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[Brent]

[Updated with latest version on 9/12/14]

Hey everyone!

Really excited to be posting this. I am part of a three man Indie team working on our first game called Grimoire. I recently started a Devlog which you can find here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=43013.0 which has some more details about the game and some of our media.

Grimoire is essentially a mashup of tactical MOBA style spells and fast-paced FPS combat. Magic reminiscent of Heretic and a world inspired by Skyrim meet in a modern multiplayer FPS.

This demo is the Public build of what we are calling our "Combat preview" that is available along with our Greenlight and Kickstarter campaigns. One thing to keep in mind is that this is an early prototype of our future co-op survival mode which will have a much more complex progression system, objectives, and enemy AI. In its current form it is designed as a way for people interested in the game to try out our classes and general game style as well as preview the games combat.

Download Demo

Features in the above demo:

• Five distinct classes: Earth, Lightning, Ice, Fire, and Nature.
• Three selectable Movement spells and four Utility spells.
• Six different enemy monsters: Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Minion, Ice Golem, and Arcane/Lightning/Fire Mages.
• Three difficulty settings: Normal, Hard, and Horde.
• Custom Help/Key bindings overlay.
• Cinematic introduction featuring voice acting from Kyle Johnson.
• Professionally composed music by Marcus Zuhr.

Some prompts for feedback:
-Did you have fun?
-How long did you play for?
-What difficulty settings did you try?
-Was the difficulty setting you tried what you expected?
-Does the demo make you want to play the multiplayer game modes?
-Is it clear that this is just a preview of the games combat and not all that the game has to offer?
-Did the music match the game and what was happening?
-Did you like the cinematic and voice acting?

Thanks for your time! We really appreciate any and all feedback even if it is as simple as if you overall liked it or not.

[Quicksand-S]

I played with firehen ice. My thoughts:

-Why C and F for utility spells? I feel like R would be far more convenient than C, but I guess that's just personal preference.

-I thought the voice-acting was mostly good. It's so close to being great (Really good voice), but I felt like some of the lines felt stilted and sometimes over-dramatic. I really liked the writing, though. I just think he doesn't have to try quite as hard to make the words sound epic.

-The music on the menu screen felt like it was trying too hard to copy The Elder Scrolls, so it kept throwing me off (I expected certain notes and then it would go a different direction). It's good, though. The music in-game wasn't even noticeable (all the music is surprisingly quiet) and seemed better suited to a suspenseful stealth mission or something than a big battle.

-There's not enough feedback during combat, in my opinion. I have no idea how much damage I'm doing to enemies, or even if I'm doing any (In the case of the ice whirlwind, for example, I don't know what the range is). Enemies either die instantly or they die later and it's never clear how close they are to death.

-On a related note, I actually died without realizing I was low on health so maybe there needs to be the ol' red screen-edge glow or something implemented.

-I notice that in your GIF, the player uses two fireballs in a row even though the ability is still on cooldown. That GIF looks more like how I wanted to play, but I kept getting that cooldown message over and over. I feel like my basic short-range and basic long-range attack should be able to be used more often (and maybe be weaker to compensate).

-The golem looked threatening but I felt like it died more easily than the large skeletons did. I expected more from it.

-The game controls well and ran perfectly.

-I like most of the animations.

-Fighting skeletons gets a bit repetitive. Maybe other enemies should come in sooner, and/or the matches should be a bit shorter. Then again, I'm not a fan of defense/horde games.

-I think that spacebar, or maybe any key at all, should close the control overlay at the start. On a related note, I feel like other keys should skip the cutscene at the beginning.

-If you want to impress people on Kickstarter and Steam, consider going through to polish things like text alignment. In the menu, the text is not vertically centered in the boxes when I hover over items. It's a small thing that could give people a better first impression.

I think my only big issue is the lack of feedback during combat. Overall, it's pretty good even if it's not necessarily my type of game.

[Brent]

Thanks for the great feedback Quicksand-S. You've mentioned a lot of stuff that we are hoping to get fixed before the KS starts.

Couple of answers to your questions:

-Why C and F for utility spells? I feel like R would be far more convenient than C, but I guess that's just personal preference.

I think you are right on this one. Customizable key bindings is one of the polish type features we will absolutely have in once there is time for it.

-I notice that in your GIF, the player uses two fireballs in a row even though the ability is still on cooldown.

In that clip the player is using his Right-click spell and then his "Q" spell. Both are similar in appearance.

I think my only big issue is the lack of feedback during combat.

This is something we are looking into. We have been hesitant to add damage numbers to enemies or health bars as we want to keep the HUD as clean as possible but I do agree with you in that the hit sound isn't quite enough.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback we really appreciate it!

[Quicksand-S]

We have been hesitant to add damage numbers to enemies or health bars as we want to keep the HUD as clean as possible but I do agree with you in that the hit sound isn't quite enough.

I'm not a huge fan of damage number or health bars, either, but either one takes less time to implement than, for example, special low-health walking animations. Of course, the alternative would be to maybe have skeletons' unused limbs fall off when they're damaged too much, so you don't necessarily have to change the animation for the rest of the body.

More than knowing exactly how much health an enemy has, I think I'd just like to see them react to being hit. I know the projectiles kill most things in one hit, but the short-range attacks (ex. the ice whirlwind) just make a weird sound and I'm not sure if they're really doing anything until the enemy explodes. Some sort of flinch/knockback or just a reaction of any kind might be a good addition.

[Brent]

We have been hesitant to add damage numbers to enemies or health bars as we want to keep the HUD as clean as possible but I do agree with you in that the hit sound isn't quite enough.

I'm not a huge fan of damage number or health bars, either, but either one takes less time to implement than, for example, special low-health walking animations. Of course, the alternative would be to maybe have skeletons' unused limbs fall off when they're damaged too much, so you don't necessarily have to change the animation for the rest of the body.

More than knowing exactly how much health an enemy has, I think I'd just like to see them react to being hit. I know the projectiles kill most things in one hit, but the short-range attacks (ex. the ice whirlwind) just make a weird sound and I'm not sure if they're really doing anything until the enemy explodes. Some sort of flinch/knockback or just a reaction of any kind might be a good addition.

We all really like the idea of having changes to the skeletal meshes and their textures to show damage taken and current health state. Skeletons with missing arms or heads sounds awesome! Unfortunately right now we just can't afford the time or money to do something like that but its absolutely a feature we hope to get in for the final version of the game.

One thing that we haven't added to the demo yet is our "On Hit" effects like the burning Wizard in this GIF:



We currently have them in for all classes with placeholder art but there is extra work needed to attach and adapt them for use with the AI pawns. After your feedback and others who pointed it out we are going to add it to the list of things to get in for the final demo build. Thanks again!

[Quicksand-S]

One thing that we haven't added to the demo yet is our "On Hit" effects like the burning Wizard...

Ah. Yeah, that looks pretty good and I think it will improve the feel of combat quite a bit.

[Brent]

Updated the OP with the final version of the demo. Sadly we were unable to get everything we wanted due to a lack of time but it is more polished than the build that was previously linked here.