I was able to clear out the Pines, and luckily going to 0 health could not stop me or it would have taken a few tries. I love the look and the models of the enemies and environment! The combat is good once you get used to the tight parry windows and not too hard to figure out which is good. The sign posts were annoying to click twice, and some were a bit longer than needed, as well as some not including keyboard inputs. I would love to see this as an actual game with hit points and story, so I hope you take what you've made and soar!
controls: not a fan of targeting lock being on a stick-down button, kinda ass I know some games do it
healing could be on a d-pad button, all 4 are just kinda sitting there doing nothing during gameplay and you could use X for something else
general locomotion: this isn't a platformer, I don't expect there to be momentum based movement in a game, when I snap-turn (180 degree invert with momentum) it should nearly immediately correct the vector
combat: honestly the combat is begging for a block instead of a dodge button; parrying is cool but the timing is a bit OP
the enemies that have a red glow that makes them immune to attacks is basically on a timer, so parrying it once takes the debuff off, but then if you parry it again, the red glow state can be reapplied as they are in a stun. most likely unintended bug
stamina: feels kind of superfluous right now. there needs to be incentives to maintain good stamina management, make it an active part of the game by either rewarding high stamina or punishing low stamina, etc
the level and atmosphere is very good, the art looks great i'm a huge fan of this direction
the camera angles work really nice, i liked the last transition that kind of hid the last enemy; excellent attention to composition. the only thing I had a problem with was the starting camera angle at the very very beginning leads a bit too far ahead, otherwise it was fine
I really dig the graphics, they are very cool. Otherwise - it seems to work as expected. Lock-on mechanic would've been useful on keyboard (my PS5 controller didn't work for some reason). It is just a tad slow for my liking.
Thanks for playing and appreciate the stream - it was helpful to see someone try out the controls. Good to know the PS5 controller wasn't working for you, I've been testing on an xbox controller so maybe some issue there.
-If you're walking while interacting with a sign, the character's walk animation plays forever until you close it.
-Enemy HP bar should disappear before the body does(unless they can get back up or something).
-Normal swing moving the character that much forward seems a bit much.
-Holding run while stationary drains your stamina.
-Needing stamina to heal is kind of weird.
-Turn speed feels kind of inconsistent, I think it's because you can turn faster by walking the edge of the stick's radius, instead of moving it directly to the direction you want. Mostly noticeable when running.
-Beat demo, I will say the parry seemed a little on the easy side, or at least I only messed it up once or twice. I wasn't engaged by the gameplay, but I wasn't bored either. Seems fine enough to continue building off of. Visual wise, the most glaring part is the animation, which I'm sure you're aware of.
Pretty decent from what I can tell, a variation of Silent Hill? The fighting is pretty solid, managed to parry some attacks, get some heavy hits and dodged plenty of them. It's fairly short but for me it's getting interesting already. Just please don't make it horde management with VS perks. For me in this type of games the exploration and interactivity plays the biggest role and I'm looking forward for some twists and turns in that department.
What's not great is the character animation - he looks like he badly has to go to the toilet, both in walking and running animations. Camera works well, I don't know what you were suggesting it doesn't work well.
From what I can tell, it's shaping up to be an interesting survival horror.
Thanks for the feedback - I got some other criticism around the player character model and I agree. That character was one of the first animations sets I worked on for the project and as a result its pretty rough. I hope to do a complete overhaul for the player character soon. Also good to know the camera isn't bothering anyone yet.
Look like a great game, but control aren't responsive enough. I think you should add a little more time to the parry stun time as it just devolve in a parry-hit routine.
