This was an absolute blast to play! I cannot wait to see what the finished version looks like. It's rare for a game to pull me and hold my attention like this one has :)
Hi...is there is a clear explanation of how enemy ai was made in this project with codes on your Patreon??? i am really lookin forward learning from you.
There's a problem with the audio. If you re enter the cave before you go back to town the cave music will still play when you're into the overworld until the next cutscene.
Really love what you have going on here. I think the combat and characters are nice, but I would've loved if there was controller support that was also remappable. I also think that the mc either looks too generic and/or doesn't fit in with the look of the townies. Like, the mc is too short and wide when you stand beside any of the other npcs.
So, I recently found your devlogs and wanted to give some feedback after playing. Firstly, everything on the map is too far spread out. Walking through the town is boring and unfun. I know it makes sense for it to be a small spread out village but all it's doing is padding play time. Secondly, the action combat is AMAZING. That being said, having roll set to the adrenaline system is very clunky and obtrusive. Consider a cool down system. Thirdly, as others have pointed out, there's a bug where a chest you're trying to place has collision and can move the player. Finally, the concept is fantastic but the pacing is slow. This is part of the town being too far apart, but overall it feels weird to explore and go through the plot.
Just messing around with the demo, I haven't discovered how to place down the chest or the wardrobe that I purchased. However I learned that it's possible to push the player around with the preview of the furniture, resulting in some pretty amazing speeds. I can also be used to push npc's around. Pretty fun to mess around, but I smell some game breaking stuff in case this stays.
I too found this bug. I called it "dresser dashing." It can be used to super-easily get out of bounds, especially on water (and you can push NPCs out of bounds, too). It's not as easy to get back into bounds once done, though. Also, when you're out of bounds, unsurprisingly, a lot of pathfinding stuff breaks. It can also break simply from the speeds of the thing.
Dresser dashing also allows you to move your character or other characters around in certain cutscenes, which can break them or allow you to get out of bounds in a different way.
Did I mention the softlocks? I don't think I mentioned the softlocks. You can softlock. Anyway, the game is fantastic and I hope you keep developing it because right now the worst thing about it is that I want to keep playing and there isn't anything outside of the demo.
It is very fun, I would love to play more than the demo! Just one little comment: I could see some lines in the screen as I moved through it, not sure how to describe it.
If you replace the files with the updates instead of removing old files and uploading new ones then the tags will remain. You can also simplify the process of uploading new builds by using Butler.
Had an awesome time playing through the demo. I did find a bug though,I played through it twice and in the second playthrough where you were supposed to give the carrot to Truffles,it bugged and no matter how many times i would try to give the carrot,it would show some text saying" I should give this to Truffles" and also Claire kept getting stuck at the doorframe to the Wizards house. That is all for now,really looking forward to the development of this game ^-^
Thank you. :) Interesting bug with Truffles, I'll take a look. To be sure, you need to interact with him to give him the carrot. If you left or right click then you'll try to eat the carrot which causes that bit of text. My guess is you might've been clicking. I need to do better at that though, I felt like it would be an issue.
Claire getting stuck in the door frame is a new issue, lol. It started happening when I optimized the collision checking to only do so if she was near enough to a wall, so that's probably why. I'll be taking a look at that. :) If it happens again before I can fix it, you can actually give her a little nudge. Her separation logic will push her through the door frame.
Thank you! I'm pretty happy with the updates. The next ones are going to be even better I think. Next one adds a map, and the one after that should add new enemies. ♥
Another Bug. I was heading back to the village after the cave and the game crashed. This may be because I ignored the monsters so maybe it overloaded with gameobjects.
When the game kicked you back to the title? Currently having an issue in the release version with this. I think Godot doesn't like how I'm storing certain nodes. Game objects get disabled when they're too far offscreen for performance reasons, so that shouldn't be the issue.
Really Enjoyed the game! When I use the axe I have 3 hands. Also the keys for the game are rather weird and uncomfortable. I really hate E to talk to Villagers and Tab for Inventory. I feel Like it should be the other way around.
I will need to do some more optimization first. Due to the complex enemy ai and other various things I'm doing, the game is a bit resource heavy. I built for 32bit, but it's really laggy.
This is amazing! I super duper love the art style and I like where the story is going so far. I like the combat system too and looking back at the itch.io page I had no idea you can tame those brown plant things! I really like this game so far so here are some changes I would make for it to be better.
Maybe change the font to a pixelated one? Like when you input your character name it uses a pixel font
The character portraits? I know it's just a kickstarter and I do think it's gonna change in the future, plus with your amazing art style I'm sure it'll look spectacular in the future
Like the others said I got lost in the town and often ended up where I was before
I think it would be best if it was open world instead of being forced to go somewhere. The text, "you cant go there right now" sound out of place so maybe just add some barriers that will unlock or can be destroyed later on as you progress
Overall this game is fantastic and I hope that you'll be able to finish and release this game in the future. Best of luck!
