itch.io

hey, thanks for trying and sorry for taking so long to reply, i was going through my old games and got embarrassed for not having replied. i made this game to try to understand the fun in the survivors-like game-loop.  i did not liked it very much, but its nice that people found it fun. piercing does make a difference, but I wont be updating this game anymore

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downloaded for later consumption. been listening to jesse welles lately and this song reminded me of  the aggy dev who likes bugs https://youtu.be/6cbrmyg1UTg

battydev also complained about weak brakes, maybe I need to increase grip, that would also help steer more.

did you play on the blue tarmac(map 9)? it has a lot more grip and thus braking and steering are both `stronger`

can you elaborate on your expectations of weight transfer? right now the behaviour that I get is an increase in steering when you lift from the gas and a good chance of oversteering when braking slightly. braking hard causes understeer.

very strange that the steer assist won`t stay off for you, I can`t reproduce this...

played on linux, no problems as far as I can tell. Kinda expected since its java.

transitions to menu and inventory are slow, but you already know that

menu navigation could wrap around

dev dialogue is soul

there is no problem solving in using items since it just shows up as an option when interacting. i think having to open your inventory in front of an interactible and then using it would give the player more opportunities for problem solving

not sure how the attributes would have changed gameplay

the atmosphere is nice, i was always expecting needing to run away from some monster or something, like in amnesia

torch should not be allowed to go inside wall

there is a cooldown for blocking and attacking, but it does not match the animation, so it just feels unresponsive

difficulty spikes too soon, just more of the same enemy clumping

my sword seems to have less range than their machetes, which is very strange

the choice of attack did not seem to matter

nice music
cute art and characters

should not need mouse to navigate menus

checker background boring, but I assume placeholder

should be a little more obvious that i can't dodge poo poo shots and that they are a puzzle element, not a reflex skill test.

the fruit effects could be color coded and presented as a list or table. a single line string is difficult to parse every time. the color instead is used for each fruit, which is redundant since we can already see the fruit.

forage bush could look better, even though it`s a button
since health recovers fully, it seems like keeping the last enemy alive and the battle going to gather fruit is optimal 

nice silly music matches the goofy creature design, although a bit repetitive
can't see the poison and armor effect on enemy (unless hovering)
stopped at 60 health - 4 actions

lacks a sense of progression, seems like just a grind for more health or highscore type of thing

linux version worked fine for me. the spellcasting mechanic is interesting, but there is just not enough content to really explore it. not a fan of battles popping out of nowhere. how did you get the game to be 400mb with such small amount of content?

better than tetris. got 20k score. it`s just very solid already and the polish is great. only nitpick is that there is a strange delay when a column gets filled. i understand that you can`t just suddenly reset the game when the player loses, but this delay is strange and uneventful. really curious about where you want to take this because it already looks finished to me.

>They're working but I'm noticing there's a big deadzone on the brakes I can't get rid of even when I set the brake deadzone to 0.0. I did some testing to see if I could hold the brakes at 50% or any value between 0% and 100% and it was nearly impossible. I could sort of get some progressive input on the brake but it jumped from 0 to 100 so fast and suddenly.

this is definitely a problem, accelerator and break inputs should be the raw values from the triggers.

I found a problem where setting the input method from the main menu was not working, and had to be set while playing a stage, so maybe that`s what happened to you...

either way, thanks again for trying it out.

oh, crap, I fuc*d up the gpad mappings again... the bumper mappings for  shifting were gone.

damn, I  was hopeful that the new assist would  make it easier to handle. so,  just to be sure, did you select gpad mode in the steering method in the Controls menu?  I suspect you could be using the keyboard assist but with the gpad input(pressing the stick was  also  not setting the enum correctly). what did you mean when you said that the steering was too fast? the wheel  response itself or the vehicle  response? there  is a linearity option that should help if it feels too responsive, you can lower it a bit. The triggers for accelerator and brake were working,  right?  the orange and green bar on the GUI should show you the inputs.

