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But you can go right...? You can climb these stepping stones.

And yea, I'm really happy with sitting :D

Man, that refresh rate. I wanna say it's an engine limitation and I tried to fix it but I just have a standard 60Hz monitor so I can't test it reliably. The thing is I still use delta time for calculating height of the jumps and I don't know why I can have a higher refresh rate, so more calculations, but delta time stays the same...

Other bugs are accounted for and I'll be taking care of them one at a time. You have a good eye for them!

You read my mind and know exactly how I feel.

Fighting is pretty much in prototyping stage, gotta find a correct flow. Goblins are more aggressive due to last DDs comments of them being too easy to kill. I guess we can't have it both ways. Current level is WIP and you guessed it, extra potions were added as a last minute help to avoid being stuck before reaching other upgrades. Still, I managed to make you all stuck here and there. Item hunting is just a little extra, went all in with new system for increasing stats, but those items will be rare.

Missing NPCs and one singular way to beat it was a compromise with a lack of time and levels not being that easy to plan. That being said this particular route is designed for players roleplaying as a fighting adventurer. I envision that parts with enemies shouldn't be accessed at all by players avoiding strength and agility stat, but - once again - I want to have a special item that can scare goblins away. It's just further down the line of crossing a map and sticking to main road that can have occasional enemy, and not entering a cave that's infested with goblins. This is clearly a Fighter's Guild member that has to swing a sword here and there. Proper ending for goblin hunting quest without actually fighting them demands a city with a Fighter's Guild building. I sure hope I'll be able to pull that one soon.

Sorry, I started rambling. Your insight is invaluable and I think we both think alike. Now I have a canvas and I should have plenty of time to implement missing parts for combat trip. Bugs will be ironed out, new paths will be unlocked, new NPCs gonna show up and I hope I won't have to rush next one, but to be honest, preDD time is the most motivating time for me.

Cheers!

Demos are focusing on self-contained story bits I have in mind, or so I keep telling myself that. With each demo I want to expand the possibilities of our hero and I have to say this one is almost half-assed. Combo system is meh, still only one melee weapon, ranged needs to be adjusted, not all NPCs got to the cut, level was rushed etc. hence the possibility to be stuck. Still, new level is more of a treasure hunt now, picking up items and equipment, using them to get better stats so I have this thing going. My main goal is to have something like act I, when all of demos can be conjoined together and locked/unlocked based on your actions and stats. We'll see how much of a pain is that gonna be.

Flickering exclamation mark is a feature. It reminds me of old monitors I used to play on. It'll take more of you to change my heart! Also exclamation next to the bard is about his cell. I don't think anyone bothered to find that out, but you can actually steal keys from the admiral to open his cell. 

That one event with opening doors, yeah, I should probably make it automatic. 

I did something with the charm system, I expanded it to other statchecks. Turns out I broke something  along the way.

You can deselect items with 'x'. It's my cancel button, also used for attacking.

Also I was playing your demo too! The comment about gold centipede showing up and kicking the big guy was mine, I was playing on version 0.16-2. I'll write something more after I'm done with the current build! And I found Dirk! Clueless and in obvious situation!

Thanks for stopping by, more stuff to come, hopefully we'll see each other in next DD!

I did a number on those buildings. Explosion, debris, blood splatter, all great, UI animations with 1 bit pixel art looks great, awesomely stylish. 

Osur said the same thing as I was feeling, it's hard to see your opponents. Many times I had to confirm that the enemy is in my vincinity by looking at the radar. I almost want to say that it's too small but I'm not that sure about it. Still, other mechs need to have something that will make them visible. Painting them red would be almost too easy, maybe adding some UI elements like crosshairs from fighter jets?

I felt bad about destroying the city, moreover in the second mission where I was trying to protect the gardens. And what mutated lobsters wanted? Piece of me, of course! I got A+ on both missions, now be honest with me, it always says A+ right? There's no way that half-leveled town and a destroyed garden I was supposed to protect would give me that high score. 

One enemy didn't want to drive into city from the left side. I killed everyone else and had to shoot missiles blindly into OOB area hoping to destroy him.

I feel like the game is already half way there! 3 more biomes, 5 missions for each one, one random generated level with presets and you're ready to ship! Just make those mechs more visible!

