An very, very faithful prototype, almost to a fault.
Graphics are great, especially the UI. Love the bloodied sword when you're on low HP. But some QoL would be nice, like showing me how much gold I have when trading, of some sort of indication of me buying stuff. Drag and drop is a bit wonky - it doesn't start dragging until your mouse leaves the inventory cell.
I did a couple of quests and was killed. Very, very cool demo!
Well it seems like it has been told what I would have said. Solid core, nice pixel graphics (especially the UI), but very barebones. I kept pressing escape trying to leave the menus, even though I've learned it brings me back to the pause menu. Talking does not close you have to leave the conversation behind, which only really was a problem at the shop, making me think that you'll have to buy something, but turns out that is not the case, same rules as conversaitons.
I went south as was instructed, and found a cropse, but couldn't pick up the backpack. Not sure if it is the scout I was intended to find or not. The first fight really surprised me because you start without your weapon equipped.
Thank you streaming this so I could watch the "New Player Experience". I did fix the bugs you encountered including the dialogue one. The escape key closing all UI elements is a good idea that I will implement. The way I designed quests where you have to pick up an object is that they can only be interacted with if you have the appropriate quest but based off your reactions I think I will add some kind of dialogue popup if you find an item for a quest you haven't picked up yet (also that I should tweak that dialogue for "Bandit Trouble" to say southwest instead of south).
Glad to be of help. You can also connect things together so they don't spawn until the quest is taken, or yeah do the free-roam approach when the player can come across the object they don't have quests yet, and it will become a personal quest of finding the owner.
Pretty basic so far but also fairly solid, i have a soft spot for these ultra-retro RPGs. A few notes:
- some sound effects don't sound like they're from an old SFX chip at all, like attacking with the club.
- nothing is marked on the map and if that's an unfinished thing then ok but if it's intentional it would be nice to be able to place custom markers on it
- i wish the game was a bit more keyboard-only friendly, but that's probably a looot of work so it's unreasonable
I like the old school retro feel of the whole thing. Seems a bit bare, but some immediate feedback:
Pressing F to advance dialogue doesn't close it when you've gone through the whole thing. It just sorta stays until you walk two tiles away, for some reason.
Overall, the game felt clunky because the game both wants everything done via keyboard and other times everything with the mouse. Like doing inventory management can only be done with the mouse (unless I'm missing a way to have a cursor or the Equip shortcut), but then moving around on the map and interactions require keyboard.
The player should really start with a weapon equipped, or a tutorial to equip it. Had to throw rocks at a wolf and nearly died.
I liked that equipping items gave combat abilities.
But I somehow ended up with two identical Slam attacks?
I hated not being able to flee without shoes (like in the first fight I had with no weapons), but then it made sense that yeah, I'd need an upgrade to perform that action. Maybe it would be better to have a weak pitiful Flee by default but a useful Retreat if you have shoes?
The Bandit Adept dealt 14.0 damage, not 14.
The screenshots show a controls layout/screen but I could not find it in-game.
The sword rusting away as you lose HP is cool! I'd rather that than the Diablo/PoE red and blue spheres.
I did the Tool Collector quest and this is purely speculation but I think I got the Bear Tooth from it? I noticed it in my inventory some time later. It would be cool if it was a quest reward to be like "Here's your reward!"
I really appreciate you playing the demo! I agree with everything you stated here. To touch on some specifics, I do intend to allow the keyboard to fully control the game eventually (including gamepad support) but I ran out of time to have it all ready for DD. I will also have a tutorial explaining items, dialogue, quests, etc. There is definitely a lot of general polish that I need to work on. I am for sure going to add that quest reward feedback you brought up asap. Thanks again for playing!
Thank you for testing the Linux build for me since I only use Windows. I just went ahead and removed the linux download for now since upon researching this further I would have to edit a lot of my code to prevent it crashing on Linux.
I added in "hold to keep moving" so that the player can move without continually tapping all the keys. A single key press should move you a single tile in that direction if it is not being held down. I am working on the music and will do my best to have it in for the next demo.
