The first attempt comment wasmore so for pure combat sidescroller with party aspects vs what Q9, Adventure at C and Paladin of the Skies were sidescoller platformer for the first two games, and turn based rpg for the second.  Granted though, one can usually take a page from the adventure a C book and design up the levels with random varriations and obsicals as robbing the same bank is odd.  You would think people would stop putting even more money in the bank that gets robbed daily. 

   Though I have to agree, the game is pre-maturely release for a sale.  Though, the community here tends to really form horrifically negative opinions for releasing a free beta for testing purposes, expecting a full and amazing game right off the bat insead of a test phase.  And I already voiced my opinions of trying to run a donation page for resoures to either have the game fully released and to maybe have it sold for free.   

    ....Hrm, I wonder if this strategy would work a bit more better.  Lower the price of the game to about $10, release new and new content fairly often and do what Skull Girls did and release new content when a donation goal is met.  The community gets smething for a reduced price, and new features, and if the players want to support more and more features (including extremely new features to the normal game)  put up a donation page and release demos of the content.  Maybe people are more adpt to donate when they already have something and want more...

   ...That or just expects other people to pay for new feature for them, and barely anyone pays anything all thinking this way.

Yeh many people praise Paladin, I haven't played it personally though but now I really wanna give it a try. And this was from the same dev? This begs the question: what happened? Why is this game's quality so much lower than his other release? was it simply overconfidence? If Psycho is still under development, then that's news to me, have we heard this from the dev? When I look at the page, I get the impression that the game is already complete. If it is indeed a work in progress, then this should have been stated clearly on the website, and most likely some of us would've put off our purchases. Unless this was the reason it wasn't? lol. We already paid though, so this is probably irreleavent now. Live and learn I guess. I highly doubt the dev will change his mind on the no refund policy. If there are no plans to improve game in future, and there was a way to invalidate my key right now and get that refund, I'd sure take it.

Hi all,
I want to address a few points here. I feel that some of the things we are saying here are getting pretty heavy-handed.
First I must introduce a background. I was born totally blind, and thus didn't play many video games as a kid. I never got acquainted with the mainstream gaming world. My first ever game (besides bop-it), was egg Hunt, and from there I tried games such as pigeon Panic, Lock Pick, Super Liam, Hunter, Tarzan Junior, and many others. I must say that the prospect of mainstream games with a deep storyline, complex mechanics, and tons of strategic elements to juggle at once overwhelms me. I like quick action/arcade games most and I wouldn't even say I'm particularly good at them, with the exception of a few. I am not a large fan of rpg or strategy games (unless it has some action like the BK side-scrollers or Psycho Strike.)
Why am I even bringing this up? I am trying to say that while several accusations of false advertising have been made, some of the other things said here aren't much better. The whole FPS vs. TPS vs. side-scroller debate... to be honest I don't understand any of those terms. I get so jealous of those of you who do and can explain it like there's nothing to it. When I downloaded the demo of this game, I thought it was going to be one of those complicated games which I didn't understand. It took me years to get to level 2 in Shades of Doom and after that I used markers constantly and had the help of a friend to complete the rest of it. Yet I can play games like Technoshock surprisingly easily... that's not to say I'm good at it, just only needed a few pointers to beat the blasted thing. My point being that I am a pretty weird dude who actually has an appreciation for simplicity. People were complaining about Audio Defense for not having more complex mechanics. I intially felt the same way but realized that it could still be fun the way it is.
I understand that I'm a lot different than most of you, who do want more complexity and who do have a mainstream gaming background. Saying it's a great game but I still want a refund because it's a shallow game is sending a mixed message in my humble opinion. I am so tired of reading these sorts of nit-picky comments. We just got the game, what, 3 days ago? The fact that we are already thinking that the developers will just abandon it now is simply absurd to me. It's far too early to draw such conclusions, and it happens not just in our world but the mainstream world all the time. We feel it more because every single product in the audio gaming world counts heavily, where as in the mainstream world, if something goes sour, we have, what, a few million options left to explore? Yes, Philip and others have abandoned a lot of games in the past. Does this frustrate me? Yes it definitely does. But had I been in his position, I doubt I could do much better. With a team of two people working on this thing as opposed to 200, I think we should be waiting a little longer and have some more reservations before we throw out such comments.
I'm not saying the game couldn't be improved. Far from it! But if we start off with a mind set of, "This game is cool, let's make it better!" instead of, "wow this game is just boring, let's make it worth playing." Then we will be a lot better off. i'm feeling undertones in this thread that have previously made other games not go well.
With that said, I think I'll wait to post my questions about this game, since I feel that some of us are losing faith for it already.

