General Category > Starward Rogue Alpha Discussion

[Alpha 0.135] First Impressions

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mrhanman:
I took notes while I was playing, and here they are without much formatting, so please excuse the mess.

The game opens to my native desktop resolution, which I think is something all games should do by default.

I love the logo and title screen art.  Some motion would be nice at some point.

When selecting a new save, then hitting new run, a Fatal error occurs. If this is why 3 saves are included, then please ignore this. I didn't see anywhere this was stated,  though. A save actually gets created, but the same error happens when trying to load it.

The Tank looking ships' projectiles don't dissipate fast enough.  I also think they have too much health.  I starting practically giving up when I stumble on 4 of them at once.  I just can't seem to take more than 2 out before going down myself.

Rate of fire feels pretty good.  Power seems to be what I would expect from a basic weapon, at least on the basic blue, hotrod, and hotrod bomber.
Riot suppressor weapon is cool, but doesn't last long enough to be any use.
STG-4377 is pretty awesome.  Chews through ammo too fast, though.
Turbo blaster.  Solid weapon.  Can use it long enough to make a difference.
I also picked up some kind of freeze ray, but I wasn't able to make much use out of it.

I like the projectiles that fire, stop, and then smaller projectiles fire from them.  Other than a similar enemy, no particular pattern sticks out in my mind.
First boss I ran into has very interesting patterns, though the third form took me out.  It was the one that has four walls around it.  Just couldn't get out of the way of the V-wave fast enough.
Second boss I encountered started out easy, then quickly blew me up in the second form.  The boss was on the left side of the screen and had a bullet pattern that bounced off the walls as well as shots that came right for me.
Third boss was similar to the second one I encountered.  It has a cone pattern that starts facing up travelling right, then is followed by a cone facing down.  I don't think I made it past the first form.

Ship flying feels off.  I'm not sure how to describe it, and part of it might be from the gamepad controls being off.  I was thinking that since this is a space ship of some sort, shouldn't there be momentum?  I don't know if this is a good idea or not.  My recent Galak-Z playtime might be influencing my opinion on this.  Keyboard and mouse made the aiming a lot better, but the movement was too imprecise for me.  Also, I'm glad there is an afterburner, because I would have suggested one otherwise.
Kind of related to the ship flying, the enemy movements seem stiff.  Not the patterns of movement, but the way they move.  Everything starts and stops on a dime.  I'm not asking for Newtonian physics or anything, but I think they could be made to feel more natural and less brick-like.

Health seems a little on the low side.  It would be ok if there were more health packs laying around the level, but as it is, I'd give it a bump.
What are the First Aid kit looking things?  They aren't health packs as I first thought.  I haven't been able to pick one up yet.
Invincibility time feels about right, but there needs to be some indicator that you are invincible.  Flashing or ghosting, for example.

I Picked up Mysterious Circuits. I wonder what that does... Had a blue one and then found a red one.  I kept the blue one, but never learned what it did.

I Had to Alt-F4 in order to quit the game after I was done for the evening.  ESC didn't bring up the main menu as I was expecting.

Other than the tank I mentioned, the enemies seem to be fairly balanced and are fun to fight.  Some are easier than others to differentiate, but I can still pick them out.

I played about 15 runs in a couple hours.  I was actually doing pretty well on the last one.  Had a good weapon and full health.  Then I went into a room with those tanks.  Managed to take 2 of the 4 out before dying.  Again.

The game seems to be pretty intuitive for the most part.  I'm not sure what the keycards do, or what cash is for.  I assume there's a shop somewhere I haven't found or that will be implemented later.  Might be after level 1 that I haven't managed to beat.

Overall, I enjoyed it quite a lot.  "One more run" happened at least 5 times after I intented to stop.  First few runs were pretty quick deaths, but that's the love/hate bit with roguelikes.  It takes a while to learn what does what.  The more I played, the more familiar I got with the enemies and room layouts.  A few more rounds, and I think I can beat level 1!  Assuming I don't run into those damn tanks, anyway.

Misery:

--- Quote from: mrhanman on November 19, 2015, 12:37:22 am ---I took notes while I was playing, and here they are without much formatting, so please excuse the mess.

The game opens to my native desktop resolution, which I think is something all games should do by default.

