2. I guess I didn't find ranged weapons all that useful, but it seems to require too many resources to make/buy the better ranged ammunition. Also a way to indicate range would be helpful, I didn't realize at first there was even a hard tile limit to weapon range.
3. I guess I would appreciate a better system for managing inventory. For starters, it would be nice if transfer all didn't touch hotkeyed items or ammunition. A way to quickly switch between ranged/melee would also be helpful and would encourage ranged combat, it is currently annoying to go into inventory to do so.
Would like to see what comes out of this so definitely backing the Kickstarter. Pleased to see that this game is being worked on.
All ranged weapons have a Range: ? in the tooltip to let you know the range. You can use Q to toggle sticky items in the inventory (there's a note about it below the hotkeys), and hotkeys on equipment can be used to quickly switch between melee and ranged. I think that all of this just needs to be explained more - no NPC mentions the sticky items, but it's really useful to keep food, bullets and equipment while quickly transferring everything else.
All I have to say is amazing game. I am loving the idea of a magic/science advancement path.
Some thoughts from playtesting:
1. The magic path might need to be tuned a bit. Adult dragons seem to be the definition of Awesome but Impractical at the moment, because they run out of food extremely quickly, but still cool while they last.
Played through most of the game and enjoyed it. However the targeting needs to be smarter, when you want to kill individual threats targeting in an area isn't enough. Otherwise, its interesting how some enemies are annoying, but beatable with the right strategy.
Overall, I am impressed by the development effort and polish, knowing how much it takes for one person to create all of this. While it would be nice to see this game finished, I can appreciate the decision to explicitly cut out part of the game. Overall, I wish RockLou luck on the next game he decides to create or help out.
All I have to say is that this game had a lot of time and effort put into it and it really shows. I loved the visuals, which had a cell shaded look. The minigames and the ingame options suprised me with their level of polish. With that being said, here are my suggestions:
1. Making the combat hotkeys a little more intuitive would be helpful. Maybe arranging them on screen similar to how they are on the keyboard would be helpful. I only say this after accidentally pressing counter many times when I meant to dodge.
2. I was confused by what 'Help' did in NPC chat. I wandered around the first village wondering why there were no quests until I figured it out.
3. Stats probably need some balancing. Stamina regeneration is huge in this game as each attack drains enemy stamina, if successful, while helping you recover faster from attacks.
lol sorry about that comment accidentally opened it on the wrong browser.
Anyways after playing a little bit, I wanted to be able to choose the characters that I could get for each mission (even if I had to get over one to get one). Random character gameplay seems to clash with the upgrade mechanic.
Problems with the game:
1. Your friends do not have good ai, while enemies get it. Enemies, if you attack them when they are following someone else will turn towards you and hit you. Your friends do not have that ability. I want my allies putting out damage to the threat thats hitting them, not wandering aimlessly chasing some ranged creep thats backing up.
2. Lack of game balance - The health/damage upgrade for the hero and the attribute upgrades for allies feel too powerful in comparison to other abilities. Hero's blocking ability feels really weak. Final boss battle needs some tuning, it feels like too many minons attack you too often. Also mission balance is off, allow the player to participate in every mission in some fashion (even if it means controlling alternate characters).
3. Death screen takes too long too show up, fade out a little more quickly.
I used fireball for damage, frigid blast for knockback, plague bane for more dot and damage, gargoyle for healing and when I wanted more damage, and scourage blast for when I wanted a map nuke.
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All ranged weapons have a Range: ? in the tooltip to let you know the range. You can use Q to toggle sticky items in the inventory (there's a note about it below the hotkeys), and hotkeys on equipment can be used to quickly switch between melee and ranged. I think that all of this just needs to be explained more - no NPC mentions the sticky items, but it's really useful to keep food, bullets and equipment while quickly transferring everything else.