Hi Threeblanknoises,
Most doors and vaults actually do give you two stages, if not three, at least with the weaker weapons I've tried. I smashed the vault with the knife, and at first I just heard wood thumping sounds, then soon after I heard glass smashing sounds. A long while later, I heard much larger glass breaking sounds, and after a few more whacks it crumbled and I was able to get the cash.

Hi,
To address a few things:
If Aaron was able to make a complex game like AAC or Paladin of the Skies, then creating a game like Psycho Strike is really a quality downgrade. If two people work on it, then I would expect actually better quality gameplay-wise then those previous two.
Yes. Audio game developers do not have the budget of mainstream game companies or studios, but that's fine. As long as the gameplay is good enough, the sound design does not have to be top notch. With Psycho Strike, this has been almost the opposite. e have something shiny and flashy, but as far as the gameplay goes, it's grinding on 9 small stages all the time.
As a developer, I always focus on gameplay first. If I have no idea of how gameplay will work, then I am not making a game out of it. Sound design is mostly happening either later, or at the same time when I am coding a feature.
Games do not have to sound perfect first. Look at Shadow Line. The first version did not sound too great, it had no prerecorded voices, but the community embraced it, because the gameplay is brilliant. Then came version 2, with voice acting and updated music. This is how it should have been from the start, but it was worth the wait.
For some reason, Psycho Strike really feels like it was rushed. Perhaps it was intended to be simple and the game price is high because of the resources used. Perhaps there will be updates coming. Perhaps none of the above, I don't know. But I would have waited, even years if needed, to add more content to the final version. This really should have been a very nice concept demo.

Rob

So there is no proceeding storyline after the 8 levels of the demo, except for things getting faster, more difficult, more noisy and more chaotic in general? No twists in the story, no hidden challenges, mini-stagesor mini games, no congratulations when you do actually manage to reach your objective, nothing like that? What's the highest level that everyone with the full version has managed to reach so far, and how many of you have already managed to fulfill your objective?
Has anything new happened by then at all?
If the answer to all of these questions is no, I'll have a hard time trying to decide whether to buy this in the end or not. I love voice acting and audio quality in games in general and for one find them horribly lacking in audiogames, so that's one thing that can turn me totally mad about a game pretty quickly. To put together a counter analogy to the Beep game with multiplayer, story mode and top notch audio, would you really be playing the beloved, popular and classic mainstream GTA that passionately if all the sounds, shots, explosions, screams, car engines, running footsteps, cob actions, car radio transmissions, breaking glass and I don't know what else were all represented by dull 8-bit computer beeps?

However, gameplay and mechanics that form together the replayability, complexity and challenge aspects of the game are just as important, if not more. Audiogames are in a very difficult position now, trying to quickly catch up with the mainstream standards set in both these areas over a much shorter span of time than what the mainstream developers had, and with about a hundredth or thousandth of their resources when measured from the scope of one standard mainstream commercial game company (not indie) versus one standard commercial audiogame company, who are all indie developers just by the very nature of things.
So, if what I have in the demo is pretty much everything I can get from the game except for the discussably smart/dumb gang allies getting captured and the possibility to try to rescue them, for bombs and mines and for one more stage (the casino) which is still just the same as all the other ones at the core level and about which I'm not sure why it's even there in the first place, I really honestly just can't say whether this is enough to keep me motivated to buy the game at the present moment or not.
And before anyone criticizes me for this attitude, let me stress that the price tag is absolutely not an issue for me, nor the game's other shortcomings. I would probably just be able to get more fascinatedby it if it featured a streetlike stage where you could get run over by cars etc along with those that are already there, and possibly a system of commands to order your characters at least in some basic primitive way. Even one or two features like that would be enough for me. And I'm really not expecting any single audiogame developer who is visually impaired and thus in the same position as us visually impaired gamers himself to come up with the same variety of detail, complexity and diversity as GTA can, with its huge development teams and millions of bucks poured into the budget. I think that even getting just about 30 more sounds and about the same amount of short voice clips, one to three seconds, would do the trick for a basic GTA like atmosphere pretty well, I believe. And don't start arguing that Philip and Aaron are in fact two developers already. Compared to some of the largest mainstream gaming studios out there, this would be about a 30th or so of their total developer count. :-D
That is to say the game's current foundation is already pretty cool and potentially very attractive. It would just need to be expanded upon a bit in order to really capture my full attention.
Just like I said in my previous post, I think that if the unlockable content additions, expansions and new features were sold separately as they were gradually developed over time, many of the current complainers could be turned from exercising their vocal chords to sending some valuable cash your way that could later be used for some even cooler games. :-D
If you can perceive a mixture of slight doubt and disappointment along with excitement and a still living hope for future improvements, then congratulations to your judgment as that's exactly the annoying mixture of feelings I am currently going through in regards to Psycho STrike... :-D