I love the logo and title screen art.  Some motion would be nice at some point.

When selecting a new save, then hitting new run, a Fatal error occurs. If this is why 3 saves are included, then please ignore this. I didn't see anywhere this was stated,  though. A save actually gets created, but the same error happens when trying to load it.

The Tank looking ships' projectiles don't dissipate fast enough.  I also think they have too much health.  I starting practically giving up when I stumble on 4 of them at once.  I just can't seem to take more than 2 out before going down myself.

Rate of fire feels pretty good.  Power seems to be what I would expect from a basic weapon, at least on the basic blue, hotrod, and hotrod bomber.
Riot suppressor weapon is cool, but doesn't last long enough to be any use.
STG-4377 is pretty awesome.  Chews through ammo too fast, though.
Turbo blaster.  Solid weapon.  Can use it long enough to make a difference.
I also picked up some kind of freeze ray, but I wasn't able to make much use out of it.

I like the projectiles that fire, stop, and then smaller projectiles fire from them.  Other than a similar enemy, no particular pattern sticks out in my mind.
First boss I ran into has very interesting patterns, though the third form took me out.  It was the one that has four walls around it.  Just couldn't get out of the way of the V-wave fast enough.
Second boss I encountered started out easy, then quickly blew me up in the second form.  The boss was on the left side of the screen and had a bullet pattern that bounced off the walls as well as shots that came right for me.
Third boss was similar to the second one I encountered.  It has a cone pattern that starts facing up travelling right, then is followed by a cone facing down.  I don't think I made it past the first form.

Ship flying feels off.  I'm not sure how to describe it, and part of it might be from the gamepad controls being off.  I was thinking that since this is a space ship of some sort, shouldn't there be momentum?  I don't know if this is a good idea or not.  My recent Galak-Z playtime might be influencing my opinion on this.  Keyboard and mouse made the aiming a lot better, but the movement was too imprecise for me.  Also, I'm glad there is an afterburner, because I would have suggested one otherwise.
Kind of related to the ship flying, the enemy movements seem stiff.  Not the patterns of movement, but the way they move.  Everything starts and stops on a dime.  I'm not asking for Newtonian physics or anything, but I think they could be made to feel more natural and less brick-like.

Health seems a little on the low side.  It would be ok if there were more health packs laying around the level, but as it is, I'd give it a bump.
What are the First Aid kit looking things?  They aren't health packs as I first thought.  I haven't been able to pick one up yet.
Invincibility time feels about right, but there needs to be some indicator that you are invincible.  Flashing or ghosting, for example.

I Picked up Mysterious Circuits. I wonder what that does... Had a blue one and then found a red one.  I kept the blue one, but never learned what it did.

I Had to Alt-F4 in order to quit the game after I was done for the evening.  ESC didn't bring up the main menu as I was expecting.

Other than the tank I mentioned, the enemies seem to be fairly balanced and are fun to fight.  Some are easier than others to differentiate, but I can still pick them out.

I played about 15 runs in a couple hours.  I was actually doing pretty well on the last one.  Had a good weapon and full health.  Then I went into a room with those tanks.  Managed to take 2 of the 4 out before dying.  Again.

The game seems to be pretty intuitive for the most part.  I'm not sure what the keycards do, or what cash is for.  I assume there's a shop somewhere I haven't found or that will be implemented later.  Might be after level 1 that I haven't managed to beat.

Overall, I enjoyed it quite a lot.  "One more run" happened at least 5 times after I intented to stop.  First few runs were pretty quick deaths, but that's the love/hate bit with roguelikes.  It takes a while to learn what does what.  The more I played, the more familiar I got with the enemies and room layouts.  A few more rounds, and I think I can beat level 1!  Assuming I don't run into those damn tanks, anyway.

--- End quote ---

Glad to see you're enjoying it!

I'm not sure which ships you mean by these ones that look like tanks though...  I dont suppose you could get a quick screenshot?  I'm actually about to dive into this and make a big pile of changes to many of the different enemies (some definite balance issues to things right now, quite a bunch of them in fact, so my next task is dealing with some of that) but I'm not sure which one you're describing here.  What type of pattern exactly was it using?

Now, as for the medkit things, they are indeed health packs.  They dont refill the blue boxes, which are your shields, but instead the yellow boxes, which are your actual HP.  They wont be picked up if your HP is full.

