Always a pleasure to play this game. Random thoughts ahead.
Right clicking skips cutscenes without a confirmation screen! Im a bit fidgety at times and pressed right click on the start, making me remake my profile a couple times.
Deleting a save file doesn't update the profile button of the deleted profile. The game needs to be restarted to fix it.
Every time I try the game, the art looks better and better, very nice!
I just had no idea how the guy who respawned worked for a long time. His egg appeared too deep into the shadows and I just didn't notice it was there until I killed his entire team first, leaving him for the end.
Also the encyclopedia mentioned that guy inflicted recoil on itself. I don't remember seeing that in game.
Pressing spacebar on cutscenes while text is appearing makes it appear immediately, pressing it again skips to the next message. By clicking the button "next" the text works differently, skipping the text without completing it first. I suggest to have it work as the spacebar.
The intro cutscene on the map plays again if you enter a camp/shop map node and exit.
I got a respawn bug. After that my computer crashed, but I believe that was mostly my PC and not the game's fault.
The boss battle against the afterlife gladiator should have some way to tell the player they have to survive a certain amount of turns. Some kind of in battle cutscene I mean. I didn't knew I had to wait and when I won, I thought it was a bug.
Water item feels like it is too weak compared to other options (I assume it removes the inital weakness on deserts for only one of the fighters).
The princess diplomacy skill hits absurdly hard, wow.
I like the new mechanic for the defense build. Before that it felt a bit pointless. It could be a bit overpowered though, since you can eventually reach a point where your party is invulnerable.
I wasn't able to keep going because I got the respawn bug and after trying several times, it always appeared. Still, very nice job with the updates! Keep it up.
the text progession is kind of weird, like if i try to move forward sometimes i mistakenly skip part of it, and i can't just press my mouse to move to the next section, i specifically have to wait for the current text to be over by clicking elsewhere and then i have to actually press the next button
I'm surprised how much the art improved technically without losing that DOS/Amiga/TempleOS sovl. Navigating menus feels tactile now. The new portraits and other art add a lot to the atmosphere and worldbuilding. Lots of gameplay twists everywhere in the later rounds too.
From the start menu, I went into the settings, then returned, and then couldn't go into the settings again.
There might be some jank with the password? Inputting it then going into the stats screen to respec, the level selector was disabled when I came back. Then inputting the code again, the level selector was back, but there were no characters in the hub. Then I went into the stat screen and back again and everybody was there. I don't know if that's somehow how it's supposed to function.
Why can't I click anywhere to advance dialogue outside cutscenes?
Entering a shop and then leaving it when there's pre-round dialogue results in the dialogue being repeated
I feel the resurrection items should be more expensive. They are the only ones worth buying
Iker's Shadow is both a Carving Surge upgrade and a skill of its own, which is confusing.
This game looked from the start like it would end up in gnostic schizokino eventually and I am not disappointed that it seems to be panning out.
The round 16 stat allocation screen flashes Finnegan's/Haydn't portraits and nags you about them on exit, even though they are not selectable. Something similar happens on round 17 with Finnegan and 18 with Haydn.
Pressing return on the stage selector does not work in round 18
Yes, your character names are very pretentious (and that's a good thing!)
I got this glitch at one point where a combat animation stayed frozen on the screen permanently, even as the battle continued
There has been a lot of jank and glitches with game states in this game all-around. It looks like you're hard-coding a lot of things to check for conditions independently where a state machine/observer would be proper. Just something to keep in mind if you're starting another project after this one.
Oh I was trying to use the itch.io app but my real save was on a downloaded game. They went to different user accounts.
This would read better as "You sense it, don't you?"
Sorry in advance if I repeat UX feedback from previous DDs, UI work has been my day job for years and my brain is hardwired to note this stuff.
Upon saving my changes when setting perks, I receive no feedback that the save worked. The button should IMO grey out once perks are saved since it's no longer valid (nothing to save).
I see the new blue selection item in the menu. Perhaps the selection icon shouldn't be shown if there's nothing to be selected? At first I thought the shiny blue thing was an item of its own!