Thanks,
lukas

Thank you Lucas. You've just made me feel better. I was trying to express that point in a positive way and you summed both the positive and negative aspects in a way that I feel voices my opinion as well. And I feel you're more qualified to actually talk about this stuff since you've probably had far more gaming experience than I've had. At first I thought, here we go, someone else is going to start beating this thing down and then I'm going to be even more annoyed and leave this topic, but I do appreciate your view and agree with it.
The way I see it, I would buy Psycho Strike right now if I could. Not because I like the game and expect millions of surprises to be unlocked as I am starting to see that is not quite the case, but because I support VGStorm and Blastbay and I do like this game... let me re-phrase that, Philip is especially my idle when it comes to game creation. And let's face it, when we buy a game, we're also expressing some appreciation for the guy(s) who made it. I would find it very hard to purchase this game if Philip had come to my house, broken down my door, and tried to shoot me and claimed I forced him to do it. Of course that would never happen... well unless it was in Psychostrike...
Given the fact that we do have bug reports coming in, some of which referencing BGT script function errors, I do think this release was rushed at least a little. I am keeping an open mind as to whether these things are fixed or left to rot in the sun. I've seen enough games go down the tubes to not be too disappointed if this one follows. But if it doesn't get abandoned and instead gets  even better, then I will try to embrace that.
Okay, there are probably still some things about this which I have failed to say, but at this point I think we're beating a dead horse until one of the developers gets back here to talk about this with us. I would be very interested to hear how the developers are taking these criticisms. Perhaps they underestimated what the majority wants and thought this was going to be good enough for most. Whether they thought this or not really doesn't matter to me, I'd be understanding either way at this point.
Now I will pose a few questions about the game itself. I'll edit this with answers as I find them.
1. How do you check food and cash without going into the menu and selecting "give this character food or give this character cash?"
Edit: Press C or F while in the menu, can't remember if this works in-game or not.
2. How do you get captured by the police? I've gotten captured once and killed once. More often than not I fight until my health is around 40, then make for the exit.
Edit: You get captured when a police officer makes the death blow. So if the shot that killed you was from a police officer, he'll capture you, but if it was from a civilian or other person, you will simply be killed with no opportunity for rescue.
3. Since the computer AI isn't very smart, at present what is the purpose of starting a gang? I haven't bothered to find out. Can you accidentally kill your own team, and if so, how would you avoid doing that?
4. How do the police come in? Are they always on the board or do they show up after a certain period of time? My guess is the former.
Edit: The police eventually come in through the door on the left side so far as I can tell after a very short period of time.
5. Do the police actually respond to loud noise and civilian slaughter? I've noticed that maybe for the first few seconds the police don't bother me too much... though sometimes they seem to be suspicious as soon as I walk in before I do anything. after a few seconds I can't tell if they're actually responding to what I'm doing or just blindly rushing in to capture me.
Edit: So far as I can tell, the police don't really respond to loud noises, they just show up eventually if you do nothing. some areas are faster than others. The hospital, weapon shop and factory are I'd say 15 seconds or so, while the farm is maybe 30 seconds to a minute and the bank is probably around 20 seconds? these are just rough estimates. The prison pretty uch has police from the get-go.
6. Does the owner in the weapon shop always attack you while you're in there, or does he only attack if you attack him first? My guess is the former.
Edit: He'll start shooting at you as soon as you get close to him... or her.
7. I got the pistil by accident once, but don't know how I got it. I did get loads of pistil cartridges before getting the pistil though. Do you have to be above, say, level 6 to get the pistil to spawn in the weapon shop? Does the game somehow know that you should probably get a pistil and makes it likely to appear, or is this whole thing a matter of chance?
Edit: On certain levels, the weapon shop owner will acquire a new weapon, and you can kill him to get that weapon. If you don't do that, then you can get some weapons from killing police officers... though they acquire weapons more slowly. Sometimes weapons will randomly spawn in the weapon shop, though the easiest way to acquire new weapons is to kill the weapon shop owner. Remember that other people can pick up weapons and use them against you, so if you kill them, you'll get their weapon.
8. How does loyalty get increased? I've tried paying those with low levels of loyalty and feeding them so they don't go hungry, but this barely changes anything, even over a somewhat long period of time. Perhaps loyalty is a very longterm statistic that needs to build over time?
I also found it sort of cool that if the gang leader gets killed, the other members of the gang can still go on missions, but still expect cash? My impression was that I, as the gang leader, would pay them, so if I die, someone else would become leader? If that's not the case, then running a gang without an official leader could be a little dangerous though in this game I think it could work pretty well, judging by the mechanics, though keeping loyalty in check would become more of a problem I suppose.
My Suggestions:
1. Make the BG music and possibly the ambience volume adjustable. It's pretty cool but sometimes I like hearing things in the distance before rushing in like a mad criminal. Although I've started to become used to the music volume where it is now.
Edit: press f11 and f12 to adjust music volume.
2. Change environmental sounds for each stage. While the farm sounds cool, the bank, weapon shop, and everything else just feels like another game board.
Edit: The environmental sounds are very calm but they do change from place to place. Imho they just need to be a bit louder with the exception of the prison, which is quite nice for my taste. In the factory I can hear people typing and the bar I can hear very quiet crowd chatter, but that's about it. The other environments are barely noticeable for me.
3. Be able to tell your team what to go after. If I can't do that, I might as well just go solo so I have more control over what's going on.
4. Make some sort of distinction between my team mates and potential enemies... I haven't actually tried going into combat with other team mates in the field, but I assume I could just go in there and kill them all pretty easily by accident.
That's all I can think of for now but I feel like I've forgotten something...

