next »

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello fellows,

I am currently developing a new game. I am the only developer and invited close friends to test it out already.
Now is the time to reach out for a bigger test and I hope that someone might be willing to test my game.
I do not want to spoil or explain anything here, because this is part of my vision, so just go ahead and try it out.
If there is anything you want to know or if you have problems, drop me a line somewhere.

I am looking for all kind of feedback.
Because I am not a native english speaker, I appreciate any corrections of grammer or spelling mistakes you find in the game.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/orbs/
http://www.i-show-you.de/orbs/

Thanks in advance,
BlueScreen

[rodlaiz]

Hello,

I've just tried The Orb very quickly (I'm at work :p )
A very small feedback: probably you should try to make the orb go faster in its acceleration, it goes kind of slow and it gets a bit boring (maybe it goes faster later, but I only could play just a few minutes)
The goal is unclear for me, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Hope it helps you with your game, I'll give it a proper try at home

- Rod

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello rodlaiz,

thanks a lot for your feedback.

Because this is a 'massive multiplayer online' kind of game, there is no final goal by design, but the goal for now can be described as "get stronger and reach some end".

I would love to see you join back into the game later.

Greetz
BlueScreen

[MazK1985]

Hi,

I agree with rodlaiz that it's a little slow to begin with.

The main mechanic of destroying other balls is a decent idea although it took me about 5 minutes of aimlessly scouting around before I finally saw the smaller balls. I saw a big ball that looked like mine except with a tiny blue ball going around it. I couldn't figure out what they were since nothing happened when I collided with it.

I died a few times and one time it spawned me outside the start room. I also had to press respawn as I was spawned into a wall or something after going through a doorway (not a floor portal).

The lack of music isn't great and makes aimlessly wondering really boring.

No need for a button to put up the HUD, keep it on screen always, why not? Also just have the game auto level up instead of making me press the tiny plus button.

Light up the levels, even if it's a tiny bit so I can see where to go.

Waiting for the health to go up, even when I'm standing still and the rate is faster, is too slow. Maybe have health packs or something.

Lastly, the fact you do equal damage to each ball means it's just a game of collide until health is low, wait, rinse and repeat. It would be nice if there are strategic ways for me to only damage them or vice versa. Maybe a dash or attack ability would give the player more options.

Wish you all the best,

Marios

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello Maz,

thanks for your feedback.
Sorry for the mis-spawning, still investigating that issue. It's difficult to reproduce.

Hmmm, music... Nice idea, I usually turn all music off as soon as I start any game, so it had not been an option for me yet.

Of course you can display the UI all the time if you want. But later in the game there might be reasons to put it off.

The darkness is part of the game's vision and concept, it will definitely stay like that. Maybe your overall brightness is quite low?

This early in the game you will have some down times waiting for your hull to regenerate. If you find your regen too slow, just level it up.

After playing 1h-2h you will learn that there are tons of strategic options. Rememeber, it's an MMO type of game and IMO the player needs to be slowly taken to new mechanics, but I understand that a quick test can never cover that.

Anyway, THANKS A LOT FOR PLAYING

Blue

[MazK1985]

Hi,

No worries about the mis-spawning. Random bugs are always the hardest to catch, little buggers.
I should have mentioned that I didn't play for longer than 15 minutes so my experience was fairly limited given what you've said about the later stages of the game.

About the UI, I can't possibly imagine what situation would come up that requires you to switch it off but you've got me very intrigued into what could happen at a later point in the game.

I suppose the darkness does give a certain kind of mystery to the game, it's only because to begin with you feel very aimless. Maybe give the player a clue into what they are looking for so that they aren't trying to figure out what to do while exploring a new game.

Marios.

[BlueScreenISU]

Hi Marios,

a topic on my roadmap is an intro scene, which should make new players become interested to explore the scenery some more. I take all the feedback very seriously and address personal feedback at top priority, so that is something that I thought about because of the feedback. You can say you already influenced the game's development

Blue

[Zoop]

Is this actually multiplayer, or MMO-like in pacing and style, but really a single player game?  Even in the video, pacing seems too slow.  If single-player, you can easily experiment with pacing and let us try it!  Perhaps some temporary buttons to allow us to start the game at different paces.

