This is the latest revision of our public alpha, we've fixed almost all of the reported bugs and made a handful of game design changes.
As always, this is an alpha; we're experimenting with a lot of things. We look forward to your feedback!
When the game crashes now, it produces more verbose debug output in a log file AS WELL AS replay files (usually) in the log folder of the game's directory. If you could email these files to us after such a crash, it would be greatly appreciated.
I think we'll do that more with bigger updates, this is kind of small and mostly bug fixes. There's a new way of lvling that's the biggest change, and one more item attribute.
If a shop keeper is killed by spikes, as soon as you complete a level he comes back to life and chases you into the next floor. the shop keeper on the second floor tries to kill you instantly.
Hey amazing amazing game, but in this alpha_5 version I'm not able to select new affinities as I used to, and I've tried every button on my keyboard to get it.
I played a bit, good game, I like. I like the colour palette.
Things I'd make/improve:
1) When character is facing left (or right) tapping the opposite direction key should turn the character on the spot, not make him move a bit toward the new direction automatically.
2) Holding the "down" key should make the character move slower (kind of sneak), so you can deal with ledges better.
3) Holding the "down" key when attacking should make the character attack diagonally down and holding the "up" key should make him attack diagonally upward.
4) When on ladder being on the same level as a hallway you should be able to just move to the side by the left/right keys to get off the ladder. Getting off ladders by jumping is kind of clumsy.
5) When you keep hitting the attack key, the character is kind of stuck in the attack animation, unable to turn around to defend the other direction. Combat should be more responsive, so you can attack and change looking direction in between.
6) Allow to bind controls to the mouse as well. While you don't use the mouse in the game (aside the menus), I find it is more comfortable to have my mouse-hand laying on the mouse than on the keyboard and use the mouse buttons for attack and other stuff (change weapons with wheel, LMB for melee, RMB for ranged, skill on MMB). Don't forget about the side buttons.
Some more input:
7) Allow to get down the movable blocks by crouching and jumping, so you can collect the gold and move past the spikes: Oi57.tinypic.com
8) Make enemies hurt (even if their attack was meant for me, bit hit one of them) and eventually attack/fight eachother. I saw the dragon smashing the orange hooded guys and they didn't care. If they can provoke, annoy and therefore fight each other, than it will give them more life, otherwise they look like they are just there for me.
9) The shop owner should throw bombs at enemies that come closer to his shop to protect his goods. You should then be sure to not get in the line of fire.
You mean the shop keeper throwing bombs? They'd not do it when the customer is in the crowed though.
Speaking of which, I fought the dragon today and accidentally hit the shop keeper. He run away and the next level he and his buddy both attacked me at start like mad. No idea how I managed to defeat them both, but I salvaged their shop, mwuahah. Pretty nice touch.
I wonder, what if there's a way to negotiate with ****** off shop keepers? When they come near, hold down the crouch button and they'll halt their attack and will demand compensation for the offense. You then go to the inventory menu and choose an item to give them. If they're not satisfied, than they will begin to attack immediately.
Also, what if dead corpses may act like crates, you can search them for possessions by using the up key, just like with crates? Sometimes there's something, often not.
The skeletons lying around sometimes could also have the rare opportunity to have some item still on them.
Regarding the floor mouth trap creature. If provoked by attack (one arrow, for instance, that doesn't kill) it might get aggressive and begin to attack everything that passes by, even one of my enemies. Would be interesting. Or maybe if you wake it up (it attacks you once), than it may attack other creatures, too.
I generally like if enemies tend to attack other enemies, like in Unreal, or Quake, where you can shoot a creature from distance, for instance, and they'll think it was someone else standing near them and they'll begin a dispute with them, lol.
Stuff like this gives some life to the creatures and gives the player the feel that the hostiles aren't there solely for the purpose of being an obstacle to you.
Enjoying this a lot, clocked about two and a half hours in alpha_4. With alpha_5, really appreciate the reduced health on some of the enemies, particularly the trap-mouths, excited about the experience bar filling up, but...
The XP bar just fills and disappears. No points for upgrades ever seem to be awarded, which is troublesome to say the least.