Howdy! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) About the taming, it's kind of an approach that I want to take with the design where I don't tell you everything, but let you figure it out on your own. I do need to hint at the sprouts more though. One thing I plan to do is have the sprout in the corner have berries all over its face with berries scattered around the area. We'll see if that helps. :)
Originally I was using a pixelated font but I found it was difficult to read, which is pretty important in a story rich game. If I can find a pixel font that I think is easy to read and I like the aesthetic, then I'll change it. But I decide to go with readability over adhereing to the pixel art style.
The next update will hopefully include a map. :)
It would be a lot of work for me to make the demo open world. That's a lot of areas to craft for something you're only supposed to play for 10-15 minutes. Plus I like the idea of starting linear and then opening up. Sort of like how Oblivian / Skyrim have you be an escaped prisoner, but the world opens up after that. That's my plan.
Me and my little brother had a blast (he played it through twice actually to check out both of the dialogue options with the Lumberjack). Loved the writing and the characters. Everything about them from the art to the dialogue is warm and fuzzy :)
Some nitpicks:
-Very linear, which is entirely understandable for a demo. Presumably, you're gonna open it up a lot more in the final game. If you up the exploration, and keep the mandatory cutscene moments to a minimum, this game will amazing!
-My little brother was disappointed that he couldn't place the pot on top of the dresser, lol :)
-The fire particles look like dust particles at first glance. The skeles in the GIF on this page look like they stink like Pigpen from Charlie Brown
-I'm on a big monitor, and the game window is one size. I understand this is a limitation of the demo. Just putting that out there.
All that aside, can't wait for the full game. The demo was very fun for how small it is- I just wish there was more of it!
PS: Not enough frogs and turtles stealing Viking helmets "For the War Effort" ;)
Howdy! I'm glad to hear you had a good time playing it. :) Placing a pot on top of the dresser is a good idea. I plan to do some surfaces like tables, but didn't even consider dressers. Will look at those as well when I can.
Hahaha, I'm going to be redoing Lafo's character introduction very soon. I was going to have him looking for his helmet and it completely slipped my mind that I could get the frogs in there too. Look for that in an update soon. :D
The demo is pretty cool. Congratulation for "kickstarting" it. I like what you've done, and want to give you some feedback.
Some tutorial would be useful because when you must give your carrot, you don't know how to open your inventory (and my carrot was in it), don't know how to use it with pig. (I found it, but what about 'regular' users ?)
I like the combat AI
I like the sword swinging system
The Music is cute but feels too "academic" (really subjective)
A bit laggy on my laptop (not a gamer one)
Not installable using itch app. (I like to use it because it's easier when you have to install a game (very useful during game jams ))
Thank you for the feedback. :) What do you mean by too academic? As in inexperienced? It's the best I can do with only 3 months of studying music, but will get better in time. :)
I'm totally not an expert in music, but I fell like I "see" the music tracks. The music sounds great and is cute, but perhaps miss some background add (don't know exactly what). And I'm sure it will be better in time. Keep up the good work.
Amazing work! Been following your development for a while now and it was so much fun getting to play through the game. I was surprised at the amount of content in the demo! Really fun play through and only noticed a few small bugs that i'll mention below:
- After finishing the demo, the cursor is no longer visible in the main menu for some reason. But you can still select options, I think it's stuck behind the UI.
- I noticed my skele minion got stuck in the corner of the lady wizards house when u go rescue the pig. He was spazzing out.
- There seems to be a lot of jitter with the player and npcs when you move. Not sure if it's just me but it's quite noticeable.
Howdy! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) 1st bug should be fixed already, 2nd one is going to be a working progress, haha. One of the most difficult issues I've had with the way I'm handling movement in the game is keeping ai from spazzing out from time to time. Unless you mean them getting stuck on a while, which I don't have full path-finding yet but that's planned soon. That should correct that kind of behavior. And the jitter might be fixed? I was doing a custom borderless fullscreen window because I don't like true fullscreen, but ever since I did that people have been mentioning jitter so I put it back, ha. Might be a vsync thing, I'll look into it soon.
No worries! I'm sure the ai stuff will be an on going task of this project but keep up the good work friend! I'm excited to see your game continue to develop and can't wait to play it's finished release!
Hello but before I say my thing I want you to change or I think it cool, you made a game that is amazing even on my toaster! :)
( Take this with a grain of salt its just me opinion )
1.) It was a little confusing that when I want to chose different things from my Inventory I had to scroll down to go right and when I scroll up it goes left and it confused me very much. 2.) My computer is a literal toaster so it was very laggy so It would be cool if you could optimize it a little bit and to put at the settings to make the game a little smaller or more optimize. 3.) This one is just me and my opinion when you are holding a weapon the cursor will change into the square cursor thingy, and if you are not then it will just stay the same. And also when you hold left click the weapon you are holding willjust keep swinging with a cooldown 4.) This game is amazing and nothing else just amazing 5.) the girl version of zote looks like zotes mother so you now maybe change it eehhhhh? 6.) I have no idea how the rolling thing works its like on a bar thingy but I have no clue what to do after the bar is gone.
