next »

[logophil]

Thanks for the short history- so it's been in progress for a long time, and now its 80% complete, congrats! Many similarities between this game and my first Steam game, Xenomarine so I definitely dig the concept!

(I also notice according to your steam page you are planning to travel back in time and release in 2020, impressive!  )

[Ramos]

Sounds great! I think the idea of replacing the outside with a farm theme would also be a nice nod to the original X-Com again

YES! X-com for the win! 

I think adding a black outline to your text, even something very thin, would improve greatly the readability.

Thank you for the feedback! 
I noted your suggestion for the polish stage

Oh I see... even if for testing it you can just render a semi-transparent rectangle behind the popup and then if it looks nice you can come up with some better solution.

I also noted your suggestions for the polish stage, we will choose one of the "fixes" when the time comes.
Thank you vivaladav! 

Hope the floating text will offer some interesting dialogues between difrent characters

Thank you for the kind words Beastboy! We hope so too 

That tentacle monster looks really cool. Looking forward seeing it in motion 

Thank you irn!
My monster does not have many moving parts, tentacle animation takes a lot of time and we are very pressed by the time so I only made a very basic breathing animation and a tentacle attack(+ the animated worms), nothing even close to the animation quality you got on Tendril. But I hope the end result will be good. 

Thanks for the short history- so it's been in progress for a long time, and now its 80% complete, congrats! Many similarities between this game and my first Steam game, Xenomarine so I definitely dig the concept!

(I also notice according to your steam page you are planning to travel back in time and release in 2020, impressive!  )

Thank you logophil!
I checked your game out, it sure looks like a very solid concept and congratulations on the positive rating!
As for similarities, I do agree they both share a top-down perspective and an ALien theme but other than that the gameplay is totally different. RTS(squad-based) vs TBS(main hero).
Will you do a post-mortem on it? I am curious about the release/marketing/financial experience you had with it.

And ... yes ... I am aware of that release date problem, unfortunately, I can no longer change the date manually, I can only contact Steam support to give a final release date and since I am not sure of the final release date I must wait a bit.
Or can you recommend to me a good time travel service? 


-------------------------------------------


UPDATE time

Ok, so I removed the urban theme and replace it with a cornfield/farm theme. It is still a work in progress, I still need to add some details in the building and on the outside zone.

I think I will remove the trees.

On the lower side of the map, can you find an easter egg here?

Hint: from a movie



On the upper side of the map. Also if the monster is killed player can use that off-road to move forward.

Can you find another easter egg here?

HINT: from a game



And here is the monster emerging from the upper side

[vivaladav]

On the lower side of the map, can you find an easter egg here?

Hint: from a movie

The worms from Tremors?

BTW, great atmosphere, the scene looks definitely better now!

[Alain]

Very nice, I love the fog! I think the farm setting sets a nice tone: I get the feeling that the Spec Ops with their high tech equipment are even more out of their water facing the monster threat in such an environment than in a city.

[mera]

Story plot

It was a beautiful spring day, nobody knows the exact order of events during that day but what they do remember is that all of a sudden the sky turned red, all radios and televisions were somehow hijacked by a superior force and were sending only one message: “the ancient one is coming…”.

Then there was a great moment of silence and soon after, they came.

They came from below the earth digging their way out, creatures of nightmare, abominations of unspeakable terror, the army didn’t stand a chance, human civilization fell in a dark age.

You are part of what remains of army forces, your brother, the one who took care of you when your parents died was also part of the army and went missing during a mission a few miles from where you are stationed with the objective to gather information about this underground hole from were these creatures are coming from. You decide that if world is going to end at least to do one last journey of redemption to see your brother one more time.

Gameplay

During this journey you choose what team you want to assemble, you choose the evolution of each squad member, you choose which location you want to look for supplies and where you want to establish a defense perimeter, you choose your route and you decide the best course of action for the events that will present before you.

Aditional information

- Real-time strategy game mixed with RPG elements.
- Code in C++ artwork in Windows Paint
- Top-down
- TBS gameplay during travel map
- survival elements
- skills, level up system, inventory, resources
- multiple choices and outcomes
- main inspirations: C&C, Dungeons & Dragons, Heroes 3, Red Alert, Xcom
- Game development started in mid-2016 (artwise, design, prototyping/ part-time) and heavy development started in half of 2017, currently we got a map editor working and some of the basic features done + 50% from art/animations done
- release date: we hope somewhere in 2018 but then again hope is a dangerous thing



General Classes
Each character in the game is going to be unique but there are some class boundaries. The maximum squad member is 6.


