Sandfall - Tech Demo!!

[So fist]

I'm having the same issue I had with the earlier demo.  If I hit my shift key five times in rapid succession I get the stupid sticky keys prompt from windows.  Any chance the firing could happen with the spacebar, instead?  Otherwise its very nice.  Is there any chance you guys will go eight direction on this?

 

[Yeyinde]

You can also use the Z key to attack

 

[So fist]

Thanks somehow I missed that in the explanation.  BTW anyone know of anyway to deactivate sticky keys totally.  Never use it anyway.

 

[Despain]

There's a way to do it, I actually had the problem myself before since I'm on a new computer. When the popup comes up, there's a button for advanced preferences or something. Dig around in there and you can disable them with some checkboxes.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

In the third room where the enemy comes at you, I was attacking when suddenly I was against the wall.  The target indicator (red spike circle) was around the enemy.  I went to reload when I noticed something was funny.  The indicator was two tiles to my left, and the enemy wasn't.

Both myself and the indicator were stuck frozen.  The enemy continued walking about me but ignored me completely until I hit x, in an attempt to use melee, as I was out of bullets.  The moment I hit x I would get attacked either after canceling or using a melee attack.  Other than that I guess me and my foe got along fine, as he never attacked me otherwise.

 

[Despain]

Thanks, sixty. Taken care of and fixed.

I'll wait before I upload the fixed version for some other reports.

 

[Calibre]

I can't say I experienced any difficulty though I didn't try to recreate sixties...

I actually really like if after I got used to it.  Not so much in the demo but as I went through the attacks I realised the scope for tactics when you are heavily ganged up on as well as the action.

My only gripes was that it was pretty annoying I couldn't just reload by pressing another key than going into the menu - it stops the enemy movement anyway so neither would make the fight harder / easier.

Actually that is my only gripe I think!

As well as attacking various directions, will there be different types of elemental damage or bullet types etc that are nulled / powerful on certain foes.

It's really good though man, it has a far better balance than before I think.  I also like how you incorporated the pitfight controls into the skills but I didn't feel like I got punished if I was a bit slow.  I dunno maybe I did.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

The whole having to go to the menu thing... I really don't like that.  I already told you, des, that.  I can see why, because if your that close to someone you wouldn't stop to reload and all, but still.  Perhaps make it a time delay, it takes a second to reload before you can shoot again.

I just don't like the idea of a big fight having to do it that way, if I'm surrounded and need to reload I'm completely out of options.  I either run far enough away, or melee my ass off.

 

[bedi nik bzez emak]

;D

 

[The Urchin]

I don't really like how you have to go a menu to reload.  I think it should just be a button, and I don't understand why you can't be close to the enemy to reload.  Reloading would make you vulnerable to enemy attacks, so should you be able to reload near the enemy yet it still have a consequence?  It's just a really slow system with that set up.  Shot like 6 times then run away to reload...  Eh, not really that fun in my opinion.  But the actual battle system is awesome.

 

[Despain]

The idea was that you can't reload when you're close to an enemy because it would be dangerous to fumble with your weapons, and that later on in the game there would be weapons that can hold more ammunition at once.

It is is really a problem for more people as more people play the tech demo, it wouldn't be difficult to add a quick-reload button, but maybe with a limitation if you do it close to an enemy- like you can only reload half of your maximum rather than the full amount because you would be rushing.

Also note that in the full game of Sandfall, there would be a reload sprite animation.

 

[Luminier]

Terrific battle system, Despain! I usually don't enjoy real-time battle systems on PC games(I don't have a controller, so I have to use my keyboard), but the simplistic controls make it quite enjoyable. I like how there're only a couple of keys that I have to worry about during battle. Too many hotkeys, and such confuse my feeble mind.  :crazy:

I always enjoy action oriented battle systems where you don't have to get right up in the enemy's face to do damage. Attacking from a distance is always my preference(hence why I enjoy Quintessence's battles), if I have a choice.

I can definitely see the possible strategic applications of each of the attack skills. Hell, this guy can get surrounded on all sides and come out unscathed!

As pretty much everyone else has stated, having to retreat, and open the menu to reload is needlessly clunky. I understand that it would be pretty silly for someone to reload his weapon right up in some thugs's grill. It's not very realistic. But from a gameplay perspective, being able to reload closer to the enemy would be much smoother, and wouldn't interrupt the flow of battle.