Howdy! Glad you liked the game. :D I've implemented quite a few optimizations, unfortunately all of the AI and other features I'm using are quite resource intensive. But I'll keep finding ways to optimize it where I can. :)
I'm going to be adding full character customization at some point so it shouldn't be an issue in the future, though I quite like how she looks. However I should note that the player isn't Zoe. Zoe is currently a mystery. :)
Yeah, still trying to figure out how I want to do the dodge. It uses a mana bar. I did this so you couldn't spam it outside of combat, but it is a little awkward. I'll keep workshopping it.
Thank you! It has been a lot of work, haha. I've been working 7 days a week, 6-12 hours a day for the past 4 months. Exhausting work, but I wanted to make something nice for the Kickstarter. Thankfully have gotten a bit of rest lately.
Hey, I followed your Youtube-Channel and I really like your work. It looks promising and really nice. Lots of the negativ points in the other comments seem to be connected to the early version of the game, things like Gamepad or music transition may come later.
The only thing I miss for your Kickstarter campaign is your unique selling point. A Zelda-Like with taming and house-building is kind of nice and your demo looks smooth but its all kind of basic. Of course there will be some interesting mechanics or taming of really big and dangerous beasts or something like that, but its not even implied in the trailer or so.
In my opinion it was a little bit early for kickstarter. Even your planned features on your KS Site are very thin.
Have you ever played 9th Dawn III? It has some simularities (although your grafics are much better) and it has a huge open world as its unique selling point. I don't want to say that open world would be a good point for you, only that 15 bugs is a lot of money for a game that only shows me where it starts but gives almost no clue about where it goes... Maybe you add some ideas about the "late game" to your kickstarter or maybe even some pics or concept art...
I was never going to do a verbose Kickstarter. Even if I did it a year from now it'd look about the same. I'm a simple and straight to the point. Same with the game idea. I wouldn't call it a zelda-like, but small open world RPG with pet taming that focuses on character relationships is all the USP I'm interested in doing as an indie dev. I'm not trying to break ground here, just make a pleasantly simple little game.
I'm not designing with speedrunning in mind exactly. You're the only person I'm aware of to mention the freeze framing, but I'll take a look. And from what I've seen of speed-running, they almost always avoid battles anyhow.
As much as I'd love to let you explore the world more, that's not the point of the demo and would be impossible for me to create in such a short timespan. The purpose of a demo is to show you what the game has planned. If I had those areas built then it wouldn't be a demo but an actual game.
There's going to be quite a variety of weapons in the game. I gave the axe to show that various weapon types are available, and the flame sword was to show that weapon enchantments are also implemented. It's difficult to spread loot out over such a short demo, but won't be so in your face in the full game. I just want to give people a chance to play with whatever toy tickles their fancy.
There's plenty of people speedrunning the game already, I just meant that I personally am not designing with speed running in mind. I will improve things where I can, but I'm more interested game feel over decreasing people's run times.
Zoe isn't a reference to Hollow Knight. I've barely played the game (got stuck on the first encounter with Hornet) and don't even know who Zote is. :) I just picked the name Zoe because it's funny and sounds a bit magical.
Howdy. :) Thank you for the feedback. You mention that a demo should be a small vertical slice but then mention that the demo is too shallow, which in my opinion goes against each other. A vertical slice is a focused representation of the game's core mechanics. To go into depth with these mechanics would be more of a horizontal slice.
The content wasn't included for the sake of it. I included a bunch of weapon types because the game is going to feature a bunch of weapon types of which I only gave a few. I gave them to you early so that you could choose which one you prefered and play around with it before the game ended, which is why I don't give them later on in the demo because that would be frustrating to get a new weapon and get to kill 2 things with it.
The gameplay loop I have planned is that you will interact with the village, advance their story (bit like Stardew Valley in this regard), run off to a dungeon and do fun stuff there, then come back and repeat. I think I've demonstrated that. Granted this comment is from an older version before I could really implement all of that before the deadline, but my gameplay loop is there.
It would be impossible for me to make a demo with an open world. The open world doesn't exist yet. Railroading still exists in open world games. Think saving the Princess in Link to the Past, or escaping your prison through the sewers in Oblivion. Usually done at the start so as not to overwhelm the player.
Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
The bug catching, fishing, and taming will be expanded more yeah. The first two not greatly so but thet will serve as collectables, with unique variants being found throughout the world, they'll be a way to earn money, and you'll probably be able to decorate your house with them. It's meant to be something akin to Animal Crossing in that regard. I can see how it would be seen as adding them in for the sake of it, but their purpose is to demonstrate the more tranquil aspects of the game. I'm merging aRPG gameplay with a sort of Animal Crossing slice of life genre. Taming will see a lot more improvements as pets will have happiness, skills, learn tricks, etc. They're not meant to be a core part of the gameplay though, just a fun little thing if you like having a pet.
I should add some items to the blacksmith though, yes. To me, shop vendors in games aren't really where I get unique items, they're usually nothing special about them so I didn't think about adding much to them, just a way for you to acquire a common item if you missed it in the forest, or somehow lost it. I'll probably make a new weapon or two to add there. Won't take from the forest because they're there to show you front and center that a wide variety of weapon types exists, and you're supposed to choose the one you like best. Not meant as a progression thing.