Some of what I am reading here is just plain sad.
If I were a developer, and I read all these comments about wanting a refund and false advertising, I would immediately throw in the towel, just to be spiteful. These guys obviously worked hard on this game, and, whether you like it or not, there are much better ways to express that than to start saying that you want your money back. You're basically saying that these guys are scam artists, and if I were them, I wouldn't like that too much.

Having said that, I do think that it would be nice if expansion packs could be released for the game. I agree that the gameplay can get repetitive after awhile in its current form. But considering that this is my favorite genre of game to begin with, it doesn't bother me. If that isn't someone else's cup of tea, that's fine. But all this negativity really has to stop if there's any hope of continued work on the game.

Hi Guys!
So can you add screen reader support to this game? Unfortunately my sapi 5 brocked so I need to use a screen reader instead.

Hello,
Can you please give me some context?
Best,
Aaron

Hi all,

First, to those of you who are providing nuanced feedback regarding pros and cons of the game, thank you. This is helpful, and will certainly be taken into account when creating future upgrades. Contrary to what some are assuming, the game is not abandoned by any means. There are plans for new content, unlockables etc. We spent a lot of resources on the game (both in terms of man hours and money), and certainly no false advertising was intended on either of our parts. However, regarding the timing of the release, there comes a point when we have to release in order for the project to survive. This gives us user feedback as well as funds that can be used to develop the game further if we feel that the suggestions are good, which for the most part we definitely do. Do I think the game can be improved? Absolutely, in lots of ways. Will it be? Yes, if there is enough financial support and constructive feedback to make it worth our time. Over-all we are happy with the turnout, so we see no reason to abandone the game any time soon. Thanks to all of those who support our efforts, and please do keep the feedback coming!

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall