2020-12-03 13:04:58

Ok there's a few points to go through here, sorry If I miss anything. Just prod me.

Stewie, I'll add skippable cutscenes, it would help with replay ability.


Computer Gamer, there is already going to be a setting for music volume I just haven't made the game settings menu yet.
The TTS volume would be painful to alter at this point considering how many there are. They are all separate audio files.
But it could be worth the effort. I would have to increase all of their volumes and then add a setting so the player can alter them and bring the volume down to whatever they want.

Jack, obviously the feedback is clear, the navigating isn't good enough. I'm wondering if its worth overhauling the whole thing. Maybe a waypoint/path system would be better that still allows the player to look around. I'll play with a few ideas.

Defender, you never disappoint. I think I will make all menus capable of using W A S D or Arrow keys. So its player's choice. And just use space to go into sub menus maybe to stop that confusion.
There are instructions for each mini game but that might not be sufficient, and I was aiming to have quests
all work the same regarding the navigation, A and D  to turn and W for forward. but I might go back to the drawing
board with that, so hopefully not every quest will need a demo. Maybe a little audio clip over the mini games being played with instructions over the top would help.

There are no walls in the arenas, and W doesn't do anything. the only mechanics for duelling are A and D to move
around your opponent and the number keys to cast spells. Maybe the grizzly bear hurt noise is to quiet. I think maybe a
few opponent noises are to quiet so maybe the audio distancing needs adjusting. Such as  footsteps as well, they seem quiet.

Learning sounds for mini games is a good suggestion, It might be worth just adding that in with the demos.

The  Experience menu in the spell menu is broken, it was pointed out to me earlier. There is another place you can check experience in the player menu. that one works. The reason it is also in the spell menu is just for quick access.

I'd like to hear more detail about how the mini games are too simplistic if that's possible. obviously I don't want to
over complicate them but I also don't want them to be boring. so I'm finding the line in-between them both, and feedback from you guys is the most helpful tool to make sure I get it right.


Arcues - you should have had 7 mini games available in the training list? not just air. If you press W and S do no more options get spoken to you?
if you press space constantly you probably went passed it. It gives a little noise when you enter or exit the target area. maybe that needs to be a more persistent noise

2020-12-03 14:06:22

Defender. You also mentions you thought a lot of the sound effects could be better.
There are a lot of sound effects so to really tackle that issue I would need a a small group u could work with to go through them all and get feedback on each one.
If anyone is available for that I'd be happy to set something up

2020-12-03 17:10:49

@Aaronlp oh, thank you. There were other minigames, it's just that I didn't have enough time to play with the demo in my little break
but here I come with some feedback after trying it.
Some of the noises are seriously seriously loud, like that plant noise in the devil seed quest. I barely could hear my spells. I don't know how I managed to survive my first duel, I couldn't hear my oponent  moving around and only heard his casting spells.
Movement was a little bit sluggish when it came to quests. I don't know why, but I didn't feel it was as fluid as I could be.
One particular reason where I felt I either wasn't playing the  minigame good enough or it was too sluggish was the rapid tides one. The one where you need to dodge waves/shoot ships. I tried my best, but it was still a hard minigame.
I didn't find a submenu in the player menu to check my charisma, inteligence, dexterity and so on. that's cause  it's the demo and we don't use those at full extent?
I wouldn't mind adding one or two more spells to  the concept when it comes to  the elements. Something more unique regarding each. if there are more spells than the demo allows us to see, then that's terrific!
I really like the concept  of the game, where you need to weigh your decisions and manage your time carefully. It's one concept we didn't have inaudiogames before, so I really hope this project will become a good one.
Oh, one more quick question before I'm going to have some more fun with the demo. Why does the dexterity work look like inteligence work? I mean how staying at a desc and hearing complains increases your dexterity?
Congratulations and keep on with the great work!

"Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself."

2020-12-03 17:41:04 (edited by Aaronlp 2020-12-03 17:41:32)

Hey Arceus

Glad you found the mini games. I was starting to panic there was a very strange bug floating around.

Yeah it seems some audio balancing is needed. I'll make sure that gets corrected.

Quest navigation is definlty to most highlighted issue. And I'm going to play with some ideas to improve that or just completely overhaul it.

Yeah you can't check on your charisma and stuff yet but you will in the full game.

I didnt plan on adding to the spells but I'm always open to suggestions if you feel the current selections need something more.

And as the dexterity. Police work is considered to be quite dexterous. I literally had to Google dexterous jobs because I couldn't think of a career path for dexterity. But there are 10 positions in each career. So its more about the career that gives you dexterity than the actual job.
That was my thought process on it anyway

2020-12-03 17:41:20

@Aaronlp re: sounds, I'd be available to help sort those out as well.
Thanks for clarifying re: navigation, that's what I figured was at play. I have a feeling for this type of game you might just want to go for a top-down navigation system. There's already a lot of moving parts to the game, angular navigation might be overkill especially for a game where exploration really isn't the main focus.