Gamepad controls, yes, they are a little bit off.  Though it depends on what you mean by "off".  I've been using the dpad and face buttons on my controller for everything... as I've told Chris, I found the analog controls to be very screwy, not sure why, but I had a feeling it had to do with sensitivity (and I couldnt find settings for that anywhere).   For actual basic movement though, I've not really seen any problems.  Though, there IS a small bit of input delay; I've already pointed this out too.  Chances are, all of this will be dealt with quickly, as is pretty much always the case for Arcen here, heh.    Momentum isnt there and probably wont be there because it'd affect dodging negatively when things are more "congested" with bullets.  Particularly when I get around to making the more "nasty" boss patterns, very exact movement will be required to dodge the craziness they put out.

As for the bosses I have to go look at them to figure out which ones you mean.  Yes, I know this sounds stupid.  But my memory is *really* bad.  Even though I made the blasted things I cant remember which is which most of the time.  Except for the third boss, which I've named "Wallmaster".  It's a tough one, yes.  Chris actually decided it only needs just that one pattern, since that pattern is unique and difficult enough, so there is no second or third form.  It's definitely the sort of boss that will require some practice to beat, but it's working as intended.

Now, enemy HP is sorta all over the place right now; it's just not time to deal with balancing those yet because not enough of the different weapons and stuff are in the game, so they'd just require a ton of huge changes anyway later on.  If there's an enemy that takes too long to kill, or that is giving you alot of trouble, just launch a missile at it; those seem to kill most things in a single blast. 

Keycards are used to open locked chests and doors (which start out looking red).   Though, I agree that neither of these are actually obvious enough.  I've unlocked a few without entirely noticing that they were going to need a keycard to begin with.

Unless a change was made, the shop simply isnt active yet.  There's a room for it, but it just gives a small error if you enter it (wont damage anything though, you can just go right back out of the room).

But anyway, yeah, if you can give a quick pic of those tanks or a detailed description of what they do, I'll go and have a look at them in particular. 

But right now.... time for me to jump in and check out today's new stuff, and then do some balancing.

Misery:
Er, just to add something here, if you do take a screenshot of the tank thing to show... or if anyone wants to use any screenshots to point something out... please send them via PM, not by posting in the topic here.   These arent supposed to be able to go public.

Sorry, almost forgot to mention that...

Pumpkin:
First impression: Wohoo! :D
Last impression: well, good, but enough redshirt pain for now.
Global impression: I can't wait to see it polished and finished! It's gonna be awesome!!!

Okay, now let's refine. I'll try to sort my notes out.

EDIT: should I post mantis "bugs" for these? Even if they are very minor little things?

Interface & controls

Item pickup on left click (fire button) is... not good.
Teleporters' activation too.
Maybe just pickup/activate when walking on it? Or having another button specifically for pickup/activate.

Displaying the map should be on tab by default, IMO. I immediately rebinded it to tab when I saw it on the menu. Also the map is really tiny, but I bet it's because of alpha UI.

As mrhanman said, player's ship's movement feels strangely off. And I can't explain exactly why neither.

The default "blue" ship sounds very slow. I tried the thingy-bomber; this is clearly a bit ahead in terms of speed and it's nice, but the "blue" ship, the dark knight and the paladin (I didn't tested them all; they are at "default" speed) feel a bit slow. Maybe increasing this a notch would be more fun to use. Yeah, I know, there is this afterburn thing, but I never use it in combat. I feel this default speed a very little bit lower than comfortable to avoid shots. But that's the not-bullet-hell player speaking. Also, a "slower than average" ship with more health/shield would be fine, I guess. (Magdalene? Anyone?)

Boss rooms are displayed on the minimap before entering them, but their door is common, and it's easy to enter a boss room without being aware of this in the first place.

While I'm talking of doors: one can stick to a wall with a door then slide toward the door and be "grabbed" by it and change room without pressing the movement button in the direction of that room. (Am I clear? Maybe not.) Anyway: putting each door one floor-cell back inside the wall would avoid this. Don't get me wrong: it's a really minor "problem".

