2021-01-31 04:33:58

My kind of RPG is the one where you aren’t level gated. maybe it could tell you what level you must be before you should enter an area, but that’s part of what I love about the challenge of an RPG, fighting things well ahead of you, only to somehow come out on top. or, you could simply go back and do whatever it takes to get to a good enough level to fight the tougher enemies. however, my favorite is the optional enemies, ones where you have to be absolutely super high level to fight, while the story keeps challenging you, making sure that you are always as strong as the next enemy should you not wish to grind for experience points. however, said optional enemies could almost force you to do so, much like some bosses during blind quest. Will that game have that?

2021-01-31 06:13:08 (edited by Tenkarider 2021-01-31 06:14:10)

@dalen lewin
The most highest game design challenge in this game is making the enemies an actual challenge, also planning a proper level curve progression through the story is quite difficult, and last but not least, how much blood vials i should expect you manage to keep through the game... i kinda feel the same about optional bosses, i love them and i love to defeat tremendous enemies! You can bet there will be some of them in Hell Hunter, there will be at least 3 secret superbosses in the complete game. Actually in the demo Dracula counts as superboss because, despite it's almost impossible to defeat, actually you can win and if you do that, then you will unlock a secret ending

Hello @yousuf ! Thanks for playing the demo and i'm glad you like it! Actually it's Knight key, not night key, anyway to find the King key you need to search better among the objects so you can find the clue which tells you where to find the King key. In case you have troubles with it, i can spoil you the location...
About the window it's used to jump from Manor, Upstairs to Manor, Terrace so it has an actual use
(huh? Your post disappeared)

2021-01-31 06:48:53 (edited by yousuf 2021-01-31 06:49:32)

Hi.
I completed the demo, and I liked it so much.
My Post disappeared because I discovered the solution smile

2021-01-31 10:13:53

@yousuf
Oh i see, great job! Thanks again!

Hello @musicalman ! What an impressive post! Thanks a lot first of all for playing and for this huge feedback! I'm really glad you liked it. About the dinner scene, should i explain you what exactly happens? In case i can send you a private message to not spoil to the others.
About narration i guess i can't help with that, i like to think he tried his best, then again maybe i could have been more specific, adding some note on how to say his lines, yet we are talking about thosusands of lines of text, which is quite something...
Yeah it's kinda a big issue the screen reader thing, it will take some time to find a proper solution.
I could check the code again for a possible delay when moving with Tab, but actually i think you hit the nail on the head about sound files of maps objects! Those lines are kinda the only ones which i didn't cut from the dubbing and/or check it for being sure that the silence was trimmed off... thanks a lot for pointing this out! I will fix them and so map movements will become faster.
About battles i'm afraid that i'd rather avoid to mention the actual HP value of Elyon, for the following reasons: I hid the value on purpose since Elyon's HP at level 1 are... 3000! The base value should be 30 but since in the game i added buffs and debuffs which applies on percentage, i wanted to avoid that a unit % value would be cut out from a number with few digits so i multiplied parameters for 100 and you know... hearing the voice saying "Elyon has... 2734 life points" i think it would be lame and really overlap with the other sounds... the other reason why i want to hide the actual value is because I want to use a way to let the player know about their health similar to the one used in Resident Evil games: for example, in Resident Evil 1 the parameter used for character's health is a value that caps at 100, but the player will know that his condition is "Fine", not 100... that because in the game is out of scope knowing that Jill has 40 health, you only need to know that your state of health is "Caution", so you're not in good condition and you might consider healing. That's exactly how i want the player feels with his health state.
Aside that, i kinda agree on the long extra description of your health which just hinders the flow of the battle, it was there by default but i think i'll remove it from the battle.
Interrupted sound effects in battle might be a bit problematic to fix: overlapped battle sfx might happen and it would complicate things in difficult battles, i'll see if there's something i can do about that. There's one exception which is the deadly attack, since the sound is played in a different audio source so it can overlap without interrupting the previous sound.
1) That is all about experimentation, analysis and interpretation: in the tutorial you hear about the 4 main types of monsters, which are normal, slow, fast and group/multi-direction-attack/grab enemy, knowing those groups you have to use your information and the sound effects to figure out which one of them the current enemy is. The wolf is a fast creature so you can expect that it's a fast type of monster; the Zombie you could expect that is slow instead, then you check in the battle if the enemy is fast or what and eventually confirm your thoughts... hopefully the player could end up feeling like an hunter which wins against the enemy with his knowledge and way to fight
2) Yes, you can actually defeat Dracula, and winning will unlock a secret ending! Still Dracula is strong to the point that it's almost impossible to win, in case you'll decide to attempt such a challenge then i warn you that it will be the hardest challenge you might ever face for quite some time, but if you win that would be no less than astonishing, and well... if that happens, please let me know it! I'd really love to hear about someone actually succeding in winning the battle.
3) Actually if the creature catches you or not, while you're being chased, depends on whether you decided to proceed in a certain room using Tab or using Shift + Tab, if you're lucky (?) you will fight it just the first time.
4) Level definitely has a purpose, but the improvements are kinda basic: more life points, more attack power and more defense power. Despite this is an Horror RPG, actually i want to put the focus more on the horror half, so i dislike the idea of doing math on parameters and then i believe it's out of scope to announce parameters, all what the player should know about leveling is that if your level is higher, then the enemies will die with less attacks and you'll be able to endure more enemy hits before dying. There's some monster which, according to its parameters, will end up being much more harder/easier to fight than another one, like Nosferatu which will be much more easier to defeat at lv 3 than lv 2, since it has an high defense value.

