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[AbnormalSoftware]

Counter Spell

Description

Counter Spell combines elements of classic role playing games with modern tactical and stealth-based shooters.

The player can choose from six different classes, each with their own unique spells, abilities, and perks.  Single player, multiplayer coop, and competitive multiplayer are all supported with different game modes for each. A wide array of spells and items make for fun and intense matches. Throw flasks of wildfire at your opponents, lay cleverly placed traps, or just rain fireballs down upon them.

An open, streaming world makes for an exciting sandbox to adventure in!

Feedback

The entire game has been revamped to create an open world that can be freely explored.  The quests are now automatically completed when the requirements are met.  Eventually there will be NPCs that provide quests as well.

We're looking for all kinds of feedback, especially related to the difficulty of the game as well as the general feel.  The quest descriptions are all placeholders at the moment, but the the different quest types have been implemented.

Early Access

Counter Spell is currently available on Steam Early Access:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/351230/

Screen Shots

Videos





System Requirements

Microsoft Windows
2GHz CPU
1GB System RAM
DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 2.0 Compatible GPU
Microsoft XNA 4.0 Redistributable Installed
Keyboard & Mouse

[Quicksand-S]

I really like the art and textures. The only thing that I really disliked, visually, was my default spell's projectiles. Nothing else in the game seems to have an outline, so I don't know why they would. They also look very 2D. The animation for the characters is really stiff, but I imagine that will change.

Why is P the key for selecting spells? It's way out on the other end of my keyboard from where my hand is. Also, the message telling me how to select spells didn't go away when I pressed P. If it's a tutorial message, it should probably go away when I hit it (and/or with a timer).

Is there a pause button in singleplayer? I alt-tabbed to write here and almost got killed by something.

"The chest is empty" - I see a huge pile of gold inside it, so clearly it isn't.   Don't worry. I realize that this is an alpha.

As for difficulty, I found it really tough. I think I managed to kill six or seven enemies at most before being swarmed and slaughtered. I'm fairly decent at high-speed shooters like the old Unreal Tournaments, but the slowness of my movement combined with the seemingly perfect aim of the enemies made things pretty tricky. I also didn't like how every enemy seemed to hit me with ranged attacks even when they looked like they were melee, but I'm guessing that'll change. It threw me off at first, because I thought I could focus on attacking the ranged ones before the melee enemies got to me.

Apart from the difficulty, my biggest issue (which is related) is that casting other spells takes ages. I lost 40hp while waiting for a fireball to actually fire, and then I died almost instantly after that because keeping my enemy targeted for that long let other enemies sneak up behind me.

I think the attack-direction indicator should last longer and maybe appear when an enemy fires at me rather than just when I get hit. A lot of the time, I don't know where an attack is coming from until I've lost half my health.

I also feel like maybe enemies shouldn't get so close. It just feels wrong to have a slime filling up the entire screen. Could it maybe stand a foot away, instead of trying to merge with my body?

One thing I found myself wanting is separate sliders for X and Y mouse sensitivity. Aiming horizontally was fine but I felt like I couldn't aim up at those eyeball things as easily.

I had no idea what some of the items were for (like the rose) and no time to check tooltips for things with enemies coming from all directions).

Twice, I got damaged by nothing. The first time, I guess I was poisoned (with no way to recover?), but the second time I have no idea what it was. Maybe the edge of a fire blast caught me on fire. It would be nice to have some indication of what my status is. If that already exists, I didn't see it so maybe it isn't noticeable enough.

I often started out trying to be cautious so that I wouldn't get swarmed by four or more enemies at once. The issue with that is that enemies always seem to get around behind me. Is the AI omniscient? If so, I think maybe that's the thing that hurts the game most. Since attacking enemies head-on while moving so slowly just gets me killed, I really want to be able to develop a strategy for attacking them when they don't expect it.

When it's going well, though, this game is great. My default spell does a decent amount of damage and taking out a bunch of enemies in a row feels really good.