Theme and eye-candy

"Coffers" deserve a better animation and an opening sound. This kind of micro-reward make things feel great, and I think it's important.
Also, when opening a chest and instantly picking its content, the player can't see what he just take. I think it would be good, maybe, if the chest would "slowly" open and reveal what's inside during half a second for the player to see it just before taking it. (The coffer might be an impassable block for the short duration of its opening... I don't know, I'm just wondering.)
After all, a chest is "cosmetic": items could be on the ground and the mechanism wouldn't change. But they are important because they convey a sense of mystery and of reward. Do it right or don't to it. No, wait, do it right; a game without chest is lame. ;)

Invincibility after hit should be displayed. I don't think it is, right now.

Death effect by acceleration is... strange. Maybe because it's faster than the default speed, and/or because it's in straight line. I think it would be ok to not have this death animation. Or maybe something more chaotic; something like spinning before crashing. But again, nothing would be good for me.

Medpack, dollar bills and battery... seriously? This is all you were able to come up with? Look, I know it must be visually recognizable but... We're at the end of the universe and "medpack are for health, bills for money and cells for energy" puts me off. Really. I'm sorry to say that, really; and even more sorry because I know it can't really be fixed because it needs to be that way, but... So sad... So so very very sad.
What would I suggest? Well. What about something that doesn't tell what it do by how it looks, but with some sort of mouseover text? Something like "Ya see this blue/green/shiny/pulsing/strange crystal/orb/piece/module/thingy? It's power/ammo/magic-repair/wealth/superpowerup, but Y'know, from the future." Yeah, I know, clear-design, affordance, blah-blah. Screw affordance! We're at the end of the universe! How can I accept to suspend my disbelief if you keep throwing cells and bills at me???
I'm sorry to linger on this, but it's really important to me. I hope you won't screw your own game by listening to me, but I had to say it. I feel better, now.

Combat and enemies

MIIIIISERY!
No, seriously, the bosses are way too hard for me. I bet you already know it, but I need to say it. Room's enemies are very good and fun and challenging and varied, and it's great. Even at this low polish level they're good. But bosses are off-chart. IMO, of course.

"jumpscare" ships (the ones that are invincible and immobile while the player didn't get close enough) are... odd. Maybe increasing the awaekning range, or making it awaken the first time it takes shots (on top of close range awakening) may solve this "problem".

What? Shots are blocked by shots? Or only by some enemies' shots? I can't tell. Anyway, it's a pain to kill these fast-firing little ships with a low fire-rate player-ship.
WHAT? Missiles too are blocked by these enemy shots???

Ray lasers should have a pre-fire animation. It's not because they're difficult; it's just because it may feel unfair to be hit by those. With an even very short pre-fire signal, being hit by those would feel much less unfair, I bet. Sort of "you've been warned, you can't complain".

That's not really combat, but...
Little destroyables take too long to destroy IMO. As they are often empty, it's more frustrating to take time to destroy them for nothing. Also, with low fire rate ships (bomber or dark knight, for instance), it's just a pain.
Wait -- always empty? No, some have things inside, and it seems it's hinted by their shape... Strange... And not really fun. How to improve it? Maybe just making them explode with less hits would be just fine.

Also, ut took me some times to realize that some destroyables are meant to be destroyed by missiles. Maybe adding a little "clink" sound with no red flash when they are hit would hint that they are destructible, but not with this poor firepower.

Misc
(Y'know, the things I don't know how to sort out)

Ow. Empty locked (treasure?) room. T_T
Strange.

The good things
(Good things for the end to cheers you up, because you deserve it: it's gona be great!)

Yeah! As mrhanman said, "One more run" really works!

Common ennemies are great, for the most. They are very varied and it's awesome. Now I feel all isaac's enemies are the same.

Arts are good! I can't wait to see the game fully polished and music'ed!

Gravity effetcs on shots are great! I hope to see more of them in the future (and on different places, like on enemy ships or so). "backfire turrets" are great too; y'know, the ones that are indestructible and fire when you fire at them. Awesome idea!

I love the shield/health system. It's two level of forgivability. I never saw something like that before, and I think it's a great design idea!
Why not adding a full-shield no-health ship type?

Closing Words
Wohoo! Keep it up! It'll be great!

Misery:

--- Quote from: Pumpkin on November 19, 2015, 05:28:16 am ---First impression: Wohoo! :D
Last impression: well, good, but enough redshirt pain for now.
Global impression: I can't wait to see it polished and finished! It's gonna be awesome!!!

