Hey Moogle!👋

I'm glad to hear that version .80 worked better for you.

"I will say that it doesn't currently feel like all units are balanced, but I am also thinking that is intentional and meant to drive the player towards opening up more creation slots and such in order to customize their loadout. If so, then my only negative thought about that is you can sometimes roll a pretty bad party before you start unlocking upgrades. But, it's not like there's a big failure penalty, so it might be fine."

Although the goal is to have balanced characters, there is also the idea of working with what you currenty have (which is not always the optimal team).

For rarer monsters, such as unlocked bosses, they do have slight boosts compared to other characters that you unlock. So that's a natural, intentional imbalance that's supposed to be a reward for having unlocked the boss.

Nonetheless, I would like to improve the balancing.

Do you have any examples of specific cases for this? (Usually I tend to think about characters with only 1-2 skills as a possible culprit for this imbalance).


Thanks so much for playing again Moogle! 👏

Hello mooglerampage!👋

Thank you so much for playing! 

I'm sorry to hear you encountered issues while playing.

I'll attempt to address each of your concerns below:

"Is there a known issue where audio will refuse to play regardless of settings? I can't get any sound or music for some reason. I did see some kind of funky Avast prompt the first time it loaded (aside from the regular Windows Defender prompt which I am used to) and wasn't sure if that was related, but closing and re-launching didn't help."

This is the first time I've heard of this issue. I'd recommend check the debug console (F12 on Windows) to look for any errors.

"On the topic of how the game launches, it was weird that it opened in full-screen initially but I couldn't see the mouse cursor anywhere on-screen, even though Windows had complete focus on the game client and wouldn't let me click into background processes. I suspect it could be a game engine limitation but I think it would be better to have a windowed mode option."


This is also the first time I've heard of this issue. I'll look into providing a windowed mode option.


"I ran into one issue where a tutorial dialog tried to run exactly when I clicked something in the home area, so I was stuck in a menu with no way to advance the dialog (left / right click did nothing). Eventually I hit Escape and it took me out of the menu, allowing the dialog to run."

If you could provide a bit more detail for this one it'd be very helpful (details of the menu), for example:

Was the tutorial about using an interface, or were you in the visible home area with no dim screen?

Do you happen to recall what the dialogue was saying?

"I ran into a problem with an Encounter in which the Bookshelf wouldn't seem to do anything regardless of which skill/outcome I selected. There was a Taunt prompt I believe, which flew by pretty quickly and didn't really help me get past it. I had to exit the area which ended that run, unfortunately."

This likely means you were attempting to target the encounter on itself.

Encounters are about choosing what skill to apply to your own party.

The tutorial mentions this, but perhaps I can be more obvious, or add reminders.

The Encounter should also have a green cursor when you select a skill for it, indicating that you need to select one of your allies, rather than an enemy, but I'll double check to make sure that's the case.

"I'm not sure I like that when only one enemy remains, offensive skills are a single click with no need to use the cursor. I get that it's faster, but it's not consistent and takes some getting used to. it also doesn't mention this in the tutorial unless I missed something."

Ahh yes, this is a good point, I debated with this one for a while.

This is one of those cases where it's difficult to showcase just how convenient this is until you have to do without it, because there simply is no other target to select for in that case, so it's really just more hand movement for the same result.

You are correct though there is no tutorial for this. I've received some feedback to go a bit lighter on packing in tutorials back to back, so I've been weighing what to say and not say, and this one felt intuitive enough that player's would get the hang of it over time.

Perhaps I can try to squeeze in some dialogue mentioning this though.

Thanks for pointing this out.


"It seems like you can start with 3 party members, but some of the other creatures are actually unlockable if you go into one of the Upgrade menus, then upon returning to the hiring area you can recruit up to 4. This was super confusing and I don't know if this is how it was intended to work."

Each slot has a chance to summon a soul, the first 3 are guaranteed (it mentions this in the soul creator's upgrades). The soul creator resummons when you return from the Outerworld, allowing you to select a diversified team, each time. 

The amount of slots available can be upgraded over time.

The upgrade menu showcases all characters that are unlockable, once you unlock a character it is available to be created by the soul creator.

The Upgrade menu mentions this when you unlock a character, and the unlock icon on the character unlock progression screen (pops up on the end of battle) mentions this as well.


"I loved the art style. Animations felt punchy even with no sound. Fantastic, amazing sprite work."

Thank you so much, mooglerampage. ❤️

"It seemed like enemies ramped up in power way faster than players. Are we supposed to clear all 3 areas in a horizontal row before moving to the next row? I think the world navigation could use a bit more explanation or visual cues to have at least some idea what we're doing."

The first row is highlighted while all other rows are dimmed.

If you hover over any option those that are interactable will brighten even further (this only happens with the first row)

This is a further indication that the first row is the only set of options for you to choose from.

After passing that row they fade out and the next row is available (1 choice per row).

If you have any ideas for extra visual cues please let me know.


"The ideas behind the upgrades, skill customization, etc. all seem very cool but I didn't get far enough to experience much of it due to the various UI and technical issues. There's a ton of potential here and I do plan to retry in the future. I hope this feedback is helpful!"

I really am sorry to hear that you didn't get to experience the full breath of the game, I'd like to work with you to solve each of these problems so you can enjoy the game more.

Your case is a bit unusual, as I usual don't get this many bugs at once, so if possible, I'd like to know more about your PC setup, and factors related to it. Do you happen to have discord?

By the way:

Which version of the game were your playing?

Were you using a Sanbox/Virtual Machine?

Hello Altabestudio! 👋

Thank you so much for playing TBD!

I really enjoyed watching your VOD.

I noticed you were playing on version 0.0.0.76.

The current version should be 0.0.0.78, (I assume you pre-downloaded it earlier).

