Foreverhood Gameplay Beta Test -Looking for Fresh eyes-

[skadoomer]

Anyone willing to help beta test a gameplay candidate, pm me.

[Captain Ventris]

Wow. I had no idea you made Foreverhood. Holy heck.

Will this be continuing the same story? The same art style as before? I found it absolutely enchanting.

[Risen]

I'm happy to critique again for you. Downloading.

[skadoomer]

Will this be continuing the same story? The same art style as before?

Same black & white sprite art style (with more shading on all characters), and relatively the same story, but told in a different way.

[TheDarkArchon]

Most of it appears to work fine but after leaving a level with the shotgun equipped and charged, I was unable to use it again without having the weapon charged,

[Dreadopp]

I thought that this was really cool . One thing though, is that I had a little trouble reading some of the words in the menu. Maybe a darker shade of red to help distinguish a bit more from the background?

[Risen]

Just a few early observations:

I tried charging my weapon, but had to stop midway and began charging again. When I restarted, the blue bar's upper cap went way up off the screen.

I can't say I really understand the relationship between the different elements. I'm not sure what 'magic' is or why I'd want to increase it. I hope this will be better explained?

I'm also not sure why the text that says what each stat does only shows up at level up time. The space is just blank otherwise... so why clear it out?

[skadoomer]

I tried charging my weapon, but had to stop midway and began charging again. When I restarted, the blue bar's upper cap went way up off the screen.

Right clicking should terminate the weapon selection if its open. I'll look into it. Its currently a mess to check what events are active so other events know if they can activate.

after leaving a level with the shotgun equipped and charged, I was unable to use it again without having the weapon charged

I completely forgot to include handling for this event. I'll fix it later this evening.

I can't say I really understand the relationship between the different elements. I'm not sure what 'magic' is or why I'd want to increase it. I hope this will be better explained?

I debated wether or not there should be an explination box or not and decided that i would try to sum it up win a few words. The explanations definitely need to be present when you have points , but for the remainder of the time the space could be put to better use. (statistics on the abilities you have maybe?)

[Risen]

Just to clarify, the huge blue bar bug is related ONLY to charging; I was not trying to change weapons at the time. I can reproduce it by rapidly tapping the charge button (altfire) for a while.

The swapping of the blue and orange bars is cool, but it makes me think that the blue bar is somehow unimportant when the orange one is active. If the bar is only there to show how much power is remaining, then why is it less important when there is a charge?

Good to know about the selection termination, though... I hadn't tried that and was wondering. I figured it would be normal fire, like Half-Life, but sometimes that fired the weapon I was holding.

Stats on what you have would be good, but then I wouldn't want those to go away when I leveled up. Instead, I'd want to preview what the new stats would be if I selected a particular option. I think the best option for the explanations is like the amulets... show a pop-up when you select them. This will mean that you'll have to create a definite button aside from the icon in order to select the stat at level up, because the icon itself would call up the description.

I definitely echo the earlier comment about poor readability, but you did say the graphics were all placeholder stuff. I assume you'll also fix the inconsistencies between the true inventory icon and the icon that shows in your scripted inventory thing.

Also, take a quick look at these...
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+basted
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+based

[skadoomer]

Just to clarify, the huge blue bar bug is related ONLY to charging; I was not trying to change weapons at the time. I can reproduce it by rapidly tapping the charge button (altfire) for a while.

I'll add that to the list. Its a quirk to get the charge to "set" after its been built up so i suspect the problems around there.

The swapping of the blue and orange bars is cool, but it makes me think that the blue bar is somehow unimportant when the orange one is active. If the bar is only there to show how much power is remaining, then why is it less important when there is a charge?

"Charged" ammunition becomes the weapons actual ammunition; the blue ammunition is unimportant because its not used while your weapon has a charge.

Good to know about the selection termination, though... I hadn't tried that and was wondering. I figured it would be normal fire, like Half-Life, but sometimes that fired the weapon I was holding.

You can also dissipate your charge by doing the same thing, which returns a small amount of the ammunition you used to charge the weapon.

Instead, I'd want to preview what the new stats would be if I selected a particular option.

Like how much of an improvement to health or your ammunition you would receive or how much your defense would increase? I made a conscious decision to steer away from numbers and that information could be represented by the color bars instead. I kinda miss some of the numbers and if its in the interest of the people, i wouldn't be opposed to add some of the hard facts of what percentage gain was given with leveling a stat.

I assume you'll also fix the inconsistencies between the true inventory icon and the icon that shows in your scripted inventory thing.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

and yes, my proff reding skill is horible.

[Risen]

Like how much of an improvement to health or your ammunition you would receive or how much your defense would increase? I made a conscious decision to steer away from numbers and that information could be represented by the color bars instead. I kinda miss some of the numbers and if its in the interest of the people, i wouldn't be opposed to add some of the hard facts of what percentage gain was given with leveling a stat.