This isn't a complete vertical slice, to be sure. It's a demo of the features that I think are more essential to the gameplay, being the character interactions, story, and combat. I have a lot more planned that I'll be working on in the next couple of years, but would be beyond the scope of this demo. Some will get added in later, but I don't want to put everything into the demo.
A time mechanic is intended, yes. :) It's already implemented, just disabled for the demo because it isn't necessary, and I still have to work on the lighting system. It'll affect things like crop growth when that system is in place (just want to say that this isn't a farming game, but you'll have the option to grow higher quality foods for the "potion" crafting system), certain monsters will come out at different times of day, etc.
I can understand the linear frustrations. My thinking was that I only wanted the player to play this demo about 10-15 minutes. If I give them large branching paths then they might get lost and give up before reaching the end. This is just a demo, so I'm thinking most people aren't invested enough to get lost and find their way around as much as they would be in a full game. I wouldn't in a demo at least. When I play a demo, I just want a quick summary of what the game is about. I might create some more branches to explore though, but nothing serious.
Highly anticipated and it was great! The town seemed a bit too big, so I agree with other comments that something like a map would be very useful. I still enjoyed this demo a lot, and I can't wait to play the finished version!
There are some obvious problems, I suppose pretty easily fixable:
1. The in-game text sticks together. 2. I keep trying to interact things with right-click, while I should have use "E". It's probably just because I played Minecraft and Terraria, but still, even if it had been documented on the UI, the input method still feels unnecessarily complicated. 3. some sprites flash pixel gaps while camera moving.
And, there's some other problem, which won't be easy, and probably won't be popular opinion... I might be wrong about the reason and the solution, but the feeling don't lie.
I'm going to just straightly say it. I don't feel this demo is fun. (To prevent people thinking I will hate this kind of game no matter what: I love A Link to the past.)
As a guy that has a dream to create games with Godot, I would tear apart every aspect of the project just to see how everything work, because from a tech demo perspective, this is phenomenon. But as a player, I can't even finish the demo in the first run. I skipped a few dialogue, and after that, I'm stopped from exploring any part of the map expect the town, which really has nothing going on. I kind of rage quit, but to wrote this comment, I opened the demo again and finish it, just to appropriately write this.
I'll start with the first NPC encounter. The very annoying thing is, as soon as I take out the skeletons around her, it cuts. It cuts to she and I stand in pre-determined positions, have a not-so-inspiring dialogue, and FORCES ME TO FOLLOW HER. Can't it be like, if I don't, I have a relationship drop or something? The map is already liner, I can only head to the town in the end. Why do I have to be chained onto the NPC I just met? "Pre-determined" is the keyword here. I can't decide if I want to talk to her, I can't decide if I want to go in town, I can't decide if I want to go on my own, but I still have to follow her with my own hand...cutscene would actually be better I think. The only time these can be fun is LiSA that kind of game, not in an Open-World RPG.
Same thing happens later, again and again. I'm constantly put into situations where I have no choice but to perform what the game tells me to do. And the story...is at least not engaging enough for me to justify all of these. The only freedom I have is how to approach combats...but I'm not rewarded for playing creative, so I just keep shooting, playing as safe as possible, which isn't very fun. Sometimes there are interesting looking thing come in sight, but they don't do anything. It might just be worse then having nothing in the first place.
All the game elements doesn't feel cohesive at all. The inventory system, the combat, the town, the story, the characters, feels like they just stack upon one another, to fulfill between whatever the game is truly about. I know every feature is hand-coded, but it doesn't feel like it would make much difference if they're glued templates
The point is, the game feels very strict, yet I don't have the slightest idea what it want to say. You meet NPCs because the game demands you, you build relationship by selecting the first option in the dialogue; You meet events because someone told you to, and isn't even allow to do otherwise: And the "Open word", is just bridges between events, no branching path, no hidden roads, generally offers no enjoyment to explore whatsoever. What's the core experience? Are all these really necessary? I mean I can enjoy any part of it, but not when they are trying to get themselves screen time, and kind of killing each other. When everything is important, nothing is.
I know this is just a demo, but a demo is supposed to represent the overall goal of the project. (I mean, this is probably the tutorial, but still.) If the final product offer the same kind of feedback loop, where I just stump upon pre-determined non-inspiring events one after another, I'll probably quit before any fun really starts to pick up. I'll buy it regardless, but I'd more appreciate a game that has a clearer theme.
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good game there is a funny glitch i kept abusing tho
This was an absolute blast to play! I cannot wait to see what the finished version looks like. It's rare for a game to pull me and hold my attention like this one has :)
wow what a fun game ,i like it
Hi...is there is a clear explanation of how enemy ai was made in this project with codes on your Patreon??? i am really lookin forward learning from you.
When will the full version come out?
Due to the Kickstarter being unsuccessful, this project is postponed while I work on smaller projects, so not for a while.
Why limit the name to 8 characters? That's so frustrating.
I love the combat system, though the sound effects of dialogue need work.
There's a problem with the audio. If you re enter the cave before you go back to town the cave music will still play when you're into the overworld until the next cutscene.