Thanks a lot again for your huge post, that was a lot of feed and it already helped me!

2021-01-31 12:02:33

Hi @Tenkarider.
What some people complain about is to press tab to navigate in the game, not the menus. I can live with that, because it's a point and click game, not a game where you walk around.
Voices in the battles: I think it would be great to remove the voices. Then, there should be some instructions in the pause menu, explaining what the sounds means.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2021-01-31 12:08:59

spiderManiac wrote:

I understand that you may be passionate about the story. I can respect that. I understand it, even. I'm a writer myself. Unfortunately, I don't think I can play your game.
All I needed to do was listen to the starting tutorial, and I knew, this game was just going to be Blind Quest with a fresh coat of paint on it. Some people may enjoy that formula. I don't. I find it limiting and a touch bland.
Good luck to you though. I know some people will pick this up, and I'm glad for it.

If the game is like Blind Quest, then please answer me the following questions:
1. Where do you get chased in Blind quest, where you can't attack the enemy, but you have to find a way to slip away from the enemy?
2. Where do you see time based puzzles, where you'll die, if you don't solve the puzzle before it's too late?
3. Where do you see secrets and alternative endings in Blind Quest?
Maybe I've missed a lot from Blind Quest, but I don't remember all that.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2021-01-31 13:11:24

Hello. If it was voiced with NVDA or all these boring dialogs could be skipped, it would be possible to play. I can not believe that this game will ask for money

2021-01-31 18:22:14

Hello @SLJ !
Well it definitely sounds like i should really remove the voices there, and i guess it's time for a proper menu, then.
Very well! You can consider them on my schedule of improvements for the complete game, thanks again!

Hi @windows ! Another screen reader, right? well, one more to check it out then.
So you actually played the demo and the story of the game doesn't appeal you? If that's the case, i'm sorry... anyway it will be possible to skip all the dialogues in the complete version, since that fix is on the schedule

2021-02-01 16:43:21

@Tenkarider, I must say, I love the game. To be honest, I don't want to finish the demo just yet. The turning around mechanic worked for me, and it made me jumpy. I actually screamed slightly when... *Inserts a spoiler*

But yeah! I just wanted to say good work, and I'm wishing for your success! smile

2021-02-01 19:57:09

Hello @Shiro ! I'm really glad you like it, and thanks a lot for playing the demo! Yeah that's kinda the reaction i'd like to trigger in the player when that happens, so i guess it was worth the effort! Thanks for the feedback

2021-02-03 20:20:35

I have one question for who finished the demo: Did you check the metal door, for instance? the one in the room before the last room of the demo. I wonder if people usually find it, since the passage to the last room is met before that door...