It is is really a problem for more people as more people play the tech demo, it wouldn't be difficult to add a quick-reload button, but maybe with a limitation if you do it close to an enemy- like you can only reload half of your maximum rather than the full amount because you would be rushing.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. May I suggest something? Maybe you could add an option for the player to choose whether they want to reload quickly, but not put as much ammo in, or reload slowly(and therefore be vulnerable), but reload the gun to full capacity. Just an idea. I thought it up in about three seconds, so it might be a little half-baked.

Oh and this may be unrelated to the battle system, but still pertaining to the demo, but I just wanted to say that the song that plays during the whole demo is really quite good.  :grin:

 

[The Urchin]

So I was thinking maybe by buying more clips you could auto reload close to enemys but without another clip you would have to do it at a distance.  It makes sense in a realistic matter, you know?

(maybe making the player need to load ammo in the clip from a menu before hand too)

 

[Denko]

The battle system in the tech demo is really fun. And I guess that's most important.
Everyone's already said what I was gonna say, basically. But I think the Melee attacks are really interesting and it could work in situations other than battle, like opening a locked door or something.
The combat is deep but not too deep to where you get confused. I got the hang of it very quickly.
And yeah, I agree that not being able to reload up-close is a little annoying. Maybe have a penalty for it, but you should still allow it.
But you've been really sensible with this game, and made really good choices as far as the gameplay goes, and I'm really looking forward to the actual game now.

 

[Dissonance]

As I think everybody here has said, making 'Reload' a menu option and not mapping it to a key seems entirely counter-intuitive.  When you first whip out your gun Sandfall has this feeling of being a semi-fast paced overhead shooter, almost akin to the gun system in the 2-D GTA games.  Having to go to a menu to reload completely shatters the illusion of fast paced gun battles.

The best thing to do is have a key mapped to reload, and show your character sprite reloading the gun while you do it.  While reloading, you can run/hide/etc but can't melee or ranged at all.  So with the standard 6-gun featured in the demo, if your character reloads at 0, he will begin loading bullets into his gun, and after he loads six you can shoot again.  All the while you can run and do whatever else, he'll just keep on reloading as you do it.

As for melee itself, it suffers from the same problem - it stops the action to have you put in an almost Paper Mario-esque combination of keys.  I don't know how you'd exactly work around this idea short of making certain key combos enterable in real time for different melee moves.  But the problem is the same as before - Sandfall presents itself as a fast paced birds-eye-view shooter, and then these other elements are thrown in that completely work against that, making the experience more jarring than anything else.

 

[Zwark0]

I think the reload system is beautiful, you just have to look at it in another way. Instead of seeing this as a 'fast paced action shooter' think of it more as a tactical shooter. Where you have to make every shot count instead of just pumping out bullets like an automatic. That's how I see cowboy shooters. Like if you watch a movie with such as Trigun, Vash has a sixshooter and he makes every single shot count.He doesn't just waste them, he carefully places them (making every last bullet valuable) Perhaps you could make the bullets do a lot more damage though as well as making them more scarce. But that's just my way of looking at this battle system, you probably won't agree.

 

[Grathea]

OK, I've finally been drawn in to comment. The battle system is very fun to use, and I didn't have any issues with intuitivity.
From a graphical standpoint, I love the animated charsets for the special moves. When I first saw that, my initial thought was "woah, awesome" (Well, something along those lines).

This project is incredible, and I can't wait for release.

 

[006]

Played the demo and well... You've made the best ABS I've ever seen, or played.
Great job Despain!

 

[Calibre]

Just an idea but when  the game starts up you could have it like in other rpg's where you can select either Action based or Tactics Based and if they choose Action a reload key is added.  I can't imagine that being too hard to implement.

 

[Despain]

I have an idea for what I'll do for the situation (so many people bring up the reloading that I'm going to change it).

I'm thinking of adding a reload option to the close-combat battle menu (a hotkey would be nice but I really think that minimizing the amount of buttons used in the game is important). Then I'd also change the way reloading works- there would be an animation for the character. Depending on how much ammunition you have to refill the amount of time it would take would change (if you have five bullets and reload, it would only take a moment to reload the sixth, but if you're empty it would take longer to reload all six). You'd also be able to cancel reloading by pressing cancel, and it would stop you, so if you're empty and need one more shot in a jam you don't have to wait to reload all six, and then can reload when you're in a safe area. Both the players and the enemies can move during this reloading time to heighten the action/tension.