2020-12-03 17:55:06

Yeah I was considering that as well. I did trial that sort of navigation as well. But I found didnit so the orientation was always forward. So it was hard to hear if something was in front or behind.

I'm thinking of releasing a revised demo with all of these fixes to make sure we have it right. Rather than just assume.

But yeah. Maybe first person is a bit uneeded for this. In sure I can make it just as immersive without being able to look around.

2020-12-03 18:22:40

Perhaps Game Maker Studio doesn't have the best audio handling if it can't simulate audio behind you with at least a pitch change.

2020-12-03 18:46:06

Maybe. The pitch does change abit. Maybe I can make it better. I had the same issue with other languages using OpenAL. Which I think is what gamemaker uses. OpenAL is pretty popular though so maybe its me not using it right.

2020-12-03 20:42:55

@Aaronlp
If we each take different sections and pull from similar libraries a sound design group could work.  Maybe you could set up a discord, skype, or facebook group.

2020-12-03 20:51:18 (edited by stewie 2020-12-03 20:51:56)

It definitely doesn't sound like the game is using Open Al. It's also possible that Game Maker 2 has a weird hrtf model as the default, I don't know if you can change that. The problem with the first person navigation for me is that you can't tell how much you turn at any one time (because of the audio) and that when you're walking you don't know when space opens up to your left or right. Maybe top down navigation would be better for this if you can adjust the pitch change by a lot for things behind you. It could also allow you to make more interesting and complicated rpg style dungeons if you wanted to go that route.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

2020-12-03 21:57:45

I have your contact details from an earlier message defender. i'll drop you a message so we can have a more detailed chat about things. I appreciate the offer.

Its sounds a like a top down navigation is the way to go. so left actually mvoes you left, and right moves you right.
But how would we prefer to know the location of things around us? do we only stick to objects that make sounds? which limits us and makes walls an issue. Or a TTS message that only plays when we bump into them? or a button that makes all the objects around us tell us what they are?

I want to make a little mock up of it and try some things out.

2020-12-03 22:05:29 (edited by defender 2020-12-03 22:05:47)

@Aaronlp
Of course friend.  I can't promise any miracles, but more community outreach and assistance is one of the best ways to help with our current problems in audio gaming.

2020-12-03 22:07:14

You need to have a passage sound as well as far as working with walls goes. Look to Mnamon/Manamon 2 from VG Storm as examples of top-down good navigation systems. You also want the items to make sounds as well, the multiple tts instances make for a pretty confusing experience overall.

2020-12-03 23:21:14

I also agree with things regarding navigation. I just tried out to navigate in the orphen quest and had no  luck to find the Child.  That is because I had no idea where passages were or where i could move. I was confused where different sounds were. I would prefer a top down style instead. I also Think there should be sounds for passages, look up manamon 1 and 2 from vgstorm for good navigation references. I also beleive items should have a sound instead of a tts message, since the tts message made me a bit confused. ALso, i tried doing a intelligence work and i had the option to choose yes or no to continue. i tried to highlight yes and press space, but nothing happened. I felt this should be more clearer so i know what choice i can make and what key to press to confirm. I also noticed the experience. I got some air experience after doing the minigame, but didn't see any exp. I even Went into the player menu, but didn't see any exp.

2020-12-03 23:30:42

All valid comments, i need to see this passage indication you are talking about. I've got to admit I dont understand the concept at the moment.
I'll look into the exp issue for the revised demo. Pressing space on the yes option to continue working should replay the work though. I did test this but its always possible I missed something. I'll be sure to look at that as well.
Thank you all.

2020-12-03 23:37:35

hi, this looks for sure good! just a hint though, level systems are great in a game like this

Suffering's what keeps me alive.
If one never suffers, one doesn't live propperly.
So embrace the pain, the suffering life has brought you and will bring you in the future

2020-12-04 01:36:37 (edited by stewie 2020-12-04 01:38:06)

Regarding the passages, they're alert indicators. There are two ways I've seen it done.

The first method I've seen in Shadow Rine/Line (japanese audiogame rpg). Say you're walking north and there's a wall a step or two to your left. When the distance between you and that wall changes (usually increases) a sound plays from that direction to indicate it. Items will play their sound when you move and you're aligned (horizontally or vertically) with that item.

In games like manamon, a continuous tone is played when you're near to a wall. Each direction is associated with its own tone (otherwise it'd get confusing when walls were on either side). When there's no barrier within a set distance in a given direction, the tone stops. Objects either play a continuous sound or play a sound after each footstep (though usually a continuous sound).

You could do something similar with first person navigation, though it's more difficult. If you do go with first person navigation, maybe some more keys like snap 90 degrees to the left or right would help finding openings

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.