Post by StygianTraveler in Biomass comments

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Really cool overall. Nice combat system, challenging but fair. Great atmosphere, helped by the good soundtrack. We don't see that much of it in the demo, but the setting and story seem like they could be interesting, too. Looking forward to the final game.

Some notes from my playthrough:

-"Interact" and "heal" on the same button is insane. You can't heal near interactable objects, you heal by accident when trying to interact with stuff, it's a mess. Please change.

-Using a PS4 controller, the only item I could use was the gun? With the gun selected, pull R2, character shoots, no problem. With the grenade or stamina thing selected, pull R2, nothing happens. Bizarre. Hitting the item key on the keyboard worked fine, though.

-A map would be nice.

-There should be an explanation about what each stat does when upgrading.

-If you fall into a bottomless pit, there doesn't seem to be a way to get your ~~souls~~ biomass back..? Seems a bit harsh. Like, in Dark Souls, you can still get your blood stain near the pit when that happens.

-Some parts seems a bit obtuse. First time I met the Red Mother, with the first armor equipped, I failed the questions. Then she didn't really want to talk anymore, so I let her be and went elsewhere. Got the captain armor, started talking to people, kinda ran out of places to go, assumed the Red Mother was important but she wasn't saying anything new... Tried attacking as a last resort, but that didn't do anything since I was wearing the captain armor, though I didn't realize that was the reason. I was confused for a while, even reset the world, but since I was still wearing that armor, Red Mother wouldn't even ask me the questions. Finally, I watched the video from the other commenter and figured out how it worked, hah. So... well, I'm not sure how likely it is that a player does the same thing I did and gets confused about how to progress, but it doesn't seem like such a far-fetched scenario. Maybe you should be able to attack her regardless of what you're wearing so that you can at least progress? Or maybe the dialogue when you're dressed as a captain should be significantly different so that you get a hint that she's not interested in talking to you like that... I don't know, it's possible that I'm just dumb. :)

-So after that I went to the storage area, got two new armor sets, got some kind of partial blueprint (?), beat a boss and got the dual beamsaber. Hmm... OK. I expected to find something to blow up floors, like the guy in the underground seemed to suggest, but there wasn't anything like that, unless I missed something. Talking to that guy again didn't do anything, even with the new recruit costume. So I was kinda stuck there, but maybe I need to talk to other people wearing the recruit costume, or find someone who wants that blueprint, or try messing with the enemy (pallid?) costume.

-It was time for dinner at that point, though, so I went "save/exit" and quit the game. When I started it up again later, the "continue" option on the title screen was disabled. It looks like it didn't save at all. Normal for the demo, or...?

finalscenedev4 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to give so much feedback, its a lot of help :)

I totally agree with the interact and heal being mapped to the same button. I implemented a method to kinda help with it, if you hold down the alternate button (the one you use to do the special attack/walk with) and then press interact it will override any interactable objects and will force a heal.
Initially it was mapped to the secondary weapon button, but when I implemented the weapon mixing system (you can swap weapons mid combo), I kinda ran out of buttons so I decided to go with what we have now. Not 100% sure if I'll keep it as such though, I am not sure if people are using the weapon mixing system too much.

Wow that was a very specific bug, I am surprised I never ran into it before as my main gamepad is also a ps4 controller. I've managed to fix it, uploading the patch now, unfortunately with my slow australian internet it might take a while ><

You're not the first to ask for a map! I am in two minds about it. I think it does seem needed in the demo, but in the final game the way the journey will flow will make it somewhat not needed...its kinda hard to describe without getting into spoilers! I think it might be one of those things where I will add it after the initial full release if I turn out to be wrong and people get really pissed off without a map...we'll see...

I definitely need to put some explanations of the stats somewhere. I was going to implement it as dialogue for some characters but I never got around to it. For what its worth, tech skill is melee strength and mech knowledge is for guns.

Hmm thats odd, it should spawn it where you fell, and if it cant find a usable spot it should spawn it right next to the biomass workstation you spawn from. Where did you fall that you didnt get it?

Yeah the way I designed it I was expecting the player to fail the dialogue, fight her, later on find the red garments in the storage pit, and maybe get the hints from some officers as to how to answer the dialogue for the new game plus.I did want to add some custom dialogue if you're wearing a red uniform where she would inform you that she can see through the disguise and she knows youre not of her underlings, yeah I think ill definitely need to add something like that, and maybe make her aggroable even if you are wearing the red uniform. Can I ask though, how did you manage to get the red captains uniform without getting the plain red officers one in the warehouse? Ive heard it might be cheesable but yeah thats not how I intended it to happen haha

Ah I see you killed the blue guy in the storage! If you spoke to him, a different chain of events would have happened...I won't spoilt it for you! But yeah, I wouldnt worry that much about getting through the floors right now, theres another boss you can fight... you need to pass all the blues near the beginning in the tunnels. If you wear the blue uniform you should be able to get past them. If you hadnt killed the blue guy in the warehouse and you open the ladder gate they would have been gone as well.