[AegarPyke]

I don't consider myself bad at FPS games but this one kicked my butt, lol. The gameplay was a bit confusing and unpolished (not too sure about the whole bouncing projectiles thing) but it's alpha so I didn't let that color my enjoyment too much; otherwise, it was pretty darn good.

I really dig the art style. It's pleasant and I could see myself playing a game like this for hours if the gameplay was smooth and compelling.

[AbnormalSoftware]

Thanks for the good feedback!  That's a good point about the main weapon animation, I'll look into cleaning that up.

That's strange about the spell book message, it should go away once you pick your spells.  Did you click on a green bordered spell that was glowing to pick one?  You get one green spell at level 1, one blue spell at level 2, and one purple spell at level 3.  After that, the pattern varies a bit.  The white spells at the top are the default ones that everyone gets.  I may change the hotkey for the spell book to B, but ideally you shouldn't spend much time in that window.  Ultimately re-mappable key bindings are the goal.

The pause button is U at the moment, since P is the spell book.  I'm probably going to make it pause automatically in single player any time a window is open.

You actually pick up the item and gold as soon as you open the chest, but the chest still shows its contents.  I may animate it a bit to make it more obvious.  If you activate it after it opens, you just get a message saying it's empty.  I'll change that message to indicate you already got the items in this chest to make it clearer.

Yes, I do believe I need to tone down the difficulty.  I think part of the problem is the difficulty of that first level varies depending on where the random spawns are.  If you get a lot out in that open courtyard, it can be quite overwhelming.  I have an idea for an algorithm that will make sure they get spread out a bit, but still remain random.  Also I'm going to remove the backup ranged weapons from the Warriors and Rogues.

I'll look into the tuning on the fireball.  You're right that one second is an eternity in this game.

I'll extend the duration of the attack direction indicator and try to make it stand out a little more.

The slimes are kind of a unique case that probably needs some special attention since they get so small.  I'll give them a fixed radius for player collisions.

Yeah, the rose has a tool tip that explains its use with the altar and other artifacts.  Hopefully with the pause changes it will be easier to check your items and pick your spells.

The poison can be cured by drinking from a fountain.  I think there is a message that tells you that, but it may not be working, and it can be easy to miss.  I'll look into making it more obvious.  Any buffs and debuffs appear as icons in the upper-right that you can mouse over once you open any window.

The AI is not omniscient, they merely seek a path to the last place they saw you, or where they saw you run towards.  If you damage them, they seek to where the damage came from, or where the item was thrown from.  They do have a bad habit of flanking you on that level through the basement of that first building.  I generally have to do a lot of back tracking once I have their attention.  I usually lure them through wildfire or an explosive trap.  Hopefully things will get smoothed out a little with the difficulty changes I have in mind.

I've debated the bouncing bullets myself, but at the moment I still like them.  They can be a bit chaotic and unpredictable at times, which can lead to frustration.  Sometimes I worry the results from using a grenade or explosive trap is too random, but at the time being I like the effect.  I'm thinking I'll make the Arcane Bolt bounce a passive green spell upgrade.

[Quicksand-S]

Just to give you some more info: The main reason I thought the AI was omniscient was that, right at the start of the first level, I've been attacked by both a bat and a goblin. I don't know where the bat came from or how he found me there. The goblin came from over near the water, so it really seemed like he'd purposely gone around that side to flank me, since I didn't think there would be any other reason for him to be over there.

Very glad you're adding automatic pausing.

[AbnormalSoftware]

Ah, that bat probably saw you while flying overhead, and I'm guessing he "called for help" and got the goblin to come over.  I'll probably limit which mobs can call for help.  Thanks for the details.

[AbnormalSoftware]

Counter spell v0.6.5 is now up on the website:

http://www.abnormalsoftware.com/cs/

I've implemented most of the suggestions from this thread, including toning down the difficulty.  Also the game now contains music!

[Quicksand-S]

That feels really great. With fewer enemies, I got to explore the area more and had this great "sneaking around enemy territory" feeling. The new music helped a lot in that regard.

I kinda miss the bouncing projectile, personally. It would've been useful in some situations, but the current one is good too.

