Author Topic: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!  (Read 13160 times)

Offline madcow

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2013, 06:38:59 pm »
Grabbed it and played through the first level. Fun stuff.

Offline Penumbra

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2013, 06:45:53 pm »
I've been meaning to find a reason to give you guys more money!

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2013, 07:28:35 pm »
Does the 'specialty unlock code' do anything yet? Or is it just a button in the options right now? ???

It has a function internally for Arcen, but otherwise isn't used. :)
It probably shouldn't be in the front of the options menu then.

Offline x4000

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #18 on: March 08, 2013, 07:35:06 pm »
It's simply on the General tab.  Short of making a new tab, not much I can do with it.
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Offline madcow

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #19 on: March 08, 2013, 07:38:44 pm »
Maybe I'm missing something, but is it intentional for the playing window to be much smaller than the actual screen? Have it on full screen and everything settings wise, but still that huge border of wasted space.

Offline x4000

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #20 on: March 08, 2013, 07:48:00 pm »
Maybe I'm missing something, but is it intentional for the playing window to be much smaller than the actual screen? Have it on full screen and everything settings wise, but still that huge border of wasted space.

If you're playing above 1024x768, then yeah you wind up with border.  Please see: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Tidalis_-_Common_Technical_Support_Questions#I_set_the_screen_resolution_higher_than_1280x768.2C_and_now_I_have_black_bars

It's the same thing as with Tidalis.  Scaling in code looks HORRIBLE and is really slow.  So adjusting your screen resolution down is going to get you something crisper that is also small.  Unlike various other 2D games, however, we don't lock your screen resolution to something tiny.  Something like Lone Survivor is (I believe) locked around 640x480 or so.  It works for that game's aesthetic in particular, but we like to give people the flexibility since we're doing crisp pixelart versus more impressionistic (which is NOT a slur on Lone Survivor, I though it's graphics were really effective).
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #21 on: March 08, 2013, 07:50:50 pm »
Does the 'specialty unlock code' do anything yet? Or is it just a button in the options right now? ???

It has a function internally for Arcen, but otherwise isn't used. :)

It's clearly where they put the code they use to activate their alpha dating sim mode. :P

Offline madcow

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #22 on: March 08, 2013, 07:59:52 pm »
Oh I see now, I turned down the resolution and its much better :)

By the way, not sure if it's worth going to mantis for... but I find the check boxes a little difficult to tell if they're checked or not. The plus sign could use to be much bolder. Especially as green/red can be a common color blindness.

Offline Misery

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #23 on: March 08, 2013, 08:01:01 pm »
Maybe I'm missing something, but is it intentional for the playing window to be much smaller than the actual screen? Have it on full screen and everything settings wise, but still that huge border of wasted space.

If you're playing above 1024x768, then yeah you wind up with border.  Please see: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Tidalis_-_Common_Technical_Support_Questions#I_set_the_screen_resolution_higher_than_1280x768.2C_and_now_I_have_black_bars

It's the same thing as with Tidalis.  Scaling in code looks HORRIBLE and is really slow.  So adjusting your screen resolution down is going to get you something crisper that is also small.  Unlike various other 2D games, however, we don't lock your screen resolution to something tiny.  Something like Lone Survivor is (I believe) locked around 640x480 or so.  It works for that game's aesthetic in particular, but we like to give people the flexibility since we're doing crisp pixelart versus more impressionistic (which is NOT a slur on Lone Survivor, I though it's graphics were really effective).


I still say this one is going to be a major sticking point when it comes to alot of potential buyers..... you know how gamers can be about the visuals in a given game.   The fact that you can change the resolution of the screen itself simply wont occur to many (or they might just think it's stupid).

Heck, *I* have had to limit my time with this one, as this is one of the very, very rare games that can actually cause me eye strain.   To put it in perspective, no other game I currently have anywhere on this PC has that effect..... at all.   And Windows gets a little STRANGE if I try to change the overall resolution (as does the stuff related to my video drivers), so normally I avoid doing  this like the plague.   And that's a shame, because this seriously is a really good game.

Either way though, this seems to be progressing nicely!  I'll be interested to see what happens when it releases.

