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Zoxel

A Procedurally Generated Voxiverse · By Deus

Some improvements

A topic by Memix created May 16, 2021 Views: 263 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(+1)

From playing the game for a short time I have some advice that may or may not sound good. I like this game and it looks like it has a lot of potential. For starters, the game is way too slow. It feels slow in combat and your character is slow in general. It makes me impulsively want to quit since there is a lack of impulse to keep exploring or playing. Since this game is procedurally generated, exploring the vast lands feels quite pointless since for all I know it could be an infinite plain of nothing of interest which it might as well be since it's so unforgivingly boring. I think a compass of some sort with info such as Quest Markers, Shops, and other such things would encourage travel since you always know where to go(or at least a general direction for sure). The combat also lacks a lot of punch in the fact that clicking my first attack skill is so unrewarding and dull it tires me instantaneously and destroys my interest. If there was more audio for attacks, it might definitely improve the feel of combat and maybe overall visceral feeling when combatting monsters. The only other thing I can say is that the UI kind of hurts my eyes. The font and style is neat but I think the spacing is lacking. Basically, more padding for the boxes would be nice as I have an appropriate amount of space to see the text rendered. More of a subjective comment, but maybe the color of the Text could have a setting to be changed? I would like a high-contrast font if possible as that would make reading much easier. Either way, I hope you take something from what I've said and work some more on the game, I'm really interested in where it could go with it's RPG elements.

Developer (1 edit)

Hi, thank you for your valuable feedback. I want to address some points:

  1. The combat, movement speed and other stats start off lower, and the general pacing scales up as you level up. I am doing this to give a feeling of progression. It is more an rpg then anything else. Each punch takes 1 second, which gives me room to push the timing up to 0.5 or 0.25 seconds for faster attribute builds.
  2. Regarding exploration motivations, I plan to have several different biome types, being higher level and with more unique things in them. I am not planning to keep it the same basic biome setup as I have now. I don't think procedural generation will impact this. If you've played cubeworld, or trove, I am thinking something like this.
  3. A minimap is planned, as well as a quest tracking ui, and much more with the core gameplay loop. I will also be adding signs onto buildings and giving them a bit more purpose then just a shelter.
  4. I've thought about starting out with just punch, but I am gearing towards chosing a class and giving you a few skills depending on class, with around 3-6 starting ones. However I haven't implemented all the required skills yet.
  5. I will keep in mind the audio/attacks not feeling right yet. I planned to add some extra stuff like camera shake, IK for punches, etc. But it sounds like you feel it should have better audio for punches.
  6. I will make a setting for the text colours, sorry about that. I mostly test it at night time. Infact your comment on text is the least subjective lol. It's generally good to have these kind of settings, although facebook only added dark mode last year lol. Settings isn't my highest priority atm but I will try to add more contrast and spacing for the text.

As you say, early on there isn't enough content atm or things to compel one forward. Besides basic building, basic mobs, and a simple quest.
This is why I've been concentrating mostly on finishing the core game loop with enough features to make it what I want, such as the chest I added yesterday:
https://twitter.com/deusxyz/status/1393603552833007618/photo/1

I will keep working on improving combat as well, and hopefully make that part compelling enough to stand on it's own. Thanks again for the feedback, I hope you can try it out again in the future.
(Oh I am also planning to make the cubes a little smaller, it might make traveling feel faster)

(+1)

Thanks for the reply dude. Keep on Keeping on, I'm definitely interested.