I want to see more about the lore. Great aesthetic.
if i had to make a small nitpick, the notebook pages for tutorial dialog would work great for an urban, office environment, but in the countryside while having the text written on road signs it would make more sense to have the text in road-sign-format.
also, the middle mouse attack seems way overpowered
was looking forward to playing this after seeing it in the thread. thanks for posting it.
using k&m.
game atmosphere is very nicely autumnal and immersive. i love the rain sounds and the tree/wind movements.
spent a bit of time with the character controller.
camera follow is... interesting. at least in the intro area, sometimes it's possible to make the player go out of the camera's view, which feels rough.
top down view feels nice. definitely needs some kind of occlusion culling when there's an object between the camera and the player - rocks, trees.
not reading any controls, trying to just play naively. mouse to rotate player. feels pretty smooth. mouse to light attack, Rmouse to... block? heavy attack? maybe i'll find out.
repeated clicking, or clicking and holding, did not trigger an animation attack chain: the same leftward swipe attack plays over and over. if you're going for soulslike, you need some kind of attack chain combo. (unless i missed how to trigger it, please forgive me if i did)
when reading a signpost while moving, player continues walk animation while frozen in place.
needs weapon trail vfx on attack.
there should be colliders on the traffic stakes.
on to combat.
enemy model looks nice. i like the watercolor-like textures a lot. combat feels smooth and good to play. i like that it presents a minimalist notion of a soulslike controller and doesn't add too many bells and whistles. you have parry, dodge, light and heavy attacks, heal with animation delay, and it all feels good in that it's slow and enforces a defensive playstyle. that seems to gel well with the 70s horror movie setting (which is great by the way). i particularly like the heal animation and sound.
it felt good to play so i tried to get good. managed to no-hit all the way up to the boss.
could not beat the boss without "dying." i couldn't tell if the delay on his attacks was randomized, making him very lethal (and a bit unfair feeling) in a margit-like way. (perhaps you could add subtle sound cues to telegraph the timing of his attacks?) despite the difficulty of learning his timing, i did get pretty good at parrying him to deliver the satisfying heavy attack coup de grace.
sometimes the text on the notes exceeds its background.
tldr; overall i would say two simple but big fixes would be transparency/dither/occlusion culling for player blocking objects, and varying the animations more for both the player and the enemy.
in addition to all the basic stuff which i'm sure you're dying to get to, like save/load, inventory, character customization(don't know if you'll add this or not, but i find it always nice in a soulslike)
anyways very cool demo and i'm glad i played, will look forward to seeing more as this develops. combat feels good, hoping to see more of the narrative and puzzles soon.
Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback! Really pleased you picked up on one of my goals, which was to have a minimalist take on the souls combat.
Totally agree on the animation variety, although the combat is minimal I think added some animation variety will make it feel much better (especially if the leftward attack will bias the player to favoring one side)
Yes, the current camera system was built with a top-down perspective in mind and you can tell it really falls apart when trying more cinematic angles. I'm iterating on this now.
Handling occlusion is definitely a high-priority feature to tackle, its a must for the next version
Other smaller bugs you mentioned are also on the list to work on
Really like the visuals and the atmosphere. Had to admit, would've died a few times if death was implemented, especially against the last enemy - though mostly because enemies seem to have full superarmor during their attack animation. Multiple light swings that can be chained together could be nice.
Couple issues/bugs I've found: - Starting the game starts up VR as well, reading up on it seems to be because Unreal automatically includes Oculus and OpenVR plugins even when a non-VR template is used. - Interacting with a signpost while moving keeps the character's walking animation, making him walk in spot while the interaction is ongoing. - The enemy that glows red and needs to be parried went back for me with a red glow after it died.
Thanks for the feedback. Overall most of the combat systems are in place, but your feedback is helpful to understand where things need to be refined.
1) Thanks for the heads up, I'll need to pay more attention to my packaging set-up, there are many plugins that are included by default that I don't need.
2) Yes, this is some bug where the last input persists even going into "interaction" state and the animation react accordingly.
3) I need to do some clean-up around this buff - current the buff will be reapplied even after death.
Visually quite polished for a prototype which is great. Atmospheric. I wasn't that good at it so glad the death function were not there lol. It was a bit hard for me.