Very epic otherwise.
thank you for make it for linux omg :DD
you can use a chest in your inventory to push yourself making you be able to go out of bounds and go super fast
Been watching your vids and love how much passion you are putting in this project.
To bad i wasnt able to join the kickstarter as it has been cancelled
What youve got so far is fun, looks really promising, and I love the style.
A couple of suggestions, Make the map larger and have a compass rose on it. Sometimes we forget which way East and West are.
I also couldn't figure out how to place the chest you can buy from the wood cutter.
Really love what you have going on here. I think the combat and characters are nice, but I would've loved if there was controller support that was also remappable. I also think that the mc either looks too generic and/or doesn't fit in with the look of the townies. Like, the mc is too short and wide when you stand beside any of the other npcs.
So, I recently found your devlogs and wanted to give some feedback after playing. Firstly, everything on the map is too far spread out. Walking through the town is boring and unfun. I know it makes sense for it to be a small spread out village but all it's doing is padding play time. Secondly, the action combat is AMAZING. That being said, having roll set to the adrenaline system is very clunky and obtrusive. Consider a cool down system. Thirdly, as others have pointed out, there's a bug where a chest you're trying to place has collision and can move the player. Finally, the concept is fantastic but the pacing is slow. This is part of the town being too far apart, but overall it feels weird to explore and go through the plot.
Just messing around with the demo, I haven't discovered how to place down the chest or the wardrobe that I purchased.
However I learned that it's possible to push the player around with the preview of the furniture, resulting in some pretty amazing speeds.
I can also be used to push npc's around. Pretty fun to mess around, but I smell some game breaking stuff in case this stays.
I too found this bug. I called it "dresser dashing." It can be used to super-easily get out of bounds, especially on water (and you can push NPCs out of bounds, too). It's not as easy to get back into bounds once done, though. Also, when you're out of bounds, unsurprisingly, a lot of pathfinding stuff breaks. It can also break simply from the speeds of the thing.
Dresser dashing also allows you to move your character or other characters around in certain cutscenes, which can break them or allow you to get out of bounds in a different way.
Witch of the lake, what is your wisdom?
Did I mention the softlocks? I don't think I mentioned the softlocks. You can softlock. Anyway, the game is fantastic and I hope you keep developing it because right now the worst thing about it is that I want to keep playing and there isn't anything outside of the demo.
It is very fun, I would love to play more than the demo! Just one little comment: I could see some lines in the screen as I moved through it, not sure how to describe it.
Awesome Game, Inspiring Game Dev! its a must play, one can tell all the love and hard work put into it! <3
Thank you! Indeed, this is the greatest passion project I've ever had. My heart and soul is in this. ♥
Wait, I haven’t left a comment here? Awesome game, great dev, you can feel the passion put into this project, awesome
Thank you!
really great game I love the the art just wondering what happened to the devlogs?
I just made one two days ago. :) I put them on hold temporarily to focus on this.
oh ok yeah I saw the one you uploaded two days ago i really love please keep making more great devlogs
Looks great!
Please tag the downloads for their respective platforms so they can be installed using the Itch app.
Looking forward to seeing this game progress further!
Fixed, thank you! I'll have to remember to do this for every update, haha.
If you replace the files with the updates instead of removing old files and uploading new ones then the tags will remain. You can also simplify the process of uploading new builds by using Butler.
:D
This game is really good
Thank you!
Had an awesome time playing through the demo.
I did find a bug though,I played through it twice and in the second playthrough where you were supposed to give the carrot to Truffles,it bugged and no matter how many times i would try to give the carrot,it would show some text saying" I should give this to Truffles" and also Claire kept getting stuck at the doorframe to the Wizards house.
That is all for now,really looking forward to the development of this game ^-^
Thank you. :) Interesting bug with Truffles, I'll take a look. To be sure, you need to interact with him to give him the carrot. If you left or right click then you'll try to eat the carrot which causes that bit of text. My guess is you might've been clicking. I need to do better at that though, I felt like it would be an issue.
Claire getting stuck in the door frame is a new issue, lol. It started happening when I optimized the collision checking to only do so if she was near enough to a wall, so that's probably why. I'll be taking a look at that. :) If it happens again before I can fix it, you can actually give her a little nudge. Her separation logic will push her through the door frame.
Such a good demo, and it keeps getting better with every update. Happy to be part of the playtesting team and this community :D
Thank you! I'm pretty happy with the updates. The next ones are going to be even better I think. Next one adds a map, and the one after that should add new enemies. ♥
Another Bug. I was heading back to the village after the cave and the game crashed. This may be because I ignored the monsters so maybe it overloaded with gameobjects.
When the game kicked you back to the title? Currently having an issue in the release version with this. I think Godot doesn't like how I'm storing certain nodes. Game objects get disabled when they're too far offscreen for performance reasons, so that shouldn't be the issue.
I'm looking into the issue though. :)
Really Enjoyed the game! When I use the axe I have 3 hands. Also the keys for the game are rather weird and uncomfortable. I really hate E to talk to Villagers and Tab for Inventory. I feel Like it should be the other way around.
Thank you! There are keybind settings in options so you can change this. :)
For win 32 please?
