The game has a nice aesthetic and I love the customization options
To be quite honest I had a bit of a difficult time getting my bearings in this game. I never figured out what controls the speed of the ship but sometimes m ship would zoom for a quick second but most other times it would kind of slowly crawl around.
-My cannon shots' range seemed a bit inconsistent sometimes it would go "the full distance" sometimes it go only about half that.
-Some indicators on how much life a ship has would be nice, I had no way of telling which ship was about to die other than keeping track of the one I was gunning down.
Though I do not know much about sailing or boat games perhaps I'm just bad.
im planning on adding a UI element to show how raised or lowered the sails are, right now if you tap W lowers the sails (makes you go faster) and tapping S raises them (makes you go slower). so if you were holding W the whole time im sorry because that currently means you were moving in basically first gear.
the cannons landing short means they were intersected by a tall wave, if they go super far that means you fired from the top wave. right now wave height seems pretty hard for people to gauge, but I also have them set pretty extreme for this demo for testing purposes. I'm also planning on having the cannons tilt a little to counter the boat being tilted by waves to improve shot predicitability.
as for ship health, im planning on having a way to judge ships based on using the spyglass, but right now its not implemented. Also the volume of enemies in the demo is probably higher than what i expect the typical engagement to be in the final game so that should also help the player keep track.
Demo's pretty fun, and the different unlockable flags are a nice touch. Highest dread I've got to was 4, though that was due to a lot of help from the enemy's friendly fire (though I guess would make sense for the brits and the french to take potshots at each other).
Not sure if I understood the dread mechanics right, seemed like it's kind of like an XP/level up system where higher dread = more enemies, but my dread bar was filling up randomly between dread level increases - not sure if it's a bug.
One thing I was missing a lot is some indicator of how damaged a ship is. Not necessarily HP bars or anything, just a couple of different models of ships at different states of disrepair - both for the enemies and yourself, so you have a vague understanding without having to look in the corner for your hull number. Also, repair kits are pretty binary at the moment (use them if your hull is under 70) and can't really do much when you catch on fire except to wait it out.
I don't know what is going on with the dread meter. Currently it is supposed to fill by one every time you sink a ship and the necessary amount needed to fill the bar is increased based on level. I have seen on some systems the bar jumps around, but I have no idea what could be causing this since the only function that has influence on the bar is called when an enemy ship is destroyed.
Nice that you got a demo out!!! The gameplay loop works well, but the game wants to be both fast and arcady and also almost Silent Hunter esque with the more focused shift view. Deciding about going harder in either direction would be my recommendation.
the shift view will be more useful later, this is more of just a combat demo. the final game will have some "look around and try and find targets" moments
My guess is whatever you’re doing that makes ships rock back-forth (for example when the main menu ship drops on the water) needs some (extra?) dampening.
mierde! blimey! i love your game man. i sank 8 ships in total it needs a good crunchy wood audio feedback for hitting the enemy ships, but i imagine you already know that
Comments
The game has a nice aesthetic and I love the customization options
To be quite honest I had a bit of a difficult time getting my bearings in this game. I never figured out what controls the speed of the ship but sometimes m ship would zoom for a quick second but most other times it would kind of slowly crawl around.
-My cannon shots' range seemed a bit inconsistent sometimes it would go "the full distance" sometimes it go only about half that.
-Some indicators on how much life a ship has would be nice, I had no way of telling which ship was about to die other than keeping track of the one I was gunning down.
Though I do not know much about sailing or boat games perhaps I'm just bad.
im planning on adding a UI element to show how raised or lowered the sails are, right now if you tap W lowers the sails (makes you go faster) and tapping S raises them (makes you go slower). so if you were holding W the whole time im sorry because that currently means you were moving in basically first gear.
the cannons landing short means they were intersected by a tall wave, if they go super far that means you fired from the top wave. right now wave height seems pretty hard for people to gauge, but I also have them set pretty extreme for this demo for testing purposes. I'm also planning on having the cannons tilt a little to counter the boat being tilted by waves to improve shot predicitability.
as for ship health, im planning on having a way to judge ships based on using the spyglass, but right now its not implemented. Also the volume of enemies in the demo is probably higher than what i expect the typical engagement to be in the final game so that should also help the player keep track.
thanks for playing!
Demo's pretty fun, and the different unlockable flags are a nice touch. Highest dread I've got to was 4, though that was due to a lot of help from the enemy's friendly fire (though I guess would make sense for the brits and the french to take potshots at each other).
Not sure if I understood the dread mechanics right, seemed like it's kind of like an XP/level up system where higher dread = more enemies, but my dread bar was filling up randomly between dread level increases - not sure if it's a bug.
One thing I was missing a lot is some indicator of how damaged a ship is. Not necessarily HP bars or anything, just a couple of different models of ships at different states of disrepair - both for the enemies and yourself, so you have a vague understanding without having to look in the corner for your hull number. Also, repair kits are pretty binary at the moment (use them if your hull is under 70) and can't really do much when you catch on fire except to wait it out.
I don't know what is going on with the dread meter. Currently it is supposed to fill by one every time you sink a ship and the necessary amount needed to fill the bar is increased based on level. I have seen on some systems the bar jumps around, but I have no idea what could be causing this since the only function that has influence on the bar is called when an enemy ship is destroyed.
Also this bug doesn't replicate on my computer in the editor or on the demo build :^)
Gameplay loop is a lot of fun, has the "one more run" kinda deal. Very enjoyable.
Definitely needs a bit more polish, but otherwise - great stuff, hope you keep working on it!
glad you enjoyed it!
Nice that you got a demo out!!! The gameplay loop works well, but the game wants to be both fast and arcady and also almost Silent Hunter esque with the more focused shift view. Deciding about going harder in either direction would be my recommendation.
the shift view will be more useful later, this is more of just a combat demo. the final game will have some "look around and try and find targets" moments
You’ve thought of the AAAAA joke too, but I did legitimately have more fun here than with the last AAAA game I’ve tried.
Plenty of fun directions this could be taken to. Could also keep it light enough for a mobile release.
I'm interested in your issues with the water physics, I haven't had any major issues when running at 200+ fps?
My guess is whatever you’re doing that makes ships rock back-forth (for example when the main menu ship drops on the water) needs some (extra?) dampening.
Fun demo. AI needs a bit of work to make them more aggressive and steer away from each other.
its on the roadmap
mierde! blimey! i love your game man. i sank 8 ships in total
it needs a good crunchy wood audio feedback for hitting the enemy ships, but i imagine you already know that
Thanks! Audio was pretty low on the list of things to get in before DD