Very cool! Played with M&K. I don't have all that much to say about it other than I liked it though, nice graphics just lacking shadows. Combat system works well, didn't get annoyed by the camera. Interactables, like the signs, should be a lot more obvious that they can be interacted with. Maybe some slight glow around them or something.
Thanks for playing and the feedback! Glad the combat made sense. I agree that interactables need to be communicated better, a glow or subtle particle effect seems like the way to go.
Comments
I was able to clear out the Pines, and luckily going to 0 health could not stop me or it would have taken a few tries. I love the look and the models of the enemies and environment! The combat is good once you get used to the tight parry windows and not too hard to figure out which is good. The sign posts were annoying to click twice, and some were a bit longer than needed, as well as some not including keyboard inputs. I would love to see this as an actual game with hit points and story, so I hope you take what you've made and soar!
Please move heavy attack from mouse wheel click.
played on gamepad, my opnions:
controls: not a fan of targeting lock being on a stick-down button, kinda ass I know some games do it
healing could be on a d-pad button, all 4 are just kinda sitting there doing nothing during gameplay and you could use X for something else
general locomotion: this isn't a platformer, I don't expect there to be momentum based movement in a game, when I snap-turn (180 degree invert with momentum) it should nearly immediately correct the vector
combat: honestly the combat is begging for a block instead of a dodge button; parrying is cool but the timing is a bit OP
the enemies that have a red glow that makes them immune to attacks is basically on a timer, so parrying it once takes the debuff off, but then if you parry it again, the red glow state can be reapplied as they are in a stun. most likely unintended bug
stamina: feels kind of superfluous right now. there needs to be incentives to maintain good stamina management, make it an active part of the game by either rewarding high stamina or punishing low stamina, etc
the level and atmosphere is very good, the art looks great i'm a huge fan of this direction
the camera angles work really nice, i liked the last transition that kind of hid the last enemy; excellent attention to composition. the only thing I had a problem with was the starting camera angle at the very very beginning leads a bit too far ahead, otherwise it was fine
cool stuff hope I get to see more of this later
I really dig the graphics, they are very cool. Otherwise - it seems to work as expected. Lock-on mechanic would've been useful on keyboard (my PS5 controller didn't work for some reason). It is just a tad slow for my liking.
Thanks for playing and appreciate the stream - it was helpful to see someone try out the controls. Good to know the PS5 controller wasn't working for you, I've been testing on an xbox controller so maybe some issue there.
Using controller for game.
-If you're walking while interacting with a sign, the character's walk animation plays forever until you close it.
-Enemy HP bar should disappear before the body does(unless they can get back up or something).
-Normal swing moving the character that much forward seems a bit much.
-Holding run while stationary drains your stamina.
-Needing stamina to heal is kind of weird.
-Turn speed feels kind of inconsistent, I think it's because you can turn faster by walking the edge of the stick's radius, instead of moving it directly to the direction you want. Mostly noticeable when running.
-Beat demo, I will say the parry seemed a little on the easy side, or at least I only messed it up once or twice. I wasn't engaged by the gameplay, but I wasn't bored either. Seems fine enough to continue building off of. Visual wise, the most glaring part is the animation, which I'm sure you're aware of.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for playing - these are all great bugs to flag and work on for next time, I appreciate the play test.
Pretty decent from what I can tell, a variation of Silent Hill? The fighting is pretty solid, managed to parry some attacks, get some heavy hits and dodged plenty of them. It's fairly short but for me it's getting interesting already. Just please don't make it horde management with VS perks. For me in this type of games the exploration and interactivity plays the biggest role and I'm looking forward for some twists and turns in that department.
What's not great is the character animation - he looks like he badly has to go to the toilet, both in walking and running animations. Camera works well, I don't know what you were suggesting it doesn't work well.
From what I can tell, it's shaping up to be an interesting survival horror.
Thanks for the feedback - I got some other criticism around the player character model and I agree. That character was one of the first animations sets I worked on for the project and as a result its pretty rough. I hope to do a complete overhaul for the player character soon. Also good to know the camera isn't bothering anyone yet.
