Pyrian on 30/4/2015 at 01:49
Hi everyone. I figured it's time to give this project its own thread. I'm planning on submitting this to IndieCade in (gulp) two days and I'd appreciate any constructive feedback!
Glade Raid is a simultaneous-turn-based woodland-fantasy game (and FTL-esque RPG to be) with a few new mechanics.
There is no roll to hit; instead, each unit has active Defenses they can use against incoming attacks. Typically these are Parry, Dodge, and/or shield Block. One defense stops one attack per round (there are two rounds per turn). This setup emphasizes the vulnerability of being attacked by multiple enemies at once, in a way that the traditional ToHit-vs-ArmorClass system simply does not. With this very simple mechanic, complexity is layered on top; you cannot parry missile weapons, dodging requires firm ground and space to move, blocking requires equipping a shield, unit's orders can add or remove Defenses, and so on.
I've also got a new spell mechanic I'm calling "Animus". Every spell has a cooldown period (usually 5 turns), and every spell provides one Animus during its cooldown. Basic spells do not require Animus to cast, but most spells require one or more Animus (and therefore other spells already in cooldown) to be cast. This results in an ever evolving spell availability without the randomness of a standard card drawing system. (It, uh, will probably be more interesting when there are more than four spells.)
Tutorial/Demo link here:
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52800206/GladeRaid/GladeRaid.html)
Thanks again, everyone. :angel:
henke on 30/4/2015 at 05:06
I shall give this a go after work today. Looking forward to seeing how it's shaped up since the last version I tried.
Renzatic on 1/5/2015 at 03:15
I'd love to play it, but I can never seem to get the Unity web player to load.
I think it might be my computer more than anything. I'll try it out again here soon.
henke on 1/5/2015 at 18:48
When I issued my second turn orders on level 3 it crashed. Not only the game, but Firefox with it.
I'd say the tutorial is more clear now though.
Pyrian on 1/5/2015 at 20:34
Thanks for trying it out! Glad it's more clear now.
On the crash... Darn; I didn't think we had any crash bugs left. (The Unity Web Player does have a rude habit of taking down the browser when it hits an exception.) I don't suppose you recall any details about the circumstances leading up to the crash? More specific than turn 2 of level 3? Perhaps I need to invest in some exception handling, lol.
If you want to try again you can skip levels by pressing "n".
Yakoob on 2/5/2015 at 00:33
Playing it...
1) New grahpics - SNazzy! water moves! woo
2) Popping UI (tutorial box) - like it, feels more responsive!
3) Camera changes in tutorial - I feel this is too fast, and a bit annoying/disorienting if the camera moves by a long distance
4) Wording - I get what "nock"ing an arrow means in context, but I frankly never heard that word before; you may wanna explain what nocking actually means
5) Your tutorial doesnt explain the 2-action rule before first turn ie it tells me to attack board, and that nocking an arrow allows half move, but it doesnt tell me those are 2 actions happening as an effect of clicking on the boar, and that I get 2 actions per turn
6) YAY MOvEMeNT RANGE INDICATORS
7) THe movement is confusing. I can click on a field to move, OR drag my unit to move? Why 2 options, what is the difference? Pick just 1 and stick to it, makes it easier for the user to keep it remembered.
8) Tutorial needs to explain what the light vs. dark feet were. For example, on 2nd turn the first nock allows you short move (light feet) and the longer move (darker feet) overflows into 2nd action, I thought it'd be 2nd turn. Now it makes sense, but I didnt understand it until I really thought about it.
9) Even if a nock allows 2 moves and is first action, my scheduled move happens AFTER both my actions happen, so if an enemy is advancing they can reach me too quickly. 1
10) I was starting to get confused about waht happened on each turn with 5 units on the map, I can see it getting even worse when your numbers grow to 10+. Im not sure how to fix it without getting rid of the "everything happens at once" mecahnic... maybe slow it down? Or add a pause when "major" action happens (like attack) and floaters that persist for a while? Or if you take a life bar, keep it flashing for a while to indicate that life was taken. You could also have a "speed" slider light below the play button so more advance players can speed things up and newcomers take it slow.
Also addd a pause mid-turn, after first action. Have an option in settings so player can set it to requires pressing play or continue automatically after x seconds.
EDIT: also, why doesn't clicking on a unit on the ride sidebar allow me to select them :<
Pyrian on 2/5/2015 at 02:19
Wow, that's a ream of fantastic feedback! Thank you very much!
1) Thanks! Glad you like it.
2) This turned out to be absolutely necessary. Playtesters sometimes simply missed the fact that a new tutorial step had come up.
3) I 100% agree on the tutorial scroll being disorienting sometimes. I have to figure out a way to shoehorn in a pause and/or acceleration phase. It's just piggybacking the code for going to a unit, which is fine when the player deliberately clicked on it.
4) Good idea. I forget some words I'm familiar with aren't so universal.
5) Okay, I can expand that step pretty easily.
6) Movement indicators by popular demand! Actually that was really hard to do. Unity doesn't allow you to "brighten" a sprite, you can only darken it.
7) Maybe. I'm always a big fan of having multiple ways to do things. Setting long paths by dragging is tough, but the dragging is otherwise much better.
8) Good point. And I probably need a third stage for "succeeding turns". And I should probably explain what the sideways feet mean, lol.
9) I'm going to guess that you assigned your move after issuing both orders? This is one I'm really struggling with. If you issue two move-capable orders and then click a destination, it goes to the second order. I thought about sending it to the first order if that order lacks a destination, but then you would be unable to remain stationary for the first move and then spring into action later, which is an important option. But as-is, you have to either cancel the second move-capable order to issue a destination to the first move-capable order, which is a pain, or use dragging to set the first order destination, which is a bit counter-intuitive. I dunno.
10) Turn History is your friend. :) All good ideas, but only mitigate the problem. Someday I'm going to have to just bite the bullet and implement a full replay feature.
EDIT) That's very strange. Clicking on the unit's icon (the non-portrait portrait, if you will) selects the unit or scrolls to the unit if it's already selected (or the turn is playing out). Adding an order also selects the unit. Were you clicking on the white space?
Thanks again! New build tonight. Probably won't get many of these suggestions in, I've been adding a bit more interface art, a main menu, credits, and I need some more sounds (male Ogres and female Druids should not sound identical, lol).
henke on 2/5/2015 at 12:13
Cool. :)
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I don't suppose you recall any details about the circumstances leading up to the crash? More specific than turn 2 of level 3?
I was having the wood kern throw javelins and back 2 steps out of the water, the ranger was firing, and the berserker was running south. The game crashed when I hit the play button.
