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[agj]

amazing technicolor dreamfloor

I loved that floor!

What follows are some random comments in no specific order:

The difference between the attracting and repelling surfaces is not easy to identify at a glance, you could try to make it more obvious.

It took me the whole tutorial to realize that the portals were such. I know you use the word, but there's nothing that makes them seem different from regular passageways. You could try designing them to seem more special, but I'd actually like to ask you if they're really needed for your game. What playing Portal with comments on taught me was that it is really difficult to make Portals work in the players' heads.

I'm sure that this will eventually be fixed, but I'm really missing some sound effects. I need the feedback for all the things that I'm doing. In fact, the very sound effects could become the BGM if they're well designed; expression would not only come from the visual feedback, but from the audio as well. Just an idea.

I'm missing a cue that indicates that a tutorial segment has already been cleared, like above the portal leading to it or something. I entered the same segment twice because I couldn't tell.

Regarding the visual work, I'd add some white for contrast, because everything seems a bit too gray. My suggestion is to use starker shadows, too.

You failed to explain the different kinds of transparent surfaces. At one point there is one kind of surface that you can shoot through, but can't cross yourself; if it looked like, say, a net, it might be more self-explanatory.

May I suggest that, instead of big cubes delimiting where you get a message, you just use an area in the ground? I find the whitened-out vision I get while I'm inside of them to be very annoying, for some reason. It's like having dirty glasses--I just feel the need to get it out of in front of my eyes.

Ah, don't mind me too much, you're doing a great job, I'm really liking it so far. To your credit, I'm not an FPS player, and I got through the tutorial effortlessly (though I did play through Portal recently). Keep it up!

[William Broom]

I agree with Agj about the white boxes. They're quite distracting. If you're afraid that players will miss the help boxes if they're invisible, then you could create a little rotating 'i' or something at the center of the help box zone.

[JP]

The difference between the attracting and repelling surfaces is not easy to identify at a glance, you could try to make it more obvious.

Yeah, it's super crappy, near the top of my list to do a better version of.

I'd actually like to ask you if they're really needed for your game. What playing Portal with comments on taught me was that it is really difficult to make Portals work in the players' heads.

The player doesn't actually need to understand that they're portals... the game isn't about solving problems using them.  They're just quick and uncomplicated ways to get from one point to another, and see where you're going before doing that.

I'm missing a cue that indicates that a tutorial segment has already been cleared, like above the portal leading to it or something. I entered the same segment twice because I couldn't tell.

Good catch, I'll do something to make that clear.

You failed to explain the different kinds of transparent surfaces. At one point there is one kind of surface that you can shoot through, but can't cross yourself; if it looked like, say, a net, it might be more self-explanatory.

There is a difference in the pattern on the two types of "glass", but it's somewhat abstract (the shoot-through-able pattern has large circles cut out of it).

May I suggest that, instead of big cubes delimiting where you get a message, you just use an area in the ground? I find the whitened-out vision I get while I'm inside of them to be very annoying, for some reason. It's like having dirty glasses--I just feel the need to get it out of in front of my eyes.

That's a great idea actually.  I'm totally going to do that.

Ah, don't mind me too much, you're doing a great job, I'm really liking it so far. To your credit, I'm not an FPS player, and I got through the tutorial effortlessly (though I did play through Portal recently). Keep it up!

Thanks for the feedback!  Good to hear you didn't have much trouble, that's exactly the tutorial's intent.

[agj]

The player doesn't actually need to understand that they're portals... the game isn't about solving problems using them.  They're just quick and uncomplicated ways to get from one point to another, and see where you're going before doing that.

I don't agree. It was quite critical in the spheer attack segment, where I had to cross a portal which leads to the ceiling. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. If upon entering that chamber I had seen two clearly identified gates, I would have made the link sooner.

There is a difference in the pattern on the two types of "glass", but it's somewhat abstract (the shoot-through-able pattern has large circles cut out of it).

Yeah, I saw that, but there's nothing from the design that tells me that one of the two can actually be shot through.

[Hideous]

Aug, I don't suppose you had any errors the first time you ran GTKradiant? I had some gtkglcontext error thing, so I had to fall back to good old Q3radiant for my mapping need (for blockland).

[JP]

http://vectorpoem.com/purity/builds/purity_build007.zip

Tons of changes since last build.  Some of the major ones:
- player collision size and eye height have been doubled relative to world (easier to hit each other in duel.attack)
- trase shot + bom no longer warps you, bom projectiles burst on contact with the trase
- bom no longer gives you a burst of movement (dash) on firing, but spheer does (based on passive charge)
- training map has been updated to reflect all these changes
- training map is functionally complete, ie covers all the things you can do with all abilities
- new run map, "run2", intended as a better map for beginners - requires fewer advanced movement tricks, etc

I'm definitely interested in feedback on the training map - what makes sense, what doesn't.  Also in feedback on the run2 map, and game balance in general if you manage to get a duel.attack server going.  Between now and November 1st I'd like to mostly concentrate on low-hanging fruit - relatively small changes that make a big difference to clarity, cohesion etc.

Next on my list are some things folks suggested here last round, like giving clear indication in the tutorial map that a specific training section has been completed, changing the appearance of the triggers, etc.

One last note:

I've also integrated a framebuffer patch for ioq3 that gives some fancy rendering effects, and I'm probably going to enable bloom by default for the IGF build because I like what it does for the art so much. Until then you can enable it manually by running these at the console:

\r_framebuffer 1
\r_framebuffer_bloom 1

Could anyone please let me know if the above doesn't work on your machine?  If it breaks on a sufficiently broad sample of random peoples' machines, I'll bail on enabling bloom by default.

Going to fall asleep now.

[thomasmahler]

I like the last screenshots a lot - it has an Escher feel to it now, which is really interesting.

[JP]

Hi!  Still alive.  Haven't had much time to hang around here, sadly.

Last build of Purity I did was just after the IGF submission.  It's on hold at least until my project ships and I have some more resources to help test it.  I'll post here when that time comes.  Thanks for the support!

That Far Cry mod is pretty sweet, I found it about a year ago.  Super classy minimalism.

[Inane]

JP, I lamented your absence, crying with my face in a pillow late into the night.

Welcome back, man  Hope you can complete this project.

[William Broom]

I'm glad you're back! Really hope you finish this game because what I've played so far was fantastic.

[JP]

See, this is why this community is awesome.  Thanks for the interest and support guys.

Sadly I'm just way too busy lately (I was at the office for like 6 hours yesterday) to work on Purity.  And besides that I have other, smaller projects vying for my attention.  Either way, next thing I start working on that's promising, I'll post about here.

Thanks again guys.  HUUUGS.

[GregWS]

Well, I know you're busy, but yes, I'm super exited for this too.