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[Jisan]

Hey bros, I've been working on a game known as "Abyss of Souls" for quite some time with a friend. We've got to a point where we think it's better to get some feedback before publishing the game, some general criticism on the gameplay, art or whatever  

Art Note
I am aware that a lot of people don't seem to like the simplicity of the tiles in the game so far, we do plan on changing them, so don't worry about that =D (and note that actually, a lot of the art is placeholders, such as for example in the weapon choice screen, the background rocks are not shaded/polished)

AI Note
The enemies are pretty retarded at the moment, we're leaving artificial intelligence out for now, so just keep in mind if they act retarded, that's completely normal ^.^'



Download (BOX): https://app.box.com/s/8kghdgtt1a8d5d7adcwwu37uxsjn4jft
Filesize: 7 MB
Note: The download gives a DRM-Free, quick-play, non-installer copy

Prologue:
Mexodash, a seasoned soul hunter embarks on his adventure to hunt down Axium, the soul lord. First, though he needs to get through to Realm of Higher Souls, crossing dimensions through the Abyss to find the hidden portal.
However, there's a powerful Gate Keeper guarding his path, any who ever dared face him.. haven't survived..

Gameplay
Strategy, Top Down Shooter, Mystery
It has a bit of mystery involved, but generally it's an action shooter with strategy in the gameplay.
Using energy and souls to empower the player, each move usually sacrifices either or both, resulting in a fully strategic TDS  

There's also a trailer, if you are interested in seeing gameplay:




System requirements:
Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10
2GB Ram
DirectPlay (windows 8/10 usually need to install, and opening the game will bring up an installer for this)

It runs 200+ FPS on these specs (even most intense battles don't go below):
1.9 Ghz Quad core processor
AMD Radeon HD 7640G + HD 7600M Dual Graphics

Greenlight
We did put up a greenlight, but unfortunately it didn't work out too well ^.^'
In fact, that's part of the reason we've come here, we've had a lot of complaints, so we decided to give the players a chance to shape the game!
I'll keep a link here for reference:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=694790047

Have fun, and if you could give some feedback, that would be awesome!

[Willy Elektrix]

I gave this game a try. I played about 30 minutes. Here are some impressions. I hope you find them useful.

*The game's intro sequence is very slow and does not seem to be able to skipped.

*It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how the aiming modes worked. The character should always aim wherever you point the mouse. There is no need for the second aiming mode.

*I tried all the guns, but I liked the shotgun-like one the best. With this weapon, the primary challenge is not running out of ammo. However, this encourages boring behavior like standing on the tiles that give off energy and waiting while your ammo slowly recharges.

*There needs to be more variety in the gameplay. You can do this in lots of ways! More enemy types, power-ups, RPG stats, quests, traps, etc. etc. etc.

*Is there a melee weapon? The instructions indicate that there is, but I never really figure out how to make it work.

*Essentially, this game feels like a very basic prototype of a overhead shooter. It needs a lot of more flesh to really make it a game.

Keep working! I don't think you should throw the whole thing out, but you've got a long way to go.

What parts of the game are you working on right now?

[Jisan]

Just a heads up for futures plays:
If you want to skip intro, at the moment the best way is to press <ESC> once.

Haha awesome, well honestly a lot of the things you mentioned are just lack of easy instructions xD (making it hard for the player to understand how to play)

The melee weapon: The Mystic Blades, a mysterious set of twin blades hidden somewhere in the Abyss (that means you have to find them xD)

The structures that give off ammo: you can just click/press space next to them, and they will fully recover you.

Variety in gameplay: great suggestion, will see if I can do anything to help that

At the moment I'm working on the boss, making his AI, as soon as I finish that, I will polish the game, and release it. Though after reading all your feedback, some sort of tutorial would probably come in handy ^.^'

Sucks that you had to stand around the soul fountains for so long XD, but anyway, thanks a lot for the feedback, really appreciated! 

[Willy Elektrix]

Just a heads up for futures plays:
If you want to skip intro, at the moment the best way is to press <ESC> once.

Haha awesome, well honestly a lot of the things you mentioned are just lack of easy instructions xD (making it hard for the player to understand how to play)

The melee weapon: The Mystic Blades, a mysterious set of twin blades hidden somewhere in the Abyss (that means you have to find them xD)

The structures that give off ammo: you can just click/press space next to them, and they will fully recover you.

Variety in gameplay: great suggestion, will see if I can do anything to help that

At the moment I'm working on the boss, making his AI, as soon as I finish that, I will polish the game, and release it. Though after reading all your feedback, some sort of tutorial would probably come in handy ^.^'

Sucks that you had to stand around the soul fountains for so long XD, but anyway, thanks a lot for the feedback, really appreciated! 

I played this a once more last night and I had a couple of other thoughts.

*What do the colors in your cross hair mean? It changes from white to black. As I experimented with it, I thought it might represent your ammo, but if it does, it is hard to understand because the graphic is small.

*Some of the enemies' bullets (and some of the enemies themselves) are blue. It might be nice is these where a different color from the back ground and from the energy orbs.

I might take another crack at this over the weekend now that you told me how to play.

[Jisan]

*What do the colors in your cross hair mean? It changes from white to black. As I experimented with it, I thought it might represent your ammo, but if it does, it is hard to understand because the graphic is small.

*Some of the enemies' bullets (and some of the enemies themselves) are blue. It might be nice is these where a different color from the back ground and from the energy orbs.

Awesome, thanks for the info, will keep in mind

Crosshair info:
- the blasters have an aqua ring, which tells you your souls, and the 4 bars around the center fade away when you are low on energy. It's quite complex because this game is quite strong on strategy, so don't worry about it much unless you really want to dig into the enemies and tear them apart.

- The destroyer/ripper have 2 diagonal bars (the ripper hasn't its own crosshair yet, it's simply using the destroyer's as a placeholder), the left indicates soul level, the right indicates energy level. Once again, mostly if you're a strategic player, most players can just "meh, just some weird feature"

Oh and just in case you haven't already, press Alt + Enter to Fullscreen, this is especially useful if the graphics look small.