I donated a bit anyway because this clever game deserves it. I don't know if you're interested in continuing in this direction, but I'd totally play a series of similar "research puzzle" games!
StygianTraveler
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A member registered Dec 15, 2019
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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.
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...?