The description of a moused-over skill remains even after I've left the Skills menu.
When I hover over an enemy, "X" to me says "cannot attack." Perhaps the sword icon from the bottom menu would be a more descriptive fit?
I wanted to go from fullscreen to windowed but this is what I end up getting as the whole window when I do that. If I expand the window it just fills with black. The game became unresponsive and I had to close it.
I think I ran into a bug after these guys used their respawning pink orb thing. Now they're stuck in my side of the map, they're blocking the path for Mosca, and I can't target them. I'm going to leave the game open in this state, if there's anything I can do to help debugging tell me and I'll do it.
Very neat game. I like the character designs, especially Mosca. The game felt a little bit "click attack over and over to win", but I started getting into the technique easily enough after awhile. Will follow this!
Amazing game, will wishlist. Only bugs i ran into was the "name your team" cutscene kept resetting if you went to the shop even after naming your team. Also randomly mosca didnt want to attack and only did spells.
I want more to get translations of the other ones. Your game gave me a small sense of nostolgia of that gameplay and it was wonderful. Also mechs can be hard but at least we have moth
as always, beat it to the end. the save fixing mechanic worked, had no issues.
as you've maybe noticed in the thread, i got stuck on the puzzle, but was able to figure it out about 7 seconds after posting. everything was clear, i had no issues of any kind. i am eager to see the conclusion of the story, which i wont comment upon here to prevent spoilers. i think all the characters developed nicely. perhaps the return of a certain god might require more development, though. he just kinda shows up and gets defeated without much fanfare.
the only small issue is that enkidu's roar SFX has a pop at the end. that's really it. everything else is excellent. well done.
-Improved bestiary across the board. Many new entries.
-Important Finnegan buff: Finnegan now gains armor every time he uses Undead Defender. Armor is a new mechanic that decreases direct damage by a flat amount. Hopefully this will make Finnegan defensive builds better.
-Important Mosca nerf: Sword of Michael perk now directly decreases slow magnitude based on the number of enemies affected. Bumblebee Mange still deals the same damage but hopefully this will prevent Mosca from trivializing important battles while keeping the functionality of the skill the same for single enemies.
-Level selector can now be closed by entering the super secret password again.
-Replaced some assets for old animations.
-Finally fixed bug that made the party show up on top of last tile visited before a game over.
-Finally managed to reproduce rare crash regarding the turn queue (the turn queue is a bastard)
-Fixed bugged interaction between mp bar and mp draining skills.
-Added small number tooltips for multiple status effects icons to make them easier to keep track of.
Comments
Played for a bit. Video:
Always a pleasure to play this game. Random thoughts ahead.Right clicking skips cutscenes without a confirmation screen! Im a bit fidgety at times and pressed right click on the start, making me remake my profile a couple times.
Deleting a save file doesn't update the profile button of the deleted profile. The game needs to be restarted to fix it.
Every time I try the game, the art looks better and better, very nice!
I just had no idea how the guy who respawned worked for a long time. His egg appeared too deep into the shadows and I just didn't notice it was there until I killed his entire team first, leaving him for the end.
Also the encyclopedia mentioned that guy inflicted recoil on itself. I don't remember seeing that in game.
Pressing spacebar on cutscenes while text is appearing makes it appear immediately, pressing it again skips to the next message. By clicking the button "next" the text works differently, skipping the text without completing it first. I suggest to have it work as the spacebar.
The intro cutscene on the map plays again if you enter a camp/shop map node and exit.
I got a respawn bug. After that my computer crashed, but I believe that was mostly my PC and not the game's fault.
The boss battle against the afterlife gladiator should have some way to tell the player they have to survive a certain amount of turns. Some kind of in battle cutscene I mean. I didn't knew I had to wait and when I won, I thought it was a bug.
Water item feels like it is too weak compared to other options (I assume it removes the inital weakness on deserts for only one of the fighters).
The princess diplomacy skill hits absurdly hard, wow.
I like the new mechanic for the defense build. Before that it felt a bit pointless. It could be a bit overpowered though, since you can eventually reach a point where your party is invulnerable.
