directly inspired by Darkwood, and will include a similar night-survival mode. The goal is to be a cross between Darkwood and Stardew Valley, but without the passive day timers.
some things that are a bit annoying would be accidentally pressing a key and getting the text popup describing the item, which doesn't go away after interacting with something. i would need to hit E to get rid of it, while i think it would make more sense for the description to go away if the item it's describing is used in some way.
otherwise i explored the map and messed around with the tools
fire hurts, and the reloading hatchet is nice. i hope this is the "weakest" hatchet since reloading e very 4 hits will prove to be very tedious. in fact, even if it's the lowest tier and the better hatchets require reloads less frequently, i can see this mechanic being a bit annoying. the way i see it, if i want to chop a lot of wood with it, i would like to have some auto reload toggle that would just automatically deduct the resources when used - it would save a lot of key presses for something i want done "fast" so i don't get bored chopping wood.
your project is developing nicely, and i hope to be able to craft a lot of fun stuff in the future. keep up the good work
You can press Consume, Sprint, or Interact with an object again to advance the dialog popup. Maybe I should just make it lock-out the controls like typical RPGs do.
Comments
-No menu or option to restart if you get softlocked
-player doesn't die when HP reaches 0
-if you throw 4 wooden wall blocks in a cross pattern around the character while holding 14 or more to begin with, you get softlocked - you can't pick up the ones you've thrown and there is no space to add the new ones, because the limit as to how much you can hold at the same time supposed to be 10
-can hold unlimited amount of wooden wall blocks by crafting them with the workbench
-workbench doesn't consume wood when making a wall, but repairing the axe consumes stones
-can pick up both the football, the workbench and the wooden wall at the same time for some reason
-holding the direction with an item equipped, then cancelling the action with spacebar will place a
yellow indicator on the ground and even tapping J/K/L/I will result in a long throw next time instead of placing the item beside the player
-collisions on entryways in the house are a bit too tight
-can't throw/place stuff diagonally
-Animations make sense with those 2 nubs player possesses to interact with stuff, but seem a bit too rubbery
-Why is the flask marked as 100/10 instead of 100/100?
-Cute bed animation!
-Shadows around corners feel a bit TOO sharp
-Looks like a flash game, colors are too flat
It works as well as it can be, providing how early the thing is, but I actually thought about American/Canadian version of Darkwood when I saw the name, was a little bit disappointed to find out that it isn't. For now it seems like only the most basic things are included, there is no actual "survival" and construction/crafting is absolutely barebones.
Controlling the character and interacting with objects feels just fine, but it's incredibly limited interaction so far. No enemies, no way to destroy stuff you've created (not counting logs), only 2 little playground areas and only 1 type of construction you can really place down. Can't even put the fire out with the flask (which would be a logical thing that should be possible, imo)
It's clearly a tech demo. I find it funny how I gotta reload an axe, but that's weirdly charming in its own way.
Hey Max, I recorded video commentary on your tech demo.
You can find it at https://mega.nz/folder/WQ91HBxL#X4-j8Mj7H30Ai3aevWFEmA
-From every screenshot of this game I thought it was a Rimworld like, but no it's a survival action game.
-Tween animations are cute. Interaction using the IJKL feels better than I thought it would. The interactions with objects like the ball and axe are fun and feel intuitive with a little poking. Main exception is the water cup, which you have to press the reload key to figure out it heals you. And you only know that if you happen to be damaged at the time, I can see people missing that for a long time.
-Blocks in shadow become fully shaded or fully lit in a unsatisfying way, when turning around its corner. Most obvious when walking circles around the blocks by the fire under the building. There are other things but you get it. Not a deal breaker of course.
-Picking up and moving the wood walls is pretty fun, I like how you can throw it instead of just placing it. I find it a bit odd that I can't destroy the walls, I would assume the axe would do the trick but it doesn't.
-Sprint is a bit weird feeling, because it's suppose to slow down when you turn around while sprinting, but if you instead make a right/left turn then immediately go the full 180 there's no slow down, so it can be inconsistent
-Also pulling the covers up for the bed is really cute.
Looks like good progress.
Implementing this lighting system was very difficult. The walls are selected to be visible using a roguelike shadowcasting algorithm, and the shadows done by dynamically spawning Godot light occluders. This is about the limit I can achieve using Godot's systems, and I have no idea how to make it look better without writing my own lighting engine. I can make the wood walls destructible, but there's zero reason to do so (you can pick them up and reuse them instead), so I feel that would just screw over players.
