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[nerial]

Hi everyone,

Devouring Stars is a strategy game where you play gods and titans able to "devour" entire starfields.

There's a devlog for people who want to dig in.

This alpha version of the game is naturally really early, but you should be able to experience the backbone of the game, its main mechanics and atmosphere. Note that balancing is not finished as well as sound design, storyline, ... You may encounter some bugs, but nothing horrendous (and it should work on every system around)

A few useful shortcuts :
- esc/q = quit the game
- r = reload a level
- i = reinitialize the game

I'm interested in any kind of feedback : on the game in general, its atmosphere, the gameplay, the music, the colours, the animations.

Thanks in advance !

Devouring Stars - Alpha 1 - Windows
Devouring Stars - Alpha 1 - Mac OSX

A selection of gif and screenshots of the game :

[quisseh]

Hi nerial!

I really enjoyed playing this.

First off, the visuals are beautiful. Everything is glowing, which makes me happy. Nice job with the particle effects. One minor complaint: the UI is very clean and minimal, but at higher resolutions (2560x1440, for example) icons and text begin to look blurry and fuzzy.

Art style is cohesive. I like the character models. They reminded me of Meteos (fun puzzle game for the DS).

The tutorial was helpful and it taught by example. By the end of it I had a clear enough understanding of what I needed to do. The only issue I had was that clicking occasionally advanced the tutorial when I didn't expect it to, so I missed some dialogue.

Exploring the field is fun. Coming across a juicy star field and soaking it all up was satisfying. I could tell that my little gods were getting stronger. Fusing with other gods and gaining new skills was nice. The tree structures explaining the different combinations of gods and their evolutions added to the depth of the gameplay.

Combat is addictive. I was surprised at how descriptive the particle movements were. I felt like I could tell if I was winning a fight or not based on their movement. The death animation is nice. Do you plan on showing any statistics during combat (or even outside of combat) like number of remaining star fighters per god? Do you plan on adding status effects to the mix? Is there a type system (one type of god is more or less effective against other types of gods)? I'm trying to get a feel for how deep this goes.

Loved the destiny map.

One suggestion: If you could give the player better control of the camera, that would be fantastic. Just the ability to zoom in/out and maybe modify scrolling speed on the fly. The active pause feature helps a lot with planning strategy for incoming enemies/allies/star fields, but depending on the current battlefield and how many enemies are onscreen, the player might want to adjust the field of view in real time.

An idea (not sure if this already exists in the game): What if you allowed the player to draw a circle around a group of gods to form a party? If a large fleet of enemies approach, the player will be able to quickly split up their army into parties and send each party off in one click (rather than having to individually send them all off, which could get tedious if you have a lot of gods).

Music was nice but could be more ambient/atmospheric to fit the setting. I also would like more sound effects.

Only issues I encountered were...

• During my first run through the tutorial, after I finished and went through the portal I ended up back at the start of the tutorial. (Perhaps I accidentally pressed the R key?)
• Music and sound effects occasionally stopped for a few minutes and then started again.
• A typo near the start of the tutorial.

This is very solid for an alpha build. Looking forward to see where this goes!

[LanziVision]

WOW! Gorgeous game. I enjoyed the sweeping visuals. I wish I could zoom out further than available.

I also missed some dialog while clicking away.

These particle effects are AWESOME.

The tutorial, other than missing a few frames, was very understandable, I also liked the tone of it.

Look forward to further builds!!

[nerial]

Hey! thanks a lot for the feedbacks, very useful tips and remarks that I will use for the next alpha build.
I definitely need to playtest the tutorial in details, you're not the first ones to miss some part of it.

For @quisseh, did you try the mousewheel to zoomin/out? it should work. That said I will add a couple of control for that too (like up/down).
During combat, I didn't want to clutter the action with too many UI things. I want the player to keep "feeling" the power of the entity, without reading a number (not fan of numbers :-) ). So right now if the "fight" is closer to you than your ennemy, it means you're in trouble. Think of it of a strong-arm wrestling. That said you're definitely right, I need to emphasize that a lot, some way or another.

About different stars : One of the gods (Rhea) gives a buff to the smaller gods she protects (their stars are stronger). And there's another one that 'snipe' other gods from a distance, the added velocity giving them more strength. Both are at the top of agility and control trees. Don't know about adding too many buffs, I fear it may break the general understanding of the game mechanics, I prefer to work on the entities specific abilities to harvest/control/move (there's Chaos for example that "attracts" everything on the screen, Briareos that is able to fight AND harvest stars at the same time...).