The Medic
Can heal others, interact with medical documents to find cure, buffs


The Engineer
Can build barricades, turrets and set traps


Soldier/Tank
Can use heavy weapons and manual shooting weapons, huge armor but slow


Soldier/Exoskeleton
Can use mid-range weapons such as shotguns and close range weapons such as melee weapons


Soldier/Tactical
Can use rifle, bow, pistols, also he provides bonuses on travel map


UPDATE
Screenshots:




















Team
Popa Cristian Manuel - artwork, animation, game design, marketing, balance, team management, testing, level design
Sergey Dovganovsky - programming, animation, testing, balance
Alin D. - sounds & music
Developed under 16 BIT NIGHTS studio


Links
Discord chat group - https://discord.gg/J2E2YWK
Site - http://16bitnights.com/chromosome_evil/

If you have additional question & suggestions about the project feel free to ask us here or on our discord groups, interacting with the community is what helps our motivation the most.

Thank you

this game looks AWESOME 

[SADoff]

I find your floating text a very fresh take on your game overall aspect that can  complement story and characters if used well., so I would try to polish this feature as much as possible.
I can read the text fine on pc, atleast in the screenschots, but as vivaladav said, a black transparent background can do wonders, on cellphone is a bit hard to read but i dont think your game is made for phones.

Hope the floating text will offer some interesting dialogues between difrent characters

we have pixel perfect grfix. i mean it doesn't scale. That is why grafix looks solid. Only heroes and enemies are blurry, because they rotate:( . If we will port on android- we will use original sizes, because scaling will ruin appearanse

[SADoff]

Oh I see... even if for testing it you can just render a semi-transparent rectangle behind the popup and then if it looks nice you can come up with some better solution.

Of course! If desighner will choose background for text popUps we will add it

[Ramos]

The worms from Tremors?

BTW, great atmosphere, the scene looks definitely better now!

Thank you!

I must admit I totally forgot about Tremors, shame on me, but now I am thinking of making a scenario inspired by Tremors. Thank you for this precious information!  

The current Easter eggs are a bit more direct, in the first picture there is some wood on the floor in the shape of an X and next to some blood splatter that if you look carefully will see is spelled "com", so that is X-com
And next picture got the text on the floor "he who walks behind the row" a quote from "Children of the Corn" movie

Do you think Tremors creature was inspired by Dune worms ?

Very nice, I love the fog! I think the farm setting sets a nice tone: I get the feeling that the Spec Ops with their high tech equipment are even more out of their water facing the monster threat in such an environment than in a city.

Thank you, Alain! We also got that fog animated. And yes that was the feel I was aiming, similar to how Xcom operatives felt when sending in missions.  

this game looks AWESOME  

Thank you so much mera ! You are AWESOME  

--------------------

Did some more map polish so it is time for some gifs (still not 100% done)

The exit corridor is full of dead bodies from the first strike team, the bodies and dead tentacles are inspired from the hive from "Aliens" with a mix of "The thing" creature design. We also added some basic animation of bugs and flys on dead bodies + the animated fog.



And here is the actual Lovecraftian Alien creature.

I only did basic breathing animation and a bit of rattlesnake on his tentacles. The eye rotation is code-based and always rotate towards the target

Monster got 3 states: idle(vulnerable), tentacle attack(most deadly), and birth(spans worms, the one I used in the screenshot).

Also, you can manually target the barrels to deal extra optional explosion damage, oh and also if you do not kill the worms fast they grow



hope you enjoy

[MegaTiny]

Just an FYI Steam will happily change the release date for you without issue. I was coming up to my release date and pinged them an email and they switched it to just say 2021 for me. It was super easy and you don't need to know what your final release date will be.

[vivaladav]

Do you think Tremors creature was inspired by Dune worms ?

Totally copied inspired by

[Ramos]

Just an FYI Steam will happily change the release date for you without issue. I was coming up to my release date and pinged them an email and they switched it to just say 2021 for me. It was super easy and you don't need to know what your final release date will be.

Nice to see you here again!
Thank you for the info!
Also just noticed your game also got a delayed release date(2020), will you also change it again or is it one time only request change?

Totally copied inspired by

 

[liva]

The map updates is awesome, dead bodies + fog is a great combo, and I love what you did with the tentacles.