Aesthetically, I'd recommend throwing some emissive maps and lights in to make things stand out and liven up the world. Similarly, throw some random colors on enemy orbs, perhaps color-coded for difficultly like old-school MMOs: green is easy, blue is a challenge, red is hard, etc.

[BlueScreenISU]

It is a multi player game in a more or less persistent world. You may call it massive, but it has it's limitations, but more for  technical than design reasons.
I could implement something to allow testers boost themselves in order to test later stages, but this seems like a wrong scenario for testing in this early stage. The world is not bug enough for this yet.
In my vision graphics are always secondary and will never add fun to a game, so graphics are always limited to the amount of time I am willing to invest there. Since I am a single developers, that's not much.
It is intended that orbs look all the same, because this is also part of the game, players are not allowed to recognize any differerence between NPCs, players or even difficulty without proper knowledge of the game.

Thanks for your feedback
Blue

[BlueScreenISU]

Hey,

Orbs already passed it's 100th version and is growing from day to day.
It's time for a revisit guys!

http://www.i-show-you.de/orbs/

Blue

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello,

Spirit Of Da Ghost made a Lets Play Video about Orbs. Be sure to watch it from a beginner perspective, who is excited to learn more about the game:

[Gen.Harris]

I think that the intro is quite long. About gameplay, the game crashed many times. Game mechanics are fine, I think that little more movement speed could be fine.

Graphics are not bad, but shaders could be better.

In my opinion, you have many good ideas here. It's really interesting these online mechanics.

Greets.
Víctor Fernández

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello and thanks for testing,

I am really interested in details.
If you find the intro too long, why do you think it is too long?
Are you aware that you can skip the intro with ESC and even set a setting to completly skip it after login?
When and how did the game crash? Did you use the stand alone installation or a browser?
95% of the shaders are standard unity shaders, so what exactly did you find bad there?

Again, thanks for testing. I'd be happy if you could send me any details to let me improve gameplay etc

Kind regards
Blue

[Gen.Harris]

Hello and thanks for testing,

I am really interested in details.
If you find the intro too long, why do you think it is too long?
Are you aware that you can skip the intro with ESC and even set a setting to completly skip it after login?
When and how did the game crash? Did you use the stand alone installation or a browser?
95% of the shaders are standard unity shaders, so what exactly did you find bad there?

Again, thanks for testing. I'd be happy if you could send me any details to let me improve gameplay etc

Kind regards
Blue

Excuse me for my bad explaining. I played on browser (Google Chrome). It crashed when I started the first mission. About game's intro, I didn't know that you can skip it. Sorry for that. It's fine then.

About shaders, I think that are too perfect. I like the ball one, but walls, floor, etc, have not texture: it's 100% reflective. In my opinion, there is a problem with floor: the ball don't cast shadow on floor. It was quite confusing for me. It seems like the ball is floating there.

Again, sorry for my bad explaining. I hope it helps anyway. Cheers.

Kind Regards,
Víctor Fernández

[BlueScreenISU]

Thanks for your reply.

WebGL (playing with Chrome) - as stated on the page - is not the state of the art, especially when it comes to graphics and performance.
So you can not really take that as a good reference.

The Orbs do not cast shadows, which is intended, otherwise it looks even worse than that what you see now, believe me. I agree that the view needs some time to get used to, because your view is restriced, dark and close. But after some time playing, most player feel comfortable with it.

Thanks and stay tuned
Blue

[BlueScreenISU]

Hello folks,

there is a new version of Orbs almost every day.
Now, I created a new trailer showing only a few of Orbs' features.
If you want to try it out, give feedback and enjoy your time, please do so!

Here are two exclusive game access keys:
C4EE40CC-AB84-4BF0-969E-4C64081899D5
50F45863-A3C2-40AB-BB10-D8B752CE5A4D