Hello,

Yesterday I released a major update to my D-based game that I've been working on for about a year now, you can read about it here: https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog/472621/2023-01-05-physics-rework

The game is a work in progress, so any feedback on bugs/instability/gameplay is appreciated. Thanks!

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:

So, as far as my experience goes:

1: Great installation experience, just unzip and boom it works. For a finished game I would recommend a proper installer or something that is as simple as double clicking.
2: The W button to move forward mechanic was an horrible experience, I would like to recommend proper WASD with mouse to aim, this way it makes the game more intuitive (like I pressed other buttons before W anyway), easier to players to avoid getting hit, and will allow people to rest their single finger.
3: The interface could give more feedback, like, the colors are blending a lot, like, flashing buttons with sound when you click them. The minimap could get a stroke or a background to make it blend less with the game.
4: Add a resize/scaler to your window. I got a 4K screen and I had to almost close halfway my eyes to view better (yes 4K screen has horrible usability, but I not being able to play full screen bothers me)
5: Change the weapon automatically when taking them, and develop an interface for that, I took some times the weapon from the ground but was confused because nothing changed for my character, I needed to look into the game controllers.
6: [-Pause: Escape]: Most people don't know what Escape is, use ESC instead. Same applies to Control, changing it to CTRL.
7: While writing that I found the Resize thing. It is not good enough, the text didn't scale together. The game gives an unfair advantage to people which has bigger screen, prefer scaling the game instead of extending the world drawable size.
8: Graphics options should contain a brief description on what they do.
9: Auto detect screen size is nice approach to do
10: ESC in title screen should prompt the user to quit the game
11: I could not adjust the screen to use the entire space (the screen moved a bit and then I could not center it).
12: Game is looking pretty darky, would be better to have other source of lights

Besides that refinements you could do for a complete game, It is looking nice, I'm looking towards the finished project :)

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:

Hello,

The game was fun.

Have you considered open sourcing it?

On Monday, 9 January 2023 at 00:57:08 UTC, Hipreme wrote:

Glad to hear that. An installer is definitely a possibility, should be easy enough on Windows at least.

Yeah this has been a contentious issue for others who have played the game as well. I actually at one point did implement WASD movement but it felt wrong to me so I ended up keeping the single movement key. There's really no reason though that I couldn't have multiple control schemes so maybe I'll look into that for a future release.

Interface sounds are on the list for sure. As for the minimap, you can adjust it's opacity values in the settings menu.

Ah yes, sorry about that. I develop primarily on a QHD monitor, but 4k is something that I've never tested. I do plan on implementing scaling support in the future, though this will likely take a bit longer as I plan to do it at the engine level.

I think it actually used to switch the weapon automatically in a previous version, though I didn't like that way it felt so I removed that functionality. You are definitely right about the not being able to see it immediately though, I think a possible solution to this could be to show the other non-equipped weapons above the active weapon panel. I'll look into that.

Interesting, I hadn't really considered that to be honest. Makes sense though as those match the exact letters on the keys.

Yeah, this is another thing that I want to implement support for at the engine level. Not sure when I'll get to it but it's on the list.

I agree, I'll see about adding description lines or tool tips for the next release.

For sure, looking into this as well.

Good idea, I'll add that in.

Not sure I follow, are you referring to when it's in windowed mode?

Yeah, Zombie Onslaught is pretty dark by default, though this was done intentionally to help build the feel/ambiance of the gamemode, but also to help show off some of the lighting effects that are present in the later phases. You can however work around this by using the map editor -- any map can be loaded and modified and static light sources can be added or removed as desired.

Thank you for trying it out, I really appreciate all of the feedback! Not sure it will ever be truly finished but it's certainly getting better with each release!

On Monday, 9 January 2023 at 01:43:14 UTC, thebluepandabear wrote:

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! I don't have any intent to open source the game or the engine at this point, though maybe somewhere further down the road.

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:

I played the game. I like the concept. Here are few things I thought about while playing it:

• It was slooow on my laptop. Don't know, if its my setup or on the D side, or something else. (I use windows 10)
• Maybe add a story to the game to catch the player's attention and deepen it, to add some dynamic elements to the game... the apocalypse theming is wonderful though.
• The movement key W - I didn't get it at first and spent sometime trying to understand why it wasn't working. So, it would be great to display a small hint while the level is being loaded or as a separate message in the beginning.

That's it, keep up the good work! I'd like to check out the finished game some day.

On Friday, 20 January 2023 at 16:10:20 UTC, Ki Rill wrote:

Thanks for giving it a try! Sorry to hear it was slow on your laptop, would you be willing to post the specs? If you're running without a dedicated GPU then the performance likely won't be great, especially if it's an older generation of onboard graphics.

One thing you could try is disabling "Soft Shadows" in the settings menu. This feature was recently added and likely won't perform well without a GPU as it uses a shader for smoothing the edges of the shadows from light sources.

Yeah I haven't worked much on any type of story tbh, though that may change with future releases. The new scenario that I'm working does have some basic story elements to it, so we'll see how that evolves.

I think I may just build a simple tutorial mode to acquaint the player with the control scheme, especially since the W key thing is a bit unorthodox. This way I would be able to display a prompt on first launch asking if they want to do the tutorial, and they'd be able to re-visit it too if they wanted.

I update the project fairly frequently so be sure to give it a follow if you have an itch account! Alternatively, you can subscribe to the devlog RSS feed to get updates without an account: https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog.rss

On Saturday, 21 January 2023 at 05:16:55 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:

I have a gaming laptop: ASUS TUF F15. It's the first time I bought one and I'm not yet familiar with how the discrete graphics card should work. I guess, it should be almost the same as PC.

I tried running it on PC. Works smoothly. So, it's my laptop, but I have no clue why.

A prompt is a good idea. That would make it a lot easier for first-time players.

I saved the link; will visit your blog from time to time.