I've also observed that the wall-crawling snake/worm enemies are frequently but not always dying with no particle shower or corpse. They just vanish.
Maybe exiting level with the orange door could be done a bit "safer". Often it happened that I fought a bunch of enemies there and accidentally exited in the chaos.
Maybe an "Up" double-tap?
I've had this happen too, especially when using a controller with joy2key. The "up" input can get triggered easily just when moving horizontally. A button press to enter doors would be nice, similar to how Spelunky handles it.
Oook, first of all - the game is awesome!
I know it is Alpha, BUT when tried alpha ver 5 I have no starting skillpoint, but when I try ver 4 I have it. Is this intentional change? In addition, at version 4 I have no XP bar :( BUT at version 5 the bar is there, it is filling OK BUT I cant lvlup(just reaches max xp and that is it) Any idea what part of those stuff regarding experience I mentioned are intentional?
Yes all these changes are intentional. You level up in this version by filling the bar AND finishing the level you're on. We're experimenting with these systems.
Hey, guys. Don't know if this is a glitch or a one time thing, but I've noticed that, when I equip an item with unbounded sight, enemies will notice me through floors or walls. It seriously negates the usefulness of that enchantment.
EDIT: Seems to have been fixed in Alpha 5. Sorry!
Otherwise, I'm really loving this game. I'm very excited to see more!
I don't know if anyone else has said anything about this but if you attack the shop keeper on one level then on the next he will spawn at the entrance and attack you and then when you walk near the shop on that level the shop keeper will go after you even if you didn't do anything, this results in 2 shop keepers attacking you for no reason. i don't know if this is intentional.
It's intentional. You can assume all the shopkeepers in the game have a way of instantly communicating with all other shopkeepers if that makes it more reasonable. More mechanics with NPC interaction are planned for the future.
First off, I really enjoy this game and I think it is very neat in many aspects, so kudos for that.
Secondly, I'd like to touch on one combat-related issue I have : I really like it, but it can sometimes feel a bit unnatural - the common strategy for taking out the normal hooded mobs being stabbing, turning backwards, then going back to stab again...doesn't exactly feel realistic or badass. Maybe making default "knockback" stronger or increasing the length of time enemies get stunned by a little bit could solve this issue? I know it seems like you could then kill those mobs with much greater ease that way, but there are many times when there are multiple of those and at those times it should still be fun and challenging. Actually I think killing single mobs that easily would not be fun at all, so scratch that. I don't know, man, I'm not a developer! I'm just saying that these kind of things can make a game a bit silly.
Lastly, I'd really like it if you guys told us some things about what more you have planned for this game!
Hello, I came across this game by accident and I have been more than happily dying left and right. It seems to me that I do not quite understand the leveling process however. I see the top bar progress, but when it becomes full, it just stays full and no points are granted. Is there a glitch or are the points actually being held somewhere? I played an earlier version and it worked just fine.
Hey Guys I am Really Loving this game. I just started a twitch and youtube and have been playing I hope that cool with you. I cant wait for there to be more then 3 bosses. I also notice no matter how far you get you only receive one Fairy. Is this correct?
I am going to post a link to my youtube video of the play through for anyone to watch. If you do not approve of this here I will remove it.
The game crash when I play windowed, fullscreen works perfectly :^)
When the game crashes now, it produces more verbose debug output in a log file AS WELL AS replay files (usually) in the log folder of the game's directory. If you could email these files to us after such a crash, it would be greatly appreciated.
Would you post a changelog?
I think we'll do that more with bigger updates, this is kind of small and mostly bug fixes. There's a new way of lvling that's the biggest change, and one more item attribute.
If a shop keeper is killed by spikes, as soon as you complete a level he comes back to life and chases you into the next floor. the shop keeper on the second floor tries to kill you instantly.
yep not sure what's going on there, but we'll fix it soon.
Hey amazing amazing game, but in this alpha_5 version I'm not able to select new affinities as I used to, and I've tried every button on my keyboard to get it.
