impressive work! really slick, I enjoyed it. What nationality is the team?

hey, I took another go at it and (eventually) I got past that bit, but I got stuck on the bit right after it..

imo, the game gets difficult too quick, and it's the rockets doing it.. it's just far to easy for them to
-hit you
-catch on scenery
-get shot by the laser cannon

I tried several times to get the rocket to the door but it always catches on something, or the one time I got it near the door it turned back quickly and flew into the floor. Imo you're asking for expert control over using the rockets, right after they've been introduced

If I were to make a suggestion I would: reduce the rocket's collision on the player, make rockets steer a little away from non-destructable walls, make them invincible to laser cannon, and also ease the puzzles in a bit slower (you may think this one's easy, but seriously it took quite a few gos and it was luck more than anything which got me past)

I also started to get frustrated by getting shoved by the laser- sometimes it looked like I might get the rocket where I wanted, but the laser shot me and then the rocket hit me. I almost think I would enjoy the game more if neither of the projectiles could actually collide with me

hey all, new vid:




this one shows how you interact with the world. The blue blobs are supposed to be computer consoles. Each one is numbered, and if you are close by and type it's number it will be activated. This will control things like messages, doors and possibly refilling your oxygen levels :S

Spellgasm :]

you could call it something fantastical, like the name of the land you're fighting over, so it just sounds cool or intriguing. Krakordos, Eliquitus, Magorum.. something magicy sounding. Or that could be the name for battle wizards in your universe

couple quick reactions:

cool game! had fun playing but, a couple minor gripes:

1- feels like I would like to increase the cursor sensitivity- not sure what it is but I kept finding my cursor wasnt quite where I thought it should have been when moving it. Is it software controlled?

2- maybe this is intentional, but not sure if it's a good idea- having a white cross shaped mouse cursor on a white grid, with other white stuff going on.. I lost my cursor very frequently. imo you really want the player's aiming device to stand out not blend in, especially if you have to use it out the corner of your eye (keep track of the ship and cursor)

3- ship health- given that this is mayhem, i never have much of a chance to look at the little grey bar in the bottom right. could this be built into the ship or cursor?

PS, i wonder if the sprites would look better with filtering turned off? they look a bit blurry- either that or slightly higher rez textures

good stuff tho

PPS, RMB is listed as a control- couldn't figure out what it does though? is it just in the menus

awesome- one note about the difficulty settings.. I can't remember where I read it, but there was an interesting point made by, er, someone.. No-one likes to play on easy and lose, it feels kind of like the game is laughing at you. Why not massage the users ego a little and call the modes something like 'pro, expert, hardcore' ?

you know you're not really a pro when you die on the first level, but inside it just pats your ego a little bit and you don't feel so bad when you totally suck :D just a thought

hey, I was really digging it up until the bit at the top of the big lift- i could just not get the rocket to hit the barrier, every time it hit me instead

aah now I get it- yeah, that was fun and can totally see the potential

hi, can I suggest the game starts with a pre-made level? I didn't have a clue what the gameplay was supposed to be

ah, you see I did not associate 'warmup' with easy difficulty. warmup says to me like practice mode in beat-em-ups, where you just mess about but you're not really playing, so I skipped it and went to normal

PS- none of this is meant as criticism btw, just straight up first reaction. I think the game idea is great

edit-
sometimes I'm having difficulty seeing the black obstacles- on my monitor they are quite close to the dark in the checker patern

going to give it a spin now, but just a quick reaction to the video teaser- all the 'trick shot' type stuff in there actually began to put me off.. I started thinking 'ok, here's a game where the creator is an expert and it looks great fun when *he plays it.. but am *I going to have fun?'