Well it takes up a resource to build the wall, so I was thinking that with later wall recipes the cost could go up and by that point you might want to destroy a wall for material so you can build something else. That, or you make too many walls and you want to delete one so the build doesn't have stragglers. Of course that depends on the direction of the game, I don't even know if it's going to have monsters to defend from or what.
hey! a fellow godot dev! right on!
Games not bad, but its still obviously very early in development so, not a lot to talk about yet.
The controls weren't... horrible, in that I could pretty reliably do the things i expected to do. But I think you should be asking yourself why you would want to have a control scheme like that? if its to be unique for the sake of being unique, i don't think it really adds anything to the experience that your players would find worthwhile, at least at this stage thats the impression anyway. I think a simple mouse direction / thumbstick for interacting, click-and-hold, etc. would work a lot better.
I liked your use of the fog-of-war effect, i'm sure once theres more to explore there will be some fun stuff! keep it up!
-revolutionary system for reloading melee weapons
-the control scheme damaged my spine and gave me carpal tunnel
-i was trying to figure out why my axe wasn't strong enough to get me through the wooden barrier but then i saw the "M" on the hat and realized my bare hands are obviously stronger than the axe
Cool. Not much to do, but I liked the subtle animations. Does interacting really need a button for each directions? I think you could keep a single interact button and make it so it aims at the last direction you moved to.
This should have been 3D I hate 2D pixelshit. Make sure you add online and local multiplayer or you're not gonna make it. Charming gameplay and the fog of war with shadows reminds of me dark wood. You know what fucker play darkwood and come back to making this game and make sure you make cute dark wood if you're gonna go 2D route still and appeal to Californians unlike me at least this isn't a fucking puzzle platformer like my trash.
-The axe hand controls like flipping tools is great looking. Very soulful. Animations here and there are fantastic like pulling bed sheets and the little character with his trump hat is charming.
-Needs music. Go find some non-American audio stock website and find non-commonly used music and buy it and use it. *(including ambient audio)* what kinda survival game doesn't have crickets and birds going wild making forest sounds you forgot that kinda comfy shit. I'd hook you up with my audio bros from nipland but I dont want to share my secret sauces for kino find it yourself DO NOT make your own music I bet you cant do it you cant even do 3D.
-ADD GUNS YOU NEED GUNS play darkwood you hack.
-Add giant scary monsters to survive from. You need iconic spooky monsters that you can fit in your key art and survive/fight agasnt.
-Add footsteps and make sure there is support for all textures and whatnot footsteps for grass/wood.
-Add a ghost that stalks you hiding in the trees of the forest and relates to a story or some shit.
alright good luck you'll need it
The game is actually directly inspired by Darkwood, and will include a similar night-survival mode. The goal is to be a cross between Darkwood and Stardew Valley, but without the passive day timers.
Not a fan of having to hold down a button to use a tool, and then let go of the button.
If I impatient while trying to chop logs, I'll keep accidentally opening the tutorial dialog box. Then I'll go really slow instead to overcompensate.
If you open up a dialog box, and then walk away, the dialog box follows you around
Holding a wooden wall or crafting bench should show a subtle grid for where you can place it. Throw mode already does this.
Holding A, W, and SPACE while pressing your face into the wall doesn't feel right.
Having an axe but unable to cut any of the trees is unintuitive
>Holding A, W, and SPACE while pressing your face into the wall doesn't feel right.
You mean the shaking slowdown ? That's to disincentivize sprinting in closed quarters. Still not sure if it's the best solution.
>Having an axe but unable to cut any of the trees is unintuitive
Most games do this. It's hard to make distinctions between "real" trees and ones that mark area boundaries.
you could replace the unbreakable trees with a cliff face or water, like Forager
crafting system works, very nicely
some things that are a bit annoying would be accidentally pressing a key and getting the text popup describing the item, which doesn't go away after interacting with something. i would need to hit E to get rid of it, while i think it would make more sense for the description to go away if the item it's describing is used in some way.
otherwise i explored the map and messed around with the tools
fire hurts, and the reloading hatchet is nice. i hope this is the "weakest" hatchet since reloading e very 4 hits will prove to be very tedious. in fact, even if it's the lowest tier and the better hatchets require reloads less frequently, i can see this mechanic being a bit annoying. the way i see it, if i want to chop a lot of wood with it, i would like to have some auto reload toggle that would just automatically deduct the resources when used - it would save a lot of key presses for something i want done "fast" so i don't get bored chopping wood.
your project is developing nicely, and i hope to be able to craft a lot of fun stuff in the future. keep up the good work
You can press Consume, Sprint, or Interact with an object again to advance the dialog popup. Maybe I should just make it lock-out the controls like typical RPGs do.