Had a couple of crashes during combat and on player death. Also had a crash trying to get on the boat. The rts mechanics work as intended and the formations are cool. I was able to steamroll enemies with numbers so maybe there is way to introduce the other mechanics that require more tactics as a tutorial? Enjoyed the game where it is and cant wait for more!
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The Ingvanr Saga's itch.io pageComments
Itch Launcher fails to run the .x86_64 because its trying to install it instead of executing it. Consider zipping it or something. Works fine when downloaded from Net tho.
Consider not packing everything into the Executeable, allows more modularity and easier bugfixing on your Assets/Overhauling them if necessary, alongside reducing loadtime on Startup and reducing RAM usage by not forcing everything to be immediately loaded and kept in RAM.
I'm assuming your HUD on the mainScreen/MissionSelect is temporary.
Loadout Menu could be an actual Camp or Ship or something, instead of a currently very placeholder-y feeling Screen. Mission Select feels a bit seperated, instead of built into a Story or something.
I like the small Lore tidbits on Items tho.
Fristivars Portrait cuts of on the Left. Should be either on the Screenedge, or be finished.
Text on the ingame Log is unreadably small, shouldn't scale with Windowsize I think. At least not that much. No Idea what the Shortcuts are, if you're not explaining them in a Tutorial, at least make the Titlescreen Info available ingame for now.
After dying, I couldn't select the Hunting Wolf back into my Party for the next Try. Fixed it after clicking the little Arrow in the Hero, no Idea what it does tho.
The first Mission already is also really hard. But you do a pretty nice Job of building up the Usage of Items and the correct Pathing, leading into carefully exploring the Darkness I think. With some Information and hinting that you should be careful, and that Items are here and there etc. this could be a nice Tutorial Mission I think
Whee. Sadly lost my Wolf tho.
Apparently I could take multiple generic Units, I didn't know that. I also don't know if I like it that much. But now going with maxed out Unitcap, should be a lot easier I guess.
Second Mission played a lot differently then first. While the first was more of a Partbyased Game, the second felt more like a small RTS. Gave me a bit of a Pixelart Age of Empires feeling. Not that I disliked that, but I don't think the Amount of Loot management would fit into that many Units.
Its tough to play on Trackpad, but its still pretty enjoyable. Which there was a Way to either keep the Loot window in a Character fixed on a Screenposition, or have it there permanently, annoying to manage Stuff while moving otherwise. Or in general.
Took ~1.5h for the first 1.5 Missions I guess. But I was doing other Stuff on the Side a bit aswell, so maybe half an Hour per Mission at the Moment?
Submitted
Lillith 2Hello Tomodev!
What richly detailed feedback, I appreciate you taking the time.
That is an interesting detail regarding the RAM usage, I had not considered such matters. I shall look into optimizing this. I would be happy to zip the files as well if that is the preferred method.
Yes, much of the UI is a default settings placeholder. I intend to revise the retinue management screen to better represent the "Home Base" aesthetic. I am doing my best to prevent myself from adding in an entire base building mechanic to take this menu's place, but the temptation is very strong to live up to my Factorio + Warcraft 3 initial vision for the game. Regarding the mission select screen, I drew inspiration from Mechanicus' mission select, as I intend to have a variety of B-plot quest lines for each act to accompany the main quest line. I intend to put some "Throne Room" flavour into this menu as well however.
I am pleased to hear you enjoyed the lore tidbits, I found much enjoyment in writing them.
There's a "Keybinding Menu" available when one presses Esc (per the request of the crab themed streamer a few demo days ago) which shows all the controls information I presented on the title screen. I suppose I had aught to mention that somewhere though haha.
I shall experiment further with the combat log, I've set it to various sizes but when it is larger it takes up too much screen space, and when just the font is scaled up there's too much text wrapping for my taste. Perhaps it needs to be collapsable and only opened when the player cares to figure out what happened in a rapid exchange? This is most likely the best of my ideas at the moment.
Regarding the deployment screen, each Hero can lead a formation of their own. The player must to select which hero they wish to add the generic units to. Perhaps the prince had aught to be selected by default on the first level though, to make this easier on the newbs.
I am glad to hear you found the first level difficult, as I took design inspiration from Dark Souls and the "Hardest Map Ever" combat-puzzle custom maps from Starcraft Broodwar. I'm still working on tutorialization of the core mechanics though. I most likely need to find a better way of revealing the game controls to the player and set the expectation that the player is intended to scout out encounters and carefully plan their engagements. I was hoping the hunting wolves and fire-familiar spell would help encourage this sort of thinking early on, but I believe it still needs work.
My condolences regarding your lost wolf, but I assure you he died doing what he loved.
Did you embark on the second mission with the maximum available manpower? For the larger scale maps I took quite a bit of inspiration from the Total War series, although I've only ever watched people play those games. I also drew inspiration from Napoleonic formation warfare with the enfilade and denial arrangement options. I am glad to hear you got Age of Empires vibes, that is among the sort of RTS games I was thinking of when I initially conceived of the game.
Regarding the loot management at scale, I am planning some quality of life features to enable auto looting and refitting from a supply depot based upon a template (sort of how Factorio's Spidertrons work). I also have a "loot review" feature in mind for the end of the level so you can pick out any rare items your soldiers may have auto looted before converting the rest to generic war material per usual. I expect this will help immensely.
The loot window question has been quite the dilemma. Anchoring it to a particular part of the screen feels like an easy solution, but when I've done that it becomes very unmanageable when handling large amount of individual inventories, as it is quite hard to determine whose inventory is whose. I've contemplated a "trade" screen where two units are trading with each other in a fixed place, but this also feels somewhat inefficient. I may gravitate to something along the lines of how Dungeon Siege handle's the party's inventory. I'll most certainly revisit this once I've gotten some of those auto looting quality of life features in place, as the inclusion of gear templates and supply depots might make a good solution more obvious.
I'm impressed you've managed to play on a trackpad, I tried a few times and found it rather painful. I recommend keyboard and mouse.
30-60 minutes per mission is about what it takes me, so you're charging through with the best of them.
My thanks for the thorough and thoughtful feedback, it has been quite a motivating read.
Wishing you wellness and prosperity,
- Eldritch
Is it a new build? Itch says it's been uploaded 58 days ago, so that would be last DD, right?
By the way, your itch page is much better now.
Submitted
Goblin ResortHello again WebCough!
Ah, you are right, thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten to upload the latest build. Admittedly not much has changed since last time, as most of my limited efforts over the holidays have been dedicated to the other game I submitted.
I am quite keen to hear your thoughts on the revised first level however, as your feedback last demo day was a great help in reformulating it. I expect the ability to bring a few hunting hounds along on the first mission will better feature the formation/RTS aspect of the game on the "Tutorial" level.
I am glad you like the new itch page, my aim is that the gifs will suffice for a tutorial until I implement something more thorough in the game itself.
Wishing you wellness and prosperity,
- Eldritch
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