The environment seems very well crafted and I can feel the call to explore every centimètre and look for hidden details and easter eggs

[Beastboy]

I find your floating text a very fresh take on your game overall aspect that can  complement story and characters if used well., so I would try to polish this feature as much as possible.
I can read the text fine on pc, atleast in the screenschots, but as vivaladav said, a black transparent background can do wonders, on cellphone is a bit hard to read but i dont think your game is made for phones.

Hope the floating text will offer some interesting dialogues between difrent characters

we have pixel perfect grfix. i mean it doesn't scale. That is why grafix looks solid. Only heroes and enemies are blurry, because they rotate:( . If we will port on android- we will use original sizes, because scaling will ruin appearanse

Yes, i noticed a lot of details in the visuals, i really like them and thats a lot considering i do not normaly like top down games. As for android i do not think your game is made for android, pc is best in this case.
But my remark was more torward the actual text lines, i hope they will provide a nice story. There are a ton of horror games and a bunch of rts games but not a real combination of the two, so that is a unique point rts mix with horror rsulting you can use the text lines really smart to have player emphatize with characters because after all in horrror games that is one of main point, you must care about your situation not just cheap scares.

Out of curiosity, is the text generated on trigers, is it random generated, are there dialogues between characters for imersivness or other algoritm?

[SADoff]

Out of curiosity, is the text generated on trigers, is it random generated, are there dialogues between characters for imersivness or other algoritm?

We have :
-dialogs on triggers (interacting with some objects)
-single phrases on triggers(reload, move...)
-dialogs on scenario events.

[Ramos]

The map updates is awesome, dead bodies + fog is a great combo, and I love what you did with the tentacles.

The environment seems very well crafted and I can feel the call to explore every centimètre and look for hidden details and easter eggs

Thank you for the kind words liva!


-------------------

Some side news while we work on updates.

I found an interesting channel that reviews Steam store pages.
I contacted them via their Twitter and they were very cooperative regarding this and in less than a week they made a video review for Chromosome evil Steam page.

I recommend them, if you got a steam store page you can contact them here: https://twitter.com/GWBycer

Long story short, they found many problems(most of them I already knew about but I wanted to make the coming soon page very early in development)


You can see the video here:






Based on this feedback I will:
- remake the main thumbnail
- add more description text
- remove one of the travel map screenshots
- make a new action-packed trailer, the current one may be a bit too long but the only point of it was to show the thriller atmosphere within gameplay limits not the action pack part.

Also, they say from current description they do not understand what type of game it is, what should I add to be more clear this is a RTS squad based Horror ?
Also, do you got any opinion about their feedback?

[Alain]

The video seems cool, but also is really lengthy. But if you are interested in some feedback on your description, here are my two cents. I'll go through it sentence by sentence.

Dive deep into this Lovecraft-inspired RTS survival.
At first, I did not like the "dive deep", but thinking about it, I feel like it is fine. It suggests that the game has depth and builds a connection to many of Lovecraft's monsters being aquatic.

Assemble your team using different classes, skills, weaponry and more.
Great, I'd just scratch the "and more", because it sounds a bit like a filler.

It's up to your squad to survive the onslaught of nightmares that are surely coming your way.
This is basically saying, that you will fight enemies, which the reader can assume from the screenshots. I heard that you should keep story to a minimum in the description and focus on gameplay. I know it hurts to scratch it, I also can't bring myself to follow that advice. I love about your games that it is nightmarish and that it sounds like fighting tooth and nails against these strange beings. I'm just repeating what I heard in a video by an "expert" and we don't always need to follow that.

Will you find the source of the darkness?
I'd recommend to cut/replace this sentence. It is 100% story and if you keep the "nightmares" in the sentence before, you have enough already to have people like me hooked for the dark mysteries.

Also, they say from current description they do not understand what type of game it is, what should I add to be more clear this is a RTS squad based Horror ?

I would agree to that, make this very clear. Your main goal in the description is to tell the players what they will do and RTS squad based Horror tells a lot!


I am by no means an expert on Steam pages and descriptions. These are just my thoughts that I'm writing down, because you specifically asked for feedback. Your description in my eyes was already fine to begin with, but maybe some input from different viewpoints helps.

[Beastboy]

Interesting video, i can agree with these points:
- the thumbnaill got to generic characters, so yes a remake of thumbnaill can help
- as tactical player i like a more logical description. Maybe add bulletpoints on game description with features-mechanics ?

[Ramos]

The video seems cool, but also is really lengthy. But if you are interested in some feedback on your description, here are my two cents. I'll go through it sentence by sentence.

