☼ Hedon 1.5.2 (Now on GOG) ☼

[Skelegant]

I think Diode's just being picky in terms of sprite quality, the creature sprites are fine and the proportions, while not 100% realistic, work well in the fantasy setting I especially like the spindly cultist thingies.
The useable items could stand out a little more though, maybe have them emit little sparkles? Also it can be hard to tell where to go next after completing a task, it might help to include an unobtrusive ambient sound leading you towards the next task?

[Zan]

Well, he does have a point, and I'll probably get to remake some of the sprites sometime, but given the amount of work I have to put in this game, time is against me so I gotta get stuff done fast.
Not sure what's wrong with the weapon/HUD sprites though. Which of the sprites you thing look bad? Perhaps I could write them down for a remake.

Making sprites after 3D models is out of question. The fact that it's purely hand drawn is one of Hedon's main attributes.


Item finding *is* an issue, but I hate floating/sparkling items so I'm sorta stuck at just placing them in a logical position for the player to see. I think I could try giving them a random bright frame to indicate they're pickable, but I don't know, it's kinda ugh... I do want Hedon to be a somewhat enigmatic game, I mean I fucking hate anything that points the player around so again, this is the main struggle I have and need feedback on, force the player to think/explore but while also not being completely unfair towards them or making the game OBJECTIVELY frustrating.

What exactly do you have in mind with the helping sounds, Skelegant? It sounds like something that would be neat and subtle to "direct" the player around, but I'm not sure how that would be implemented.

Think of Arx Fatalis and Ultima Underworld, it's the spirit of those games I'm trying hard to continue.

[Skelegant]

I was thinking a low drone which compliments the map's music, with a rolloff distance big enough that you can hear it all over the map but it's loudest at its source (so maybe something like 32 to 8000). You could probably have an object make the sound and teleport to the next place via acs (maybe leaving behind a "winding down" sound object to prevent it from cutting out sharply) and it could be removed on the harder difficulties.

btw I love the environments and props and overall style, it feels like you're playing through an old storybook

[Zan]

I was thinking a low drone which compliments the map's music, with a rolloff distance big enough that you can hear it all over the map but it's loudest at its source (so maybe something like 32 to 8000). You could probably have an object make the sound and teleport to the next place via acs (maybe leaving behind a "winding down" sound object to prevent it from cutting out sharply) and it could be removed on the harder difficulties.

btw I love the environments and props and overall style, it feels like you're playing through an old storybook

Hmm, interesting, I'll think about it.

Okay, I decided to add a bright frame every 2 secs to items that are needed to progress, I suppose it's not that bad visually, and it's up to the player to pick up consumables and stuff that helps out with combat but isn't vital to progress through the level. What's fair is fair, and I can agree that missing some items can be frustrating as all hell.

[Diode]

So, last night gave things a second shot, and had a much better experience once I started tweaking rendering options to try and up the contrast and make things stand out a little more. Items started becoming easier to find pretty soon after I did that, and I was able to make my through all three levels.

I still experienced the problem of the skinny grey enemies blending into the background whenever I was moving at speed, and it was a great annoyance to continually be taking hits from easily missed enemies with the fastest, hardest to spot projectiles in the game. Just to see what it'd be like, I went and blew the saturation up, which, amusingly, made things look a lot like that menu screen art, and that solved the issue instantly. It pissed all over the art direction, but it was without a doubt the most easily playable experience for me.

I don't expect you to go combing through your .pk3 and tweaking all all your art assets saturation and contrast, but I figured this might be helpful information for you anyway, since it basically took the game from something I wanted to like to something I actually enjoyed. Perhaps just putting those knife throwers in coloured outfits might improve matters? They're really the most annoying, most dangerous enemy of all.