What is interesting is to see how people start developing strategy involving multiple units. If two units attack an enemy from both sides, they will trap him and "divide" his strength by two (so two less powerful units can take other a bigger one). But they're also weaker this way. Another strategy could be just to have a main attacker and relay that "give" the main attacker some stars when needed.

I will definitely follow your advice of group selection in some way or another. Don't know how though...

[nerial]

New build available !

-> Here for the detail of the release

-> And the builds:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25906389/Devouring-Stars-OSX.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25906389/Devouring-Stars-Windows.zip

Thanks for the feedbacks !

[ActiveUnique]

Hi I tried the new build. It looks like a relaxed paced game. I could figure out how to finish a level, but i'm not sure if I'm supposed to harvest everything first (that would feel like a bit of a grind). Also I couldn't figure out how new units are created, but I seemed to lose one by doing so. Played on highest settings, no problem (except for fullscreen).

Possible Bugs:

Problems from severe to unimportant in descending order.

Fullscreen froze, couldn't escape and had to reboot computer. Always happens to me, tried twice. Windows Vista 64, AMD graphic card.

keyboard buttons were confusing. The response wasn't always obvious; I pressed space bar during the start, with chaos, and I thought the game wasn't doing anything even though I could click around.
w sends me to level select


I could control enemies' movement briefly while looking at the map after pressing space.

the music seems to stop abruptly after the intro, not sure if by design. But I do hear some sort of humming rewinding noise when I turn up my speakers.

[nerial]

Hi,

Really sorry for the froze. It never did this before. When did it happen? randomly, at start or on a specific screen/actions?
Maybe it's linked to the x64 architecture. Here is a build specific for x64 :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25906389/Devouring-Stars-Windows64.zip

The keyboard buttons are not totally finished yet. Except space (switch active pause and thanks, yes, it should be deactivated in intro!) I generally use them for debug purpose at that stage :
- I = reinit the whole game
- W = "win" a level
- R = reload a level

It shall be a lot clearer soon, but to finish a level, you have to activate one of the portals, and escape through it. I'll put a reminder about that.

To create a new unit, select one then right click on another one. It "merges" the units so yes, you loose one in the process (but you don't loose stars).


Thanks, it's a really helpful feedback!

[ActiveUnique]

It was freezing right when I started the game on fullscreen.

Hi,

Really sorry for the froze. It never did this before. When did it happen? randomly, at start or on a specific screen/actions?
Maybe it's linked to the x64 architecture. Here is a build specific for x64 :

This version works.

[tjcbs]

Looks nice, and I want to, but I wasn't able to get into it. I am so lost, I don't understand flow of the menu at all. PLEASE don't make me sit through any more text exposition! If I see "I look in the sky and see sentinels dancing" or whatever one more time I will scream! I try to skip it with ">>", but then I wind up at more text, the tutorial, or what I guess is the game, but I die almost immediately. Maybe that is the intro/prelude to the game? I'm not sure.

I made it through the tutorial once, but then fell back into this frustrating web of text exposition. The second time through the tutorial, I wasn't able to "click many times" to merge with my friend, nothing happened. Then ">>", more confusing text I can't really skip, then back to the prelude?

Sorry, I couldn't make it, I got too frustrated!

Also, the very first time I tried getting through the tutorial, I couldn't get past the active pause part. I didn't realize the icon was something I was supposed to click. I did press space, but that didn't advance the tutorial like clicking does.

[nerial]

Thanks and sorry for the bad experience. I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible but it's still early and...
You're right it's a bug, I just corrected it. It was bringing you back to the start of the intro section... no .
The problem with the "click multiple times" is weird though, I will have a look into that.

The pause bug is corrected now. I put some work on the balancing too, so you should be able to survive !

Thanks again.

To be noticed, there a brand new teaser too, here :

[tjcbs]

To be clear, the part where I was always dying was what I now realize was the prelude, where you are supposed to die (?) I did now make it to the main game, and it seems very fair.

A small suggestion so far: there is a lag between moving the mouse and actions like dragging and rectangle selecting. This lag seems way too high.

[nerial]

Yes, you are supposed to die :D. What you were not supposed to do is replay that part over.

Thanks for the lag, I will correct this right away.

[JulianGindi]

A few notes from my play-through....

Overall: Loved the game. Find the concept really interesting, and the gameplay addicting. I felt a tad confused during the prelude, but the tutorial helped flesh things out for me.