The best FPS on Dreamcast, it just looks like it could be played on that console, and I heard DC look is gonna be a new fad! I like that you can sneak up on your enemies, but they're pretty dumb - they can shoot their comrades in the back while aiming at you, one decided to run towards me and fell into the water. They sure pack a punch though. I have a feeling our protagonist's health is somewhere at half of a common enemy. My health could drop from 100 to 66 with two shots. First mech battle was even worse, sometimes it would take out 6 hit points, other time two hits sent me straight to the level restart screen. First level is rough, a linear passage with enemies jumping at you here and there and with mech at the end I died 3 times. Maybe there's a secret I missed with a rocket launcher? Bottom line, enemies should die 1-2 bullets faster and I think there should be a rocket launcher next to two jeeps and a mech, so it's possible to sneak past a mech, grab it and unload initial salve. Shooting down a mech with just a starting weapon is kinda lame.

I didn't have problems with 2nd and 3rd level, these are much more interesting. I especially liked the lowering bridge at the end of level 3. The housing flats in level 2 aren't that good. There should be more rooms, or at least barricaded doors, right now it looks like a corridor that leads to one room. Still I liked open-ended of the levels, even though there is a default way to progress it's nice that you have to look around and visit different places first. Port town leads you naturally through a level and waterways make great natural obstacles that don't feel forced.

Now is it only me or the game is very dark? Again first and also parts of a second level, were so dark I couldn't find my way. I played in the dark and even with increased contrast it was very hard to see at times.

Anyway, the game has a nice feeling to it. Can't wait for more!

ok, so I officially found the secretest secret.

Decent variety, nice backgrounds, level design is close to a death traps in Meatboy style, but plenty of checkpoints ease  dangerous situations. Blorb being just a defenseless ball offers no real variety. Health pickups or powerups would be a nice addition, if only blorb decided to fight back.

The real mechanic here are trampolines. There's so much of it I felt overwhelmed by the last level. For me that's showing you need additional ideas to make your adventure fresh.

Interactions with signs and finding secret coins was nice.

Overall not bad for a first attempt. Blorb 2 needs new ideas though to make it worthwhile.

I'm amazed how fast you were able to replicate original Mario Bros. Gob is harder though, especially castle was much more intense. 

For a small game there's not much that I can add as I think it's feature complete. there are some minor things that could be improved. 

Secret room is a dead end, hidden block or exit would be appreciated, otherwise you have to wait till the timer ticks down.

 After you die your coin counter resets, that's not how Mario games operate. Moving platforms change direction instantly and they should slow down first, it makes these jumps much more difficult. 

Small game window and control scheme. Your game could *really* benefit from adding an option to have left shift for jump... Just kidding, but rebindable keys and resizable window/fullscreen is pretty important.

With the bugs, I died when two enemies were close to each other, stomping at them both killed one and second killed me in the same time. 

I found a blind spot - when jumping you can hit a block but you wil not destroy it. 

Anyway, great game! I actually like your take with goblin attacking dwarf fortresses. You can expand it and make more interactions, maybe a bigger castle? I'd experiment with the concept a little more, there is a hidden potential here.

Everybody chasing me with pitchforks, well ok then, shift is gone. Now default for jumping is 'C'. 

I changed that stats menu, now we can check them and make them go away with space.

I alsoadded exclamation mark. Pretty good call as plenty of streamers wasn't even aware that some objects can be investigated. Items aren't marked though, I want to leave a little bit of pixel hunting in there.

With the jump, I intend to make a path where jumping is not needed at all, and to make it play like old point n click game. Jumping and fighting is an option for players that look for action so they should invest in these stats. That being said I should give more visual hints that low agility won't let you jump and write it in the text description for skills.

You can back out from inventory with 'X' as well.

Overall plenty of good suggestions for me to chew on. Thanks for checking out the game!

Previous demo had similiar problems with clipping so intelligently I made all floors flat and thin, and enemies can't get stuck in weirdly shaped level. I hae to add collisions on top of the Dirk's head.

Music shouldn't loop. I mean, it's a pretty slow and uncanny track, listening it more than a handful of times would be grating. I was fighting with myself if I even should add it. One track without a loop seemed like a sensible compromise to me.

