☼ Hedon 1.5.2 (Now on GOG) ☼

[Captain J]

Eyup. This game is Sexy, Potential and more! Nice Gameplay and the release. It's been nice helping you!

[Diode]

Really happy to see you finish this, and really hopeful about seeing more.

I wish I had more time to give you feedback, but you've done a good job addressing the worst of the issues, and it looks like you're quite aware of them at this point. Please, continue!

[will183]

Now how the hell do i get out of the first cave area, i found the shutters, got the iron key and the battle axe yet i still cannot find my way out, is there something i am missing?
and the automap is extremely convoluted in my opinion and its hard to read without having textured overlay on.

[Wivicer]

I was kind of iffy about patreon at first (I'm always hesitant).

I finished Hedon, became a supporter and desperately want more. The storytelling is excellent, the gameplay is fun, the level design is great... Moar pls

(in your own time, of course)

[Beezle]

Now how the hell do i get out of the first cave area, i found the shutters, got the iron key and the battle axe yet i still cannot find my way out, is there something i am missing?
and the automap is extremely convoluted in my opinion and its hard to read without having textured overlay on.

Yeah hopefully someone uploads a walkthrough of Hedon, at least the 1st part. I got stuck here as well when I played the demo version just before its official release.

[affandede]

You forgot to answer the most important question in FAQ.

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Can I propose to Zan? I am of human species.

[Diode]

Now how the hell do i get out of the first cave area, i found the shutters, got the iron key and the battle axe yet i still cannot find my way out, is there something i am missing?
and the automap is extremely convoluted in my opinion and its hard to read without having textured overlay on.

You're not gonna do well if you don't read notes and signs, and pay attention to environmental features. I suspect you haven't gotten a power crystal for the elevator? You need find and use a pickaxe on a cracked section of cave wall.

I've been saying for a while that the first level or two of this mod could use a touch of streamlining, so I'm not really surprised to hear people getting stuck right at the start.

[Zan]

Hey people thanks for the replies, there's a bunch of playthroughs on Youtube. Not exactly walkthroughs, but they will point the way eventually ;p

I've been saying for a while that the first level or two of this mod could use a touch of streamlining, so I'm not really surprised to hear people getting stuck right at the start.

I've been doing incremental adjustments, but it's the eternal struggle of keeping things jagged enough to make the player sweat but also fair at the end of the day.

[ReformedJoe]

Just finished this. Took me just over 8 hours spread over today and yesterday, and I didn't even 100% it. Missed half the secrets in some levels.
0 issues with navigation. Wandering around the world, taking in the ambience, scavenging supplies from shops and such was a highly enjoyable experience. At times I was reminded of Deus Ex or System Shock 2.

Some additional thoughts here (gameplay/ light story spoilers):

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I loved the attention to detail and the environmental storytelling here. Like finding a note that a certain dwarven fellow has an elemental ring, and then later breaking into his room and finding said ring. Little touches like that. Or that... leg. You know, the one that made it though the portal sans its owner

The game knows when to be loud, and also knows when to be quiet and let the world breathe a bit. This is something I wish more mod makers (and developers in general) would do. Down time is severely underrated.

The only part of the whole experience that I didn't care for was the instant death Nithriel "stealth" sequence and the follow on boss fight (even though the environment was really cool).

[Enjay]

Just got through playing this. Very nice, very complete, wonderful aesthetic. It has its own vibe right from the start. I love the other-worldy feel of the whole thing. The use of glowy symbols on relatively simply detailed textures creates a wonderful clean but not sterile environment. The story has nice progression too. It's very tough in places but I feel that the challenge is well enough paced.

Great job!

[Zan]

I loved the attention to detail and the environmental storytelling here.

Yeah, there's a lot of that stuff in, including the placement of dead bodies and destroyed terrain, I sort of simulated fights and what certain survivors did up until they died. Glad you noticed some of it :^)

Just got through playing this. Very nice, very complete, wonderful aesthetic. It has its own vibe right from the start. I love the other-worldy feel of the whole thing. The use of glowy symbols on relatively simply detailed textures creates a wonderful clean but not sterile environment. The story has nice progression too. It's very tough in places but I feel that the challenge is well enough paced.

Great job!

Glad you liked it, it pretty much ties in with what ReformedJoe noted, I went an extra mile for that feasible environment storytelling. There's no randomly designed areas, they all sort of have their own place and function, and this was often troublesome in streamilining the game flow.

Like yeah, the first level cave is a convoluted mess but that's how you'd expect a cave to be. I went for this austere level design that's not always pointing the player towards the way but at the same time can be logically read up.
I'm still planning on adding some more light and sound guidance clues, right now I'm pretty much piling more feedback before I release the first patched version.

[Diode]

I just got done playing through the whole thing, and I'm going to repeat my statement that I want to see more.