I really hate the jumping sound. It's just my feet are being pulled from thick mud every time or something.

Hit-detection on the tiniest slimes seems a bit off. I felt like my projectile hit one about eight times before finally doing damage. Also, even after killing all pieces of the slime, it didn't seem to add to my kill count (although a later slime did, so maybe it's just too easy to have one piece of it get lost in the map).

A zombie fell down from the ceiling on level 3.

The weapon should probably move instantly to the firing position when I click and the projectile looks like it's coming from my chest rather than in front of me.

A little thing I would personally like to see is a more detailed skybox. The current one is fine when looking up, but the open areas at the side of the map (in level 1) give me a view of nothingness when it would be nice to see a cityscape or rolling hills or something out there.

The mimic doesn't have a death pose/animation so when it stopped moving in a doorway I thought it was just stuck and didn't want to go near it. It had a lot less health than I normally expect from mimics.

I really like the environment you designed for the first mission. There are a lot of nice optional areas to find and every part of the map feels fairly unique. How do I open the bars blocking some doorways, though?

The swinging doors swing all swing counter-clockwise, so when there are two side-by-side it looks/feels wrong for them two open in opposite directions. I think it would probably look best if they always swung away from the player (so I wouldn't be walking through them as they open toward me like what happens now).

I feel like effects like poison gas last too long. I find myself having to wait ages for them to clear so I can get by.

The explosion effect looks pretty cool but maybe the flame positions could be randomized a little more. It looked like they were almost on a grid.

Doors to shops don't seem like shop doors (The symbol doesn't say "shop" to me). When I first entered one, I instantly attacked the guy I saw walking around with a sword only to realize he was actually friendly. Oops. Also, the text saying "Press E to shop" was really out-of-the-way. I didn't even notice it until I actually looked for it, wondering how I was supposed to talk to the shopkeeper.

In level 2, which is also fun to explore, I stopped to write here and when I went back the music had ended and hadn't started up again.

Does crouching actually make you harder to detect? Level 3 seemed like it would be a great place to crouch and sneak through the fields.

Is there a point to walking? I almost feel like Shift should make me faster, not slower but the default speed is quite good.

Some more interesting mission objectives would be nice, even if they're just optional ones. Edit: I got to level 4 and saw the different objective. Maybe optional objectives would still be a good idea, though, to show players early on that the game isn't just endless combat.

On the third level, I kept getting shot from across the map and those enemies called for help from a bunch of others until I was swarmed from all over. I probably just need to take a different approach, though. I really love how that place looks, apart from the skybox "issue" (and some of the tree branches get in the way near one corner). Levels 1 and 3 have really drawn me in with their atmosphere.

I think the only big "problem" is that I never use anything. The P key is far too inconvenient and my default attack feels better than using hotkeys and waiting for spells to cast, so I haven't done anything other than shoot enemies and accidentally throw a grenade or two. You know, maybe it would be nice if I could assign a spell to right-click instead of using that for grenades (since "G" is already easy to hit if I ever need them).

Anyway, I'm really liking this game so far.


Edit: I found one fairly big issue. I went back to play again and level 3 is locked even though the save file is right there and was last-modified earlier today. I was under the impression that the "autosave" actually auto-saved, but it seems I have to manually save my character (Why "character" and not "game"?). It seems like it's working now that I'm doing it manually.

[AbnormalSoftware]

Glad you're enjoying the game!  The Farm level is quickly becoming one of my favorites as well.

I'm probably going to make the bouncing projectile a standard spell for the player, but leave it off for the enemies.  I feels like a requirement right now which doesn't make for a very interesting choice at level 1.

The jumping sound is pretty bad, but it's an improvement on what it was before.  I hope to find something better.  I just made some improvements to the casting sound effects that will be in the next build.

I'll do some testing on the mob hit boxes and make sure they're all good.

Do you remember where on level 3 the Zombie fell down?

Good idea about the weapon firing animation.  The fire origin is tough because if you put it too low it makes it harder to fire over walls.  It's something I may "fake" a little to make it look more natural.