2021-02-04 03:37:52

@Tenkarider not sure. I'll play through the demo again to check. smile

2021-02-04 19:26:27

Thanks @Shiro ! That's cool, anyway if that door is missed by people, i might consider to put it before the passage to the last room... in that way probably it won't happen

2021-02-07 12:01:18

@TenkaRider I indeed found it, but it feels like I can't really do anything with it. Am I missing something, or that's normal? smile

2021-02-08 10:07:58

Tenkarider wrote:

I have one question for who finished the demo: Did you check the metal door, for instance? the one in the room before the last room of the demo. I wonder if people usually find it, since the passage to the last room is met before that door...

Yep I checked the door. It's just a matter of exploring your options before moving on. So it's just fine in my opinion.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2021-02-08 20:06:07

@Shiro
Thanks for checking! Well, technically you can't do anything in the demo with it, aside listening the noise behind the door, so i guess it's normal.

@SLJ
Great! Unfortunately, hearing from other testers, it quite seems like many people miss it and finish the demo without being aware of that door. While normally i'd leave that door where it is, i have some reason bounded to level design which force me to swap it with the room change to the last room.

Thanks for the feedback!

2021-02-12 17:49:02

If you’d like to know more about Giovanni (aka Tenkarider) and Hell Hunter, you can now listen to this episode of the podcast of Audiogame Association: we’ll talk about Hell Hunter, the horror genre in audiogames, but also about how he created his game!
Let us know what you think, if you like!
The link to the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-NrQ5u … e=youtu.be

2021-02-13 18:04:46

Hi.
Interesting podcast. It wouldn't hurt with a better microphone.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2021-02-13 23:31:40 (edited by mr.brunete 2021-02-13 23:41:00)

Hi.
Really, i wasn't expecting much from this demo, blind quest was not my thing. but i actually enjoyed it for two reasons.
1) the puzzles. more on this later.
2) all the resident evil references. the typewriter, the plants, the keys. the monster that stalks you like nemesis... dhampir instead of stars but...
i'll not talk about the combat system because well to be onest. that was the thing i disliked in previous games of this company.
haven't read the whole topic. if possible, a more traditional system for the puzzles would be great. i mean, being able to actually collect required objects when you want, combine or use them, instead of examining things over and over.
i'll use two examples. one of a bad puzzle, and another of a good one.
1) the bad one was the axe and the wooden planks. it is good to use the axe on the planks for opening a path, but it could have been much beter if you can pick up the axe when you first find it, and then use it on the planks. in this way, it is more challenging for the player.
2) the good one was the one involving the clock and the royal book. in this case, i have no problems because there's no reason for the character to think there could be something behind the clock in the first place, so it makes sense to push the clock aside once he reads the book.

Edit: that thing behind the metal door also brought back memories of resident evil.
But i think this post was extensive. best of luck with your game!

bokura no daibouken 2 by yukionozawa. installer:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/897 … _setup.exe
bokura no daiboukenn 3 by yukionozawa. download page:
http://www.nyanchangames.com/softs/nn3.html

2021-02-14 16:58:03 (edited by Tenkarider 2021-02-14 17:01:55)

Hi @SLJ! I'm glad you liked the podcast! About the microphone i guess it's my fault, my laptop is kinda just a bunch of old scraps XD