Still amazing game!
we took out the initial affinity point, you'll have to earn it - look towards the top of the screen ; )
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Would you mind if I put this up on my youtube channel for a quick 5-10 minute video? :) Looks really interesting!
go for it tiny man!
can u link ur chanle? id like to support supporters of VAGANTE!
I played a bit, good game, I like. I like the colour palette.
Things I'd make/improve:
1) When character is facing left (or right) tapping the opposite direction key should turn the character on the spot, not make him move a bit toward the new direction automatically.
2) Holding the "down" key should make the character move slower (kind of sneak), so you can deal with ledges better.
3) Holding the "down" key when attacking should make the character attack diagonally down and holding the "up" key should make him attack diagonally upward.
4) When on ladder being on the same level as a hallway you should be able to just move to the side by the left/right keys to get off the ladder. Getting off ladders by jumping is kind of clumsy.
5) When you keep hitting the attack key, the character is kind of stuck in the attack animation, unable to turn around to defend the other direction. Combat should be more responsive, so you can attack and change looking direction in between.
6) Allow to bind controls to the mouse as well. While you don't use the mouse in the game (aside the menus), I find it is more comfortable to have my mouse-hand laying on the mouse than on the keyboard and use the mouse buttons for attack and other stuff (change weapons with wheel, LMB for melee, RMB for ranged, skill on MMB). Don't forget about the side buttons.
Some more input:
7) Allow to get down the movable blocks by crouching and jumping, so you can collect the gold and move past the spikes:
Oi57.tinypic.com
8) Make enemies hurt (even if their attack was meant for me, bit hit one of them) and eventually attack/fight eachother. I saw the dragon smashing the orange hooded guys and they didn't care. If they can provoke, annoy and therefore fight each other, than it will give them more life, otherwise they look like they are just there for me.
9) The shop owner should throw bombs at enemies that come closer to his shop to protect his goods. You should then be sure to not get in the line of fire.
10) Allow to cancel a bow shot/draw by hitting another key while drawn.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too dangerous man! Hahahah... but interesting...
You mean the shop keeper throwing bombs? They'd not do it when the customer is in the crowed though.
Speaking of which, I fought the dragon today and accidentally hit the shop keeper. He run away and the next level he and his buddy both attacked me at start like mad. No idea how I managed to defeat them both, but I salvaged their shop, mwuahah. Pretty nice touch.
I wonder, what if there's a way to negotiate with ****** off shop keepers? When they come near, hold down the crouch button and they'll halt their attack and will demand compensation for the offense. You then go to the inventory menu and choose an item to give them. If they're not satisfied, than they will begin to attack immediately.
Also, what if dead corpses may act like crates, you can search them for possessions by using the up key, just like with crates? Sometimes there's something, often not.
The skeletons lying around sometimes could also have the rare opportunity to have some item still on them.
Regarding the floor mouth trap creature. If provoked by attack (one arrow, for instance, that doesn't kill) it might get aggressive and begin to attack everything that passes by, even one of my enemies. Would be interesting. Or maybe if you wake it up (it attacks you once), than it may attack other creatures, too.
I generally like if enemies tend to attack other enemies, like in Unreal, or Quake, where you can shoot a creature from distance, for instance, and they'll think it was someone else standing near them and they'll begin a dispute with them, lol.
Stuff like this gives some life to the creatures and gives the player the feel that the hostiles aren't there solely for the purpose of being an obstacle to you.
Ohh, and trading/selling stuff at the shop would be good. Or is there a way? I didn't figure it out if so.
I would sing 97% of the stuff he suggested.
So... how long do we have to wait before you let us throw money at you?
Not very long, stay tuned!
After beating the first level I spawned on spikes on level 2 instantly dying :(
That's a feature.
That is not a feature :(
I am pretty sure that it is a feature that if you spawn at level 2 on pressure plate, because you can dodge it like i did.
holy crap, this game is good! keep up the good work and i hope to see this advance even further.
Enjoying this a lot, clocked about two and a half hours in alpha_4. With alpha_5, really appreciate the reduced health on some of the enemies, particularly the trap-mouths, excited about the experience bar filling up, but...