Feedback wise, I (still) feel like the earlier levels are gonna turn a lot of people away before they even get close to the best the game has to offer. Obviously, sweeping redesigns are out of the question at this point, but whether it's lights, sounds, more obviously-important-to-read notes around key objectives, the early game experience can definitely be improved on, and a lot more players would stick with the game long enough to enjoy it. As things stand, I feel there's probably still a depressing number of people who won't make it past map02, or even map01 before they give up, which is a crying shame, because Hedon definitely deserves to be played all the way through.

If map04 is where the level design finally starts getting comprehensible, map09 and 10 are where the whole game comes together and everything just sings in harmony at last. 9 and 10 are just god damned great. It's a really great finale.

Enjay mentioned there are some tough spots - the biggest struggle I encountered (save from that beast of a final boss fight) is the bridges to the ice peak fort. After you've crossed the rope bridge, there's almost no health pickups to found between there and the inside of the fort. Getting across all the bridges to the fort can be tough enough, and then you have the task of clearing the parapets with whatever sliver of health you made it up there with. This segment has been a bitch every time I've played it, and it was a bitch in this playthrough, too.

[Kroc]

Enjoying this immensely. I'm the exact kind of player for this type of mod as I prefer exploration over everything else, so I've found all the secrets in the three levels I've played thus far. The game is very reasonable, you just have to be super observant. I too love the story telling through the environment, but particularly the realistic design and layout of the settlement. It feels like a real place that's lived in, everything necessary is provided and accounted for.

A few of things I noticed:
* Lots of position / scaling issues:
- Many sprites seem too small. The dead orcs for example appear unnaturally small for what you would expect them to be standing up (between 6 & 7 ft.?)
- HUD does not resize at all. Default size is fine, but if you change rendering to 0.5x, the HUD is massive and can't be shrunk
- The text is quite small by default, but increasing its scaling causes the lines to overlap
- The text (like when reading scrolls) appears at the bottom and is often hard to read amongst the HUD. It would be nicer if messages appeared at the top/middle of the screen
* Definitely needs a quest log. Go see Abysm: Dawn of Innocence, it's got a perfect quest log system and is a damn good quest/explore mod
* Getting 100% items is nearly impossible, even for the hardcore explorer. The map-reveal item should highlight pickups, but not environmental actors (millions of white triangles everywhere!). In MAP02, I could not pick up a vial in the 'dumb waiter' and therefore could not get 100% items. I'm not sure if this was because the item itself was badly placed, or that I had 10 vials, and could not use one due to already having 100+% health. Either way, 98% items

Only started MAP03, and I'm sooo looking forward to continuing. Keep up the great work!

[SamVision]

The early levels just need a few tweaks such as landmarks and lighting to guide the player to the different locations without stringing the player along too much. The first cave level is still really bad and hasn't been improved much at all since I first pointed that out. Still plinking away, will give full feedback once I'm done with the whole game.

[Zan]

A few of things I noticed:
* Lots of position / scaling issues:
- Many sprites seem too small. The dead orcs for example appear unnaturally small for what you would expect them to be standing up (between 6 & 7 ft.?)

Which sprites are too small? Bear in mind some of the dead Iron Division chicks are Goblins and they're smallish, I double checked and the scales seem to be in order?

- HUD does not resize at all. Default size is fine, but if you change rendering to 0.5x, the HUD is massive and can't be shrunk
- The text is quite small by default, but increasing its scaling causes the lines to overlap
- The text (like when reading scrolls) appears at the bottom and is often hard to read amongst the HUD. It would be nicer if messages appeared at the top/middle of the screen

I've had HUD resize issues since the beginning of development, never figured out how to fix it.
Same goes for the text, it's specifically defaulted to 1 so it doesn't overlap on lower resolutions. 1920x1080 with a value of 2 would be ideal, but rest is just hit or miss depending on what res you use.
Books show text on bottom, parchments and stuff posted on walls show it in the middle. I agree it's not super helpful to read, but either way, you'll have to position your screen to be able to better read the text at some point.

* Definitely needs a quest log. Go see Abysm: Dawn of Innocence, it's got a perfect quest log system and is a damn good quest/explore mod

I've had this suggestion before, but I'm not feeling it because not every level requires you to perform a quest-like task, and having objectives pointing out where you have to go goes against my fixations. :^)
Also to my defence I looked into how to make Strife's objectives and couldn't find anything on it.

* Getting 100% items is nearly impossible, even for the hardcore explorer. The map-reveal item should highlight pickups, but not environmental actors (millions of white triangles everywhere!). In MAP02, I could not pick up a vial in the 'dumb waiter' and therefore could not get 100% items. I'm not sure if this was because the item itself was badly placed, or that I had 10 vials, and could not use one due to already having 100+% health. Either way, 98% items

Yeah, another eternal conversation. If I removed the consumables from item count, there would only be food left, and even that caps at 200 hp, so you'd end up not being able to 100% the items. For now, just consider it a good incentive to avoid hoarding consumables and use them.