I liked a lot the wall textures. I agree with the others that in a game like this, health pickup would make more sense than health regeneration One thing though, at one point i think i picked up a shotgun, but i wasn't able to switch to it?
The health regen thing is just to make sure that people don't die - since I don't have a pickup graphic for it quite yet. The shotgun thing was my bad - I set up an object with the graphic for the shotgun pickup without telling it to point to the shotgun.
In the next demo (coming hopefully this May) there will be difficulty levels and a whole new level.
The assets themselves are fine, and I can see the marathon inspiration, which is really cool, I dig it. But unfortunately it's not fun to play. Fist can stunlock the spear alien, but then there's no point in it when the pistol has infinite ammo. Regenerating health made me not care about avoiding homing projectiles at all. Couldn't change the difficulty in-game, so maybe that's because I was playing on normal?
The map feels empty. I used the map, and it helps, but there's no life. Like - the decorated parts of the map are fine and give you the idea of what's the place supposed to be - like the office cubicles, or the infirmary, but then right next to that decorated room is a huge empty area.
Aliens don't feel threatening due to regenerating health. Rifle is fine, but ran out of bullets in the same room where I acquired it - had to finish off the crowd with a pistol. And that was the most fun I had, since otherwise I had to fight like 2 or 3 aliens at a time, and they were no threat at all.
The map itself would've been fine for a doom-style slaughtermap, but it wasn't that, unfortunately. And balance definitely needs some fine-tuning.
And if you're going for an old style FPS - please, please get rid of the regenerating health, it completely kills any sort of challenge.
The stunlocking thing I think is actually just a weird stroke of luck (or unluck) since each enemy has a set chance to play their pain animation. The idea is that the fist would work as a means of stunning enemies that get too close - buying you time to use another weapon. But since everything does more damage while firing faster (except the Damocles) it ends up being kind of redundant once you get the rifle or shotgun.
The decorations are sort of a work in progress. I definitely agree there are too many areas with too little going on.
The regenerating health thing was actually a last-minute decision to make sure that people would be able to finish the demo. I agree that the Sal Guardsmen (the staff/spear guys) aren't threatening enough - but I also had to assume that there were at least some people who aren't good at/familiar with shooters playing the demo. Basically, I had to choose between accidentally making it too easy or too hard. Once I have health pack/healing terminal sprites it'll be removed.
The difficulty thing was my bad - the UI elements for it were present in the demo without it being properly implemented. The latest non-public build of the game has it working now, and enemies hit MUCH harder. It's still an open question as to whether or not I want the difficulty to affect enemy movement speed, though.
Oh, and for the record - I was watching the stream while you were playing it and Project Nortubel. I don't think you were too mean. It's better that the criticisms come at a time when I'm still able to change/fix things. Even then, I moreso got the impression that you wanted to like the game but kept being pulled out of it because of gameplay that wasn't asking enough of you as the player.
It takes willpower to not get lost in these corridors. There are many dead ends and everything looks the same. It’s good you keep the bodies around. Not clear why there are so many doors and all of them automatically closing.
The writing honestly is a bit cringe; try cutting all the text to half its length while keeping the content the same. You will get more players reading it and a higher quality of prose.
The Roland guy does not make much sense to me. Where does he get his information? Is he some kind of hacker? Why is he not more excited about some completely unknown alien race appearing? Even if humanity had made contact with 50 alien species already, a new one should be astounding still?
I guess I kinda see what you mean about the writing - at least in places.
I can't say much more - but the questions you're asking ARE intentional. Skimming through your video I don't think I saw you use the in-game map at all - so I should probably make it more clear that it exists.
Gave it a try. Currently it just feels like walking around a maze with no direction. After I found the pistol, I wandered around for a while, shooting the occasional enemy and eventually just got lost. The very slow movement of the player definitely didn't help. I'd definitely keep the game much more linear while in early development, until you can get your gameplay down. Avoid things like rooms with no purpose. Another thing of note, the settings menu wasn't functional, which was annoying. The enemies seemed to be pretty well made, the sprite work was decent. Gunplay seemed cool too and I wish I'd found the other weapons to try them out. I'm keen to see this evolve.
When you say that the settings menu didn't work - what do you mean, exactly? The way I have it set up you have to click 'apply changes' in order for the changes to take effect. Unless you mean to say that it didn't open at all. I don't know - Unreal is weird and I've had issues with that screen in particular.
Also, did you read any of the terminals? I've gotten into arguments with a friend over them over whether or not it's clear enough that they're interactable.
The one setting I wanted to change was mouse sensitivity. I went into the options menu, changed the value to 0.6, hit apply changes and went back to the game, but the sensitivity hadn't changed. Opening the options menu up again, the slider had returned to 1. I tried this several times. I noticed the game also had screen tearing, even though the options menu said vsync was enabled by default.
I found the first terminal in the starting room, and immediately my eyes glazed over from 3 pages of text dump. I'm not into reading lore for a game unless I'm already invested in it. I skimmed it but nothing stood out to give directions on where I was supposed to go.
Comments
I liked a lot the wall textures.
I agree with the others that in a game like this, health pickup would make more sense than health regeneration
One thing though, at one point i think i picked up a shotgun, but i wasn't able to switch to it?