Long term I'd like to put up backdrop models that go in between the levels and the skybox.  Not sure when I'll have time to model those though.  Alley is another level that desperately needs one.

I'll look into making the Mimics death pose a little more obvious.  We die a lot from Mimics in multiplayer--not sure if I want to give them more health. 

The metal jail cell-like bars can't be opened.  There are other ways into the areas they block off, usually a door off to the side.

I like your suggestion for the doors opening in either direction.  I'll work on that soon.  One subtle thing most people don't notice is doors have an outside and an inside, and are only locked on the outside.  Also keys can be used to re-lock a door.

Yeah, it's probably time to lower the duration of the fire and poison effects to be less annoying.

The flames are on a grid, with a little bit of randomization.  I do want to improve that algorithm though, especially now as the world geometry is getting more complex.

I'll work on making the shops a little more intuitive, and make a good sign to hang outside their door.

The background music tracks only play at the start of the level.  I'm planning on having them repeat on a random shuffle after about 30s of silence, with each level having its own default "1st track."

Crouching only makes you harder to detect if you crouch behind a wall.  You should be able to hide in the fields of the Farm level, but they will still come looking for you if they spotted you before.  Walking makes you a little harder to detect in that your "detectability factor" takes into account how fast you are moving.  It can also be used to keep yourself from walking off of edges, although it isn't very reliable on steep slopes.  I'm going to try to simplify my stealth algorithm a little to try to make it more obvious when you're hidden from enemies.

Probably going to spice up the quest order and put in a rescue mission in the #2 spot.  My main focus right now is the single player campaign so I hope to have lots of improvements there over the next few weeks.  I also plan on have a lot of "side quests" with more unique objectives or specific encounters.  For example, maybe a mission on the canals level with 20 spiders and 1 elite spider queen.

You can drag any item or spell to any location on the action bar, including the left and right-click positions.  So you could put fireball as right-click if that better suits your play style.  Ideally you would only use the spell book after leveling up to pick your spells and setup your action bar.  I'll add a little notice to this window to let players know they can move the actions around.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to have autosave save it to a file called autosave instead of the existing file.  I'm going to make some improvements here as it is kind of convoluted how it's set up now.

Thanks again for all the great feedback!  If you have any projects you'd like me to take a look at, please let me know!

[Quicksand-S]

The zombie seemed to fall from the ceiling on the second floor of the farmhouse or whatever in Level 3. It was beside the...chimney or something, if I remember right.

I think the tracks are long enough that you could loop them. They give the levels a specific tone and I'm not sure it would work as well if you had other tracks come in afterward.

I went to try co-op just now. Is that functional yet? It didn't connect, no matter what mode I used. I unblocked incoming connections to the game in my firewall and I tried port-forwarding manually, but I haven't done that in a while so maybe I messed up something.


Edit: Also, would it be possible to allow Ctrl-V in the IP Address box?

[Vallar]

Well, let's see... I don't usually enjoy action games that have me shoot at stuff for the sake of shooting and give me a bunch of quests that are there as the excuse. However... I don't know what is about this game... it is addictive. It is much more fun looking at it than watching Total Biscuit play Lichdom (relatively speaking of course )

Since I played the first 3 missions, I mostly agree with what has been said so far in general. That said, some of the feedback may be due to the Alpha stage of the game, I just mentioned it as sometimes you get caught up in development and might miss noticing these things -- at least I do (here in no particular order what I found):

1- The difficulty was OK to me, although it was extremely unfair. All enemies seem to never miss and some enemies that should be hitting with melee have a ranged attack.

2- Enemies literally creep unto you. There are no sound for them unless they are shooting at you so you need up suddenly noticing damage on screen.

3- Fireball, doesn't look like a fireball. Those red blobs that fly everywhere had me go like O.o all the time. That said, sometimes the whole area of explosion goes on fire and sometimes it doesn't. I am guessing it does that when I am hitting an enemy with a torch. But why not all the time? It is a fireball after all.