And what's wrong with shift? I'm more of a jump on 'z' kinda guy myself, but having all three buttons pretty important I didn't think that either 'zxc' or 'azx' would be comfortable. Shift is pretty long! It fits perfectly for a ring finger! Would it be better to have it used for interactions or attacks? I don't think so.

Did you bring the guy to the mother? You should, you know...

It's not a platformer if you can't jump

Agreed, new parts aren't polished as it's pretty much incomplete. Half of the map wasn't ready and couple of NPCs are still missing to make it for a compelling level and my art sucks. It's too repetitive.

Key example is actually crucial. You're locked in a small room and you have no other way to progress other than finding a key and using it. I'd say it's a good design choice to have your player experiment with smaller, obvious puzzle as that prepares him to understand how to solve other interactions in similiar way. Having a quick use option for an item would just increase the 'z' spamming.

About these clues... please don't force me to make a Witcher sense... but! Looking back at Oblivion your crosshair was changing shape when in close proximity to usable item. I think it would be a good idea to have a little 'inspect', 'search', 'open' tooltips when next to interactible item. I'll look into it.

Strongest point of the game is my writing? Oh... oh no...

Damn, these passageways were working in my editor and stopped when I had .exe nice and ready. I think that changing the .exe name or name of the game folder could help but I need more feedback. Downloading build from the site and running it fresh works on my machine. Also it didn't crash? Was Dirk visible? Could you still walk around?

Also I've made some changes in the dialogue system, did a quick test and it was working fine. Do you remember what was the charm stat?

I really appreciate your feedback and I'd like to see what you have to say about the second challenge.

I liked it, models for guns and hand animations are good, I like the level design even if it's a little chaotic, atmosphere is great, but I have some 'thoughts'

-dying enemies are just switching from alive to dead sprites, It'd be nice to have something in between

-2D elements are invisible when standing behind them, buddha statues, pots and probably ammo have this problem

-interesting level design but it suffers from empty rooms/not enough decals. First level starts with a high note, going through the kitchen feels natural, and then we have plenty of same looking corridors. Second level is much better in that regard, but again hospital is just a shell.

-default tommygun guy gets tiring after a while, you need at least two extra variations of that guy, throw him a white hat or a brown jacket, way too many swanky gangsters around there.

-enemy's AI can be cheesed, they should also be a little more active when in range. They either charge you to be closer or stand in place to shoot you. They should pop a shot or two when away as well, when in range they should give you a break once in a while to 'reload' their guns or to reposition themselves.

-some parts of the levels are very dark. So dark it's either turn all of your lights in your room or walk blindly. 

-No real options in video settings. Can't increase the brightness, can't decrease th quality of the game. "but why, it's a boomer shooter", right? Well...

- the game doesn't run flawlessly for me. I have stutters and FPS drops in open areas. My gear isn't exactly high end, but it can handle GTA V and Yakuza 0 without issues so it's kind of surprising it slows down in places.

- no secrets. Come on, I wanna secrets in boomer shooters! Hidden switches, destructible walls, alternative ways, elevators. I feel that a second part of a first level should be hidden behind a big painting or a big barrel of wine, so the player feels like he's uncovering a secret organization in the basement of a restaurant. It's not a secret per se, but a nice touch of enviromental storytelling xP

Nice interactive way to tell your audience about your scope! I'm afraid you'll drown in hundreds of branching textboxes and you'll need a big notebook to keep everything in check. Anyway it's pretty simple, just fill out your stickman's mood meter? I sure hope there will be other ways to achieve a 'win' condition, otherwise you'll just praise every NPC to their heart's content. Also it's a long dialog tree already, other NPC interractions should be a little more rigid imho.

Looking forward to the next update!

That has to be the longest level in any sonictypes out there. I've been playing it for more than 40 minutes just to get to the end. Initially I had problems to steer character reliably, when I finally got the hang of it the game dropped new hurdle and I felt lost again. Level is huge, and I mean HUUUGE, but at the same time not that fun to explore. Underwater part is just a punishment, plenty of platforms lead to nowhere, some of the platforms that lead in the right direction are obscured. Turning left/right to correct your trajectory on a loop will cause you to drop, some of the steeper checkered roads will make you lose speed and fall as well. Sure, it's just a demo level and I'm sure you'll improve, just for me this particular level didn't feel organic, it's more like a skatepark with grinds and verts everywhere. Animation is good, the speed is there, the level could be cut into 3 smaller ones ;)

