Official Feed Back Thread
Escape a procedurally generated city. Survive the Backland · By
I love the use of pixelation with 3D visuals; it really produces a striking and distinct image and I found myself occasionally stopping in awe of how naturally it coupled with the procedural architecture and environment could create a stunning scene! The sound design too compliments the flow gameplay and the game's mood and atmosphere.
The pixel filter makes the game run like shit on less powerful hardware. I understand it lies within the games style but in my play through the rain effect made the game near unplayable. (I have an AMD Dual-Core processor A4-9120, with AMD Radeon R3 Graphics and 4GB of memory.) I would like for this to be able to be turned off, even though I like how it changes the style. Low poly doesn't look bad anyway.
Hi, BillyGoat. Thanks for the feedback. The pixelart filter is not a filter in a sense that a filter comes at the cost of CPU and memory. It is a resolution trick. The issue your seeing is that the rain is a particle system and there are a lot of polygons loaded all at once from all the buildings. Unfortunate I cannot adjust the amount of rain particles because that is essentially one of the enemies of the game. I also have the camera draw distance already quite low. I'm afraid it may be too intense for your current hardware.
Loving this so far! It's sucked me right in, I could see losing myself in it for a few hours if I'm not careful ;)
I did notice when I open the game menu there doesn't seem to be a way to close it again. It opens with escape, and I'd expect to be able to close it again with that, but it doesn't work. This makes it not possible to change settings like inverting the camera controls.
The reason I was exploring the settings in the first place was because I find the camera controls a little too sensitive, and I find myself wishing I could increase/reduce perspective with a control such as the mouse wheel or other. I'm often trapped in a corner or behind a wall, and would love to have more control when orienting myself in the game world.
All in all, fantastic work! I love it!
A wonderful game.
Slowlypoorly does have it right when they talk about the menu and the camera's sensitivity being a little too much. It's kind of rough getting lost or disoriented when spotted by security or caught in the rain. Plus I can jump while dead sometimes.
But those are my only concerns. It's the little things--the alarm of the security robots that warns you, the thunder before the rain, the faint red of a beacon to be activated, the shadows underneath the buildings to tell you where to take cover--that really demonstrate your competence as a designer. Aesthetically and mechanically, Backland is all around a nice time. It's solid.
And please, if you can... tell me how you managed this wonderful pixelated effect. I've never been one to want to make a 3D game, but with this effect in place it sure is tempting.