I could  not reproduce the crash when changing the brake options,

I remember that last time you told me the brakes were  too weak. you can disable the ABS by setting both to 0.0,  then if slamming brakes still feels too weak, that means my tires dont have enough grip.

did you change the `slippy tiers` setting? don`t change that, somewhere  along the way I broke the  `normal` tires,  so keep it at default, which is `on`

thank you very much for trying it before DD, I really need to get myself a f*ken gpad

AI is outside the scope of this project. This is something that would change too much depending on what features you use and what type of game you are making. You can make your own AI by setting the vehicle steering manually, check the kv-inputHandler.gd script, it serves as an example for input handling and how an AI agent could interact with the vehicle. I do plan on adding configurable automatic gear shifting.

i used a refined version of this method mostly.

saw in the bread that you already updated the game, but if you still want to know - what I meant is that the FPS counter did not seem to match the complexity of what was being rendered- a scene full of particles could be running at 120 while a scene mostly empty, with barely anything in the view frustum could be running at 50. it did not feel like a measurement bug, the smoothness seemed to match the displayed FPS

Im not familiar with how winged animals work, but another idea could be have a button for forward flap and one for upward. and perhaps one for dive, where you tuck the wings and make yourself `sharp`... just spitballing some ideas

man, this is really cool! the environment props, shading etc are all very nice, i just wish there was a toggle for the choppy animation. i was expecting some sort of skill attribute system on a game like this. the slow combat is nice but stopping you completely when the stamina reaches 0 is a bit too punishing and makes going from one fight to the next feel like a slow crawl sometimes. maybe you could make the bar pop out more when you are about to deplete it or something so managing it becomes easyer. some enemies will make attacks that will knock you on your back, and i don`t think that some of those attacks should be doing that, only the `heavyer` ones. the way they can lose the limbs and keep fighting was an amazing and funny surprise. i like the variety in weapons and how you can use them to fit the situation. the purple bug does not try to get you, so you can poke him with the spear without ever getting attacked. you can jump while on the ground after getting knocked. the facecam is the cherry on the cake

looks like the gameplay is pretty much the same... since we are meant to flap so much, and repeatedly, then why not let me hold the button? i think going greyscale is an improvement. gives the idea that its dark and this is your night vision. wish the humans had some reaction to my presence once im close enough. when i read your post i could not believe that so much time has passed. your song is nice, and fits the `chill ` vibe of the game. and of course, Tomo`s models are full of soul(the good kind). i think you can still make controlling it more responsive while still retaining the physical feel of flying by adding a bit more of sideways force, especially when i`m activelly trying to `steer` and the bat still has some roll

liked the music and all the sfx except for the asteroid explosion, the dust particles and their trails are really nice. cant really decide if having those circles and lines connecting to the `ground` is a good idea or not... menu navigation and sticking to the center of the window even when changing sizes seems to work fine. framerates are very strange, it seems to be trying so hard to smooth things that once it dips, it refuses to get back up. i could be on a simple scene with 50 fps or blasting everything and particles everywhere at 120 fps. played on a craptop iGPU. gameplay itself is basic but nice,  losing makes you play the previous level instead of unlocking the one that you are playing. did not like the visuals of the cubes, the rgb  dont look very nice to me

really dig the concept of mixing elements. took me some time to realise that i need to go after the element rune ammo thingy to unlock the spells. terrain interaction is nice, im assuming this is inspired on the game magicka, but if not, you should check it out. reading other comments i don`t think i played the full demos, since i just left the `main square` and found nothing around it so i thought that it was over

sfx are good. using Q while controling with WASD is not good. the main mechanic could work, but im not sold on mixing it with VS-like. the screen gets too crouded too quickly. marking enemies seems kinda pointless, could just shoot the closest and use marking as a way to force focus on a higher priority target.

thanks very much for this feedback!

> Overall, a huge issue for me in this game is how weak the brakes are.

>I'd bet that your programmed max deceleration is way off.

the brakes where not tuned properly. what determines acceleration deceleration is ultimately the tire grip. the breaks where just set to a low value because i tuned it to my liking and got used to it.

