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[rszrama]

What can I say?  There is a LOT of attention to detail in this game, and I really like the promise it shows.  The way you've implemented rotated world gameplay (maintaining sprite orientation with a hint of parallax scrolling) is brilliant, the waves crashing on the beach, the ability to zoom the mini-map and a very helpful auto-fire... all these things are awesome.

One tester mentioned the cramped feeling of the screen, and I have to concur... but only when you're using the alternate key orientation.  In other words, the normal placement of the character is toward the bottom of the screen to benefit the normal key gameplay - constantly moving forward ("up") and rotating the world.  In this case, it makes sense to have a longer viewport in front of the character.  However, when toggling to use A / D as moving left / right instead of rotating the screen, the placement of the character is no longer beneficial... especially when moving down.  So, my advice here would be to toggle where the camera centers along with toggling the rotation keys.  Move it a few tiles down so the camera centers on the player.

I also encountered a glitch that ended one of my games as a wizard.  I had clicked on a healing potion and then had to shift click to use it... but somehow or another the "tool tip" that describes the healing potion to me got stuck on so any time I clicked anywhere on the screen it showed up.  Including where I was clicking to shoot.  I'm sure you see my dilemma.  ; )  Dunno how to reproduce it exactly unfortunately.

Also, I'd love to be able to just press a number (say, 1-8) to use items in my inventory instead of having to shift click on them.  Hitting shift with my pinky and then clicking over on the side of the screen means I have to make an awkward hand motion and lose my aim to quaff a health potion.  It would feel more natural (and more normal, given the usage in other mainstream games) to have these mapped to number keys.

I'll also corroborate the earlier commenter's gripe about playing on a laptop.  However, at the time I didn't realize I could hold the mouse button for rapid fire.  I'm not sure I favor 8 directional shooting through the keyboard, though.  I'd much rather simply automatically aim "forward" and use the key settings where A / D rotate.  Then I could just hold the mouse button (or map it to some other key, like ctrl / command) and count on using rotation to aim.

Hope that helps!  Awesome game potential here... can't wait to play more of this and Hubris!

[Wild Shadow]

HUGE HUGE thanks to those who have played the game already!  HUGE!  We love user feedback! 

We just pushed a new build of Realm of the Mad God, build 47.  New stuff:

• Loot drops (mostly potions for now)
• Fire nova spell for the Wizard
• Heal nova spell for the Priest
• New stats (attack, defense, speed)
• Stat increases on levelup
• Tougher enemy AI
• Dragons (they start as eggs, but hatch and grow, eventually laying more eggs)
• Global countdown for Oryx the Mad God's appearance
• Performance improvements

Coming tomorrow we hope:

• Lots more equipment & loot drops
• Lots more monster types
• Music & sound

Play now at http://assemblee.wildshadow.com/.

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Wild Shadow]

What can I say?  There is a LOT of attention to detail in this game, and I really like the promise it shows.  The way you've implemented rotated world gameplay (maintaining sprite orientation with a hint of parallax scrolling) is brilliant, the waves crashing on the beach, the ability to zoom the mini-map and a very helpful auto-fire... all these things are awesome.

Thanks!  We really appreciate the time you spent playing and posting your thoughts.

You are right that the game is "meant" to be played shooting mostly up, with you swirling the world around so that your enemies are in front of you.  We realize this is a nontraditional control scheme, and not everyone will get used to it quickly.  But that's what's so cool about small teams and tight deadlines -- you can try risky new stuff that giant teams with bloated budgets won't try.

Your 1-8 hotkey idea is brilliant and will be implemented immediately.

Playing with a trackpad is tricky.  When I have to do it, I plant my cursor at the top middle of the screen and just hold down the button.  I drive with my left hand to put the enemies into my bullet stream....

Thanks for the other bug reports.  They are on the list now.

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Wild Shadow]

One minor bug: for some reason as I'm logging in, there's a bunch of slowdown and Safari claims to be "Not responding" for maybe one or two seconds.  Then it finishes logging in and everything's fine.  Nothing gamebreaking, just a minor nuisance.

Thanks for the report.  We have hopefully fixed this issue.  Try again and let us know if you still see it.

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[J. R. Hill]

Aurifex died at level 12. 

