I completed the demo, my interest is high for future updates. "Souls-like but hentai" is exactly the kind of thing that will turn me into a souls-like player from someone who played a couple hours of each dark souls game and thought "sure it's challenging, but it's not all that satisfying" -- I can see where the satisfaction could come in here 😌
The controls are surprisingly not so clunky (clunk is there of course, but by all accounts it's passable especially considering the current state of the game)
The sound design is nice - goblins sound as you'd expect them to, our heroine doesn't have an infuriatingly high voice, the NPCs sound natural enough and the dialogue.. Well. I'm nitpicky about dialogue, so for now I'll opt to leave criticism out for that aspect.
The lack of narrative drive is actually perfect in my eyes. We see a similar thing in Dark Souls, no exposition dumping, no "You have to go and save your father and rescue the world and this settlement needs your help", simply: "You're here, this is your situation, survive if you can."
I would like to see narrative being added through optional context providers - books to interact with, NPCs that you can choose to talk to, but don't need to talk to in order to proceed forward.
The NSFW content... In my opinion, could use some tweaks. If possible, I think the game would benefit from a tier of clothing damage for each unblocked attack, rather than upon you staggering and the enemy opting to use it's stagger attack.
With the stagger attack in mind -- in my first playthrough, I did not have a goblin use the stagger attack once, despite intentionally allowing myself to stagger a good 5-10 times. After completing the demo and then reading up on how to trigger it (no other enemies nearby, and a lot of space), I managed to trigger it in the first large hallway. I'm not sure if it's a design choice or a design obstacle to overcome, but if at all possible, I think those boundary limitations should be reduced or entirely removed. As it stands now, it's simply difficult to trigger those animations, in a game where (I feel) those animations should be imposed upon the player, rather than intentionally sought out by the player.
All this being said, my first statement stands. The idea is very interesting, and I'm excited to see the ryona-esque H-game style progress from platformers to action-RPGs. Impressive and bold choice, and I hope this project continues.
As other commenters have mentioned, I'd love to see character customization somewhere down the line, however the game is clearly in very early stages and it's understandable that the focus isn't there presently - people are more likely to look into a game that has four monsters and one character, than a customizable character but only one monster.
Best of luck with the project, I'll be looking into supporting when it's financially viable to do so.
Thanks for the great feedback!
What would you suggest for improvements to the controls? I'd love to hear suggestions!
Dialogue definitely needs more polish, I agree
As for the clothing damage, currently stagger finishers by the enemies seem to be the best way forward, since there are only about 3 layers of clothings to be destroyed..haha. Might add some cloth tears later for successful enemy attacks..
Currently the NSFW finishers can only be triggered without nearby walls and other goblins nearby - this is to prevent characters glitching through walls, and failed animations (goblin thrusting at the empty floor for example..LOL)
In future builds, with better environmental awareness and enemy AI, these limitations should be fixed.
Absolutely, hopefully I'm helping here 😅
As far as controls - in all fairness, the issue could totally have just been that I was playing on keyboard & mouse 😅 When I revisit the demo, I'll play on controller and see if I still have any qualms. The main issue I think I had was the sprint key being tied to additional actions - I think jump and strong attack. It might just be a hurdle I need to overcome, and maybe it feels more natural while using controller.
Aside from that, I think perceived "control clunk" might also be a symptom of animation clunk - or alternatively, I think a lot of games presently offer some level of animation canceling. I'm not really sure, if I'm totally honest 😅 It's a lot easier to criticize than it is to analyze without having any experience with game development.
I understand that there are few layers of clothing to be destroyed, I guess maybe it'll come down to how you plan on handling clothing/armor. My thought process though is that currently, it seems as though in order to get nakie, you've got to get your health reduced to 25%, drink a health potion, then repeat that two more times (and reduce your health again for H-scene) -- Very tedious if all you want is to get your horni on. Of course, the situation is a little different if we're talking about armor that provides stats, or that we've worked to get (be it through spending in game currency or finding as loot or something) and the intent is that once the armor's destroyed, it's gone from your inventory. But in the current proof of concept build, that's not the case. Given that we have the ability to both block and dodge, I feel the penalty for not making effective use of those abilities being an instance of clothing damage would be appropriate.
I'm not sure! Either way, just a thought for you to feel free to toy around with and see how you feel about it, if it might align with your ideas. :)
Yeah, honestly I had a feeling that the enemy's finishers having such strict parameters to trigger might have been just an issue of y'know, the game being very far from complete. Totally understandable and not a problem for the current build of the game :)
Thanks!!
BTW, keyboard and mouse are currently the only way to play the game. The game's control mechanics will have to change significantly for controllers to be supported.
As for the animation, a lot of newer games are using what is known as motion matching to have super smooth animation transitions (like Black Myth Wukong). Will definitely look into that when the game matures .
As for cloths, yes, the plan is have a something like Soulcalibur cloth and armor break after critical special attacks by the enemy. So it won't be tied solely to health. That will come after more NSFW animations are added to the game.
Ohh okay! Well, maybe it's more bc I'm accustomed to playing action rpgs with a controller then 😅
Yeah, again given that this is a very very early build of the game, I don't expect it to have those super smooth animation transitions. Any feedback I'm giving here really isn't intended as criticism, so much as things I'm hoping that the end build will have fixed - not within a few patches.
Very cool! And yes, ofc, NSFW animations are the focus here 🤭 Very much looking forward to seeing how the game progresses!