I will need to do some more optimization first. Due to the complex enemy ai and other various things I'm doing, the game is a bit resource heavy. I built for 32bit, but it's really laggy.
This is amazing! I super duper love the art style and I like where the story is going so far. I like the combat system too and looking back at the itch.io page I had no idea you can tame those brown plant things! I really like this game so far so here are some changes I would make for it to be better.
Overall this game is fantastic and I hope that you'll be able to finish and release this game in the future. Best of luck!
Howdy! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) About the taming, it's kind of an approach that I want to take with the design where I don't tell you everything, but let you figure it out on your own. I do need to hint at the sprouts more though. One thing I plan to do is have the sprout in the corner have berries all over its face with berries scattered around the area. We'll see if that helps. :)
Originally I was using a pixelated font but I found it was difficult to read, which is pretty important in a story rich game. If I can find a pixel font that I think is easy to read and I like the aesthetic, then I'll change it. But I decide to go with readability over adhereing to the pixel art style.
The next update will hopefully include a map. :)
It would be a lot of work for me to make the demo open world. That's a lot of areas to craft for something you're only supposed to play for 10-15 minutes. Plus I like the idea of starting linear and then opening up. Sort of like how Oblivian / Skyrim have you be an escaped prisoner, but the world opens up after that. That's my plan.
Thank you for playing!
Me and my little brother had a blast (he played it through twice actually to check out both of the dialogue options with the Lumberjack). Loved the writing and the characters. Everything about them from the art to the dialogue is warm and fuzzy :)
Some nitpicks:
-Very linear, which is entirely understandable for a demo. Presumably, you're gonna open it up a lot more in the final game. If you up the exploration, and keep the mandatory cutscene moments to a minimum, this game will amazing!
-My little brother was disappointed that he couldn't place the pot on top of the dresser, lol :)
-The fire particles look like dust particles at first glance. The skeles in the GIF on this page look like they stink like Pigpen from Charlie Brown
-I'm on a big monitor, and the game window is one size. I understand this is a limitation of the demo. Just putting that out there.
All that aside, can't wait for the full game. The demo was very fun for how small it is- I just wish there was more of it!
PS: Not enough frogs and turtles stealing Viking helmets "For the War Effort" ;)
Howdy! I'm glad to hear you had a good time playing it. :) Placing a pot on top of the dresser is a good idea. I plan to do some surfaces like tables, but didn't even consider dressers. Will look at those as well when I can.
Hahaha, I'm going to be redoing Lafo's character introduction very soon. I was going to have him looking for his helmet and it completely slipped my mind that I could get the frogs in there too. Look for that in an update soon. :D
The demo is pretty cool. Congratulation for "kickstarting" it.
I like what you've done, and want to give you some feedback.
That's a Great work.
I Hope you the best your game !
Thank you for the feedback. :) What do you mean by too academic? As in inexperienced? It's the best I can do with only 3 months of studying music, but will get better in time. :)
I'm totally not an expert in music, but I fell like I "see" the music tracks. The music sounds great and is cute, but perhaps miss some background add (don't know exactly what). And I'm sure it will be better in time. Keep up the good work.
Amazing work! Been following your development for a while now and it was so much fun getting to play through the game. I was surprised at the amount of content in the demo! Really fun play through and only noticed a few small bugs that i'll mention below:
- After finishing the demo, the cursor is no longer visible in the main menu for some reason. But you can still select options, I think it's stuck behind the UI.
- I noticed my skele minion got stuck in the corner of the lady wizards house when u go rescue the pig. He was spazzing out.
- There seems to be a lot of jitter with the player and npcs when you move. Not sure if it's just me but it's quite noticeable.
Howdy! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) 1st bug should be fixed already, 2nd one is going to be a working progress, haha. One of the most difficult issues I've had with the way I'm handling movement in the game is keeping ai from spazzing out from time to time. Unless you mean them getting stuck on a while, which I don't have full path-finding yet but that's planned soon. That should correct that kind of behavior. And the jitter might be fixed? I was doing a custom borderless fullscreen window because I don't like true fullscreen, but ever since I did that people have been mentioning jitter so I put it back, ha. Might be a vsync thing, I'll look into it soon.
No worries! I'm sure the ai stuff will be an on going task of this project but keep up the good work friend! I'm excited to see your game continue to develop and can't wait to play it's finished release!
Can you upload a 32bit version for windows
Hello but before I say my thing I want you to change or I think it cool, you made a game that is amazing even on my toaster! :)
( Take this with a grain of salt its just me opinion )
1.) It was a little confusing that when I want to chose different things from my Inventory I had to scroll down to go right and when I scroll up it goes left and it confused me very much.
2.) My computer is a literal toaster so it was very laggy so It would be cool if you could optimize it a little bit and to put at the settings to make the game a little smaller or more optimize.
3.) This one is just me and my opinion when you are holding a weapon the cursor will change into the square cursor thingy, and if you are not then it will just stay the same. And also when you hold left click the weapon you are holding willjust keep swinging with a cooldown
4.) This game is amazing and nothing else just amazing
5.) the girl version of zote looks like zotes mother so you now maybe change it eehhhhh?