Had lots of fun trying to save oryx & Rob from dying, but when I was playing as a priest I couldn't stay alive very long...

I guess what I'd like to see most is exp sharing or easier monsters at the beach so people can get started easier.

[oryx]

I wish the bats were bigger (the pixel density inconsistency pains me, the trees are a little bigger but they are close enough )

What if dying made you respawn and lose a level instead of perma-death?

More mini goals! The only goal being killing 25000 monsters is a bit daunting, any plans for dungeons? or some mini goals like random temples to Oryx that are dynamically erected by dark forces that you could smash apart and once 5 of those are destroyed one of Oryx's Generals spawns and it puts a giant beacon on the map and everyone (or you) need to kill it. Once 5 Generals are killed then Oryx spawns? Also random artifacts are dropped or spread hidden around the world, and the more of them you have the more damage you can do to a General?

I'm talking out of my ass now lol.

[Attribute Clash]

)) That's a great one!!!
Maybe we schedule an epic battle some day?

[rszrama]

w00t!  Keep up the good work!  I'm loving it and introducing it to new people.

One word - someone mentioned above Exp. splits, and I concur.  When fighting in a group, it's too easy to never get any Exp.  Do you suppose Exp. could be evenly split among the people who damaged a monster?  Or if you had the time, award the percentage of Exp. to players based on the percentage of HP you took from the monster.

Anyways, looking forward to more.

[Wild Shadow]

w00t!  Keep up the good work!  I'm loving it and introducing it to new people.

One word - someone mentioned above Exp. splits, and I concur.  When fighting in a group, it's too easy to never get any Exp.  Do you suppose Exp. could be evenly split among the people who damaged a monster?  Or if you had the time, award the percentage of Exp. to players based on the percentage of HP you took from the monster.

Anyways, looking forward to more.

I think the game could use XP splitting, and my first choice would be to do it based on proximity -- anyone within a screen or so of a kill shares in the XP.  This is to ensure that healers and tanks (which don't necessarily do a lot of damage) are not penalized.  That said, Alex and I will need to discuss what the priorities are for the short time remaining.

Rob of Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Wild Shadow]

)) That's a great one!!!
Maybe we schedule an epic battle some day?

We would love to do this!  After all, it's a "massively co-op" game.  I'll be on tonight (Saturday 1/9/2010) at 10pm Eastern, 7pm Pacific time, to playtest with whoever shows up.

Thanks for playing!  We love our testers!

Rob of Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Wild Shadow]

I wish the bats were bigger (the pixel density inconsistency pains me, the trees are a little bigger but they are close enough )

What if dying made you respawn and lose a level instead of perma-death?

More mini goals! The only goal being killing 25000 monsters is a bit daunting, any plans for dungeons? or some mini goals like random temples to Oryx that are dynamically erected by dark forces that you could smash apart and once 5 of those are destroyed one of Oryx's Generals spawns and it puts a giant beacon on the map and everyone (or you) need to kill it. Once 5 Generals are killed then Oryx spawns? Also random artifacts are dropped or spread hidden around the world, and the more of them you have the more damage you can do to a General?

I'm talking out of my ass now lol.

Sorry about scaled pixels!  One of the themes we were going for is old-school pixel art (which you totally nailed BTW) used in more modern ways (spun, scaled, animated etc).  Likewise permadeath was one of the foundational ideas, and I don't think we can back away from it at this stage.

The rest of your ideas are absolutely killer.  Killer!  But we won't have time to do them!

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Galaxy613]

Nothing says you can't keep adding to the game after the compo.

[Wild Shadow]

Hi folks!  We posted another build (#59) of Realm of the Mad God at

http://assemblee.wildshadow.com/

• Over 50 new monster types
• Over 50 sweet, phat loot drops
• Monsters spawn in different areas based on difficulty level
• XP splitting (duplicating actually) for nearby players
• Trees & rocks now appear in minimap
• Use + and - keys to zoom minimap
• Use T key to toggle autofire

Thank you so much for helping us playtest!