Found a secret, got a water gun, beat the bad guy, wish there was more! I have a feeling that hero and enemies should be a little bigger, right now it's kinda hard to attack, maps seem to be a little too big because of it and that in turn makes them feel empty. Other than that we need more - more weapons, enemies, secrets, interactions! I really like the take on Souls systems with burn/wet/poison/bleed, regenerating health or depleting stamina. Playing around with water pipes was great, but I feel it might be hard to top it off. Turning lava into walkable tiles was also great, much more creative than usual zelda dungeons. Music wasn't all that fitting though. A little too peaceful for me.

Anyway, keep them comin'!

That's not true ending. Try again!

You've won my award for the best streamer, that I can tell you! I believe that after my latest update most of the complains have been adressed, fixed, improved. I like my climbing animation though :P

Again, thanks for your support and playing the game. Expect more in the future!

I should mention somewhere in the game that lockpicks can't open all doors, otherwise they'd be OP. I added 'examine surroundings' functionality and now it's a little clearer what can be interacted with more. I also did a bughunting, hopefully the game won't cause that many issues. Thanks for playing and your support!

Got that one handled, it's funny as it's basic instinct to go back from the menu by hitting 'escape', yet I've never thought about it. Again, tunnel vision, but it should work fine now ;). Now I'd still need help with ultrawide, as I don't want the screen to scroll past certain value. Message me if you want to help me with it :D

Man, nothing makes your game look bad than wrong scale and out of bounds regions. The game should run in lower resolution. Also these jumps shouldn't be that high! I'm guessing that you have an ultrawide screen with 144 hz refresh rate. I gotta modify the game so it detects it properly. 

You've seen about 1/3rd of the game, missed one of the doors that leads to room with collapsed ceiling. Left Shift + z + x are pretty close (unless you have qwertz keyboard), I'll have something for that occasion. That blue screen happens when you're out of bounds area. Lame, I know.

Next demo day will be about combat with much easier puzzles, I think it'll be much more enjoyable.

It kinda puts you in a situation where you want to shoot all of your cards right away to know which combinations you can make. There's no way to get to 1 trillion dollars without having a godhand with at least 6 dark energies. Combining 3 items to have a data is neat, but then merging the data with atom collider to have better quality data doesn't make sense but I guess it's ok.

Using bureucracy when you have no elements brings you the same element back, I think it should trade you for something completely different or have it disabled. 

Energy crisis is just too high, filling up buildings after a while eats it too much. Maybe energy can be replenished with time automatically? Also not only stability is decreasing too fast, but you also have to pay much more to lower your chances. I guess that the message is about cutting losses at the right moment, but then we can't reach that 1 trilion bucks.

Merged materials should have a little more value. There should be a random chance to have a higher value card, maybe have a building that can randomly find a better quality resource.

Overall, I tried three times, the best I could go was 400 bil. Still, wanna see what's the main goal, what about these other planets and development direction.

I managed to get to level 5 or 6, unfortunately Rosa couldn't stop the red monster, even though she was directly in front of him.

Moving characters should definitely be relegated to WASD and with a right mouse click to switch between characters and left mouse click to attack. 

Your first bullet is invisible and you can see what you're shooting when it's already shot. I finished couple of early levels without understanding what I'm doing. 

Other than that I actually like how the characters look, but everything is pretty inconsistent. 

I know it's just a prototype and probably gonna tell you something that you already know, but maybe you'll find it useful.

I think it's neat that you have to hold the button down to move the reticule, BUT maybe it'd be better to use a mouse aiming. Make it like a twin-stick shooter but in 3D. 

You definitely have to add some indication that you're shooting. Flying bullets from your character with a super speed would help it a lot. 

I didn't like the color of the enemies' bullets.

Since it's unity and you can make it fully 3D I think it could use a small camera sway when going left/right so the plane is moving just a little. 

I've made a prototype myself of a similiar game, hit me up if you wanna compare our ideas!

Hello mr charming!

Yeah, that bird thing. That one dialog should be disabled, my bad. Sparrow can be used couple times for one extra ending though, so try to not get him drunk next time :P

I tried to delete all of the debug messages, but it seems there's always something thet gets through.

