The good guys are supposed to (just barely) win the opening battle. That sets up the whole "we won't survive their next attack" vibe at The Last Front.
Ok, very quick feedback on actually running the thing before I try to break it - all looking good on the parallels win 7 64 vm running on a macbook air 2.1ghz/4gb ram, sound included :)
In fullscreen I doth get the windowed-size ui, surrounded by dark blackness. Is that intended? Also I don't seem to be able to enter the dungeon immediately outside the castle...
I was able to get more (apparent) buffering issues by switching to a different application (a webbrowser). Inaria got silent when I was fussing with the browser, and then it regained focus I started getting a steady series of clicks. It's minor, but persistent.
Lorenzo: You're running under a simulated version of Windows on a Mac, right? Then blah, blah, blah, I'm not listening to your video problems. Get a real computer.
Okay, to reproduce this, just launch Inaria and wait for the intro title theme to loop. Clicky-clicky-clicky.
Aaaand it seems to happen just clicking "New Game" and just chilling in one spot, Inaria focused or not. Looks like a sound buffer regression.
--- Inaria normally DOES NOT cut out sound when it loses focus, though. Should it? Hm.
Maybe stop all sounds when the Options menu is up, to make it feel like a usual 'pause'. It would prevent people from wanting to just shut up the game when, say, they need to talk to someone or answer a phonecall or something, they don't have to run to their volume controls.
-- Inaria DOES stop music if switching to a webbrowser which has a QuickTime Player plugin loaded.
Example: 1. Load Inaria 2. Load Firefox 3. Navigate (in Firefox) to some media which will launch/use the QuickTime plugin. Plugin does NOT have to be playing 4. Switch applications to the webbrowser while Inaria is running 5. Inaria's sound silences (desired?) 6. Switch applications back to Inaria. Inaria's sound resumes (and will play overtop of QuickTime Plugin if QuickTime is making noise already).
Personally I wouldn't think it'd be bad to stop sounds if: * Inaria doesn't have focus * It's at the Options/Pause menu (although adjusting music volume would have to get a little creative here)
There appears to be a single pixel in the 'mouth' [talk] icon (after the cursor changes to it). It's white, and just kinda chillin' in the upper left corner of the lips. Other icons don't have this.
Grah! I'm just going to use chunks for everything. That way the sound problems will be fixed and I can also crossfade between Emerald and The Last Front like I want to.
As for the single pixel, that's supposed to be the "hot" point of the cursor, and all the cursors should have it.
virid: haha, yeah fair enough. Funny, I got a comment like this on an oss project I contribute to when I moaned about shit not working on my vm shared folder weirdo file system... ;)
Lorenzo: The armor thing is as designed. Don't want players putting on a strength-buffing item, wearing a suit of armor, and then taking off that strength-buffing item. You must have a natural strength of the correct amount to equip armor.
@Virid - fair enough, I wondered whether that was by design. I was also concerned with the possibility of wearing a strength-buffing piece of armour, then switching it for another which requires that strength-buff to put on... would add complexity to the code to check for such things too.
Oooh, good catch - if you've never saved and you die, the only way to start over is to re-run the program. I'll need to change "Load" on the options menu to "New Game".
+1 on that - I think going back to the title screen is a good idea, however perhaps give the player a moment to review what's happened, then add an option to return to the title screen.
I would like to see some character class selection up front - also, the game seems pretty hard without going into the 'cube' and going up and down stairs to regen items + cash to be able to buy enough potions to survive through the cave connecting the continents - perhaps a difficulty setting is in order? :)
'You cannot carry any more potions' - get this for max health/mana potions, despite getting this, can buy some more potions in the stack that isn't already maxxed out, e.g. buy 20 health potions still means I can buy mana potions. Solution - be specific, e.g. 'You cannot carry any more %s potions' where %s in ('Health', 'Mana')
The exit from The Passage to Apocalypse (to Sol's Sword) is one space up and left from from the ladder.
As far as I can tell, Cleave never activates anymore.
Smite levels up from use, but the level doesn't seem to do anything. It says it hits more targets, but firing into a crowd does nothing extra.
If you have Smite activated ("Smite what?") and click in the interface, you lose your turn unless you don't have enough mana to cast Smite in the first place.
If an enemy is in one of the four extreme corners of the screen and you attack it, it still won't come after you (it is mad, it just can't find you).
Are shop prices for non-potions random? I open and close the shop screen over and over and items are randomly 50% off in buy and sale price.