6.) I have no idea how the rolling thing works its like on a bar thingy but I have no clue what to do after the bar is gone.
7.) the game is frickin amazing. :)
Howdy! Glad you liked the game. :D I've implemented quite a few optimizations, unfortunately all of the AI and other features I'm using are quite resource intensive. But I'll keep finding ways to optimize it where I can. :)
I'm going to be adding full character customization at some point so it shouldn't be an issue in the future, though I quite like how she looks. However I should note that the player isn't Zoe. Zoe is currently a mystery. :)
Yeah, still trying to figure out how I want to do the dodge. It uses a mana bar. I did this so you couldn't spam it outside of combat, but it is a little awkward. I'll keep workshopping it.
Thank you for playing!
Wait, the character isn't Zoe??!! now I am even more hyped for the game to be finished. :)
Played the game and thought it was terrific! Not sure how you did all of this by yourself, but, please keep up the good work and finish it out!!
Thank you! It has been a lot of work, haha. I've been working 7 days a week, 6-12 hours a day for the past 4 months. Exhausting work, but I wanted to make something nice for the Kickstarter. Thankfully have gotten a bit of rest lately.
Hey, I followed your Youtube-Channel and I really like your work. It looks promising and really nice. Lots of the negativ points in the other comments seem to be connected to the early version of the game, things like Gamepad or music transition may come later.
The only thing I miss for your Kickstarter campaign is your unique selling point. A Zelda-Like with taming and house-building is kind of nice and your demo looks smooth but its all kind of basic. Of course there will be some interesting mechanics or taming of really big and dangerous beasts or something like that, but its not even implied in the trailer or so.
In my opinion it was a little bit early for kickstarter. Even your planned features on your KS Site are very thin.
Have you ever played 9th Dawn III? It has some simularities (although your grafics are much better) and it has a huge open world as its unique selling point. I don't want to say that open world would be a good point for you, only that 15 bugs is a lot of money for a game that only shows me where it starts but gives almost no clue about where it goes... Maybe you add some ideas about the "late game" to your kickstarter or maybe even some pics or concept art...
I was never going to do a verbose Kickstarter. Even if I did it a year from now it'd look about the same. I'm a simple and straight to the point. Same with the game idea. I wouldn't call it a zelda-like, but small open world RPG with pet taming that focuses on character relationships is all the USP I'm interested in doing as an indie dev. I'm not trying to break ground here, just make a pleasantly simple little game.
wrong whitch lol
I'm not designing with speedrunning in mind exactly. You're the only person I'm aware of to mention the freeze framing, but I'll take a look. And from what I've seen of speed-running, they almost always avoid battles anyhow.
As much as I'd love to let you explore the world more, that's not the point of the demo and would be impossible for me to create in such a short timespan. The purpose of a demo is to show you what the game has planned. If I had those areas built then it wouldn't be a demo but an actual game.
Thanks for playing. :)
There's going to be quite a variety of weapons in the game. I gave the axe to show that various weapon types are available, and the flame sword was to show that weapon enchantments are also implemented. It's difficult to spread loot out over such a short demo, but won't be so in your face in the full game. I just want to give people a chance to play with whatever toy tickles their fancy.
There's plenty of people speedrunning the game already, I just meant that I personally am not designing with speed running in mind. I will improve things where I can, but I'm more interested game feel over decreasing people's run times.
Zoe isn't a reference to Hollow Knight. I've barely played the game (got stuck on the first encounter with Hornet) and don't even know who Zote is. :) I just picked the name Zoe because it's funny and sounds a bit magical.
Howdy. :) Thank you for the feedback. You mention that a demo should be a small vertical slice but then mention that the demo is too shallow, which in my opinion goes against each other. A vertical slice is a focused representation of the game's core mechanics. To go into depth with these mechanics would be more of a horizontal slice.
The content wasn't included for the sake of it. I included a bunch of weapon types because the game is going to feature a bunch of weapon types of which I only gave a few. I gave them to you early so that you could choose which one you prefered and play around with it before the game ended, which is why I don't give them later on in the demo because that would be frustrating to get a new weapon and get to kill 2 things with it.
The gameplay loop I have planned is that you will interact with the village, advance their story (bit like Stardew Valley in this regard), run off to a dungeon and do fun stuff there, then come back and repeat. I think I've demonstrated that. Granted this comment is from an older version before I could really implement all of that before the deadline, but my gameplay loop is there.
It would be impossible for me to make a demo with an open world. The open world doesn't exist yet. Railroading still exists in open world games. Think saving the Princess in Link to the Past, or escaping your prison through the sewers in Oblivion. Usually done at the start so as not to overwhelm the player.
Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
Interesting feedback, thank you. :)
The bug catching, fishing, and taming will be expanded more yeah. The first two not greatly so but thet will serve as collectables, with unique variants being found throughout the world, they'll be a way to earn money, and you'll probably be able to decorate your house with them. It's meant to be something akin to Animal Crossing in that regard. I can see how it would be seen as adding them in for the sake of it, but their purpose is to demonstrate the more tranquil aspects of the game. I'm merging aRPG gameplay with a sort of Animal Crossing slice of life genre. Taming will see a lot more improvements as pets will have happiness, skills, learn tricks, etc. They're not meant to be a core part of the gameplay though, just a fun little thing if you like having a pet.