>Do I need to threshold brake? Is that the issue?

there is an ABS system, but its not great, since the breaks were so weak, that was definitely not the problem

>Also, I find that I can't use forward-rearward weight transfer to my advantage at all. This leads to frustrating understeer.

this is interesting. i was worried that the whole weight shifting thing was too strong! the way it works now (probably not corect judging from your feedback), is that a little bit of of braking gives you oversteer but slamming it does not. the reason is that under heavy braking, the tires will `use up` all the grip applying a `backward` force, while little grip is left for steering. so most of the weight shifting steering benefits happen when your stop accelerating and improve only slightly by braking a bit.

> That seems to be a physics modeling issue. It shouldn't be whether I'm hitting the brakes, it should just be how the chassis is shifting weight front or rear that is affecting handling and grip.

its for the reason above - its not hardcoded, in fact, its all emergent behaviour from the physics model. the things that are hardcoded are the biases to make the physics more arcady. you do get a grip proportional to the weight(under heavy braking it can get like 80% weight on the front tires). its just that all of the gained grip ends up being `used up` to do the braking. now, this is how rigid body friction works, but tires are stretchy and sticky so i`m probably missing something. i have a few ideas already on how to fix this issue, or at least tune it in a way that the more you break the more steering you get(assuming thats how it works)

> And then I get gobs of unwanted oversteer (basically a completely uncontrolled rear end) upon touching the brakes at all while going high speeds.

this one is a bit tricky, im not sure why it gets so much harder at high speeds. could it be just that my surfaces dont have as much grip as other games? im using values that are slightly higher then real general purpose street tires... another thing is that the car has a lot of maximum steering, so small inputs could be doing more steering then expected.... finally, i need to try out aerodinamics. there should be a small self-aligning effect when air is hitting the side of the car, but i have no idea if it would make any visible difference without testing... street cars barely make any downforce, but something with a big airfoil would be more stable at high speeds

> FWD and RWD handle in this.

i should probably have added a toggle... from my tests its too easy to lose grip when accelerating, so i think ill need to write some sort of assist for keyboard controlling. the clutch is also too fast, so changing gears is like a clutch kick and makes rwd go sideways quite easily on some tests that i did

thanks, im glad it improved. there are still a few details that i want to improve for the keyboard controller

thanks, the way I have it set up now is that you need at least one of the wheels on the track

I`m sure your clip is trying to tell me something, but I don`t get it

thanks.

> When i make a shortcut with that command, the screen when you hover the text goes white or light grey, can't see it on the monitor it is too low contrast.

it`s probably something about how it handles colors and HDR when using the gles3 renderer.

hope you make a fast and full recovery. you should know that there is no steering wheel and pedals support and the physics are still quite WIP, but getting feedback from someone who likes the genre is definitely appreciated

contains minor spoilers

this type of combat is not my cup of tea, but as other anons have complimented the game in the bread, i decided to give it a try and the game is indeed good.

what kept me wanting to play was the story and characters. the art is charming and the game has an interesting premise and enough mystery from the start that kept me wanting to see more, so i played the extra levels too.

played the linux version

in the very begining, i think there is a comma missing -> in order to get through( , ) a team must ...

the flow of the UI is a bit strange, a `back` button will sometimes be in the middle of the available options. i would often look for a way to `go back a screen` by looking elsewhere instinctively, then looking at the last button. at some point i was even looking for an `X` on the top right or something.

speccing- hovering over the attribute icons need to show me what they are and what they do. the way `mana` was explained in the begining was a bit strange, i didnt realise until much latter that speccing the yellow attribute increase my mana

balancing- lost a few times early probably to wrong speccing and then the game just got easyer and easyer(too easy), specially after the characters got their third abilities. heal finn for the additional speed + his third ability turns him into a machine gun

ai- tank that was about to die protected tank with full health. Seemingly attack at random, sometimes sparing units that could be easyly killed

bugs-

at the 6th or 7th stage(before encountering the bee boss that messes with the UI, sannoval i think) the game froze to me whenever i attempted to start the first battle, so i had to skip the stage entirely,

using mosca`s aoe attack on a protected unit seems to double the damage. by protected i mean a unit that got the red shield status, protected by another tanky unit. i was able to kill protected units this way

the third skill of every character had the same description as the second skill. so i had to go in the `bestiary` to look up what they do

other-

clicking next should probably show the entire text instead of skipping- the text animation is distracting to me, so i attempted to click next again in the hope it would just show me the entire string

sannoval looks a bit like the crying laughing emoji, it`s hard to unsee

combat speed settings should not reset, or i should be able to overwrite it in the settings menu

would be nice to hover any character of any team and get their statuses displayed at the bottom left

real time elements with the bugs crawling the screen was a nice touch, but i did not see how i could influence it in any way