Firstly, thank you for playing!
The health regen thing is just to make sure that people don't die - since I don't have a pickup graphic for it quite yet. The shotgun thing was my bad - I set up an object with the graphic for the shotgun pickup without telling it to point to the shotgun.
In the next demo (coming hopefully this May) there will be difficulty levels and a whole new level.
The assets themselves are fine, and I can see the marathon inspiration, which is really cool, I dig it. But unfortunately it's not fun to play. Fist can stunlock the spear alien, but then there's no point in it when the pistol has infinite ammo. Regenerating health made me not care about avoiding homing projectiles at all. Couldn't change the difficulty in-game, so maybe that's because I was playing on normal?
The map feels empty. I used the map, and it helps, but there's no life. Like - the decorated parts of the map are fine and give you the idea of what's the place supposed to be - like the office cubicles, or the infirmary, but then right next to that decorated room is a huge empty area.
Aliens don't feel threatening due to regenerating health. Rifle is fine, but ran out of bullets in the same room where I acquired it - had to finish off the crowd with a pistol. And that was the most fun I had, since otherwise I had to fight like 2 or 3 aliens at a time, and they were no threat at all.
The map itself would've been fine for a doom-style slaughtermap, but it wasn't that, unfortunately. And balance definitely needs some fine-tuning.
And if you're going for an old style FPS - please, please get rid of the regenerating health, it completely kills any sort of challenge.
Firstly, thank you for playing!
The stunlocking thing I think is actually just a weird stroke of luck (or unluck) since each enemy has a set chance to play their pain animation. The idea is that the fist would work as a means of stunning enemies that get too close - buying you time to use another weapon. But since everything does more damage while firing faster (except the Damocles) it ends up being kind of redundant once you get the rifle or shotgun.
The decorations are sort of a work in progress. I definitely agree there are too many areas with too little going on.
The regenerating health thing was actually a last-minute decision to make sure that people would be able to finish the demo. I agree that the Sal Guardsmen (the staff/spear guys) aren't threatening enough - but I also had to assume that there were at least some people who aren't good at/familiar with shooters playing the demo. Basically, I had to choose between accidentally making it too easy or too hard. Once I have health pack/healing terminal sprites it'll be removed.
The difficulty thing was my bad - the UI elements for it were present in the demo without it being properly implemented. The latest non-public build of the game has it working now, and enemies hit MUCH harder. It's still an open question as to whether or not I want the difficulty to affect enemy movement speed, though.
Oh, and for the record - I was watching the stream while you were playing it and Project Nortubel. I don't think you were too mean. It's better that the criticisms come at a time when I'm still able to change/fix things. Even then, I moreso got the impression that you wanted to like the game but kept being pulled out of it because of gameplay that wasn't asking enough of you as the player.
Love the spritework a lot. The gunplay is fine.
It takes willpower to not get lost in these corridors. There are many dead ends and everything looks the same. It’s good you keep the bodies around. Not clear why there are so many doors and all of them automatically closing.
The writing honestly is a bit cringe; try cutting all the text to half its length while keeping the content the same. You will get more players reading it and a higher quality of prose.
The Roland guy does not make much sense to me. Where does he get his information? Is he some kind of hacker? Why is he not more excited about some completely unknown alien race appearing? Even if humanity had made contact with 50 alien species already, a new one should be astounding still?
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2082738268 Played until I felt I had very much lost the way.
Thank you for playing!
I guess I kinda see what you mean about the writing - at least in places.
I can't say much more - but the questions you're asking ARE intentional. Skimming through your video I don't think I saw you use the in-game map at all - so I should probably make it more clear that it exists.
Gave it a try. Currently it just feels like walking around a maze with no direction. After I found the pistol, I wandered around for a while, shooting the occasional enemy and eventually just got lost. The very slow movement of the player definitely didn't help. I'd definitely keep the game much more linear while in early development, until you can get your gameplay down. Avoid things like rooms with no purpose. Another thing of note, the settings menu wasn't functional, which was annoying. The enemies seemed to be pretty well made, the sprite work was decent. Gunplay seemed cool too and I wish I'd found the other weapons to try them out. I'm keen to see this evolve.
Firstly, thank you for playing!
When you say that the settings menu didn't work - what do you mean, exactly? The way I have it set up you have to click 'apply changes' in order for the changes to take effect. Unless you mean to say that it didn't open at all. I don't know - Unreal is weird and I've had issues with that screen in particular.
Also, did you read any of the terminals? I've gotten into arguments with a friend over them over whether or not it's clear enough that they're interactable.
The one setting I wanted to change was mouse sensitivity. I went into the options menu, changed the value to 0.6, hit apply changes and went back to the game, but the sensitivity hadn't changed. Opening the options menu up again, the slider had returned to 1. I tried this several times. I noticed the game also had screen tearing, even though the options menu said vsync was enabled by default.
I found the first terminal in the starting room, and immediately my eyes glazed over from 3 pages of text dump. I'm not into reading lore for a game unless I'm already invested in it. I skimmed it but nothing stood out to give directions on where I was supposed to go.
Weird. I'll look into it. Thank you for letting me know.