I should add some items to the blacksmith though, yes. To me, shop vendors in games aren't really where I get unique items, they're usually nothing special about them so I didn't think about adding much to them, just a way for you to acquire a common item if you missed it in the forest, or somehow lost it. I'll probably make a new weapon or two to add there. Won't take from the forest because they're there to show you front and center that a wide variety of weapon types exists, and you're supposed to choose the one you like best. Not meant as a progression thing.
This isn't a complete vertical slice, to be sure. It's a demo of the features that I think are more essential to the gameplay, being the character interactions, story, and combat. I have a lot more planned that I'll be working on in the next couple of years, but would be beyond the scope of this demo. Some will get added in later, but I don't want to put everything into the demo.
A time mechanic is intended, yes. :) It's already implemented, just disabled for the demo because it isn't necessary, and I still have to work on the lighting system. It'll affect things like crop growth when that system is in place (just want to say that this isn't a farming game, but you'll have the option to grow higher quality foods for the "potion" crafting system), certain monsters will come out at different times of day, etc.
I can understand the linear frustrations. My thinking was that I only wanted the player to play this demo about 10-15 minutes. If I give them large branching paths then they might get lost and give up before reaching the end. This is just a demo, so I'm thinking most people aren't invested enough to get lost and find their way around as much as they would be in a full game. I wouldn't in a demo at least. When I play a demo, I just want a quick summary of what the game is about. I might create some more branches to explore though, but nothing serious.
Highly anticipated and it was great! The town seemed a bit too big, so I agree with other comments that something like a map would be very useful. I still enjoyed this demo a lot, and I can't wait to play the finished version!
Howdy, Ludos! Thanks for playing. :) A map is planned, probably in the next update.
There are some obvious problems, I suppose pretty easily fixable:
1. The in-game text sticks together.
2. I keep trying to interact things with right-click, while I should have use "E".
It's probably just because I played Minecraft and Terraria, but still, even if it had been documented on the UI, the input method still feels unnecessarily complicated.
3. some sprites flash pixel gaps while camera moving.
And, there's some other problem, which won't be easy, and probably won't be popular opinion...
I might be wrong about the reason and the solution, but the feeling don't lie.
I'm going to just straightly say it. I don't feel this demo is fun.
(To prevent people thinking I will hate this kind of game no matter what: I love A Link to the past.)
As a guy that has a dream to create games with Godot, I would tear apart every aspect of the project just to see how everything work, because from a tech demo perspective, this is phenomenon.
But as a player, I can't even finish the demo in the first run.
I skipped a few dialogue, and after that, I'm stopped from exploring any part of the map expect the town, which really has nothing going on.
I kind of rage quit, but to wrote this comment, I opened the demo again and finish it, just to appropriately write this.
I'll start with the first NPC encounter.
The very annoying thing is, as soon as I take out the skeletons around her, it cuts.
It cuts to she and I stand in pre-determined positions, have a not-so-inspiring dialogue, and FORCES ME TO FOLLOW HER.
Can't it be like, if I don't, I have a relationship drop or something?
The map is already liner, I can only head to the town in the end. Why do I have to be chained onto the NPC I just met?
"Pre-determined" is the keyword here. I can't decide if I want to talk to her, I can't decide if I want to go in town, I can't decide if I want to go on my own, but I still have to follow her with my own hand...cutscene would actually be better I think. The only time these can be fun is LiSA that kind of game, not in an Open-World RPG.
Same thing happens later, again and again. I'm constantly put into situations where I have no choice but to perform what the game tells me to do. And the story...is at least not engaging enough for me to justify all of these.
The only freedom I have is how to approach combats...but I'm not rewarded for playing creative, so I just keep shooting, playing as safe as possible, which isn't very fun.
Sometimes there are interesting looking thing come in sight, but they don't do anything. It might just be worse then having nothing in the first place.
All the game elements doesn't feel cohesive at all.
The inventory system, the combat, the town, the story, the characters, feels like they just stack upon one another, to fulfill between whatever the game is truly about.
I know every feature is hand-coded, but it doesn't feel like it would make much difference if they're glued templates
The point is, the game feels very strict, yet I don't have the slightest idea what it want to say.
You meet NPCs because the game demands you, you build relationship by selecting the first option in the dialogue;
You meet events because someone told you to, and isn't even allow to do otherwise:
And the "Open word", is just bridges between events, no branching path, no hidden roads, generally offers no enjoyment to explore whatsoever.
What's the core experience? Are all these really necessary?
I mean I can enjoy any part of it, but not when they are trying to get themselves screen time, and kind of killing each other.
When everything is important, nothing is.
I know this is just a demo, but a demo is supposed to represent the overall goal of the project. (I mean, this is probably the tutorial, but still.)
If the final product offer the same kind of feedback loop, where I just stump upon pre-determined non-inspiring events one after another, I'll probably quit before any fun really starts to pick up.
I'll buy it regardless, but I'd more appreciate a game that has a clearer theme.