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[Zorg]

Hey Zizka.

The enemy just throws cards at you and you have to guess them, like your current defense mode. I just thought about altering the attack mode (selecting cards and throw them at the enemy). I'm sure you have a lot of ideas which are not implemented, yet. Like i said before: you are on a good way! To add more action, you could apply the effects of correct guesses immediately, so you have more (up to 5) punches instead of one big punch.

The new version still features deformed pixels.
I tested some code snippets to set the orthographicSize of the camera dynamically:


orthographicsize.zip (Windows, ~10 MB)

The script sets the orthographicSize according to the Screen.height in windowed mode (Screen.width is ignored). If you resize the window vertically, the zoom factor (1, 2, 3, ...) is adjusted automatically.

Code:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class cam : MonoBehaviour {

public float pixelHeight;
public float pixelsPerUnit;

float screenHeight;

void Start () {
setZoom();
screenHeight = Screen.height;
}

void Update () {
if (Screen.height != screenHeight) {
setZoom();
}
screenHeight = Screen.height;
}

void setZoom() {
screenHeight = Screen.height;
float zoomFactor = Mathf.Floor(screenHeight / pixelHeight);
if (zoomFactor < 1f) zoomFactor = 1;
Camera.main.orthographicSize = screenHeight / 2f / pixelsPerUnit / zoomFactor;
}
}

I'm not a good programmer, so this is very far from perfect, but it does not seem to be a big problem for a good programmer, so you should add something along these lines to get rid of stretched pixels.

[Zizka]

Regarding the code, I'll let Jeff deal with that. 

Ok, you got me thinking and I think have a good idea:

I remove the turns entirely. Yes, you read right. No more offense/defense turn; the battle is similar to ATB in Final Fantasy.

We get rid of the clock and use a gauge instead which fills up with time, the battery for instance. When the battery is filled up to a certain point, the player can trigger actions by pressing the arrow keys (sort of like we have right now).

This would involve a *lot* more strategy. For one thing, the player would need to manage his energy strategically. If he sees the foe's bar is almost full and he's about to act, he'd better keep some energy in store to trigger his defense or he'll have to take the full blow.

So the player would need to pace his attacks and not go overboard with always attacking all the time.

Instead of being forced of sticking with one attack one whole turn, he could trigger the attacks he wants on the go. For example, up is punch, down is whip.

He can choose to launch a single attack (a single card) or wait longer to pull a combo for more damage. Pulling a combo would simply involve triggering many attacks consecutively and then guessing each card show up.

I think this would dramatically turn things around and make the combat actually feel like a combat.

[JobLeonard]

Would you risk losing up saved time when hit, etc?

Not that you have proposed them yet, but before you do: I think you should avoid timing-based triggers in the sense of "press x at the right time to defend/attack more", like in the Paper Mario games.

Let me rephrase that: adding real-time for strategy (trying to anticipate the enemy's moves) sounds fine, but I think you want to avoid making it a reflex-based game. Although I personally love that kind of combat, I know that a lot of people are kind of thrown off by it. It might be a conflicting activity with learning the symbols, interfering with the learning process (or it could actually be good, who knows).

Also, will all battles be one-on-one? Because if not, perhaps the aforementioned Paper Mario (and Mario & Luigi) games are nice sources of inspiration of simple-yet-diverse combat systems.

[HoffmanIV]

Reminds me of Powdered Toast Man from Ren & Stimpy, but less grotesque haha! The art style and direction seems very charming. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Zizka]

@Hoffman:

Thanks! Feel free to comment, always glad to get feedback.

@JobLeonard:

I actually like the idea of reflexes being involved more only probably not to the extent of Super Mario RPG.

In future builds, enemies will identify their attacks before doing them. This will allow the player to choose the best defense strategy. There's only one defense in the demo so far but more will be added later; defenses that protect you against poison, fire, shock etc... so choosing the right defense will be crucial too.

Basically instead of guessing cards before the attack, the player would need to react to the attack by choosing the defense he/she wants to use. I'd like time to slow down when the player types in the card, I think that would help to keep the game dynamic instead of stopping time entirely. While the time is slowed down, the attack is still going on so the player has a limited time to boost his defense before the attack connects. I really think that would be cool.

It would also allow to remove the clock as I find the GUI at the moment is too busy with too many elements.

What do you think?

[Zorg]

If you make your game too time-based it will be very hard to learn the cards. But it definiteley sounds more like a fight. 

[Zizka]

@Zorg:
True... hmm... this isn't an easy one to solve!

Ok, finally, my comments about alvarop's video:

0:40: The stretch pixel problem.
It's true, you're right. We're trying to find a solution about this so that the pixels remain crisp.

1:40: CHI being easily missed.
True! Will change that.

(how did you feel about the text display speed? Was it fast enough in your opinion?)

2:35: text length
Lol, yeah, we didn't test for this. Added to things to fix.

3:37: Different cards
They will be. Once the card menu system is finally setup, you will decide which card is assigned to which attack or defense, you won't be able to use the same cards everywhere basically.

So basically, yes, you will be able to set it up.

4:32: Title Screen:

Yes, it's definitely placeholder. I will try something else for the next version.