Sol's Sword and Viridian's Armor have been priced, but not accessories.
If you're concerned about unwinnable states, the hidden chest in The Collapsing Cave may represent one if you teleport in without enough mana or potions to get back out.
Gameplay:
I noticed the new text from The Evil One. I like that last revelation a lot, to the point where I wish I hadn't been spoiled.
I've only completed the game twice so far. Game 1, I focused a bit on intelligence and mostly ignored strength and endurance, and went through every dungeon. It would have been difficult if potions weren't basically free. I purposely ignored Teleport; Smite is all I really needed with 20 potions.
Game 2, I bought a dagger, armor, and some potions, and leveled to 3 (I only returned home to heal and buy more potions once), raising intelligence to 8. I skipped The Cube and teleported to Ruby from the corner of Sapphire, then went in The Underwater Tunnel through the back entrance, teleported to the money cache and back, maxed my potions and went straight to Death's Coil. I teleported through. I walked around the Slornite King's castle and teleported in to Smite him. I finished in ~15 minutes with 203 exp, 20 health potions and 6 mana potions.
I always play with these restrictions, for clarity: No bug abuse if possible. I only pick up coins or open chests once. I don't loot The Cube until I'm ready to go through The Underwater Tunnel. No magic ring (an additional 3x damage available in the level 2 dungeon?).
I'm playing a strength game (picked up Heal at 3 intelligence, but that's all) with the restriction of 2 starting potions and further potions cost 50 coins each (I was also thinking of 10 for a potion and divide any coins over 15 by 4)*. I'm in The Underwater Tunnel and it's tough, but there aren't many options other than "What mix of potions do I buy?" and "Can I afford to fight him?" Nor do enemies have any options other than to attack. Until now, this has been the toughest dungeon and the turning point from weak to Demigod, so I will reserve further judgment until I finish once or twice more.
*If it's too easy to get potions, you breeze through. Too hard, and you have a lot of incentive to grind and use the healer.
The new maps seem good to me (I'd like to see The Passage to Apocalypse more populated, of course) at first glance. My favorite is still The Underwater Tunnel. I can't say more about how they impact the game since there isn't enemy variety to take advantage of each dungeon's flavor or layout.
Also, am I right that armor blocks a % of damage, rounded up? If so, it's not very useful past the first point.
Oh, and the offset exit from some dungeons is there to prevent people who have been holding down a key from jumping right back into the dungeon they just left.
"Oh, and the offset exit from some dungeons is there to prevent people who have been holding down a key from jumping right back into the dungeon they just left."
On that map (The Passage to Apocalypse), you have to go to a blank space just left and up from the ladder to leave and pick up Sol's Sword. The ladder does nothing.
"Actually, armor blocks that many points of damage, so if the enemy hits you for seven damage and you have two points of armor you take five damage."
From casual testing (not figuring averages or anything), I notice no difference from 3 armor (Cloth + Tank) and 25 (Viridian's + Tank + 7 points from Enchant Armor). I went to Death's Coil and let enemies beat me until I ran out of potions several times. The only difference seemed to be when the game happened to roll up a weak enemy for me, and even then, an enemy who could hit 3 armor for 1-4 or x-12 did the same thing to 18 or 25. Testing with 50, 100, and 200 armor from messing with my save resulted in the same thing. With 2 or 200 armor, enemies did the same damage range with seemingly the same odds. In Beta 3, at least, this was not the case.
Yeah, I figured out there was an actual problem with the ladder. I fixed it.
I'll look at the armor thing, but I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. I should put a debug mode in that prints the enemy stats on top of them so I can see what's really going on.
Okay! You guys are going to LOVE this. Armor wasn't working. At all. Any perception you might have had of armor protecting you was purely fictitious. This has now been fixed.
Next beta Thursday night. I think you guys are going to be surprised!
apocalypse exit one field diagonal left away from the ladder (already mentioned) mushroom distance check? sometimes it isnt moving out between two other mushrooms when it should be. anyone made the same observations? in my case when the musroom is on the farest right corner and you are attacking it with a bow it is not moving unless YOU are moving.
seeing through/behind walls? (slorn king castle) to be seen/heard through walls? (comments of your foes in slorn king castle when path is blocked)
editor: if you are "ctrl+e exiting" the editor, you are somewhere else as you had been before (it centers somehow on the Inaria-map, even if you are actually in a dungeon/castle)