Now talking with his head turned, that's definitely something I should fix. Now to think about it you probably can trigger it even when jumping...

That frozen screen is an unfinished journal page. It still holds some info from main game but I'll be honest, I have no idea why it showed up. 

Too many spelling errors eh...? Maybe my intelligence is on par with Dirk's after all T.T.

Thank you for all those finds, they'll be very fun to hunt down ;)

Working on these right now, good finds! I gotta admit that I've been noticing some of these bugs for a while but got used to them. Gotta straighten them up.

Thanks for your opinion! Now there is a way, or even couple of ways, to progress with NO stats improved. There are items hidden everywhere and some of them are locked behind skill checks, but it's perfectly fine to achieve first planned ending and hidden ending without extra skills. Only the true ending demands you to improve couple of skills to serious level and those extra stats can be earned through consecutive plays and puzzle solving.

I'm a little torn about this, as it's not stated directly, so people can be confused by it, but at the same time I want to have a layer of mystery and feeling lost, a type of game that makes you wonder what could be done with different skills and items.

I think that next iteration will be combat-focused though. I'm trying to make a game that is available for all types of players. In current build you still can fight with monsters but these weapons are hidden behind some of the nastiest hurdles.

My chad reference didn't make it either, was finishing the game literally minutes before uploading it. I'll do it, don't you worry, Dirk is here to stay!

Yeah, color-coding isn't difficult and looking back, Monkey Island had the good idea about it.

I will add rebindable keys too, I've done it before and I'll do it again.

There are many ways to progress, and some of them are blocked with the progression system. I'm tempted to add debug option that adds a bunch of spare points so you can find everything and unlock the final ending on your first playthrough. There are 8 endings and for some of them you just need a high charm stat or sneak stat. Search for items, talk to people, topics can be unlocked with items and with conversations you can learn new information. Search cupboards, desks, etc.

Dirk is not your typical hero. It's just a regular guy with no greater aspirations but is forced to act due to circumstances. He is forced to learn and adapt and usually will choose the lesser way to progress. I'd like to build his character through the game, so he actually becomes a hero due to unfortunate circumstances and not because he is destined to be one. That is NOT in the demo though. He starts weak, he can finish it with high stats but he still is as clueless as before. Character development is for the main story. This is just an outside location unrelated to the main quest.

Yeah, that's the last bug I was trying to squish, I've been opening the game in the window mode this whole time and maximizing it a while later. After adding tutorial pic it was unfortunately unreadable so I changed the game to start in fullscreen. Somehow it calculates the width/height of the desktop wrongly at the startup.

Picking/interacting is also something that I have to think about, I have to increase the interaction boxes. Pixel hunting isn't as severe though, all items have the same sizes so it should be much easier when the collision boxes for interactions are increased.

Doors shouldn't be locked. I think that exit is still active, just your exit position is - again - a little off and interaction box too small.

That error though, it's the second time now. Now that's the big one. Blue screen is my biggest enemy so if you have the willpower to trigger it again, it'd be very helpful as it's ruining the progression of the game.

Thank you for your input. Something to clarify: 

stats can be increased only when you have the same or higher amount of spare points. Maybe I should write this somewhere or give a visual clue that it's not possible, but I think it makes sense. It makes the least effort to improve from a total newbie to someone competent, but if you want to be above average you need to invest more in self-improvement. It also gives extra choice - should I keep my spare points to improve my main skill, or maybe spend them on other skills that will still alter my path.

The bug with frozen stats after hitting Esc, you can unfroze it by pressing X. I managed to replicate it and I'll fix it the next free moment I have.

Please tell me more about that blue screen bug, I need to fix it as I believe it impacts the replayability the most. Which dialog, which character, which playthrough, I have a faint idea what causes this but I've never had it break in this place.

Also, point me to these grammar errors, I'll un-ESL the game as soon as I spot them. Some of the dialog options still need proofreading as  a lot of the later game dialogue was written in a stream of consciousness during the demoday. 

2 Endings? The naked guy was supposed to be a secret, I think I made it a little too easy. You have to free the Bard at least, you can't leave him there do you?

Thanks for the play, I fixed that bug and added holding down the button for shake, music and sfx. I tried to play around with other options but couldn't get it to work nicely, it'd skip one number or stay too long on another.