I wasn't able to keep going because I got the respawn bug and after trying several times, it always appeared. Still, very nice job with the updates! Keep it up.
Thanks for all the feedback, I'm sorry the game was so buggy I haven't gone back to the older levels in a while, 6-12 specially.
took a while, but it finally all clicked with me.
the text progession is kind of weird, like if i try to move forward sometimes i mistakenly skip part of it, and i can't just press my mouse to move to the next section, i specifically have to wait for the current text to be over by clicking elsewhere and then i have to actually press the next button
i probably couldn't explain myself really well
Clicking or pressing return speeds up the text so if you are spamming click over the next button then that would explain why you are skipping lines.
KINO gladiator
I'm surprised how much the art improved technically without losing that DOS/Amiga/TempleOS sovl. Navigating menus feels tactile now. The new portraits and other art add a lot to the atmosphere and worldbuilding. Lots of gameplay twists everywhere in the later rounds too.
From the start menu, I went into the settings, then returned, and then couldn't go into the settings again.
There might be some jank with the password? Inputting it then going into the stats screen to respec, the level selector was disabled when I came back. Then inputting the code again, the level selector was back, but there were no characters in the hub. Then I went into the stat screen and back again and everybody was there. I don't know if that's somehow how it's supposed to function.
Why can't I click anywhere to advance dialogue outside cutscenes?
Entering a shop and then leaving it when there's pre-round dialogue results in the dialogue being repeated
I feel the resurrection items should be more expensive. They are the only ones worth buying
Iker's Shadow is both a Carving Surge upgrade and a skill of its own, which is confusing.
This game looked from the start like it would end up in gnostic schizokino eventually and I am not disappointed that it seems to be panning out.
The round 16 stat allocation screen flashes Finnegan's/Haydn't portraits and nags you about them on exit, even though they are not selectable. Something similar happens on round 17 with Finnegan and 18 with Haydn.
Pressing return on the stage selector does not work in round 18
Yes, your character names are very pretentious (and that's a good thing!)
I got this glitch at one point where a combat animation stayed frozen on the screen permanently, even as the battle continued
Looking forward to the ending! I love this game.
Thank you for your kind comment.
The level selector is indeed very janky, sorry about that.
In order to advance dialogue fast you've got to click somewhere within the text box itself. Pressing return also works.
Stores are a recent addition and thus still a bit unpolished.
The Finnegan's C skill used to be called something else but it was too long and I'm yet to change it.
Thanks for all the feedback, I tend to overlook stuff sometimes.
There has been a lot of jank and glitches with game states in this game all-around. It looks like you're hard-coding a lot of things to check for conditions independently where a state machine/observer would be proper. Just something to keep in mind if you're starting another project after this one.
Thanks for the advice. I wouldn't say I'm a terrible programmer because I'm no programmer at all.
My save where I got to the end seems to have disappeared and I only have a save that looks pretty early on.
Big bummer for me because it sounds like there's new story to check out.
That's odd, save data shouldn't disappear unless you delete it yourself.
Nevertheless, you can use the level selector to replay any level with a party at the appropriate level.
Oh I was trying to use the itch.io app but my real save was on a downloaded game. They went to different user accounts.
This would read better as "You sense it, don't you?"
Sorry in advance if I repeat UX feedback from previous DDs, UI work has been my day job for years and my brain is hardwired to note this stuff.
Upon saving my changes when setting perks, I receive no feedback that the save worked. The button should IMO grey out once perks are saved since it's no longer valid (nothing to save).
I see the new blue selection item in the menu. Perhaps the selection icon shouldn't be shown if there's nothing to be selected? At first I thought the shiny blue thing was an item of its own!
The description of a moused-over skill remains even after I've left the Skills menu.
When I hover over an enemy, "X" to me says "cannot attack." Perhaps the sword icon from the bottom menu would be a more descriptive fit?
I wanted to go from fullscreen to windowed but this is what I end up getting as the whole window when I do that. If I expand the window it just fills with black. The game became unresponsive and I had to close it.