Okay, now let's refine. I'll try to sort my notes out.

EDIT: should I post mantis "bugs" for these? Even if they are very minor little things?

Interface & controls

Item pickup on left click (fire button) is... not good.
Teleporters' activation too.
Maybe just pickup/activate when walking on it? Or having another button specifically for pickup/activate.

Displaying the map should be on tab by default, IMO. I immediately rebinded it to tab when I saw it on the menu. Also the map is really tiny, but I bet it's because of alpha UI.

As mrhanman said, player's ship's movement feels strangely off. And I can't explain exactly why neither.

The default "blue" ship sounds very slow. I tried the thingy-bomber; this is clearly a bit ahead in terms of speed and it's nice, but the "blue" ship, the dark knight and the paladin (I didn't tested them all; they are at "default" speed) feel a bit slow. Maybe increasing this a notch would be more fun to use. Yeah, I know, there is this afterburn thing, but I never use it in combat. I feel this default speed a very little bit lower than comfortable to avoid shots. But that's the not-bullet-hell player speaking. Also, a "slower than average" ship with more health/shield would be fine, I guess. (Magdalene? Anyone?)

Boss rooms are displayed on the minimap before entering them, but their door is common, and it's easy to enter a boss room without being aware of this in the first place.

While I'm talking of doors: one can stick to a wall with a door then slide toward the door and be "grabbed" by it and change room without pressing the movement button in the direction of that room. (Am I clear? Maybe not.) Anyway: putting each door one floor-cell back inside the wall would avoid this. Don't get me wrong: it's a really minor "problem".

Theme and eye-candy

"Coffers" deserve a better animation and an opening sound. This kind of micro-reward make things feel great, and I think it's important.
Also, when opening a chest and instantly picking its content, the player can't see what he just take. I think it would be good, maybe, if the chest would "slowly" open and reveal what's inside during half a second for the player to see it just before taking it. (The coffer might be an impassable block for the short duration of its opening... I don't know, I'm just wondering.)
After all, a chest is "cosmetic": items could be on the ground and the mechanism wouldn't change. But they are important because they convey a sense of mystery and of reward. Do it right or don't to it. No, wait, do it right; a game without chest is lame. ;)

Invincibility after hit should be displayed. I don't think it is, right now.

Death effect by acceleration is... strange. Maybe because it's faster than the default speed, and/or because it's in straight line. I think it would be ok to not have this death animation. Or maybe something more chaotic; something like spinning before crashing. But again, nothing would be good for me.

Medpack, dollar bills and battery... seriously? This is all you were able to come up with? Look, I know it must be visually recognizable but... We're at the end of the universe and "medpack are for health, bills for money and cells for energy" puts me off. Really. I'm sorry to say that, really; and even more sorry because I know it can't really be fixed because it needs to be that way, but... So sad... So so very very sad.
What would I suggest? Well. What about something that doesn't tell what it do by how it looks, but with some sort of mouseover text? Something like "Ya see this blue/green/shiny/pulsing/strange crystal/orb/piece/module/thingy? It's power/ammo/magic-repair/wealth/superpowerup, but Y'know, from the future." Yeah, I know, clear-design, affordance, blah-blah. Screw affordance! We're at the end of the universe! How can I accept to suspend my disbelief if you keep throwing cells and bills at me???
I'm sorry to linger on this, but it's really important to me. I hope you won't screw your own game by listening to me, but I had to say it. I feel better, now.

Combat and enemies

MIIIIISERY!
No, seriously, the bosses are way too hard for me. I bet you already know it, but I need to say it. Room's enemies are very good and fun and challenging and varied, and it's great. Even at this low polish level they're good. But bosses are off-chart. IMO, of course.

"jumpscare" ships (the ones that are invincible and immobile while the player didn't get close enough) are... odd. Maybe increasing the awaekning range, or making it awaken the first time it takes shots (on top of close range awakening) may solve this "problem".

What? Shots are blocked by shots? Or only by some enemies' shots? I can't tell. Anyway, it's a pain to kill these fast-firing little ships with a low fire-rate player-ship.
WHAT? Missiles too are blocked by these enemy shots???