4- Why start out with some icons on the hotbar and they aren't in my inventory/useable? You had me there trying to use stuff for about 2 minutes until I discovered they are there as place holders. It is better to clear the hotbar altogether and have me put things the way I want it.

5- The description of some of the spells was weird. For example, the mana shield. I'd expect it to last until it depletes then I have to activate it again (or perhaps it stays active through the regeneration from items). However, it seems it has a timer which negates what other games used to do. It was a minor thing, not major. I kind of like how it generally is now... but with the difficulty level... I think it might be better to leave it as active all the time.

6- It would be really cool to differentiate between NPCs that you can talk to and those that can't. I kept trying to talk to the guard in level 1 at the store and he didn't do anything.

7- There is no direct way to know how much gold I have except to know before I enter the level? I couldn't find it in inventory.

8- The sounds are cool in general and I liked the music. Although it doesn't quite stand out. I am not saying it is bad though, it is good... but feels kind of like a general track kind of thing rather than a specific to the level.

9- The graphics is something I liked it... it gave me a feel as if the level is made out of colored cardboard. Kind of like a polished version of Minecraft. That said, some of the graphics needs work like the projectiles of spells.

All in all, the game was really fun and I liked how it gave a feeling of dungeon crawling and got me sneaking around, ducking behind covers and what not. Also, I liked so much the part where some of the NPCs are natural enemies so it made my job easier a bit to sneak around, although I couldn't literally sneak and walk undetected, it was a nice touch with the duck thing.
Definitely needs some work, but I am really impressed with the level of fun you implemented in the game .

Good work and good luck! :D

[AbnormalSoftware]

Co-op should function, although it's been a while since we've tried it over the Internet.  You need to forward port 10042 over UDP (not TCP) to allow someone to connect to you.  You can change this port in your settings XML file.  There's no automatic matchmaking at the moment, hoping to use Steam for that eventually.  I removed the default IP address to hopefully make this a little clearer.  I should be able to add Ctrl+V support to the address box.

I tweaked the enemy aim algorithm a little--they were a little too accurate when standing still.  I also took the ranged weapon away from Rogues and will soon add an Archer enemy class to compensate.

I do want to add footsteps and other sounds for enemies creeping up on you.  The plan is to have walking mobs not make sound, but to have running have a sound effect you can hear as they approach.

I may add a fire effect to the Fireball, but I have to be careful not to make it too powerful.  The bouncing balls ("of arcane energy") seem strange at first, but once you get used to them they open up a lot of new strategies.  The explosion you are seeing is coming from a nearby explosive barrel, a gray barrel with red X's on it.  I would like a cooler looking Fireball object.

I'll make it so the default icons on the action bar stay hidden until you pick up the corresponding item or replace it with a different action.

The Mana Shield is a little tricky because of how easily and quickly mana regenerates.  I really don't want it to be something you can leave up all the time, more of something to use in emergencies.

I'm going to put a little 'E' HUD button above any interactive object once you get in range.  This should help show what you can and cannot interact with.

Your gold is all the way in the bottom-right corner of the screen.  It can be easy to miss on a large resolution screen.  I may scale it up to be a bit larger and more noticeable.

[S20-TBL]

Took a while for me to get used to stuff but I think this game is quite a refreshing change of pace from the standard high speed FPS, so it's perfect for guys like me who have astigmatism and couldn't last more than 30 minutes in a game like Unreal Tournament.

Can definitely see the Minecraft influences on this one. Nice and simple, but atmospheric all the same.

I'll have to echo some of the concerns other people already brought up, and one of them is how most enemies literally creep up to you with little to no warning, even when they're actually in front of you ("Wait, that's an ENEMY!? O @#$% KILL IT KILL IT WITH FIRE").

Although IMHO that actually amps up the scare factor quite a bit, and you did put in directional SFX which is a huge help when figuring out where the monsters are coming from, so it's not completely unfair and it forced me to stay on my toes. It's good though that you're planning to add more SFX tells for the enemies.

Another is that some of the effects used on things like the Grenade, for example, seem a bit plain and counter-intuitive. I was actually unsure of what those bouncy red things were at first until they killed me. Maybe you could replace it with actual flame effects like the one from the exploding barrel, instead of plain 3D objects.