Hello @mr.brunete! First of all thanks for playing the demo and for doing that until the end! Also thanks for the feedback, yeah Resident Evil is clearly one of the most big references of Hell Hunter.
In the topic it has been discussed about managing the inventory... while that would probably be great, there's some big limitation on the engine i'm using for making the game which would require a big update on its structure to make that work, so i don't know it that will be feasible in future.
Unfortunately when i literally started the project i was a newbie and i didn't knew anything about the structure of the engine, so i had to do what the engine allowed with puzzles and level design and, ironically, when i finally managed to grasp the structure of the engine, the game structure was already defined and implemented, so the game lacks of item that can actually be combined, which is a shame since as i said Resident Evil was a big reference indeed.
Changing the static structure of the puzzles would actually make collapse the maps or rather the way you proceed through the game, for example if you could get immediately the axe, after 2 rooms the chase would end immediately and actually there wouldn't be a real puzzle and the gimmick as well, what the player might not know is that i instead focused on the mood and the chase: when you examine the planks the background music changes and the barks get louder, the same happens when you get the axe, any room has a different and dynamic volume settings for the wolves so that the more you get close to ending the chase, the more the herd gets louder, like if they are getting closer, also the circle structure of the area is supposed to make the player get a bit disoriented and, since they walk in the same rooms, to lure them at turning around in order to navigate faster... in other words the area is designed to make the player trigger the turn around gimmick at least once and communicate that it's not just narrative: the chase is actual gameplay and the horror is supposed to be the core of the game.
Said that i'm sorry for the flaws of the game due to my lack of experience and knowledge on the engine, if i'd get the chance to do something about that, it would be cool, then again the true issue in the end is the fact that the deadlines are very short and i have to schedule priorities...
Thanks again!

2021-02-19 23:32:26

hi,
first what a really good story line you've made i enjoyed it very much on that level however it took me a while to work out what was missing. i was listening to Liam review this on his channel and he pritty much spoke my thoughts which were.
the fact of tabbing and shift tabbing as it doesn't work in steam and some prefering using the arrow keys.
there needs to be proper menus which has been said already.
i really don't like the way speech is it's to slow and myself would prefer a bit more enthusiasm or just let screen readers read it.
the inventory is showing stuff, but really you should be able to interacte e.g. drink blood vial.
you shouldn't have to go back to pick something up really i would prefer to pick it up straight away and connect things together myself it makes it more interesting for people like me.
if you have missed examing something in the dcastle you should be able to go back.
apart from all of these you've done a great job and even if some of these ideas don't get implemented then i'm sure you'll think of putting it in the next game you develop.
anyway good luck and i'll look forward to the full release as well as your future releases.

i may be tech mad, but i'm also audio games mad. be audio games mad with me laughing out loud.
Sam

2021-02-21 16:04:34 (edited by Tenkarider 2021-02-21 16:08:42)

Hello @Tech Geek! Thanks for playing the demo and for the feedback, also i'm glad you're enjoying it so far! I know that there was an issue with shift+tab in the steam version of Blind Quest 1 but actually it seems that the problem has been fixed long time ago: now in the steam version you go backward just pressing shift. Also i checked the code of the engine and actually there's a statement which checks if the current version is the one of Steam which makes you move using just shift, instead of shift + tab so i'm quite confident about the fact that that issue doens't exist anymore. In any case i might consider to change shift/tab with left/right arrow keys if the change doesn't result much heavy to do.
About menu actually i worked on an upgrade of the demo of Hell Hunter: i gathered a lot of your suggestions and so i managed to implement many improvements, not everything but i did the best i could do... since the testers are still working on it i won't spoil too much for now, but among those changes there's a new menu both for the main menu and for the menu page in which you can select the options with the arrows, instead of hearing each time a wall of text.
At the moment there's not much i can do about dubbing, David has a slow speech i guess... about the tone of voice for Hell Hunter we decided to use an heavy and gloomy voice instead of the one of Blind Quest, which personally i think it would never had fit the horror mood of the game... screen reader is still a long term issue, on the other hand it will be possible to skip kinda everything in the next version.
Anyway i'll do my best to add any other feature still missing in future.

