My thoughts so far

[ylzor]

Hey! So I played the game for some time (about an hour, I'd say), and here are my thoughts on the game so far!

- The game is REALLY addictive. I didn't really want to exit the game, actually!
- The music is amazing. I recognized most of the themes, and really I enjoyed those a lot.
- There are a lot of collision issues. The character tends to go in the wall or in the ground for a split second. I even was able to go through a small block (I'm guessing the game doesn't check what's between character's Y and character's Y + vertical speed). I think this is the main issue with the game, actually.
EDIT : There also seems to be a bug, which I guess has something to do with collision. When touching a wall (even when the character's not falling), sometimes I take damage. Not really sure why.
- Environment is more dangerous than enemies. Not sure if that's intended, but most of the time I only lose health from environment rather than from enemies, which might need to be smarter (just allowing them to shoot down/up may help here).
- The game seems pretty easy so far. I've reached a few "END OF BETA" blocks with stronger enemies and I didn't have any problem surviving at all.
- The beginning doesn't really make you want to play the game. I don't really know where this comes from. Maybe the interface which isn't really clear at first, or the huge tutorial screens. But it gets fun really fast, so I guess it's okay.
- I'm not sure I like not seeing much when the character's shield is low. When I'm low on health, I want to quickly find a teleporter and get my health back, but it's really not easy to find a teleporter when you can barely see anything on the screen.
- I most likely haven't played enough to be sure about this one, but I rarely changed my weapons so far. Also, there doesn't seem to be different magazine sizes like in Borderlands. Maybe this would be something interesting to add to the game?
- There needs to be customizable controls, and if possible joystick support.

So yeah, I think the game is really fun so far, but there are still many issues (almost feels like it's a beta... oh, wait!). The collision is the most important problem with the game so far in my opinion.

Hope it helps!

[bidus]

Jun 29, 2012 11:22:55 GMT -5 ylzor said:

- There are a lot of collision issues. The character tends to go in the wall or in the ground for a split second.

The collision engine "back impulses" the character ONCE a collision has been detected. That is why, indeed, the character tends to go in the ground after falling, for instance.

Jun 29, 2012 11:22:55 GMT -5 ylzor said:

- I even was able to go through a small block (I'm guessing the game doesn't check what's between character's Y and character's Y + vertical speed). I think this is the main issue with the game, actually.

For the same reasons, this can happen sometimes. I agree with you, we must fix this one !

Jun 29, 2012 11:22:55 GMT -5 ylzor said:

EDIT : There also seems to be a bug, which I guess has something to do with collision. When touching a wall (even when the character's not falling), sometimes I take damage. Not really sure why.

If you hit a wall "violently", it can happen, true.

We'll answer your other questions/suggestions later.
Thank you for your feedbacks!

[ludotex]

- Environment is more dangerous than enemies. Not sure if that's intended, but most of the time I only lose health from environment rather than from enemies, which might need to be smarter (just allowing them to shoot down/up may help here).

Yes, this is true for most traps. They do more damage than the NPCs. Traps position are mostly statics and can be avoided, whereas NPCs move more and shoot. NPCs gets more evolved and deadly as you go deeper in the mines. Since the beta represents the beginning of the game it doesn't show as much.

- The game seems pretty easy so far. I've reached a few "END OF BETA" blocks with stronger enemies and I didn't have any problem surviving at all.

Again, the later part of the game gets harder. The end gets pretty hairy at time, with hordes of NPCs shooting bazooka, and more traps to block the way.

- The beginning doesn't really make you want to play the game. I don't really know where this comes from. Maybe the interface which isn't really clear at first, or the huge tutorial screens. But it gets fun really fast, so I guess it's okay.

Since there is a few important concepts that the player has to understand from the start, we've gone pretty deep into tutorials and tips to make sure players don't go in there unprepared. It's either that or we throw the player right away into the action and they can get frustrated because they don't know the basic mechanics, like getting better bags, how to use their equipment, gems, weapons and such. Hopefully it seems like people are willing to go thru the first minutes of the games and learn, and then they have fun when they teleport outside, just like you did

- I'm not sure I like not seeing much when the character's shield is low. When I'm low on health, I want to quickly find a teleporter and get my health back, but it's really not easy to find a teleporter when you can barely see anything on the screen.

This is one of the main design choice. It adds drama to your situation. Once your energy gets low, it gets critical so you either go back to the last teleport you found, get more energy using gems, or try your luck and go further hoping to find a new teleport, it's up to you to play it safe or not.

- I most likely haven't played enough to be sure about this one, but I rarely changed my weapons so far. Also, there doesn't seem to be different magazine sizes like in Borderlands. Maybe this would be something interesting to add to the game?

Basically, in the beta you mostly encounter enemies with pistols and shotguns. But later as the architecture changes, swapping weapons helps a lot: pistol for range situations, shotgun for close combat, machine Gun for less precision but more bullets, and bazooka for big damage but it's dangerous because if you're inside the blast radius you take damage too!
Adding more stats changes, like ammo counts, different bonuses could be added in further updates of the game. There is plenty of room for it.

- There needs to be customizable controls, and if possible joystick support.

You can change the keyboard configuration from the controls panel: Press C to enter configuration. Also an Xbox type pad works for the game.

Hope it helps!

Yes it does! Thanks a lot for your input.

[ylzor]

Okay, played again for a while, I guess I finished the beta!

I didn't see you could customize controls already, maybe I should have opened my eyes first! Anyway, I've played with a 360 controller to try this out.

- I understand what you did with the energy = vision, and it actually really works now that I played more. It also adds this "strategy" of "should I sell my gems, or heal?", which is really cool.
- Again with the collision stuff, I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning anymore, but there is another bug with collisions; you can get "stuck" on a moving platform from the bottom, with the character's head in it. You're not really stuck since you can still move and get away, but it's weird to be able to stick to a platform that way.
- When using a 360 controller, I noticed that pressing X in front of the safe place's teleporter can sometimes skip the teleporter selection screen. Well, it doesn't skip it, but the game most likely thinks I pressed X again at the teleporter selection screen. But this would require more people to try this, as this could be coming from my 360 controller itself.

Oh, and I met some pretty scary enemies with shotguns that do 600+ damage. I guess some of them are dangerous after all!
Glad it helped!

[bidus]

Jun 30, 2012 10:00:58 GMT -5 ylzor said:

- When using a 360 controller, I noticed that pressing X in front of the safe place's teleporter can sometimes skip the teleporter selection screen. Well, it doesn't skip it, but the game most likely thinks I pressed X again at the teleporter selection screen. But this would require more people to try this, as this could be coming from my 360 controller itself.

You're right. It is now fixed. Thanks.