Great art style. I hope you plan to add many different environments, and not only the mannor. Dungeon, a garden, greenhouse, clinic, all great oportunities for victorian-esque levels/areas.
The controls are fine. I wish you could add controler support as well.
The inventory I would say still needs work. Probably is incomplete at this stage, but I tried to click on the other tabs and they did nothing. I tried to click and drag items to sort my inventory but couldn't move them. I don't like how we read the lore papers. Better have you open a big page in the middle of the screen, where you can read the text. You can use Divinity Original Sin 2 or Balur's gate 3 as reference for this.
I love that we can change the equipment, and it reflects on the character.
Make it so that we cannot pick up random items. Only items that have a purpouse/can be sold as loot maybe.
Could not advance after the group fight. End of the demo?
Overall, it is still very early in development, but good job. Keep it up.
After rewatching the vod - here are some more thoughts:
1) The ambient lighting is fine, but some rooms feel gray-ish. This could be fixed on the user end by fiddling around with brightness/contrast, but currently some rooms are a bit too dark.
2) Picked up a bunch of "empty" books that basically clutter the inventory. I'm not sure if that serves some purpose, BUT it also means that you need to skim through a bunch of pointless items before you stumble upon an actual, written book. Either the "book with lore" items need to be a bit more visible, or clutter shouldn't be pickable. First option is probably better, but it also correlates with the first point.
3) "Fog moon rays" coming from the windows are awesome, mwah, chef's kiss. Fantastic.
4) In general animations are good, but the "sword swing" animation stops abruptly, as if the sword didn't have enough weight. It wasn't very noticeable during the gameplay though.
5) If you have sword clash and ambient sfx on the same audio channel - you should probably lower sword clash by like 15% or add 20% to the ambiance. Other than that - sfx are fantastic. Really immersive, even after twitch compression.
6) I hope you plan on adding key rebindings.
Other than that - fantastic stuff. A real eye candy and a good experience overall. Please keep it up!
Killed the three guys, Think that's the end of the demo unless there's a key I've missed.
I want to kill this thing.
Really digging the look of the game. Starting the player with a greatsword is a bold choice considering how slow they are. Something less punishing would be more appropriate as a starting weapon imo. A rapier maybe? Need some audio and graphical options, lots of screen tearing. Directional attacks works okay, probably want to implement some input caching system so that an attack input won't be dropped because you're at 98% the stamina you need. Or at least some indicator to make it more obvious when you can attack or not. Would be cool if the avoid button was directional too, allowing for forward rolls or side steps.
Pretty cool demo, looking forward to playing more of this.
-Picking up random stuff, equipping. There seems to be no hotkeys to equip something... mildly annoying when changing several gears at once.
-Way too much lore for me to care about when only 10% of it is visible in a tiny window and has the formatting of a wall.
-First thing I did was walk into a collision-less wall because I thought it was a secret and instead I got soft locked... Also you can get stuck in a door if you open it and stand where it ends up. Can just interact to close it again though. Anyways, it seems this way since the door-player collision only occurs if you're the one moving.
-I notice screen tearing, a lot more than usual for not using vsync.
-The tiled floor where you see the first enemy should have ansiotropic filtering applied or whatever, the pattern looks gnarly from the a distance, and takes away from the foe's presence. I killed him, it seemed easy that after the first hit there was enough hit stun that I could just spam attack to death.
-Killed the next guy, he had a bit more fight as he was dodging and guarding, the latter I didn't know I could do. Though, so far I don't see much difference between the 4 attack directions, and there's no stab either. Also, the fact that attacking while running kills all your momentum is annoying.
-UI for bars in top left might need to change? Because of the high contrast white outline, it's hard to notice the less contrasty red blue green colors go up and down.
-Camera clips into walls easily when fast enough, you can see some white ghost stuff behind it.
-Group fight room, but I can just darksouls them and agro one at a time. In my opinion, it would be better if they all agroed at once, or do you not want the player to learn group fights? Because the player will do the most optimal strategy most of the time, or whatever.