Stick with no numbers, if that's what you want. But you could maybe show it a different way... like bars for how much regeneration power there is vs the maximum you can get? I'm not sure.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

Some of the icons in the true inventory don't match up with the icons I had in the 'book'. I had to guess which ones matched with what.

More thoughts:
- Gameplay is otherwise paused when the book is open, but you still regenerate. (Also lifts, etc. still move, but I don't know if you can do anything about that one.)
- There's no way to see how powered up a weapon is unless you select it and then go to the book
- It's unclear that the white bar at the bottom is a 'to next level' progress bar. I thought it was weapon experience for a while, just based on screen position. If you're going to show that on screen (and I don't think it's absolutely necessary) then a corner might be better than obscuring the weapon. Also, in its current position it gets in the way of the inventory bar.
- A better notification that your weapon has leveled up would be nice. I saw the puff change and didn't understand what happened right away. It'd be really cool if the weapon's looks actually changed as well.
- The special weapon effects (poison, petrify...) definitely need visual aids. They're just weird when they happen because you don't really know what's going on.
- I used the shotgun a lot, but then I noticed that it was taking 2 ammo per shot, and switched to the double. Then I started thinking about how each weapon uses the same ammo and decided that the rocket launcher had a MUCH bigger bang for the buck and started using it a lot, switching to one of the shotties when I was going to be in close. I used the max weapon power artifact to take out the spider mastermind, in the crusher and he went down easy. I never used the plasma rifle because of the ammo issue.
- I don't like how quickly the items disappear. I like to come back later, sometimes much later, in order to pick stuff up... and this way I find myself taking bad risks just to get the items and I end up worse off than I was to begin with. It's annoying.

Anything else I might be able to comment on, or anything you want me to expand on?

[Gez]

[*]Visual weapon selector:
Use a scroll mouse to bring up the weapon selection screen. Its spiffy. [/*]

Doesn't work after some time. I played the first three levels of Knee-Deep in the Dead, and by level 2 it wasn't working anymore. I bound more keys to it, but they didn't work either. So despite having also the fist and the chainsaw, I was stuck with the shotgun.

Likewise, during another play, I had less luck with the ammo drops and the shotgun was empty, so the game automatically switched me to the fist. After punching zombiemen until one of them dropped some ammo, and picking it, I couldn't switch back to the shotgun.

If you gain several levels in a row (not going to the menu to put the point somewhere), the point counter when you finally do go to the menu isn't updated until you run to 0. For instance, I had 3 points, I click once it still says 3, twice is continue to say three, after the third point is distributed then it says 0.

[skadoomer]

- There's no way to see how powered up a weapon is unless you select it and then go to the book

i plan on implementing a level bar into the weapon selector. I also got lost trying to display graphically how strong a weapon actually is. I may need to use a combination of bars and numbers in the future.

- It's unclear that the white bar at the bottom is a 'to next level' progress bar. I thought it was weapon experience for a while, just based on screen position. If you're going to show that on screen (and I don't think it's absolutely necessary) then a corner might be better than obscuring the weapon. Also, in its current position it gets in the way of the inventory bar.

You can turn it off in the options menu.

- I don't like how quickly the items disappear. I like to come back later, sometimes much later, in order to pick stuff up... and this way I find myself taking bad risks just to get the items and I end up worse off than I was to begin with. It's annoying.

That's because the item drop library monitors whats on the playing field when its deciding what to drop. I was trying to avoid a situation where you'd strike it rich on a lot of magic or health drops of increased size, and since you can kill some monsters that aren't immediately accessible, i was hoping to compensate for that.

Doesn't work after some time. I played the first three levels of Knee-Deep in the Dead, and by level 2 it wasn't working anymore.

Does this always happen with just doom, or doom and doom2? I'm not particularly fond of the code it uses to decide whether it can draw or not so something must be wrong there.
Are you trying to use it while opening up the stat screen, or are you leaving it open for longer periods of time? If you can find out a specific way to break it, let me know.

If you gain several levels in a row (not going to the menu to put the point somewhere), the point counter when you finally do go to the menu isn't updated until you run to 0.

gahhhhhhh, I'm an idiot. The point drawer only updates when points reach 0 instead of when it decreases. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Penguinator]

I got the same thing Gez did with Doom II. It broke sometime during Map 04.

Also, after a certain amount of time passes while in the stat screen, gameplay will resume.

[Risen]

You can turn it off in the options menu.

Can you move it to another location?

Instead of monitoring what's on the field, could you instead monitor what's been dropped recently? There shouldn't be a penalty for killing a bunch of stuff first and collecting later.