Offline x4000

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #24 on: March 08, 2013, 08:02:25 pm »
I may need to just have it default to a smaller resolution, then.  In terms of the checkboxes, I'll look at that.
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Offline Mick

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #25 on: March 08, 2013, 08:05:32 pm »
The latest version is causing a flickering on the screen as I'm moving, and it's much more pronounced when I move the mouse cursor around.

It didn't really dawn on my before to lower the resolution to make it fill more of the screen with game space, I thought it was meant to have a ridiculously large border for some reason. I definitely think a lower default makes a lot of sense for a game like this.

Offline Jerebaldo1

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #26 on: March 08, 2013, 08:09:50 pm »
Squeeee!
Careful, the grays could hear you.

lol, then it's Home Depot time...

Offline x4000

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #27 on: March 08, 2013, 08:14:45 pm »
The latest version is causing a flickering on the screen as I'm moving, and it's much more pronounced when I move the mouse cursor around.

Do you have vsync on?  Turning that on should solve any flicker.  And it should have been on by default.
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Offline Penumbra

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2013, 08:29:19 pm »
Heck, *I* have had to limit my time with this one, as this is one of the very, very rare games that can actually cause me eye strain.   

I've been using the Windowed borderless mode mod from the Steam forums. I double the resolution to 2048x1536 and it looks great!

(I know this isn't sanctioned or supported, and it messes up the mouse, but.... )

Offline x4000

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Re: Shattered Haven Beta Begins Now!
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2013, 08:36:12 pm »
Maybe I'm missing something, but is it intentional for the playing window to be much smaller than the actual screen? Have it on full screen and everything settings wise, but still that huge border of wasted space.

If you're playing above 1024x768, then yeah you wind up with border.  Please see: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Tidalis_-_Common_Technical_Support_Questions#I_set_the_screen_resolution_higher_than_1280x768.2C_and_now_I_have_black_bars

It's the same thing as with Tidalis.  Scaling in code looks HORRIBLE and is really slow.  So adjusting your screen resolution down is going to get you something crisper that is also small.  Unlike various other 2D games, however, we don't lock your screen resolution to something tiny.  Something like Lone Survivor is (I believe) locked around 640x480 or so.  It works for that game's aesthetic in particular, but we like to give people the flexibility since we're doing crisp pixelart versus more impressionistic (which is NOT a slur on Lone Survivor, I though it's graphics were really effective).


I still say this one is going to be a major sticking point when it comes to alot of potential buyers..... you know how gamers can be about the visuals in a given game.   The fact that you can change the resolution of the screen itself simply wont occur to many (or they might just think it's stupid).

Heck, *I* have had to limit my time with this one, as this is one of the very, very rare games that can actually cause me eye strain.   To put it in perspective, no other game I currently have anywhere on this PC has that effect..... at all.   And Windows gets a little STRANGE if I try to change the overall resolution (as does the stuff related to my video drivers), so normally I avoid doing  this like the plague.   And that's a shame, because this seriously is a really good game.

Either way though, this seems to be progressing nicely!  I'll be interested to see what happens when it releases.

Okay, this is in:

* Previously the game would default to your desktop resolution, which could easily be wildly too large, making the game tiny.
** Now the screen defaults to 1440x900 if your graphics card supports that, or 1024x768 if your graphics supports that, or whatever your smallest supported (by both the game and your GPU) resolution is.  Only if unity for some reason can't detect any supported screen resolutions at all will it now use your desktop resolution.

In terms of the eyestrain thing, if you're playing at the native resolution of the game that really shouldn't be a problem.  If you're playing at the native resolution of your monitor, that's really going to vary wildly.  The game will now default to something much closer to its native resolution, but if you play in windowed mode that's going to give you trouble.  There shouldn't be any trouble with changing the resolution when in fullscreen mode with this game, as it won't mess with your desktop resolution.  If there's something odd with your drivers being broken or what have you, then either something like Penumbra was suggesting might be good, or else simply getting a different driver version that works better.

Hope that helps, anyhow -- not much that I can do beyond that, because scaling in-game just looks gratuitously awful and also is a real GPU hog.  So you'd get something uglier and less-performant, not a good combo. ;)
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

 

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