Speaking about Liam... well actually, unlike what someone might think about us, me and someone else are aware about the issues he mentioned in the stream he did of the first version of Blind Quest 1, the one turn based (to be honest i was kinda surprired when i realized they released such an incomplete version of the game, and not for free...)
Also i watched both that stream and the one in which Liam at the end of the stream played Hell Hunter for a while... i'm quite sorry that he decided to stop exactly when the tutorial finished, since behind that mist wall it starts the actual game and all the unique gimmicks of my game that people apreciated a lot started to kick in.
I'm not feeling like contact him in private to answer his questions and/or suggestions, and since i don't really know where to answer him, except this topic, then i'll write something here and hopefully he will eventually check what i wrote.
I any case i guess i should thank him for trying at least to play the demo, most of the answers to his stream already are among the posts of those three pages of my topic, and while i'd apreciate if he could read them, i'll still make a "brief" recap of them in this post.
First of all nope, Massimo de Pasquale is only the author of Blind Quest 1 and not very much other titles, but since he programmed the engine we use for making game with the same structure of Blind Quest, then his name will always appear in the credits since we use his engine but he actually didn't decide anything about the other games and neither their custom features, so i think it's unhealthy for the both of us to think that those games are made from the same person, which never listens your suggestions: each new IP is made by fresh new developers of the team which start making those games from square one.
Now i don't know how stuff works above and probably it would be a good thing if new devs would be aware of the issues of Blind Quest structure since the very beginning of their projects, but the result, from my personal perspective, is that when they eventually know more about the forum feedbacks, the structure of the whole game is already been defined and so it's too late for any big change: since the default structure of the engine doesn't allow to use items from the inventory, let alone combining them, and we don't know about those requests in that step of the project, then the game is not designed to have items/quests/gimming that can work in that way with the inventory, and actually the new developer doesn't possess the knowledge and neither the programming skill to apply those changes anyway. This means that at the end of the project to apply those new features, aside the big update in the engine, the design of maps, quests and gimmicks should be redone, and probably also the dubbing, which means a lot of time and i guess money, so i'm pretty sure that applying those changes to the inventory in the first chapter of each IP is kinda impossible for us.
And trust me, as i read your posts in any of our topics, included this one, i feel bad about that since i definitely know what you want and the fact that it won't be possible in a near future to make happen everything.
Massimo is too busy with many projects to have some time to upgrade the engine, so it's up to us to upgrade meanwhile our personal copy of the engine, which can't be shared among us due to the diversity of our custom features and gimmicks.
Anyway in my case, to make a long story short, i'm the author of Hell Hunter and i decided kinda everything, from extra code to design, story and most of the music and sound... at the moment i'm working on the music and sounds of the complete version of Hell Hunter, so until i finish i won't have time to any other upgrade, and since the deadline is very short i can just hope to make in time to add new upgrades for the game before releasing the complete game.
Said that, on the other hand we pull a lot of effort in making our custom gimmicks and what makes unique our games, so please believe in us and play our demos until the end so that you can grasp the uniqueness of our games!

2021-02-22 13:54:37

I am willing to give the game another shot and at least play the demo the whole way through.
A lot of my criticism still stands however.
I appreciate you filling in the details regarding the engine and limitations there of. it's still very disappointing to see an otherwise great concept marred by technical limitations. Hopefully some of these things at least can be improved for the full release.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

Check out my live streams: http://lerven.me
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/liamerven

2021-02-22 15:30:26 (edited by Tenkarider 2021-02-22 15:32:00)

Hello @Liam! Thanks for that, i apreciate it. If you're not in hurry how 'bout playing the upgraded version of the demo, instead? It should be released at the start of march, in that way you could provide a more accurate feedback...
Thanks for understanding, i also understand your point... i'll do my best to achieve the best possible result for the full version of Hell Hunter!

2021-02-22 15:49:40

I was actually going to stream this afternoon, but if there's an upgraded demo coming out, I'm more than happy to wait.
I'd much rather play an upgraded demo with fixes. Thanks for saying something.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

Check out my live streams: http://lerven.me
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/liamerven