4:57: The teaching
That's because card menu is normally in the game so it will be in the tutorial, it just hasn't been coded yet.

at 5:33 and later I have a really hard time hearing what you have to say because of the music unfortunately.

6:01: UI presentation

This is such a good point!!! I had not thought about that. Will change too!

I think your feedback is still valid.

[Zorg]

Which resolution do you have in mind for the final game? A height of 320 pixels seems strange if you take the common 2K / 4K (16:9) resolutions into account.


click for full size

[Zizka]

@Zorg: Hello zorg, I'm not sure yet. That's something I'll be talking about with Jeff.

So 7 hours later, I redid the entire font and the entire layout:
(nevermind the artifact, it's just a layout mockup so Jeff knows where things will go):



1. In order to make sure the text is already readable regardless of the background, the text you type will now appear under the book:


The pencil will be moving to indicate where you are currently typing.

2. The new font is bigger and easier to read:


I've made better use of the negative space. Instead of shoving everything in one corner like it was before, I've used the space which was available.

Numbers for HP/Energy use Apple Kid now instead of picture fond to make them easy to read.

That's about it. Alvarop was the one to suggest making better use of the negative space by the way.

[alvarop]

I really dig the new font!

So, about the intro music. I gotta say it sounds a bit generic and I don't think it fits the game's look at the moment. It feels like some sort of slow-paced, space-y thing, where the game feels more like a very energetic cartoon.

It's cool that you will be able to personalize your deck. Maybe there could be premade decks geared towards learning a specific thing? I think I already mentioned this in my feedback, might be repeating myself.

[Lex the Abstract]

@Zorg

The camera size adjustment script is a good idea.  I'm putting one in, hopefully it will kill the deformed pixels once and for all.

[Zizka]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ap0g7elykjakkv5/Super%20Toaster%200.018.zip?dl=0

I've tried this at home and the pixels display properly. If someone could check if the pixel stretching is fixed that'd be mighty awesome.

[TonyManfredonia]

I really dig the new font!

So, about the intro music. I gotta say it sounds a bit generic and I don't think it fits the game's look at the moment. It feels like some sort of slow-paced, space-y thing, where the game feels more like a very energetic cartoon.

It's cool that you will be able to personalize your deck. Maybe there could be premade decks geared towards learning a specific thing? I think I already mentioned this in my feedback, might be repeating myself.

Thanks for the input! I'll be sure to discuss with Zizka what his plans are. The slow-intro initially pertained to the original game's concept (before the overhaul within recent months). I will address this accordingly Thanks!

[Zizka]

I forgot to reply about the comment on the song.

I've had other comments about the intro song in other places on the net. Since I gave my approval for the song, I don't think it would be fair to ask Tony to redo/modify it so long later considering the song has been available for feedback for months now. This being said, if Tony agrees to modify it on his own volition, I wouldn't mind either.

The idea was to reproduce the same concept as the intro track in Mega Man:

[Zorg]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ap0g7elykjakkv5/Super%20Toaster%200.018.zip?dl=0

I've tried this at home and the pixels display properly. If someone could check if the pixel stretching is fixed that'd be mighty awesome.

There is still some pixel stretching going on, but the game is displaying a lot better in windowed mode, imo. I took a screenshot of errors in the text box, the zoom factor was three:



I did not notice errors at a zoom factor of two.

[Lex the Abstract]

This is very odd.

The stretching is happening both as compression and stretching.  Also, it's not happening on my machine. 

That makes it sound more like a floating point calculation error than bad scaling...  I'll put converting the offsets calculations to integer-based on my list, and we'll see if that fixes it.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

seems like a common problem with Unity when regarding pixel scaling.

Had tried the demo but due to not being able to read japanese, had not the motivation to memorize the characters.
And it had me wonder how you're going to attract players who aren't familiar at all with Kana.

while playing the demo i couldn't find any connexion between the main character , enemies and the japanese writing. Wasn't that striking when reading the devlog but once in-game , felt like there was a big separation between the game playand the game visuals (beside the background).

[Crabby]

Had tried the demo but due to not being able to read japanese, had not the motivation to memorize the characters.
And it had me wonder how you're going to attract players who aren't familiar at all with Kana.

I agree with this. I think that maybe a larger tutorial is necessary in order to help people get motivated to learn.
The ideas for improved combat are very interesting. I'm excited to see how the game will shape up as these new features are added. 

[Zizka]

I hear you guys.

Some basic interest in learning the language probably will need to be there I should think unless I can find a way to interest people who have no interest in learning in the first place.

Definitely something I'll need to think about.

[TonyManfredonia]

Hey everybody!

So I just spoke with Zizka regarding the title screen music. Here's a link to the revamped version of the title screen tune. There's no lengthy intro, changed due to feedback. A bit more mixing needs to be done, which I'll do tomorrow morning. Overall, the instrumental aesthetic is still the same as it was before the gameplay overhaul.

However, what Zizka and I agreed might be nice is incorporating Japanese instruments (Koto, Shakuhachi, etc.). Not to overpower the game's "Classic Synth-music" feel, but enough to give it a Japanese flair. Because the game is about the Japanese language, we personally think it's a good addition.

I'd love to hear some feedback if you think this would be a cool idea or not! I look forward to speaking to everyone