Tolwyn's Ghost
Spaceman
Been playing for the last month or so. Love this remake and you all have done outstanding work on it. Btw, I am amazed to say that it has never crashed, and I must have played 30-40 sessions by now. That alone is seriously impressive, guys.
I've also been totally hyping the remake to friends and on my blog. As you can see here http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/, yep, I'm a fan alright.
So, please know before you read my comments that I'm not solely coming from a negative position. Not at all, in fact. These are just a few things I've jotted down in the meantime.
1. Everything doesn't have to have a reflective surface. Maybe you could be more selective/tasteful with that effect? It also looks kind of weird, like it is the wrong kind of reflective look. Maybe it's just that everything is coated with it...
2. The new asteroids can kill the flow of the game. The rest of the game, even battles with lots of ships, sails along beautifully feeling very smooth overall, then you hit an asteroid system and wham, everything slows down. FPS drops radically and suspension of disbelief flies out the window. You're back in the real world, rolling your eyes at the slowness, instead of being caught up in the game.
3. No event should kill your ship without a chance to see it coming and try to do something about it. If an unseen asteroid, for example, out of your field of vision, coming from above or below, say, wallops you and takes you out, it's not fair or fun. (And fun is what it's all about, not exasperation.)
Instant death is not a positive element of game design. If the original game had this, fine, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from others' mistakes. It seems like the old asteroids were actually "better" in this regard since they basically nickeled and dimed you to death, which is plenty, especially if your ship is already damaged.
4. What's up with the name of a base or a planet on the trading and mission screens being a file name? Very geeky, and it doesn't tell you the name of the place you're at --which is what you want to know when you look there.
5. Generally, text messages that appear on the no cockpit hud are somewhat strange. Some are plain English, which is good. Others look like dev info messages that gamers should never see (and filenames instead of normal text that players should see). The more you can tidy this up the more immersive and appealing the game will be.
6. Ship buying needs a confirmation message. "Are you sure you want to buy this ship?" Just in case we click a ship by mistake.
7. Don't make the mistake that game companies often make. Gameplay, game balance and overall smoothness of play are far more important concerns than high end graphics issues. Game studios spend most of their time, budgets and resources on graphics and game design can really suffer for it. I don't want that to happen to this project because it really is starting out very well!
8. The interface might need to give a little more feedback to tell players that they have just actually done something, like pressing a "button" or activating some feature the ship possesses. Obviously sounds are good for this; even something as simple as the "g" gun switching sound is good enough/better than nothing (although, of course, different sounds should probably be used for other things). However, at the same time, you wouldn't want to go overboard with this kind of thing.
9. The time delay for jumping should, imho, be greatly shortened or even made "instantaneous." (I realize that a level load is involved here.) Getting pummeled while you wait after hitting "j" is like being punished for no reason. Besides, escapes via jumping should be dramatic hair raising escapes, yes? Not a break in the action or a liability (!).
Designwise, when the player's ship hits a jump point, you might immediately switch what is on the screen to a relatively simple "in hyperspace" graphic of some kind while the new system loads (and make sure the player's ship actually left the old system/level so it can't be shot at during this phase). Then, pop!, arrive at the new system. Something like that?
10. I think "Active Missions" in the missions screen should, when appropriate, list your current missions' cargo unit counts for easy reference.
11. Turning off the cockpit and changing to turret positions seems broken. Sometimes I tap once, other times, twice. The game pauses sometimes when I'm doing this, it hiccups, etc. I got used to it but it's a little odd.
12. If you pause the game, ships should stop shooting at you.
13. When you pause the game, it might be nice to have a few other options available besides quitting to your desktop.
Well, that's about it. If I've repeated things that have already been said, skip over those points. If I have made any errors or misinterpreted anything, please feel okay to correct me. No ego here.
Thanks for making this remake guys. It's awesome fun!
I've also been totally hyping the remake to friends and on my blog. As you can see here http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/, yep, I'm a fan alright.
So, please know before you read my comments that I'm not solely coming from a negative position. Not at all, in fact. These are just a few things I've jotted down in the meantime.
1. Everything doesn't have to have a reflective surface. Maybe you could be more selective/tasteful with that effect? It also looks kind of weird, like it is the wrong kind of reflective look. Maybe it's just that everything is coated with it...
2. The new asteroids can kill the flow of the game. The rest of the game, even battles with lots of ships, sails along beautifully feeling very smooth overall, then you hit an asteroid system and wham, everything slows down. FPS drops radically and suspension of disbelief flies out the window. You're back in the real world, rolling your eyes at the slowness, instead of being caught up in the game.
3. No event should kill your ship without a chance to see it coming and try to do something about it. If an unseen asteroid, for example, out of your field of vision, coming from above or below, say, wallops you and takes you out, it's not fair or fun. (And fun is what it's all about, not exasperation.)
Instant death is not a positive element of game design. If the original game had this, fine, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from others' mistakes. It seems like the old asteroids were actually "better" in this regard since they basically nickeled and dimed you to death, which is plenty, especially if your ship is already damaged.
4. What's up with the name of a base or a planet on the trading and mission screens being a file name? Very geeky, and it doesn't tell you the name of the place you're at --which is what you want to know when you look there.
5. Generally, text messages that appear on the no cockpit hud are somewhat strange. Some are plain English, which is good. Others look like dev info messages that gamers should never see (and filenames instead of normal text that players should see). The more you can tidy this up the more immersive and appealing the game will be.
6. Ship buying needs a confirmation message. "Are you sure you want to buy this ship?" Just in case we click a ship by mistake.
7. Don't make the mistake that game companies often make. Gameplay, game balance and overall smoothness of play are far more important concerns than high end graphics issues. Game studios spend most of their time, budgets and resources on graphics and game design can really suffer for it. I don't want that to happen to this project because it really is starting out very well!
8. The interface might need to give a little more feedback to tell players that they have just actually done something, like pressing a "button" or activating some feature the ship possesses. Obviously sounds are good for this; even something as simple as the "g" gun switching sound is good enough/better than nothing (although, of course, different sounds should probably be used for other things). However, at the same time, you wouldn't want to go overboard with this kind of thing.
9. The time delay for jumping should, imho, be greatly shortened or even made "instantaneous." (I realize that a level load is involved here.) Getting pummeled while you wait after hitting "j" is like being punished for no reason. Besides, escapes via jumping should be dramatic hair raising escapes, yes? Not a break in the action or a liability (!).
Designwise, when the player's ship hits a jump point, you might immediately switch what is on the screen to a relatively simple "in hyperspace" graphic of some kind while the new system loads (and make sure the player's ship actually left the old system/level so it can't be shot at during this phase). Then, pop!, arrive at the new system. Something like that?
10. I think "Active Missions" in the missions screen should, when appropriate, list your current missions' cargo unit counts for easy reference.
11. Turning off the cockpit and changing to turret positions seems broken. Sometimes I tap once, other times, twice. The game pauses sometimes when I'm doing this, it hiccups, etc. I got used to it but it's a little odd.
12. If you pause the game, ships should stop shooting at you.
13. When you pause the game, it might be nice to have a few other options available besides quitting to your desktop.
Well, that's about it. If I've repeated things that have already been said, skip over those points. If I have made any errors or misinterpreted anything, please feel okay to correct me. No ego here.
Thanks for making this remake guys. It's awesome fun!