here's my first play experience:
singleplayer, hit normal, first level. worked out the aim with mouse, click to move.
got hit by the spinning blue thing
got sucked into the spinning blue thing
now I'm stuck in the center of the spinning blue thing.
don't know how to restart, go to menu and start game again

go 2: notice the f1 instructions at the top: ok, i can restart (I would consider keeping the f1 text there for the whole first level btw not just the start- I don't know I'm going to need it at that point)
start playing, get sucked into the blue thing again, hit enter
go 3: get to the second blue thing, get sucked in. hit enter only to realise it's restart game not checkpoint
go 4: get stuck in the same blue thing, came back here


so, I think maybe my vid reaction is a little bit accurate. Imo you need to watch some people playing the game for the first time and iron a few things out- the first thing I would do is one of 2 things: A- detect when a player is hopelessly stuck and offer a prompt to restart from checkpoint, or B- decrease the strength of the blue things so that yeah they are still a pain, but they can never hold you indefinately- at least a player can slowly struggle free

first impression notes:

I got up to: er, I don't know which level.. em, 5 medium red and 10 small blue. had to quit to work on my own stuff

1- I don't like the mouse/keyboard combo- this sort of game I expect to just play with the mouse, I think onscreen cam controls should be present (maybe with a little button to hide them if user wishes to) Ideally if users click-dragged anywhere without a tool active, or in the grey area, it would rotate

2- for some reason to me, the controls work the opposite way than I imagined they would.. I guess it's to do with if you're rotating the object or the camera. I was expecting to rotate the camera

3- when editing or mouse-over the conveyer belt, I can't see which way the arrow is pointing- that's not very helpful! I suggest you apply a scrolling texture to these to add to the sense which way they are moving

**I just noticed the arrow underneath the transparent conveyer belt.. I was looking to see the direction on top of the conveyer item so I never noticed the arrow below (consider flashing the arrow or something?)
**ok, now I see how it's *meant to be controlled- you choose the part and rotate before placing. When I began playing, i placed all the parts then began to edit them. I still think on mouse over the arrow should be readable

4- the additive spray from the colour sprayers is a bit hard to see, I'd consider just using alpha transparency

5- I think its a bit clunky to correct a mistake when you put down the wrong conveyer belt direction- what if right click rotated blocks when in the place mode? then you can instantly correct mistakes like that


those are just my first impressions anyway- I really enjoyed playing it, I think it's satisfying and if I didn't have other stuff to get on with I would have kept playing to the end of the demo. The graphics didn't put me off, but I do think you could work in a little more character to the whole presentation. Simple is nice though!

[DeadPour]

I'm toying with the name DeadPour for mine.. thoughts??

thanks for the encouragement!
yep the squares are just a test texture, worry not (everything in there is test really)

caiys: I'm using Quest3d for everything I make, which you might compare to Unity (with a different node-based programming method, and pc-only export). So it's very flexible, you can make nearly any type of game in it I believe (although using it to make a sprite 2d game would be overkill considering it's a 3d engine)

working on the monster AI at the moment, getting it to react better to player presence and roam a bit more convincingly. Also need to give it the ability to phase in and out of our plane of existence..

nicely done! had fun, liked the stamina system great feel to the platforming, very knytt esque

graphics look fantastic! any gameplay vids available?

like a lot of phrases, i guess there are variations. my understanding of it is that 'raining' is a lighter term than 'pour'/downpour. So 'it never rains but it pours' means the lighter term 'rain' never occurs, only ever downpour. Er, anyway think I'm overanalysing this a bit- the name works with both phrases doesn't it?

['It Always Pours']

I was going to go with bust-a-brain, but indiegames blog did a news update calling it brainsplode so I decided I would be better off sticking with what people would recognise when I did an update..

anyway, i've got another I need named and I'm starting early so no-one will news post about it before the title's been fixed :D

You're in a protective suit, on an alien world. There's a constant downpour of deadly rain, which is a big feature in the game. The mood is very survival horror..

tentatively calling it 'It Always Pours' (in reference to the saying, 'it never rains, it pours')

looks seriously slick! nice work

hope you get a juicy sponsorship

pretty interesting, I completed it. I liked the idea I was being analysed, almost kept me playing it longer than I would have if no-one was watching

only other comment I had was most times you learn a new ability you can use it right away, so it's obvious what it's for. the last ability, there's nothing immediately to climb. You just have to sort of guess thats what it does and go to the area you think it might be used in- seems a bit inconsistent to the way the others are introduced

fun experiment!