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[Christian]

Hey James/Joar, some impressions from someone on NeoGAF who played the demo, re: obtuseness and not getting the gameplay

I'll echo that feeling of the gameplay being obtuse at first blush. I figured when I played the show demo that the confusion I was experiencing was just from inexperience and a collector-oriented mindset (I kept trying to get something that was difficult to reach or kept trying to light up lights that apparently weren't needed for the stage), and some helpful explanation from the demonstrator got me further in, but I have been a little worried about what the final product would be, Polish, folks! You have so much promise on your hands and we can wait to enjoy it.

[jamesprimate]

aha i cant seem to see them! idk if thats an amusing ironic truism or not 


much like the olypmics, we are "sprinting" towards deadlines and counting down to "gold" over here!  As you can tell im getting like 3hr of sleep a night.

anyway, have some gross glowing slime molds!

[Christian]

Oh, had them in the wrong tags. You should be able to see them now

And stay healthy, guys. Are you growing a Sean Murray beard?

[jamesprimate]

ha! i think joar has a proper viking beard going. i find them too annoyingly itchy to suffer for too long, so i just look like ive been in a cave for 500 years and forgotten the taste of bread

[Teod]

anyway, have some gross glowing slime molds!

I fail to see how it's gross. It's orange, which makes it feel like it could taste sweet like jam or honey.

Good to see you guys still going. Although Joar didn't post anything since... may, 8 pages ago. Has he gone full caveman, contacting outside world through James only and communicating exclusively in slugcat gifs?

[jamesprimate]

basically! i know it SEEMS like i have murdered Joar and completely taken over the project, i assure you thats not the case. hes just trying to keep distractions down to a bare minimum for this last "sprint" / deathmarch.

that said, it cant have been pleasant though as the past few weeks most of the communication has just been bug reports and various re-phrasings of "WE NEED THIS DONE IN 2HRS BEFORE THE NEXT TEST BUILD LAUNCHES" etc. there is going to be some PTSD

[Mark Mayers]

ha! i think joar has a proper viking beard going. i find them too annoyingly itchy to suffer for too long, so i just look like ive been in a cave for 500 years and forgotten the taste of bread

James I can confirm after just seeing you, this is an actual photograph of you. 

[Mark Mayers]

basically! i know it SEEMS like i have murdered Joar

Tell them the truth

[Dinomaniak]

Saw this :




Didn't like the techno part =/ felt like a lot of DUB DUB DUB - highly unfitting. I would never listen to something like that... is there a way for us to choose which songs we can have play and which not ?
Perhaps it's just me, but I would turn off music alltogether when the DUB DUB would come in.

The atmospherical song in the second part of the video was absolutely brilliant, and fit perfectly with the game.

[Saijin_Naib]

I have to disagree. It feels almost like your pulse pounding and conveys urgency without being really overt. I rather like it.

[hypedupdawg]

feels almost like your pulse pounding and conveys urgency without being really overt

I really liked the low-key heartbeats in the alpha soundtrack, especially RW_3 - just enough to put you edge while playing. Good to hear you're keeping those persistent background elements as well as the more overt layers!

Also just to say I really liked the areas of ambient sound in the video - great having the contrast with the dynamic chase sequences. Still looking forward to getting lost in the mood of the game, even if it is part relaxed and part murderous

[rj]

with the audio stuff this now feels like the most insanely overproduced version of within a deep forest

that'ms a compliment

[Rojom]

I have to disagree. It feels almost like your pulse pounding and conveys urgency without being really overt. I rather like it.

Putting in my two cents to agree with Saijin that the pulse pounding sounds great.

[jamesprimate]

ah that video is from a while back! i just realized most of our vids were set to private so ive been turning them public. this was an early version of the system just showing the functionality, and the "threat ramp up" was juiced a bit for the purposes of demonstration. its been polished quite a bit since then ofc.

yeah spot on! the "pulse" idea was the inception of this system. initially the concept was that it would *just* be the pulse, as if you were hearing the slugcats heart beating louder and the adrenaline rushing, but that got boring quickly. also at that same time we were having an issue with the world feeling a bit too quiet generally (despite having 120+ music tracks, its just so large!) so we used this to solve both problems in an appropriately rain world way

each region has tiered system of 8 to 12 layers of "threat music" that can stack up depending on how dire the situation is for little sluggie. to avoid becoming repetitive, each tier of audio pulls from a pool of possible tracks, with many many possible combinations. the pool for the early layers (first to come in) is generally pretty simple and subtle: a pulse beat or white noise elements but as the layers stack up it becomes more recognizably "music", with the final layers being a melody or lead line.

at this point it works pretty well! there are certain situations where the threat level ramps up too quickly for my taste, such as when vultures drop down from above, and there are some track layer combinations that work better than others ofc, so i might give it a bit more polish soon.

[Christian]

The soundtrack sounds insane

[Woodledude]

there are certain situations where the threat level ramps up too quickly for my taste, such as when vultures drop down from above

Seems like you could solve this with little "Threat jump clips", right? Snippets of music that sort of get a track started like cold water being dumped on your head while you're sleeping? You could even code it so that when there's potential for a threat jump to happen, it gets quiet for a moment, almost like a sixth sense. Skilled players could use pauses in the music to anticipate danger 

[tinytachyon]

Didn't like the techno part =/ felt like a lot of DUB DUB DUB - highly unfitting. I would never listen to something like that... is there a way for us to choose which songs we can have play and which not ?
Perhaps it's just me, but I would turn off music alltogether when the DUB DUB would come in.

i am not usually averse to DUB DUB DUB but this kick felt a little weak, maybe better with some saturation?

i mean it still fits the area and game and all, i dig it

ugh why is my first post such a tiny nitpick

[Christian]

Didn't like the techno part =/ felt like a lot of DUB DUB DUB - highly unfitting. I would never listen to something like that... is there a way for us to choose which songs we can have play and which not ?
Perhaps it's just me, but I would turn off music alltogether when the DUB DUB would come in.

i am not usually averse to DUB DUB DUB but this kick felt a little weak, maybe better with some saturation?

i mean it still fits the area and game and all, i dig it

ugh why is my first post such a tiny nitpick

No,  no, you're good :p You should have seen when some of us went for like three pages badgering Joar about the design of the eyes of the raindeers, complete with photoshopped alternate designs.

Now that was a tiny nitpick

[JobLeonard]

TBF, eyes are seriously important when it comes to defining a character

[triplejump]

This game's atmosphere is amazing! I can't wait for it to come out!