The saving sounds weird, did you trigger a new game+? There was a bug earlier that would disable the continue option when you started a new game+, however it should be fixed in the latest version (I uploaded it like 12 hours ago, its 1.03). If not, that is a bit concerning, did you quit and save before that? If you havent triggered a new game plus yet, you can do it from the settlement, taking the rope on the right after getting the commanders authorization.

StygianTraveler4 years ago

Needing to hold "alternate" and "interact" to heal sounds like a great improvement.

Regarding losing the biomass XP when falling into a hole, hmm, as I recall... To the left of the door guarded by the tall guys, past the ladder to storage, down another ladder, there's a hole to the left there. I wasn't sure if it was a hole or a floor, or if there might be something down there, so I tried walking over it and fell to my death. :) Going back there after, my "blood stain" was nowhere to be seen. I think the same thing happened with a hole near the entrance to the storage area, the one with a rope above it (just a dumb death, that time). I guess it might be possible that the thing spawned near the biomass station and I just didn't notice because I wasn't expecting it...

That's another small annoyance I noticed, actually. It's often not that clear when there's a hole in the floor. Yeah, the floor pixels turn darker where you'll fall through, but I generally wasn't sure if that was just a shadow or an actual hole. I don't know, maybe it never happens that it's a shadow effect, and I should always assume it's a hole...

About the whole Red Mother thing, aaah... so I sequence-broke inadvertently and that's what made things more difficult/confusing for me. That makes sense. If I never got the captain uniform, I would definitely have initiated the Red Mother fight eventually out of a lack of other options. But yeah, it's possible to cheese the shotgun guys guarding the captain's quarters. You can shoot them once while across the gap, and then they'll back up a bit and wait for you... but if you just wait (or move away a bit, maybe?) until they drop the aggro state, they'll start running back and forth across their platform and then you can hit 'em with a bullet again and kill one. Sometimes, one of them will jump/fall down to the platform below, too. Either way, once there's only one left and he's not aggro'd, you can cross fast enough with the wheel while his back is turned and murder him before he can shoot.

Anyway, if you intend to have the captain gear only available later, it might be good to change this part to really require having that other uniform first (maybe someone that opens a door only if they recognize your uniform?). Then again, sequence breaking can be fun, too. But this part is a little frustrating because it's really not clear that you're missing something. I think many people will try it again and again in the hope that they can find a timing to cross before the guards can shoot (I think Cryptic Hybrid's video shows this as well).

Ah, so I could talk to that creture next to where you get the regular uniform? Hah, he looked very menacing, so I didn't try getting close enough to talk, I guess! Or wait... do you mean where you get the blue outfit? I forgot if I killed someone for that or not, actually... but could be, that would make sense. Didn't need to outfit to get past the corridor with all the blues, though, they're not that hard if you keep your distance. :)

Finally, about the save, yeah I did trigger a new game+/reset at some point during the playthrough, though I did save after that. But if that's what causes the bug, then yeah, that would explain it. Pretty sure I was playing on 1.02.

finalscenedev4 years ago

Yeah its always been there but I never advertised it, I should add it to the repair tutorial. I considered making it the only way to heal but I feel like it might confuse some people and might be cumbersome in the middle of a battle!

Thanks for the detailed description, I did make some changes to the biomass excess code somewhat recently and havent tested pit falling since then, maybe that resulted in this happening. I will check it out.

A few people have accidentally fallen over what they thought was solid ground, I will try to make it clearer! It's kinda harder for the darker areas, but more than anything I will try to make solid ground much clearer.

Haha yeah you pretty much sequenced broke, which I do encourage! The final game especially will have lots of opportunities to do so - though I am definitely going to be guiding the player through a specified path and ideally they will take it the first time through! Ah so the wheel came in to play. Yeah watching Cryptic Hybrid's made me modify the the camera boundaries for that section since it was less clear that you could go left before. From version 1.01 the camera pans left as soon as you get up there. I am hoping this is enough to show people that the section to the right is not intended, maybe at most theyll take a shotgun shot to the face and then rethink their attempt haha.

Yeah, it's not a creature exactly, that beak thing is more of a mask! I think you will have acquired it if you kill him so you can put it on. Yeah if you don't kill him and unlock the gate the world changes somewhat...

Ok that's a relief, those save bugs are the scariest to deal with! The new game+ should be fixed now as I was just made aware of it recently.

Also, thanks to your help I've fixed the ps4 item trigger bug and made the red mother aggroable independent of what you're wearing! I think I will modify her dialogue somewhat as well, kinda to invite you to attack her to make it more obvious...

itch.io

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