I was also confused at first as to performing certain actions, like using keys to open doors and chests. Had to dig up the manual for that, but I'm not going to nitpick since you did already mention that the goal is to have remappable keys.

All in all, this game looks like good fun. I'll try to get a bunch of my friends to play a network game and we'll see how it goes.

[AbnormalSoftware]

I just uploaded v0.6.6 to the website.  I didn't get to everything I wanted to, but I won't be able to update over the weekend.  There's a new bouncing plasma effect, as well as some other user interface refinements.

www.abnormalsoftware.com/cs

[Quicksand-S]

The more I play this game, the more I like it. I only realized tonight that I could jump on the rooftops in level 4. I don't know if that was intentional, but I love that sort of thing.

-In level 4, it would be nice if I knew what sort of "evidence" I was looking for. I spotted a book through a window, and it was in a locked building. That seemed to strongly suggest that the book was what I was looking for, but it wasn't.

-In level 5, I'm really noticing just how unforgiving the enemy firing rates are. I keep getting torn to shreds in seconds because they shoot me so quickly. It would be nice if enemy magic users had limited mana and had to wait for it to recharge every few shots or something.

-Some of the damage numbers are confusing. From the descriptions of the main spell and the fireball spell, it seems like they do the same damage but the fireball takes long to cast and uses more mana. Of course, when I actually use the fireball it usually obliterates enemies in one hit, so something seems off there.

-I feel like bats do far too much damage. Five bites can take me from full health to dead, which seems pretty extreme for something that's usually a minor enemy in games. I think the elementals are pretty overpowered too. They don't seem to receive a lot of damage at all (or do I have to use an opposing element?)

-This isn't a huge thing, but enemies seem to shoot through doors a lot (They'll open the door and then shoot/walk through the actual door toward me).

-Enemies seem like they may be a little too random. Level 4 was incredibly difficult the first few times I played it, but the last time it was basically empty. I think I encountered two easy enemies on the way to the evidence and none on the way back. It's also strange to see bats spawning inside perfectly nice buildings all the time.

-The skill progression is slightly unsatisfying to me. I finally decided to use it a bit, despite really liking the default attack. I'm level 4, so I would expect to have a few skill points saved up (Does it say anywhere how many I have?). I got one spell and suddenly I can't upgrade anything else that I want to. It says I need an "epic" skill slot, but I have no idea how to get one and I don't care much about any of the other skills. Also, it seems strange that almost every spell is worse than the default one. I considered getting other flame spells, but they do 60-something DPS while the default one is 90 or so with less mana drain, so why would I ever get the others?

-When I was on rooftops in level 4, enemies were shooting from the ground even though they had no line-of-sight to me.

-Did you change the jump sound? I feel like it's a little more like jumping from dirt now, instead of that weird, sticky mud sound it had before, but maybe it's my imagination.

-In version 0.6.6, I can no longer alt-tab safely. The game freezes every time I do. The music keeps playing (although it takes at least ten seconds between loops, which is weird).

-I got killed by the Monoculus in level 5 and the flame sound continued even after two more deaths. On a related note, that thing has waaaay too much health. I'm using the spell that does the most damage-per-second and it does almost nothing.

I haven't been able to beat level 5 yet, but I will. So far, every time I'm doing well, two enemies come out of nowhere and destroy me in seconds. I guess I'll have to try some other spells, but I think the main issue is really just that endless stream of projectiles. Anyway, I'm still really enjoying this.


Edit: I just finished level 5. The same thing happened. Suddenly the monster spawns were really easy to beat, so I just walked through the level with very little trouble at all (although the shop guard helped with a few enemies).

Speaking of the shop, I was unable to buy anything despite having more than enough money. Nothing responded at all. Could it be a result of making menus/dialogs pause the game?