Ray lasers should have a pre-fire animation. It's not because they're difficult; it's just because it may feel unfair to be hit by those. With an even very short pre-fire signal, being hit by those would feel much less unfair, I bet. Sort of "you've been warned, you can't complain".

That's not really combat, but...
Little destroyables take too long to destroy IMO. As they are often empty, it's more frustrating to take time to destroy them for nothing. Also, with low fire rate ships (bomber or dark knight, for instance), it's just a pain.
Wait -- always empty? No, some have things inside, and it seems it's hinted by their shape... Strange... And not really fun. How to improve it? Maybe just making them explode with less hits would be just fine.

Also, ut took me some times to realize that some destroyables are meant to be destroyed by missiles. Maybe adding a little "clink" sound with no red flash when they are hit would hint that they are destructible, but not with this poor firepower.

Misc
(Y'know, the things I don't know how to sort out)

Ow. Empty locked (treasure?) room. T_T
Strange.

The good things
(Good things for the end to cheers you up, because you deserve it: it's gona be great!)

Yeah! As mrhanman said, "One more run" really works!

Common ennemies are great, for the most. They are very varied and it's awesome. Now I feel all isaac's enemies are the same.

Arts are good! I can't wait to see the game fully polished and music'ed!

Gravity effetcs on shots are great! I hope to see more of them in the future (and on different places, like on enemy ships or so). "backfire turrets" are great too; y'know, the ones that are indestructible and fire when you fire at them. Awesome idea!

I love the shield/health system. It's two level of forgivability. I never saw something like that before, and I think it's a great design idea!
Why not adding a full-shield no-health ship type?

Closing Words
Wohoo! Keep it up! It'll be great!

--- End quote ---

As the bosses go, well.... my entire job IS to make crazy screaming murder bots.

Though in all seriousness, I think I *did* warn that the bosses were going to be overboard right now.  Each one will eventually get "lesser" versions that'll appear on lower difficulties.  Eventually.  That being said, they're not as hard as they may appear. 

Though, the one with the zillions of purple lasers needs some work.  I appear to have made a couple of mistakes with that one that I didn't entirely notice.... pretend that guy isnt actually there.  Granted, that's hard to do if he rips your face off and beats you with it, but still.  That one's not in it's intended state.  I was going to fix it today once I'd noticed, but I ran into a problem preventing me from doing this, so that'll have to wait a day or two.

The trick with most of these bosses though is to stay calm; you're not actually meant to move around fast at all.  If you find yourself zooming alot, that's just hurting your chances against most things I might design.

Except for the guy that fires the huge green pointy wall things.  That's the "keep moving or die" boss.

If there's one you're finding harder than the others (that isnt the billions-of-purple-beams guy) let me know which one it is and what about it is wrecking you.  I do need to know exactly what players are running into that is causing trouble.  ....this doesnt necessarily mean I'll *change* it, mind you.   For some I might just let out an evil laugh.  But it'll help when making the "lesser" versions later.

One important tip though is to pay attention to which shots are aimed, and which shots are not aimed, when fighting a boss.  Basically, the two put together (and they're almost always going to be put together) mean that your positioning will, to some extent, determine the pattern's exact shape.  This can be used to create large safe spots.... if you can figure out how.

Of course, these first patterns are all a bit more crude than what I'll do later.  A couple of bullet mechanics werent in place yet, you see.  They'll get more... interesting.... as more get made.  Some of the normal enemies are already using the new mechanics.

Small destructible objects that take multiple hits:   Dont bother with these.  They will never have anything in them.

Small destructible objects that take one hit:  These have unique art, and have a chance of having an item under them.

Enemy bullets that cancel yours:  I've suggested to Chris that every single bullet of this type all use the exact same sprite, to appear very distinct from any other bullet in the game, so that the player always knows what they are.   So that might help.

As for the common enemies, yeah, Isaac's can be a bit too same-y.   Trying real hard to avoid that in this one.  Granted, there WILL often (very often) be palette-swap versions of different enemies, but that, I think, is a good thing.  Though, I'm trying not to make enemy patterns TOO weird.  Yet.


And finally, as for the empty locked treasure rooms:  Those are shops (or challenge rooms, I think?).   Which arent in the game yet.  If it's a door of that type and it's not a boss room, just ignore it for now.

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