Look like a great game, but control aren't responsive enough. I think you should add a little more time to the parry stun time as it just devolve in a parry-hit routine.
I want to see more about the lore. Great aesthetic.
Thanks for the feedback and the art! Yeah I agree the parry needs a lot of tweaking/reconsideration and the timing is off.
great aesthetic
if i had to make a small nitpick, the notebook pages for tutorial dialog would work great for an urban, office environment, but in the countryside while having the text written on road signs it would make more sense to have the text in road-sign-format.
also, the middle mouse attack seems way overpowered
was looking forward to playing this after seeing it in the thread. thanks for posting it.
using k&m.
game atmosphere is very nicely autumnal and immersive. i love the rain sounds and the tree/wind movements.
spent a bit of time with the character controller.
on to combat.
enemy model looks nice. i like the watercolor-like textures a lot. combat feels smooth and good to play. i like that it presents a minimalist notion of a soulslike controller and doesn't add too many bells and whistles. you have parry, dodge, light and heavy attacks, heal with animation delay, and it all feels good in that it's slow and enforces a defensive playstyle. that seems to gel well with the 70s horror movie setting (which is great by the way). i particularly like the heal animation and sound.
it felt good to play so i tried to get good. managed to no-hit all the way up to the boss.
could not beat the boss without "dying." i couldn't tell if the delay on his attacks was randomized, making him very lethal (and a bit unfair feeling) in a margit-like way. (perhaps you could add subtle sound cues to telegraph the timing of his attacks?) despite the difficulty of learning his timing, i did get pretty good at parrying him to deliver the satisfying heavy attack coup de grace.
sometimes the text on the notes exceeds its background.
tldr; overall i would say two simple but big fixes would be transparency/dither/occlusion culling for player blocking objects, and varying the animations more for both the player and the enemy.
in addition to all the basic stuff which i'm sure you're dying to get to, like save/load, inventory, character customization(don't know if you'll add this or not, but i find it always nice in a soulslike)
anyways very cool demo and i'm glad i played, will look forward to seeing more as this develops. combat feels good, hoping to see more of the narrative and puzzles soon.
Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback! Really pleased you picked up on one of my goals, which was to have a minimalist take on the souls combat.
Really like the visuals and the atmosphere. Had to admit, would've died a few times if death was implemented, especially against the last enemy - though mostly because enemies seem to have full superarmor during their attack animation. Multiple light swings that can be chained together could be nice.
Couple issues/bugs I've found:
- Starting the game starts up VR as well, reading up on it seems to be because Unreal automatically includes Oculus and OpenVR plugins even when a non-VR template is used.
- Interacting with a signpost while moving keeps the character's walking animation, making him walk in spot while the interaction is ongoing.
- The enemy that glows red and needs to be parried went back for me with a red glow after it died.
Thanks for the feedback. Overall most of the combat systems are in place, but your feedback is helpful to understand where things need to be refined.
1) Thanks for the heads up, I'll need to pay more attention to my packaging set-up, there are many plugins that are included by default that I don't need.
2) Yes, this is some bug where the last input persists even going into "interaction" state and the animation react accordingly.
3) I need to do some clean-up around this buff - current the buff will be reapplied even after death.
Visually quite polished for a prototype which is great. Atmospheric. I wasn't that good at it so glad the death function were not there lol. It was a bit hard for me.
Thanks for playing! Helpful to know it was hard for you - hopefully not too frustrating.
Very cool! Played with M&K. I don't have all that much to say about it other than I liked it though, nice graphics just lacking shadows. Combat system works well, didn't get annoyed by the camera. Interactables, like the signs, should be a lot more obvious that they can be interacted with. Maybe some slight glow around them or something.
Thanks for playing and the feedback! Glad the combat made sense. I agree that interactables need to be communicated better, a glow or subtle particle effect seems like the way to go.