-sfx

some are a bit too loud and some don`t seem to fit. the death sound seems particularly odd, but i think there could be a lore reason for it

-puzzle(pentagram)

idk if i got it right, if i did, it was entirely because of what mosca said, and i have no idea what the hint is suposed to mean

i think i missed one puzzle as i said above when the game freezes on stage 6 or 7

will play future builds

i found it very difficult to aim with the black crosshair, but i know you fixed it already. also, having to look for the portal breaks the high speed flow of the game a bit, so if you don`t want to add a 3d beacon marker thingy an idea is to maybe add a 3d sound to it, or some sort of visual cue on the level that helps you find it.

as other anon mentioned, the projectiles look similar to monsters themselves, and I often tried to shoot them but i got used to its, so i guess its not a big deal

will try again on future builds

takes too long to be able to drop the next emoji imo

It`s not meant to move. Mouse only. You should generally target the enemy that is closest to you. Turret rotation before upgrades is a bit slow, so priority should also be given to whatever enemy is more or less aligned.

this is great so far, i really wanted to continue solving more mysteries. the cosy cabin background is also pretty cool. perhaps you could add a light source to it that matches the source of the diorama shadows.

played on linux and all seems to work, only nitpick is that the mouse seems like a sprite that follows the real cursor with that slugish delay.

pretty fun after you get used to the controls. my main complaint is that i tried several times to immelmann but because of the way the camera works once you are upside down then the controls are inverted. it`s also not possible to roll without turning so i kinda missed those moves. loops still works because it puts you back with `belly down` without the need to roll.  once i gave up on the immelmann and used only high-yoyos for changing direction then it became almost like flying. tbh it`s a bit strange that without flapping the wings i could always just glide upwards without coming to a stop.

you could probably get more value out of it by procgening some bigger levels with overhangs, its fun to fly under structures

appreciate that you improved the text scaling so quickly.

i liked the mechanic of combining spells and adjusting its strength to `craft-compose` spells, but this needs ingame explanation, had to do more experimentation then i`d like. the padlocks as you can see from many comments are not very intuitive, i`d get rid of it tbh... maybe have the skills light up when you have the points, then click on it to `learn` with a confirmation dialogue. locking-auto-attacking is a bit clunky. clickable ui elements(+  - < ) should probably be a little different then regular text. could not ever use the Vendor, reading the page it seems i need to be at a specific area, but did not find any.

poison felt like a weak branch, but perhaps it has effects that i did not understand

got to level 4 or 5 a few times but would eventually die. a bit weird because i felt like i was fighting the same enemies, but this time they just killed me instead of me killing them

leveling up needs some fluff. a bright effect on the character or something. must be eventfull, my first few runs i did not even notice that i had leveled up and could distribute attributes

with enough variety i think current graphics can work, this minimal style has its charm

now, this is pretty interesting concept however, shit happened so fast that i could not react fast enough and basically my squad would just win. so i played a run where i basically just set behind the wall giving them the `go there and clear` command.

wish i could tell which way the door opens before actually trying to open it. maybe some dorrs could allow you to peek. i tryed to open slowly but then it`s just a near instantaneous firefight where my guys kill everyone and maybe i get caught in the cross fire and die lol.

flashbang stuns even when facing the opposite direction

if i`m already using the mouse, then probably zoom with wheel

pretty cool, i dig the graphics. could become schizokino with a nice gameplay

looks very good, and feels good to swing the sword. with only 1 HP, i think it`s a bit too difficult. i did not have time to react, so avoiding death was more about spamming click or dashing if you get surrounded instead of using the shield. diagonal motion is faster then it should. it`s also possible to go faster then normal if you double tap or change directions quickly, not sure how intentional this is. because of how punishing the game is, you should probably give the player a way to `de-clutter` the mobs.

you can cheese it by standing in place spam clicking as long as there are no enemies behind you

quite simple but works well. about 5k score