COME FORTH!
'Slingers, I know you've been waiting patiently...in the dark of your mothers' basements (I know I have!). Well your time has come! Watch the video announcement :)
PUBLIC TEST BUILD RELEASE(ed)
We've officially released our "test build" for the app of Grimslingers. This is a Unity web demo that will allow you to play the core elements of the game (namely, a 2 player duel).
There are 4 opponents each increasing in difficulty. It'll take a true Grimslinger to defeat the Coven Overseer, the most difficult opponent.
We now need YOU to test it out, find bugs, experience the duel and let us know what they think of the mechanics.
BUT...IT'S SO UGLY!!
Yes, and we've aptly named it, The "Ugly" Prototype.
Many developers will share pre-fabricated videos of their game to build hype, but the content of those videos isn't actually real gameplay. Or they'll spend a lot of time building the more pretty parts of the game so they can show it off earlier.
Well, we decided to forgo that strategy and build the core game itself. This way, we would know if the game itself was worthwhile, and could fine tune it's awesomeness.
You should all know by know the game WILL be beautiful (just check out the gifs below), but for now, we want to make sure the game is fundamentally fun (pun intended).
Don't get me wrong, visuals make a game more fun, especially for an artist like myself, but if the gameplay those visuals are wrapped up in sucks, the visuals are pointless in the end.
That "Ugly Beta" seems really Good!!!
Keep the Good Work!
Thanks! And thank you for playing!
I've played a few matches of this - it's very more-ish! From a first time player's point of view (and from someone like myself who hasn't played alot of these games) I would recommend adding a tutorial round: maybe let the player play through a single round without the time pressure.
The hints are useful and I definitely found myself reading them. From a layout point of view it did take me a while to spot the bits of the screen I should be looking at for help/info but the artwork/framing will help this alot.
I really like this idea and the lingo and the gameplay feels good for your first public demo.
Definitely big potential in this one :)
Cheers!
Clive
You can turn off the timer but it's not intuitive to know that at all. I'll talk to my programmer and see if we can pop in a tutorial button or something.
The actual app won't suffer from the design of the test build. It's a tough call I think, spend time programming a test build tutorial that will eventually be scrapped, or not and risk people trying it getting frustrated and writing off the game?
What would you do?
oh, and thanks for the feedback! :D
The gameplay flow is there and people always have the option to retry so it's not so bad for now. I'm sure you'll get a load of feedback from this demo that you can feed into your tutorial designs :)