"...the UI seems very well done and polished, but something about it is uncomfortable to read"

Thank you for this feedback, UI is one of the more difficult areas of this project to optimize due to the amount of information that is in the game. If you do think of ideas, or preferences, please let me know.

"A tiny suggestion on sound leveling default setting, make sure dialogue is the highest and others weaker, because our ears want voices and want to understand it if there's any human voice, a deep bass human voice would especially be easy to get overwhelmed by other sounds, so it needs a boost on volume while others support. I had to manually adjust it after starting the game. "

I agree, I ended up implementing this change in 0.0.0.77, so hopefully it's better now for new players.

____________

Some notes I took while watching you play:

1. Although the dialogue mentioned that when party members are flashing that they have skill points to use, I recognize that in the state of battle, there might be too much going on for newer players to remember this. I think I'll add an additional reminder in the map area. This alone would have allowed you to progress much further and unlock more mechanics.

2. Although the Soul Creator tells you that you can upgrade him, I think I'll need to add an additional reminder that occurs after some time. Upgrading the Soul Creator is what will allow him to create several more characters for you to choose from, ensuring 1) that you can fill all 4 slots of your team 2) choose a team that better fits your playstyle (you seem to like healers ^^) (since you have more options).

3. I noticed you habitually clicked on the characters often in battle, which leads to showing the party interface each time. I'm wondering if I should disable that or not.

4. You mentioned that some of the characters don't have backstories, and this is indeed true, there are around ~780 characters now, my rate of adding them ended up exceeding the rate I added descriptions. I plan to go back and add backstories to each of them over time.

5. You mentioned you don't like puzzles; are there any sort of mini-game modes/activities I can add to the map options that might appeal more to you? I'd like to have a huge variety of options so players don't have to continually pick activities they don't enjoy. If you think of any, please let me know.


Thanks again for taking the time to play TBD, it means a lot to me. 🙏

Hello GrayBard!

Thank you for trying out TBD! 👏

I appreciate your compliments and feedback.

I'll attempt to address them below:

"Perhaps you include more elite or colossal battles sooner... I'd even reach certain level selections that were all "normal" fights. Maybe more variety per line? "

This is good to know, in this next update, I've slightly increased the odds of elite battles at lower world levels.

"I feel it would be better if you just had this all pop up when you hover over the icon at the bottom while selecting each skill."

This is something I've experimented with, unfortunately I've had trouble preserving the clarity that an enlarged pop-up provides while still fitting each pop up on the screen. This problem becomes even larger when there are more than 2 effects being applied to characters, especially characters that are right next to each other.


"Love that you have voice acting, but sometimes the voice audio is really low and difficult to hear over the music. This can be fixed by adjusting the audio (which I did) but maybe have default dialogue audio a bit higher so we can hear the opening voice acting better, cause it's really good :-)"


Thank you, this is helpful, I've since updated the default settings, slightly lowering the default music volume and moderately increasing the default dialogue volume.


"I was a bit confused why enemies changed positions when you could still attack them regardless of where they were. This would make more sense if enemies in the back or middle could only be targeted by certain skills... or do they move around so they can use specific abilities."

That's a fair point, there used to be restricted positions for skills but I found it too restrictive.

Overall, I find the ability to select targets and those that will be affected around the target (for aoe skills) more interactive/engaging.


" I wasn't sure why they shifted around. That part wasn't clear to me."

Characters move as indications of their turn order, where those at the front are closest to taking a turn, and those at the back are furthest from taking a turn. 

"I wasn't sure if there was a pro or con to choosing Firedin or Lightis battles. Was there one?"

So there's an entire elemental system, I'm not sure if you were able to catch on to that, but essentially there are elemental advantages, where one element is strong against another and weak against another.

I'll probably add a brief tutorial on this as well, but you can find this info here:

"I finally got to a merchant, click on them, and nothing happened..."

Thank you! Bug catching is crucial, and thus I'm grateful to know this.

I think I've pin-pointed a potential issue that can cause this, but if you do happen to run across such an issue again, a screenshot would be awesome, as knowing factors, such as what world level you were at can help me indicate what goods the merchant would be able to show you (the merchant's goods are based on your progression).

Game Updated:

I went ahead an implemented these updates based on your feedback, so the current version should have some improvements, although you personally won't experience all of them, for instance, once you change the volume settings, the default values are ignored.

I'm not too sure if the merchant bug was fixed though, I'll need to do more testing on all of the different cases that can occur, but I did make a change for one potential merchant roll that could have led to an empty selection of goods.

Thanks again GrayBard, for taking the time to play TBD, it means a lot. 👏

Hello hythrain! 👋

Thank you so much for taking the time to test the game out.

I'm sorry to hear that the feedback was lost, but I'll stay tuned for the VOD.

Thanks again. 🙏

Thank you so much for taking the time to try it out David! 

I appreciate your compliments and feedback.

"Overall great job with this game, so the big question is... what will you do with it next when it feels so polished and ready?"

Thank you for asking such a pertinent quesiton. I've received a lot of feedback recently which opened my eyes to how much more I could polish and improve the game experience. So for now, I've been focused on accomodating to this feedback.



Steam Page:

I would like to begin setting up a Steam page. I just don't want to rush into it too early, so if you have any advice in regards to this, I'm eager to know what you think.




Scaling Up:

Content-wise I have a lot of items and characters that I can add, however I began to realize that this wasn't the priority at the time (Improving the tutorial and interface has been a major focus).

Story Generation:

This is what I'd consider one of the more important, yet more difficult aspects of the project I'd like to improve on. I'd like to have a more dynamic story experience comprised of smaller sub-stories that are generated over-time with the player's progress to where each run feels more distinguished.




Thanks again for taking the time to try it out David, it means a lot. ❤️