-You can cancel an attack by pressing block, intended? Kind of seems OP to just say you can nullify the long windup, when presumably enemies can't.
-Guess the demo is over. Overall, I'd say it was fun for what it is. However, I don't really understand what the combat is trying to be, besides obtuse for the sake of it. Maybe different weapons have different moves or something to make it worthwhile. Didn't get hit once, so idk if there's anything unique from that happening. The lore seems ok from what I read, but it really needs a better presentation. Models/texture mesh well, but I see plenty of visual bugs like random purple pixels, one frame white things showing up after killing an enemy, and etc.
Also enemies can definitely cancel attacks in the windup stage. The combat is meant to be something more like moun&blade or mordhau rather than a soulslike.
Environments are really good. Got stuck after the 4-man gank room, not sure what I'm supposed to do after that. UI was way too small on my screen, and there needs to be some sound feedback for picking up items especially with how dark it can get.
iirc, my main pet peeves from when i played a few days ago were the fact that enemies can hit walls while trying to hit you (which makes it easy to position yourself in a way where they can't really touch you), and the abundance of bethesda junk collectibles that trigger my autism and fill my inventory because i'm compelled to pick them all up.
also, bring able to hit and stun multiple enemies in a single swing further trivializes encounters
Very competent, solid, tight. Mechanically sound Controls well, camera works well. Inventory interaction needs work though. Is there more combat feedback planned (blood, effects etc)? Could really use it
Thank you. It's just a prototype for now tho. Yes the focus will actually be 1 handed weapons and guns. It was just easier to test 2 handed weapons with the hitboxes.
Comments
Great art style. I hope you plan to add many different environments, and not only the mannor. Dungeon, a garden, greenhouse, clinic, all great oportunities for victorian-esque levels/areas.
The controls are fine. I wish you could add controler support as well.
The inventory I would say still needs work. Probably is incomplete at this stage, but I tried to click on the other tabs and they did nothing. I tried to click and drag items to sort my inventory but couldn't move them. I don't like how we read the lore papers. Better have you open a big page in the middle of the screen, where you can read the text. You can use Divinity Original Sin 2 or Balur's gate 3 as reference for this.
I love that we can change the equipment, and it reflects on the character.
Make it so that we cannot pick up random items. Only items that have a purpouse/can be sold as loot maybe.
Could not advance after the group fight. End of the demo?
Overall, it is still very early in development, but good job. Keep it up.
After rewatching the vod - here are some more thoughts:
1) The ambient lighting is fine, but some rooms feel gray-ish. This could be fixed on the user end by fiddling around with brightness/contrast, but currently some rooms are a bit too dark.
2) Picked up a bunch of "empty" books that basically clutter the inventory. I'm not sure if that serves some purpose, BUT it also means that you need to skim through a bunch of pointless items before you stumble upon an actual, written book. Either the "book with lore" items need to be a bit more visible, or clutter shouldn't be pickable. First option is probably better, but it also correlates with the first point.
3) "Fog moon rays" coming from the windows are awesome, mwah, chef's kiss. Fantastic.
4) In general animations are good, but the "sword swing" animation stops abruptly, as if the sword didn't have enough weight. It wasn't very noticeable during the gameplay though.
5) If you have sword clash and ambient sfx on the same audio channel - you should probably lower sword clash by like 15% or add 20% to the ambiance. Other than that - sfx are fantastic. Really immersive, even after twitch compression.
6) I hope you plan on adding key rebindings.
Other than that - fantastic stuff. A real eye candy and a good experience overall. Please keep it up!
Killed the three guys, Think that's the end of the demo unless there's a key I've missed.
I want to kill this thing.
Really digging the look of the game.
Starting the player with a greatsword is a bold choice considering how slow they are. Something less punishing would be more appropriate as a starting weapon imo. A rapier maybe?
Need some audio and graphical options, lots of screen tearing.