All feedback is appreciated. The game is heavy on menus and yet I haven't spent nearly as much time on UI as I should have.
I think I ran into a bug after these guys used their respawning pink orb thing. Now they're stuck in my side of the map, they're blocking the path for Mosca, and I can't target them.
I'm going to leave the game open in this state, if there's anything I can do to help debugging tell me and I'll do it.
Here's a video
https://files.catbox.moe/r8dfm3.mp4
There's a persisting issue with spawned units sometimes shifting slightly in position, but never by this much. I'll look into it at a later date.
Thank you for trying the game, I see you made it quite far.
Very neat game. I like the character designs, especially Mosca. The game felt a little bit "click attack over and over to win", but I started getting into the technique easily enough after awhile. Will follow this!
Thank you for trying the game.
It's difficult to balance difficulty, but I tried to err on the easier side because readability has been a consistent issue during development.
Super fair, and I agree with you on erring on the easier side
Amazing game, will wishlist. Only bugs i ran into was the "name your team" cutscene kept resetting if you went to the shop even after naming your team. Also randomly mosca didnt want to attack and only did spells.
Thank you for your kind comment.
I'll look into fixing those issues later.
As a medabots fan I was so excited to find out someone made a combat system similar to the GBA games
That was the idea at first because I wanted to recreate the combat as a prototype of sorts. If only I could draw robots.
I was also upset because those games are the only ones to ever get localized too.
I want more to get translations of the other ones. Your game gave me a small sense of nostolgia of that gameplay and it was wonderful. Also mechs can be hard but at least we have moth
as always, beat it to the end. the save fixing mechanic worked, had no issues.
as you've maybe noticed in the thread, i got stuck on the puzzle, but was able to figure it out about 7 seconds after posting. everything was clear, i had no issues of any kind. i am eager to see the conclusion of the story, which i wont comment upon here to prevent spoilers. i think all the characters developed nicely. perhaps the return of a certain god might require more development, though. he just kinda shows up and gets defeated without much fanfare.
the only small issue is that enkidu's roar SFX has a pop at the end. that's really it. everything else is excellent. well done.
Thanks for trying the game again. I hate sound design.
New stuff for Demo Day 54.
-3 new levels for a total of 18.
-It's now possible to hover over units with the mouse to see their current condition.
-Combat journal improved to contain more useful, concise information.
-Stats screen tutorial is back.
-UI changes across the board to improve readability.
-Enemies are less stupid.
-Multiple issues reported during last DD fixed.
https://bakar.itch.io/afterlife-gladiator/devlog/637540/devlog-18-small-fixes-th...
-Improved main hub assets and buttons across the board.
https://bakar.itch.io/afterlife-gladiator/devlog/645216/devlog-19-working-on-new...
-Homodiegetic main hub elements are now labeled for convenience.
-New text speed setting in the settings menu.
https://bakar.itch.io/afterlife-gladiator/devlog/653278/devlog-20-working-hard-o...
-New keyboard controls for dialogue and cutcenes.
-Improved bestiary across the board. Many new entries.
-Important Finnegan buff: Finnegan now gains armor every time he uses Undead Defender. Armor is a new mechanic that decreases direct damage by a flat amount. Hopefully this will make Finnegan defensive builds better.
-Important Mosca nerf: Sword of Michael perk now directly decreases slow magnitude based on the number of enemies affected. Bumblebee Mange still deals the same damage but hopefully this will prevent Mosca from trivializing important battles while keeping the functionality of the skill the same for single enemies.
-Level selector can now be closed by entering the super secret password again.
-Replaced some assets for old animations.
-Finally fixed bug that made the party show up on top of last tile visited before a game over.
-Finally managed to reproduce rare crash regarding the turn queue (the turn queue is a bastard)
-Fixed bugged interaction between mp bar and mp draining skills.
-Added small number tooltips for multiple status effects icons to make them easier to keep track of.
https://bakar.itch.io/afterlife-gladiator/devlog/661147/devlog-21-the-night-befo...