Beyond that, suggestions are:

- Notify the player when they are near an item that's readable. Unreal does this through the translator beeping, but since you don't have a narrative tool like that, perhaps show a symbol on screen? Would also cut down on the time I spent attempting to read everything that looked like it had a chance of being readable.
- Some collision radii on pickups might be worth tweaking. I often had to jump ontop of tables and shelves to pick up items on the edges of them even when I had my face pressed up against them.
- key/door designs. I know doom-style brightly coloured keys and doorframes aren't going to be something you'll be willing to do, but it's a drag not being able to readily identify which key corresponds to which door from any real distance. This isn't too big an issue, and it becomes less of one the longer you play, but it might help players get good first impressions.
- Map markers. Yes, the player can place their own, but this probably such a rarely used feature in doom that I suspect most players are either completely unaware of it or simply don't have it in their gameplay vocabulary. It often took me longer to find my way back to objectives than it did for me to get the items needed to complete them due to forgetting where exactly they were. It'd be an idea if these things spawned map markers when they were first interacted with - either the standard map marker, or a map-visible thing. I think there's a variable for showing individual things on the map this but I forget what it's called.
-The first level could do a better job of communicating what you expect of the player. Before you give players a task of wandering from one end of a maze to the other and back again in search of items to use with things, have them perform the same task in a smaller, simpler environment. Starting with having the player engineer their escape from a tiny area at the beginning of the first level would really do a lot to communicate the kind of things they should be looking for in the environment, and the kind of applications those things have.

[Zan]

Oh, wow, I had no idea map markers were a thing. This is going to be very useful, thanks for the heads up.

I'm going to try and come back at some point with more textures and stuff to cut that huge grey palette in some areas, but for now I have to work hard on the new map and the last weapon.

Anyway, it's good to know this stuff, I'll try to put in more contrast and make stuff easier to read/figure out, but this is what I need tester feedback for, I can hardly relate since I already know the game like the back of my hand.

Will wrap everything up and make a final release for the 0.3.a, and hopefully get more feedback as I work on the new content.

Thanks a lot

[Zan]

New update, guys, check out the first post

[Diode]

Had a pretty smooth run through this one, unless we count the number of times I fell/burned/blew up. I never got lost any point.

Didn't get to use the gear I made, though, though which was a little confusing. I must've missed something, story wise. I'm not entirely sure what I did to open that final door - I just made the gear, and well, that was that. ...Definitely preferable to hours and hours of aimless wandering, but there was something slightly less rewarding about that seemingly unrelated end. Maybe I missed something in the story because I didn't have to read the text so closely?

The sentries were cool, although I didn't build or place one, and I really liked the new weapon, particularly when I discovered I could *ignite the cloud*.

Visually, I definitely had less trouble seeing things this time around. Not sure if it was just the lighting and floor/wall textures but things definitely seemed less grey over all.

Honestly, playing this was pretty much the highlight of my day, even if I question your sanity for putting so much jumping not only an FPS, but an FPS as fast and *frictionless* as doom.

[Diode]

Also I'm pretty sure you can break the map if you pull the lift switch in the starting room enough times to lower it too far.

[Zan]

Hey, thanks for the feedback. The Gear you made will be used straight away in the next map (in which you basically return to the park from the underground town in map02 and continue from there by opening the gate). Yes, I know it's confusing, but for now it'll have to do.

I'm not huge into platforming myself, but I thought I'd add some variation, plus I think it fits the level's theme.
Thanks for spotting the switch issue, I'll go fix it right away.

Glad you enjoyed overall!

[Smiechu]

Mod looks great buuuuut... when I set text scaling to 3 the lines appear on top of each other. Is there a way to fix this? There's a lot of text to read but keeping it at size 2 puts a major strain on my eyes, especially with that font.

[Zan]

Mod looks great buuuuut... when I set text scaling to 3 the lines appear on top of each other. Is there a way to fix this? There's a lot of text to read but keeping it at size 2 puts a major strain on my eyes, especially with that font.

Hmm, what resolution do you use? I'm aware of some text size issues, the default is set to 1 specifically so people using 1024x768 and around don't get overlapping text. For 1920x1080, 2 should be fine, so I assume you have a really big screen?

[Smiechu]

Mod looks great buuuuut... when I set text scaling to 3 the lines appear on top of each other. Is there a way to fix this? There's a lot of text to read but keeping it at size 2 puts a major strain on my eyes, especially with that font.

Hmm, what resolution do you use? I'm aware of some text size issues, the default is set to 1 specifically so people using 1024x768 and around don't get overlapping text. For 1920x1080, 2 should be fine, so I assume you have a really big screen?

I use 1920x1080 but size 2 is just too small for me. I can read it but it's just too much effort. Size 3 makes lines overlap and that makes it even more undereadable.

[Zan]

Not sure if I can do much about it. Honestly, this looks pretty ok in size if you ask me.

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[Diode]

Apart from the formatting being completely screwed...