Directional attacks works okay, probably want to implement some input caching system so that an attack input won't be dropped because you're at 98% the stamina you need. Or at least some indicator to make it more obvious when you can attack or not.
Would be cool if the avoid button was directional too, allowing for forward rolls or side steps.
Pretty cool demo, looking forward to playing more of this.
yeah the greatsword is gonna go soon
-No options menu... even for basic audio control.
-Picking up random stuff, equipping. There seems to be no hotkeys to equip something... mildly annoying when changing several gears at once.
-Way too much lore for me to care about when only 10% of it is visible in a tiny window and has the formatting of a wall.
-First thing I did was walk into a collision-less wall because I thought it was a secret and instead I got soft locked... Also you can get stuck in a door if you open it and stand where it ends up. Can just interact to close it again though. Anyways, it seems this way since the door-player collision only occurs if you're the one moving.
-I notice screen tearing, a lot more than usual for not using vsync.
-The tiled floor where you see the first enemy should have ansiotropic filtering applied or whatever, the pattern looks gnarly from the a distance, and takes away from the foe's presence. I killed him, it seemed easy that after the first hit there was enough hit stun that I could just spam attack to death.
-Killed the next guy, he had a bit more fight as he was dodging and guarding, the latter I didn't know I could do. Though, so far I don't see much difference between the 4 attack directions, and there's no stab either. Also, the fact that attacking while running kills all your momentum is annoying.
-UI for bars in top left might need to change? Because of the high contrast white outline, it's hard to notice the less contrasty red blue green colors go up and down.
-Camera clips into walls easily when fast enough, you can see some white ghost stuff behind it.
-Group fight room, but I can just darksouls them and agro one at a time. In my opinion, it would be better if they all agroed at once, or do you not want the player to learn group fights? Because the player will do the most optimal strategy most of the time, or whatever.
-You can cancel an attack by pressing block, intended? Kind of seems OP to just say you can nullify the long windup, when presumably enemies can't.
-Guess the demo is over. Overall, I'd say it was fun for what it is. However, I don't really understand what the combat is trying to be, besides obtuse for the sake of it. Maybe different weapons have different moves or something to make it worthwhile. Didn't get hit once, so idk if there's anything unique from that happening. The lore seems ok from what I read, but it really needs a better presentation. Models/texture mesh well, but I see plenty of visual bugs like random purple pixels, one frame white things showing up after killing an enemy, and etc.
Keep up the good work.
Noted, thank you. the controls are in the main itch.io page but ill try to show them on screen for the next DD somehow. More weapons are planned.
Also enemies can definitely cancel attacks in the windup stage. The combat is meant to be something more like moun&blade or mordhau rather than a soulslike.
Environments are really good. Got stuck after the 4-man gank room, not sure what I'm supposed to do after that. UI was way too small on my screen, and there needs to be some sound feedback for picking up items especially with how dark it can get.
iirc, my main pet peeves from when i played a few days ago were the fact that enemies can hit walls while trying to hit you (which makes it easy to position yourself in a way where they can't really touch you), and the abundance of bethesda junk collectibles that trigger my autism and fill my inventory because i'm compelled to pick them all up.
also, bring able to hit and stun multiple enemies in a single swing further trivializes encounters
game looks amazing. top tier
Great art and sound, I see the gameplay potential. Needs UI scaling or resolution options to be playable on higher res monitors. Lots of GMI energy.
Have you noticed screen tearing issues? Not sure if its only on my end. No one else mentioned this. Looks fine in play mode.
Very competent, solid, tight. Mechanically sound
Controls well, camera works well. Inventory interaction needs work though.
Is there more combat feedback planned (blood, effects etc)? Could really use it
Thank you. It's just a prototype for now tho. Yes the focus will actually be 1 handed weapons and guns. It was just easier to test 2 handed weapons with the hitboxes.
It may also not be apparent but armors are modular, just not procedural yet
oops. a certain wall may have collisions off