The XP bar just fills and disappears. No points for upgrades ever seem to be awarded, which is troublesome to say the least.
I've also observed that the wall-crawling snake/worm enemies are frequently but not always dying with no particle shower or corpse. They just vanish.
Could you provide more information about the XP bar disappearing? That seems a little bit odd.
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Maybe exiting level with the orange door could be done a bit "safer". Often it happened that I fought a bunch of enemies there and accidentally exited in the chaos.
Maybe an "Up" double-tap?
I've had this happen too, especially when using a controller with joy2key. The "up" input can get triggered easily just when moving horizontally. A button press to enter doors would be nice, similar to how Spelunky handles it.
This comment is currently awaiting admin approval, join now to view.
Oook, first of all - the game is awesome!
I know it is Alpha, BUT when tried alpha ver 5 I have no starting skillpoint, but when I try ver 4 I have it. Is this intentional change? In addition, at version 4 I have no XP bar :( BUT at version 5 the bar is there, it is filling OK BUT I cant lvlup(just reaches max xp and that is it) Any idea what part of those stuff regarding experience I mentioned are intentional?
Yes all these changes are intentional. You level up in this version by filling the bar AND finishing the level you're on. We're experimenting with these systems.
Hey, guys. Don't know if this is a glitch or a one time thing, but I've noticed that, when I equip an item with unbounded sight, enemies will notice me through floors or walls. It seriously negates the usefulness of that enchantment.
EDIT: Seems to have been fixed in Alpha 5. Sorry!
Otherwise, I'm really loving this game. I'm very excited to see more!
thank you. i trust that your passion for this game will make it amazing... i want more! jst keep at it please... best game can only get better =)
Taim for Revision 6 (it probably isn't, but I say it anyway).
Patience.. More game content is being added!
I don't know if anyone else has said anything about this but if you attack the shop keeper on one level then on the next he will spawn at the entrance and attack you and then when you walk near the shop on that level the shop keeper will go after you even if you didn't do anything, this results in 2 shop keepers attacking you for no reason. i don't know if this is intentional.
It's intentional. You can assume all the shopkeepers in the game have a way of instantly communicating with all other shopkeepers if that makes it more reasonable. More mechanics with NPC interaction are planned for the future.
First off, I really enjoy this game and I think it is very neat in many aspects, so kudos for that.
Secondly, I'd like to touch on one combat-related issue I have : I really like it, but it can sometimes feel a bit unnatural - the common strategy for taking out the normal hooded mobs being stabbing, turning backwards, then going back to stab again...doesn't exactly feel realistic or badass. Maybe making default "knockback" stronger or increasing the length of time enemies get stunned by a little bit could solve this issue? I know it seems like you could then kill those mobs with much greater ease that way, but there are many times when there are multiple of those and at those times it should still be fun and challenging. Actually I think killing single mobs that easily would not be fun at all, so scratch that. I don't know, man, I'm not a developer! I'm just saying that these kind of things can make a game a bit silly.
Lastly, I'd really like it if you guys told us some things about what more you have planned for this game!
Stay tuned, big announcements will be made within the next few weeks, probably.
Hello, I came across this game by accident and I have been more than happily dying left and right. It seems to me that I do not quite understand the leveling process however. I see the top bar progress, but when it becomes full, it just stays full and no points are granted. Is there a glitch or are the points actually being held somewhere? I played an earlier version and it worked just fine.
I answered this question a few times already.. Maybe we should post a change-log next update? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hey Guys I am Really Loving this game. I just started a twitch and youtube and have been playing I hope that cool with you. I cant wait for there to be more then 3 bosses. I also notice no matter how far you get you only receive one Fairy. Is this correct?
I am going to post a link to my youtube video of the play through for anyone to watch. If you do not approve of this here I will remove it.
Thanks for making a Great Game
Really good game. Cant wait new version 6.
Good because it's coming VERY soon... Thanks for checking us out!
My norton internet security doesnt like the game it seems, and with not liking i mean it deletes the .exe everytime I try to start the game.
Norton is bad and you should feel bad. But all jokes aside, I have no idea why it would hate the .exe :(