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[Shibusuke]

Howdy fellow devs!

We just released the prototype for our game, City of the Shroud, and we're looking for feedback on the gameplay.

Links and description below!

City of the Shroud is a fusion of tactical RPG and fighting game mechanics, for a fast-paced, real-time tactics game. Maybe we're crazy, but we have fun playing it!

You can read more and download the prototype for Windows or OS X from Itch.io, here:

    Download from itch.io: http://abyssal-arts.itch.io/city-of-the-shroud
    (TIGSource seems to be adding junk to the end of the URL; if you get a 404, just copy-paste this: http://abyssal-arts.itch.io/city-of-the-shroud)

Right now, we're looking for feedback on the basic gameplay:

    How does it feel?
    What would make it more intuitive?
    Too fast/slow? Too many things happening at once?
    Can you tell how much life/stamina you have?
    Most importantly, do you have fun playing it?

And so on.

You can read more about it on the itch.io page, but we're releasing the prototype now so that we can ask for feedback from players and make the game better.

Much of the UI is placeholder as well. If you have suggestions for the UI (particularly in combat, as that's our main focus right now), we'd love to hear them. (Please!)

For those who are interested, the game looks like this:

   

If you have a minute to check the game out and let us know what you think, we'd really, really appreciate it! orz

[Shibusuke]

If anyone is going to be at PlayExpo this coming weekend, we'll have a demo there and would love to hear what you think!

[Shigatosis]

First of all, the concept as a whole seems really unique, so kudos for that! I have to admit, though, managing four characters at once was extremely hectic for me; at the current speed of gameplay, I would feel more comfortable with two or three characters, at least in the beginning. The combat is also a bit too simple at them moment, as it seems like it's just a matter of ganging up on one enemy and stringing together the highest combos you can afford.

Also, the URL you provided leads to a 404 with a link that redirects to http://abyssal-arts.itch.io/. Might want to see if you can fix that, and make the URL a hyperlink while you're at it. Best of luck!

[Shibusuke]

Thank you very much for the feedback! The speed/number of things to keep track of is the current focus of most of the feedback, so we'll be tackling that ASAP. I think we swung too hard on the speed side of things this time around, but thankfully there are nice people out there to tell us we're doing it wrong

I fixed the URL (I hope, seemed to work for me) - junk was getting added to the end for some reason.

The combat does feel pretty simple at the moment, though I think a large part of that is due to the AI being very early (it just moves to a nearby opponent and does a random special ability for now). Playing against a human greatly increases the value of using defensive abilities and movement, but that also makes the game harder to follow, so... yeah, heh, we'll work on that!

[Shibusuke]

First of all, the concept as a whole seems really unique, so kudos for that! I have to admit, though, managing four characters at once was extremely hectic for me; at the current speed of gameplay, I would feel more comfortable with two or three characters, at least in the beginning.

Good news, we slowed down our AP (stamina) regen rate by 50% and it went over much better when we showed it at a local indie event last night! We really appreciate the feedback.

We'll be putting up a new build early next week with several updates to the gameplay and some UI tweaks. If you're interested, it'd be great to hear what you think of the changes!

We're also showing the game at PlayExpo this weekend, so we'll be seeing how the crowd handles the new speed...

[Shibusuke]

We've updated City of the Shroud to version 0.0.1!

The latest version is available here:

http://abyssal-arts.itch.io/city-of-the-shroud

We'd love to hear feedback on how it plays!

Here are the changes we've made to it:

- Slowed down game speed by 50%

- Added hit-stuns so that characters are briefly stunned upon taking damage

- Added a victory animation for the Brute (other classes are currently being worked on)

- Game now prompts first-time players to use the tutorial

- Various improvements to the tutorial

- Brute punches alternate between right and left when doing basic attacks

- Range indicator is now more clear

- Bug: Fantastic quality settings make particle effects faint and hard to see

- Tiles with an enemy on them turn red when in range

- Made the Team menu lighting less bright

- Health bars now show how much damage an attack did and then slowly collapse to the new HP level (like in a fighting game)

   - The color of the bar representing the damage corresponds to the type of damage dealt:

      - Red: Power (Wild Swing, etc.)

      - Blue: Magic (Devastation, etc.)

      - Yellow: Quick (Snipe, etc.)

- Character UI also flashes when taking damage

- Character portraits don't disappear when a character is defeated anymore; instead, they get a big, red X over them!

- Added a small outline to the UI underneath characters to make it easier to see

- You can now cancel out of waiting for an online opponent

- Bug Fix: UI underneath characters now disappears when a character is defeated

- Bug Fix: The game saves team makeup properly now