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aggertemp1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I really liked the game, though I have a special setup (running the game in a virtual machine, no viruses or bitcoin miners for me), which the game runs slowly on.

Most of the following are nits.

Music has cracking noises, but that may be my setup.

Menu UI is not pretty, but works, and can be fixed later.

Which engine do you use?

When I was bleeding at the beginning of the game, I thought I was bleeding to death, and that I had to do something before dying. So I was relieved that I did not die off, but that it was just a status effect.

 Why am I murdering all these poor people? Some of them I attack first.

I am a little bit confused by the chest and equipment UI.

What is the purpose of the day-night time cycle?

Could it make sense to have a prompt come up when an interactable object is nearby? Though, that may be noisy, and it may be better as it currently is.

I can see that the sword swing is blocked by trees, but I am confused about what the collision shapes of the trees are. Is it pixel-perfect for the tree shape? I find that a bit unintuitive.

I dislike that enemies can be effectively invisible when behind trees. The lock-on helps, though. Have you considered mitigating this somehow, like maybe using a shader to show an outline when an enemy is behind a tree? Or, if enemies are meant to be able to hide, only do it for enemies that the player has "seen"/"discovered"?

I cannot open the chest with "E" if I am standing diagonally from it.

I can discover hidden enemies by clicking "X" repeatedly with the cursor over trees.

I think my character executed an attack once going on land which I "queued" several seconds before when I was in the water.

Why did my character's maximum stamina bar go down? Damage or poison? Though it is restored when sleeping or respawning. Or does it goes down upon stamina usage? Would that discourage travelling quickly outside of combat?

I had a much easier time scaring the shooting enemies into the water and having them drown than killing them, on the long horizontal beach.

While the test crossbow is obvious, is there any way to survive the first castle room if you do not pick it up and equip it? Though this may be good, to ensure that the player does know how to pick up and equip items. I just wonder if it may be a source of frustration. I did pick it up and equip it on the first time, though, just speculation on my part.

I did not know you could access the menu and inventory by clicking "Esc".

It would be really nice once you implement Options while playing, at least being able to turn down or shut off music.

For some weapons, like the crossbow, a "cooldown" indication might be nice. Maybe on top of the icon.

Would it make sense to describe consuming a ration as restoring not "stamina", but "current maximum stamina"?

There is a long distance between the checkpoints in the "river castle", though my setup is also lagging. I did not complete the game, but did get a fairly long distance into the "river castle". I experimented a bit too much with stamina, blocking with the shield and a "claws enemy", and ended up dying.

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elb.dev1 year ago(+1)

Hey, thanks for playing.

That's probably your set up. I'm not sure what you'd be referring to otherwise.

Yep, hopefully I'll have it looking pretty down the line.

Game Maker Studio 2.

Yeah, bleed isn't too dangerous of a status effect. You wake up shipwrecked, which is why it happens.

They're just test enemies honestly.

Believe it or not, it used to be a lot worse. Can you elaborate on what exactly confused you about it?

The day night cycle will eventually correspond to more difficult enemies appearing at night.

That's a good idea. I could easily have a little icon appear when something interactable is in sight.

The trees hit boxes are just squares for now. That's something that might be improved in the future.

I'm planning on having trees vanish when a dangerous creature is hidden beyond them in the future. It's on the to do list.

Hmmm, if it's awkward feeling, I can fix that.

How much did that happen? Were there ever enemies who seemed stuck in the trees?

A queued attack through water? I'll look into that. It's very possible.

Your stamina cap goes down over time with stamina usage. If I recall correctly, you lose 10% of your stamina cap based on how much stamina you use at a given time, so if you spend 100% stamina you'll be left with a 10% reduction. It could discourage traveling quickly, but you can plan accordingly and bring more rations.

That's kind of intentional. Personally I like the idea of some enemies having weaknesses to water, and they are one of them.

Technically it's possible to get through that room without the crossbow, but there's no way for you to know it, because it uses the completely unexplained magic system. The intent was to force the player to both use the crossbow, and probably use kukui juice (antidote) to survive.

Yeah, it's a little unnecessary to know, so I don't actually teach it until the player gets to the Mountain Smithy and acquires the map.

100% correct about that. It's on the to do list.

That's not a bad idea at all. I'll do that.

Yeah, that's accurate. Usually I use the terms Stamina, Stamina Cap, and Stamina Max. Stamina Cap is what gets reduced over time. The reason I didn't describe it as such in the tutorial was just because it seemed to me like it would be a little more confusing than just saying stamina.

By river castle, do you mean the area where you're trying to get up river past the enemies? That area is part of a lengthy one that forces the player to use what they've learned. I hope you get the chance to try again.

I hope you had a fun time.

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aggertemp1 year ago(+1)
 I am a little bit confused by the chest and equipment UI.
 Believe it or not, it used to be a lot worse. Can you elaborate on what exactly confused you about it?

I think it was mainly the part where when you press 'E' at a chest, you get into one UI window. And then, after that, when you press  (I think) 'Esc', you do not exit that UI window, but you enter another UI window, after which you can press 'Esc' again to exit.

I do not know what a better alternative would be. From what I know of GameMaker, one of its weaknesses is likely UI elements. But I have no knowledge of GMS and what features it offers.

I dislike that enemies can be effectively invisible when behind trees. The lock-on helps, though. Have you considered mitigating this somehow, like maybe using a shader to show an outline when an enemy is behind a tree? Or, if enemies are meant to be able to hide, only do it for enemies that the player has "seen"/"discovered"?
I'm planning on having trees vanish when a dangerous creature is hidden beyond them in the future. It's on the to do list.

I wonder whether that would work if you want enemies to be hidden, but I imagine you have thought about those parts since it is on your TODO-list.

I cannot open the chest with "E" if I am standing diagonally from it.
Hmmm, if it's awkward feeling, I can fix that.

I think it's not necessary if a pop-up is added when you can interact with an object using 'E', but if you do not add that or a different method, then I think it would be more ergonomic for players. 

I can discover hidden enemies by clicking "X" repeatedly with the cursor over trees.
How much did that happen? Were there ever enemies who seemed stuck in the trees?

I can only recall of one instance, I think it is when  you are introduced the first time to shooting enemies. Like, a shooting enemy is standing in one place, and then another enemy attacks from behind when you get too close to the shooting enemy. I do not think that enemy was stuck, more hiding. In general, the enemies seemed like they had really good pathfinding.

While the test crossbow is obvious, is there any way to survive the first castle room if you do not pick it up and equip it? Though this may be good, to ensure that the player does know how to pick up and equip items. I just wonder if it may be a source of frustration. I did pick it up and equip it on the first time, though, just speculation on my part. 
Technically it's possible to get through that room without the crossbow, but there's no way for you to know it, because it uses the completely unexplained magic system. The intent was to force the player to both use the crossbow, and probably use kukui juice (antidote) to survive.

I think you could use some playtesting on that. While I would guess that just about no one would forget the crossbow, some may forget to equip it or choose not to, and I would hope that the player would die quickly, such that the player does not have to endure a slow and impossible-to-win-or-escape fight to the death. However, I really like the aspect of ensuring that the player knows how to equip and use items, since it is a core mechanic.


In general, I had fun. I do think my (over-)cautious approach of running the game in a virtual machine and thus the game being rather slower than normal hindered my fun. I think I might have had great fun playing the game if running the game outside of a virtual machine.

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