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[rszrama]

Either a glitch or Rob letting me have a little fun resulted in me at level 1258 running around the world at Mach 1.  I made it to the Eastern shore and up a while and saw all the new creatures... very cool!  The enemies are awesome, especially the little bands of goblins and later the more powerful human tribes.  Look forward to testing the new XP splitting feature later with a friend... group play is fun.

[Inanimate]

Rogues don't have weapons, so they can't attack... is that a glitch?

[Wild Shadow]

Yes, rogues didn't have weapons.  Yes people were getting level 1278 and flying around the map at warp speed, invincible and spewing bullets like MG42s.  It was all the same bug, caused by this line of code in the server:

if (p->kind = kind) return p;

The experienced C/C++ hackers out there will recognize (maybe after staring at it a bit) that I should have used == instead of =.  One character out of 7000 lines of server code!  4 hours lost on the last day!

Rob of Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[Mikademus]

Yes, rogues didn't have weapons.  Yes people were getting level 1278 and flying around the map at warp speed, invincible and spewing bullets like MG42s.  It was all the same bug, caused by this line of code in the server:

if (p->kind = kind) return p;

The experienced C/C++ hackers out there will recognize (maybe after staring at it a bit) that I should have used == instead of =.  One character out of 7000 lines of server code!  4 hours lost on the last day!

If I may, I'd like to suggest always using this idiom instead,
if (kind == p->kind) return p;
then if you accidentally use = instead of == the compiler will complain. I always write my comparisons like this.

[J. R. Hill]

I'm getting some weird lag spikes about every 15 seconds, not sure if it's me or the server.

Using Chrome on XP... 

[Wild Shadow]

Announcing build #62 of Realm of the Mad God!  Play now at:

http://assemblee.wildshadow.com/

New in this build:

• Sound effects!
• More monsters
• Better stats on equipment
• More taunts from Oryx the Mad God

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU playtesters!  The game is so much better than it would be without you!

Rob & Alex, Wild Shadow Studios

[SirNiko]

Joined the game, made a priest (named niko). Ran with a warrior for a bit, died at level 3.

Played again, bumped into a ranger named Tread, and we started touring the map in a clockwise fashion, hugging the beaches and edges of the map. We made it all the way to the south-east corner before the server disconnected and sent us back to the entry screen, voiding the existence of our level 16 heroes.

The controls feel pretty good right now. Strafing and turning both with the keyboard is weird to me, mostly because I'm used to using the mouse to turn and keyboard to strafe.

Equipment drops are fun to get, although our group didn't see much we could use. During the session, I saw a grand total of three rings to equip, a great number of missile wands, and a single hellfire wand, which was the best I had. Initially I thought to bring along some of the swords and shields I found, but once we got too far into the wilderness, I realized that was sort of pointless: nobody was going to reach us.

Chatting is difficult, as the game really doesn't seem to let up the monster assault for long. I'm a strong proponent of native voice chat in online games, although the simplicity of this title (and the ease of entry) may suggest that's a bad idea.

Grouping up is easy and rewarding. There's no reason why you wouldn't want to bring three or four friends from the get-go in order to maximize use of items and get maximum firepower. I think this is good design. Once you're out of the starting area, though, new players are left behind.

The forested areas are annoying to travel through. You bump into trees, the trees block your shots, and your attention is split between the radar and the play area. The game's much more fun on the beaches where you have open area to let spells and arrows fly.

Sometime around level 15, the ranger commented that he didn't seem to be taking damage from monsters anymore, and asked if I was seeing the same. I was not, although that may be because my armor remained firmly at 0 for the duration of the session. Yay priest?

I am concerned the game lacks replay value. Once you've killed monsters up to level 16, doing it again isn't all that appealing. Loot drops are rare enough that I'm not really expecting to see any cool items I can use next time I play (missile wands were EVERYWHERE). I'm also worried I may miss out on seeing what happens when all the monsters are killed, and the Mad God lacks support. Hopefully when that happens we'll get an update so we can all log in and participate in the final battle.

Of the MMO games submitted to this competition, I think this is the one that feels the most complete, although it also feels like it has a low ceiling for potential. Permadeath is great for the model you've chosen, but you'll need to come up with reasons for players to repeat the item XP climb again and again. Maybe more explorable areas? Some permanent items and upgrades players can collect? Achievements to encourage completionists?

-SirNiko