[AbnormalSoftware]

v0.6.6 seems to have a bunch of strange bugs so I went ahead and reverted the website version back to v0.6.5.  Hopefully this week I'll be able to sort them all out.  That Alt+Tab one is definitely puzzling.  Doesn't do it in debug mode, which is always fun to track down......   

Yup, being able to climb on the rooftops is intentional.  There's actually about 3 different ways to get up there. 

Fireball is a little confusing because each of those little bullets does the damage range listed.  I need to make the tooltip clearer.

The monster spawns for the later levels will probably need to be tuned.  I also want to add more objectives to make sure they explore they whole level.

This skill system will probably be getting a big overhaul soon.  At the moment each spell is classified into common, uncommon, rare, and epic.  Each row corresponds to each type.  Each level you get a spell to choose from one of the groups.  Level 1 you can pick an uncommon, level 2 a rare, level 3 an epic, etc...  I would recommend getting Flame Strike from the blue group, as that is a very useful one for questing.  Many of the skills are utilitarian and situational.  Rejuvenation is another good spell for questing.

Enemies will keep firing at the last place they saw you, which is probably what you saw.

I'll probably tune Monoculus down some.    Elementals are pretty rough too...

Not sure why the shop isn't working for you, it was working for me in quest mode, but I'll do some more testing.

Glad you're enjoying the game!

[Quicksand-S]

Using 0.6.5, I finally tried co-op with a friend and got it working (I'd mistyped the port number before).

-The wizard's hair shows through the back of his hood when swimming.
-The game freezes if I let it sit on the level-select screen too long (Not sure if that's still in 0.6.6). It also does this weird thing where the scene in the background seems to shift or jerk a bit once in a while.
-My friend's game crashed after playing a little bit (Level 3 - We got slaughtered once and then went back in. It crashed when she was walking over near the field). It seemed to take quite a while for my game to notice. I just saw her character sliding around in various directions.

The co-op seemed to work quite well while it was connected.

[AbnormalSoftware]

OK, thanks for the feedback! I think I figured out the issue with the freezing. The MediaPlayer used for the music has some performance issues, especially when the window doesn't have focus. I think I also fixed the issue with the casting sounds not stopping. I hope to have a new build up sometime tomorrow.

[Quicksand-S]

OK, thanks for the feedback! I think I figured out the issue with the freezing. The MediaPlayer used for the music has some performance issues, especially when the window doesn't have focus. I think I also fixed the issue with the casting sounds not stopping. I hope to have a new build up sometime tomorrow.

Glad you've figured out the freezing.

I just played a few levels with someone else. It was awesome. It did crash again, but only after beating/trying about four or five levels, so it lasted a lot longer this time around.

Bug/Issue reports:

-In level 4, I couldn't pick up the evidence (full inventory). It seems weird that a quest-related item would act that way.

-My friend grabbed the evidence instead, but because we had not both picked it up the level couldn't end. He had to drop it and let me pick it up.

-I seemed to have a bat kill me in a single hit and I have no idea how that happened.

-The healing "turret" thing apparently locks on target until fully healed, even if it has no line-of-sight, instead of trying to heal the person that's in view.

-I have no idea how to see what I've got equipped, and trying to equip a chain coif I was told "You can't equip that" (or something to that effect) even though Level 3 was the only requirement (I'm Level 5).

I think that's it. This game is great. It's probably one of the most enjoyable games I've played in months.

[AbnormalSoftware]

Hopefully my refinements to the music routines will help with the lock-ups your seeing.  If the screen jumps or flashes a little before it freezes then that is the MediaPlayer bug.

Quest items not taking up inventory space is actually on my "To Do" list.    I also want to make it so only one player has to get the item(s).

Good find with the healing turret.  I don't think I've used it in co-op yet so I haven't seen that behavior.

Press Z to open up your character sheet.  (Same place you spend your stat points)  This is where all your currently equipped items are shown.  You need the mail skill (it's a blue spell) to equip mail items.  I'll add a note to the tooltip that says "Mail Required."

I think I'm going to drop the uncommon, rare, and epic spell types and just have "skill points" that can be spent on any spell.  I'll just have to tighten up the prerequisites of the more powerful spells.