I love the aesthetic. Very Dwarf Fortress. But there's just no conveyance of what's even available to me. I kept looking around for a weapon shop or something to get something other than a staff. The lack of XP/leveling also makes combat feel like a punishment rather than an opportunity for grinding.
I have plans on making a tutorial at some point because I agree with you that it's not clear what anything is. My idea behind no XP is that the player seeks out the combat to look for new items (just like you would with XP) but there's definitely a lot of kinks to iron out
Comments
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2563708227
An very, very faithful prototype, almost to a fault.
Graphics are great, especially the UI. Love the bloodied sword when you're on low HP. But some QoL would be nice, like showing me how much gold I have when trading, of some sort of indication of me buying stuff. Drag and drop is a bit wonky - it doesn't start dragging until your mouse leaves the inventory cell.
I did a couple of quests and was killed. Very, very cool demo!
Well it seems like it has been told what I would have said. Solid core, nice pixel graphics (especially the UI), but very barebones. I kept pressing escape trying to leave the menus, even though I've learned it brings me back to the pause menu. Talking does not close you have to leave the conversation behind, which only really was a problem at the shop, making me think that you'll have to buy something, but turns out that is not the case, same rules as conversaitons.
I went south as was instructed, and found a cropse, but couldn't pick up the backpack. Not sure if it is the scout I was intended to find or not. The first fight really surprised me because you start without your weapon equipped.
Maybe you'll see something on footage I've missed:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2560493434?t=0h46m46s
Good luck!
Thank you streaming this so I could watch the "New Player Experience". I did fix the bugs you encountered including the dialogue one. The escape key closing all UI elements is a good idea that I will implement. The way I designed quests where you have to pick up an object is that they can only be interacted with if you have the appropriate quest but based off your reactions I think I will add some kind of dialogue popup if you find an item for a quest you haven't picked up yet (also that I should tweak that dialogue for "Bandit Trouble" to say southwest instead of south).
Glad to be of help. You can also connect things together so they don't spawn until the quest is taken, or yeah do the free-roam approach when the player can come across the object they don't have quests yet, and it will become a personal quest of finding the owner.
Pretty basic so far but also fairly solid, i have a soft spot for these ultra-retro RPGs. A few notes:
- some sound effects don't sound like they're from an old SFX chip at all, like attacking with the club.
- nothing is marked on the map and if that's an unfinished thing then ok but if it's intentional it would be nice to be able to place custom markers on it
- i wish the game was a bit more keyboard-only friendly, but that's probably a looot of work so it's unreasonable
I like the old school retro feel of the whole thing. Seems a bit bare, but some immediate feedback:
I really appreciate you playing the demo! I agree with everything you stated here. To touch on some specifics, I do intend to allow the keyboard to fully control the game eventually (including gamepad support) but I ran out of time to have it all ready for DD. I will also have a tutorial explaining items, dialogue, quests, etc. There is definitely a lot of general polish that I need to work on. I am for sure going to add that quest reward feedback you brought up asap. Thanks again for playing!
Linux VM (Debian)
When I click "New Adventure" I get "Segmentation fault" error that crashes the game
Thank you for testing the Linux build for me since I only use Windows. I just went ahead and removed the linux download for now since upon researching this further I would have to edit a lot of my code to prevent it crashing on Linux.
There some issues with controls - i move too far sometimes. Please add music!
I added in "hold to keep moving" so that the player can move without continually tapping all the keys. A single key press should move you a single tile in that direction if it is not being held down. I am working on the music and will do my best to have it in for the next demo.
I love the aesthetic. Very Dwarf Fortress. But there's just no conveyance of what's even available to me. I kept looking around for a weapon shop or something to get something other than a staff. The lack of XP/leveling also makes combat feel like a punishment rather than an opportunity for grinding.
I have plans on making a tutorial at some point because I agree with you that it's not clear what anything is. My idea behind no XP is that the player seeks out the combat to look for new items (just like you would with XP) but there's definitely a lot of kinks to iron out