Art/Graphics: Very awesome art style. The 'noise' of the art is kept to a low which really highlights the particle animation (which is consistently beautiful to watch). The fluid motion of each of the bodies is really pleasant. Overall, very good work on the creative aspect of the game.

Concept/Story: While I found the "hook" to be slightly confusing and not entirely compelling (might improve as you flesh it out), the "game concept" itself (independent from the story) is very solid.

Gameplay: The Gameplay was a ton of fun. I'm a fan of tactical games, and this did a really nice job at mixing elements from RTS games as well as from more "turn-by-turn" tactical games. I really cannot wait to have a really huge battle! The game also does a great job at walking the line between "relaxing" and exciting, which will compel a number of people to keep playing. As I mentioned before, I was confused at the beginning before realizing that I was in the prelude...not sure how this could be improved, just a heads up. One thing I also noticed was that I had a hard time telling when i was winning or loosing, and had a hard time assessing the "threat" or strength of an opponent.

Technical Considerations/Build Quality: I did not experience any major bugs. The build seemed stable and the controls were smooth.

Overall I thought this game was pretty awesome and I look forward to continuing to follow its' development!

[nerial]

Thanks a lot for the feedback !

It's definitely my intention to have a prelude where players have to figure out what to do by themselves, while being extremely powerful (chaos). I want people to get the basic gameplay element directly, without a tutorial (you eat stars and they fight for you).

But you're right, there's still some work to make it smooth and easy to grasp (like prevent people from dividing chaos, which breaks the intro, make sure he explodes as intended, ...).

I have a lot of work to do on the story, probably to make it disappear as much as possible behind the gameplay. I want the story to be "hidden" : smtg you decide to look for, that is not imposed on you. I have a few tricks for that.

Regarding the winning/loosing problem, I want as much as possible to let the player have an overhaul impression of the threat, without being exact. I prefer the player to have the impression there's a big guy with a lot of stars coming his way than the exact number giving him a functional idea on the strategy to apply.

For that, the sound will be extremely important, we will need a change of pace in these moments. Plus some new important sign (in the next build) : when the entities devour 100, 200, 300, ... stars, their "rings" will appear for a second.


Right now I'm working on the AI, and I'm pretty happy with it. The enemies will try to circle you, they will have leaders. If you identify the leader and kill him, the entities will work individually, without trying to help each other for example.

Enemies will have different set of behaviors for each tribes, defining what are their priorities during the game...

[nerial]

A new alpha build (3) is available ! More stable, better AI, an intro with less text and more game . There are still some rare bugs I'm trying to reproduce, please tell me if you spot one.

Mac : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25906389/Devouring-Stars-OSX.zip
Windows : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25906389/Devouring-Stars-Windows.zip

Next for us is the complete game this time (right now it stops very early, after the 3rd round). Entering beta phase.

If you have any feedback, please tell me. I corrected many things that were pointed by people here, thanks again !

[ActiveUnique]

Looks good. I didn't encounter any bugs. I made four entities in one try, the last one was pluto.

I let pluto die and then I realized there's a bit of a penalty since it just kept going without replacing the improved entities. So if anything would concern me it's the possibility of unfair loss when you can make even bigger entities, in greater numbers; when they might get smashed in an ambush.

[nerial]

Hi and thanks for the feedback.

That's interesting because I want the player to get through the frustration of loosing an entity he "bets" on a run. The thing is I don't want this to seem "unfair", as you said. I still need to work on that, it's a fine balance because sometimes the AI is very rough and just rush on you, and there's not much you can do about it. I will probably remove the attack behavior for a small time at the start of a level, so you can at least be able to react.

The idea behind the game is some sort of "incremental" roguelike progression, where you can loose your progression in a run (or set of levels) without loosing your overall progression. Some player will want to gather advanced units for a later use, some will just focus on a combination of entities they like (like a gatherer and a quicker one), some will try to build ASAP the most advanced units, ... I want players to just play this as they fancy, I certainly don't want to impose a single tactic.

I like the idea that loosing a run destroys all the engaged units and put you in a position to try another strategy (as you have an infinite number of basic units, it's tough but possible).

[Danny Hayes]

A lovely game! I can see this becoming something really worth playing. Well done!

Though one thing, I know this is an early build, but a quit warning on pressing escape would be nice.

[nerial]

Haha! yes sorry about that. It will disappear right now

Thanks for the comment.