Comments - xTechnoCatx

Hello,

I did a Let's Play of the demo build and have some feedback. I understand this is in development and things may change as dev progresses.

The art and style and colors are beautiful. The design of the character and her concept art is great. The way she has to rely on the dragon's help to progress is a wonderful idea creating companionship. The spells and all of the cool looking locked ones are interesting and I suspect they will be fun to be use. I love all of this, and the bestiary and music. But there are a few issues I had with the gameplay mechanics:

1. It is difficult to control Heli when trying to make jumps to precise locations in the 3D space. Frustrating movement is a big problem a lot of 3D platformers face.

2. There is no way to control the camera. This often leads to not being able to see Heli, observe the surroundings, or see where to go next. The perspective is often jarring when trying to do platforming or hit enemies.

3. The animation/particle effects for the first lightning ability is weak and sometimes hard to see when it happens.

4. The combat, in its current state, isn't very fun and is made artificially difficult by the issues with the camera/controls. I am certain that when combat sounds are implemented the combat will feel a lot better, but the mechanics are still concerning. Additionally, enemies need a good solid "hit" animation to tell the player that they successfully hit and did damage to the enemy. It is weirdly frustrating to be constrained to a small space and be surrounded by snakes, trying to run around and swap spells and actually hit anything with the spells without being able to control where the camera is looking. Maybe some kind of targeting system would help? Heli could lock onto an enemy and when we click to use her spell it will prioritize the target, not the mouse location. You guys have a cool wall spell for tactical use, but the chaos I just mentioned makes it difficult to apply tactics in combat.

Game development is a huge undertaking and I know it is A LOT of hard work. You guys have created a wonderful and magical world that I'd like to see more of.

Hi RuneHeads. I played the demo and think I may have completely missed how weapon stances work? Are they passive based on the weapon you are using or do you have to actively switch between stances with player input? I may have to play again if stances are in the demo and I missed them.

In any case, this is a lovely world and I find Aether to be a great character. Beautiful art, gloomy atmosphere, challenging but manageable enemies, and overall good combat. I had some gripes with the hammer and how difficult it was to use, but the sword was great. I'm not a huge fan of Dark Souls style games so this isn't exactly within the genre I enjoy most - but the emotional attachment to Aether and having a companion really changes the feel of it in a positive way.

Here is a Let's Play I did of the demo: Youtu.be

Congrats on release day! For a small independent team you guys have really done wonders!

Hey Second Step,

I did a Let's Play

You guys have put so much personality into this game! The music is amazing, the bosses I fought and saw in the trailer are so interesting, and the gameplay is brutal. I was in way over my head against Lust, but it was tons of fun getting decimated while jamming to the music. The controls felt a little awkward at times in terms of responsiveness - but I'm wondering if that was just my own lack of timing and skill rather than an issue with the game itself.

Good luck with your development and Kickstarter!

Also, the Devil is fittingly horrific.

I am looking forward to trying the week 19 build soon and will check back for the next available build. Looks like cool things are coming.

Keep up the awesome work!

Part 2: Youtu.be

I dropped you a sub so I won't miss it! You have nice compilations.

Wow, I'm glad you liked it as much as you did. Please feel free to share it anywhere you would like to, that would mean the world to me.

I look forward to playing more of this and am hoping to explore more tomorrow. There are planets I haven't seen yet and I haven't conquered a thing!

Hey guys, awesome work! I did a Let's Play with another one (or two?) sessions on the way. This game is so promising and surprisingly addicting. I enjoy the different layers of gameplay you have going on with the tactical space map, space fighter combat, and on the ground shooter-RPG style gameplay. It does so much, but doesn't feel disconnected. Although I'd love to see the 3D-space portion expanded to include more exploration and mining/salvaging. Looking at all of the unfinished components gives me so much to look forward to with future updates and release. Definitely needs some polish, and the combat can be a bit wearisome, but I love it. Best of luck with your Kickstarter and I seriously commend the dev team for having so much content and personality packed into an alpha.

Hello devs! I want to start by saying that this is a fun and somewhat addicting game, even in its early stages of development! Great work. I love the style and music you've developed for it so far and hope to see more updates. I did a Let's Play video of it, if you want to see what an average player's experience is like: Youtu.be -- Please let me know if you do not want this video on YouTube.

I encountered a few minor "bugs" in the visuals, which is completely understandable at this point and I am sure you will fix them eventually. Here is a list of bugs and feedback.

BUGS
1. Sometimes after respawning I would see a dialogue box in the bottom left corner with the word "Sell?" visible. Either there is a shop keeper/Quartermaster I never found in that direction or the dialogue was showing up when it shouldn't be. Appears at 17:20 in the video.

2. During respawning there was a dialogue for "Extended Magazine" in green, and the Old Revolver text is replaced with "Default Gun" while the gun image is different from the Old Revolvers. This can be seen at 17:09 in the video and other places where I respawn.

3. Breaking the crates with the decorative covering on top will leave the decorative covering floating where the crate once was. This can be found around 18:50.

4. A minor discrepancy, but you call the Q ability "Bombs" in the text at spawn and "Shout" in the tips at the bottom of the screen. Also in the text at spawn you say "Shot" which would make more sense grammatically as "Shoot"

5. During one play through I reached Level 2, pressed V to Level Up, and "Shoot Speed" upgrade was missing. I wasn't recording at the time.

FEEDBACK
1. I would personally like to have a way to restore lost hearts. Maybe a low spawning health refill (worth 1/2 heart each?) or a Quartermaster item that I can purchase with Beat Coins to refill some or all health. I don't think I found the Quartermaster in my gameplay, so maybe this is already implemented. More hardcore players may not like this idea. I am guessing the way you regain health at this point is by clearing the entire stage? EDIT: I played more and see this is implemented.

2. I notice you do have an indicator when the player is hit, but sometimes I wouldn't even notice I took damage because I was so focused on the enemies themselves and not my character. I suggest a more noticeable indicator for damage taken to let the player know.

3. This may already be implemented. When out of ammo, enemies slain by melee could have a higher chance of dropping ammo than usual.

Again, I love the animations and style you have. The way the farmer moves is so much fun. The boss Skeleton has so much personality, it's great. And I understand if not all feedback aligns with your vision for the game.

Thanks,
TechnoCat

Hello. I tried Impossibru and I think you have a solid start towards a crafting-survival game.

I did find a bug. You can open the crafting menu with TAB or O key. If you close the crafting menu with O key, you won't be able to chop trees or collect stone. But if you close it with TAB (regardless of which key you opened it with) it will allow you to collect resources. Also, you can't collect resources with the crafting menu open. If this is intended, I would recommend dealing with this in a way that indicates to the player the menu is open and preventing harvesting.

You can see the bug in action in a Let's Play I did for Impossibru.

Good luck with your game and I hope to see more updates as it comes along!

Due to the cartoony graphics, this game doesn't LOOK like it would take much processing and graphical power. However, because you have integrated graphics and fairly light specs I would suspect this is the problem. You could try reinstalling the game and restarting your laptop, just to be sure it wasn't a fluke. But the game probably requires a better setup to play properly (which may have to do with optimization of the game itself).

When I have the time I will see how it runs on my laptop.

**I am not a developer of this game.