Dive deep into this Lovecraft-inspired RTS survival.
At first, I did not like the "dive deep", but thinking about it, I feel like it is fine. It suggests that the game has depth and builds a connection to many of Lovecraft's monsters being aquatic.

Assemble your team using different classes, skills, weaponry and more.
Great, I'd just scratch the "and more", because it sounds a bit like a filler.

It's up to your squad to survive the onslaught of nightmares that are surely coming your way.
This is basically saying, that you will fight enemies, which the reader can assume from the screenshots. I heard that you should keep story to a minimum in the description and focus on gameplay. I know it hurts to scratch it, I also can't bring myself to follow that advice. I love about your games that it is nightmarish and that it sounds like fighting tooth and nails against these strange beings. I'm just repeating what I heard in a video by an "expert" and we don't always need to follow that.

Will you find the source of the darkness?
I'd recommend to cut/replace this sentence. It is 100% story and if you keep the "nightmares" in the sentence before, you have enough already to have people like me hooked for the dark mysteries.

Also, they say from current description they do not understand what type of game it is, what should I add to be more clear this is a RTS squad based Horror ?

I would agree to that, make this very clear. Your main goal in the description is to tell the players what they will do and RTS squad based Horror tells a lot!


I am by no means an expert on Steam pages and descriptions. These are just my thoughts that I'm writing down, because you specifically asked for feedback. Your description in my eyes was already fine to begin with, but maybe some input from different viewpoints helps.

Alain, thank you so much for the feedback, you are a very positive person!

I will make the modifications you mentioned in your feedback

And regarding "Will you find the source of the darkness?" do you have any suggestions? I want to be a question phrase like "dare enter my world" or something that can make player think of an asnwer/mystery

Interesting video, i can agree with these points:
- the thumbnaill got to generic characters, so yes a remake of thumbnaill can help
- as tactical player i like a more logical description. Maybe add bulletpoints on game description with features-mechanics ?

Thank you for the feedback. I will remake the thumbnail and I will see what I can do about the description.


------------------------------------

I think of starting a small development blog series about How can you add horror/thriller in a real-time tactical game.

Big idea is to use different phobias but in a smart way.

EPISODE 1

- BUG PHOBIA: in most residential houses maps there is old food so each time I place 1 or 2 animated bugs, sublime to appear from time to time from under table nothing too exaggerated, sometimes I also combine them with some animated fly`s but in this current map I want to really mess up players with BUG phobias so under the animated light that flickers from time to time I placed a huge amount of bugs. I also plan to later make a room full of bugs that the player must move his squad through. Note that bugs do not have any mechanic, this is purely psihological

- MIND PLAY - PSYCHOLOGICAL: during this stage, the player does not know anything about the creature's origin, it can be a religious factor, military experiment, alien factor, and so on. So in this map, I placed a pentagram to encourage religious plot affirmation but then again under the flickering light I placed some dead tentacles coming from the wall that can also move the mind toward a Lovecraftian type of plot and not removing the idea of an alien invasion either, I mean the pentagram can be just the work of a madman.

-MIND PLAY - MECHANICS: in most residential maps thing is simple, you enter the map and zombie type enemies start coming according to your aggro level(aggro level is based on how the player plays the game) but if you enter on this map with lower then LVL 3 aggro, no monster will come, the player will not know this so he will always be on edge, and if you enter this map with aggro LVL 4 or 5 then very strong monsters will come, the kind of monsters that the player will not normally encounter. Basic by doing this I train player's minds to always have a certain fear/caution of the unknown.

- MAP ARCHITECTURE - CHEAP SCARE JUMP: this is one of the very few bathrooms that got a dark edge from where monsters can come, note that after many of the other buildings exploration if the player sees the bathrooms and dark edge but never had any monsters come out from there he will have a nice surprise when this design element will be different this time.

- MAIN MECHANIC: the player can always leave the building whenever he wants but then he will miss out on the looting rewards,  this will be placed in balance with perma-death and unique characters that the player can get attached to (either because of invested equipment in that character, or past history or purely by personality trait based on text lines) so the player will try hard to keep his squad alive and will always be on edge of decision making.





Hope you enjoyed

PS: I do not know if I will continue this series because soon I must concentrate my attention on marketing and actual scenarios + ending + loot more work

[vivaladav]

Based on this feedback I will:
- remake the main thumbnail
- add more description text
- remove one of the travel map screenshots
- make a new action-packed trailer, the current one may be a bit too long but the only point of it was to show the thriller atmosphere within gameplay limits not the action pack part.

Also, they say from current description they do not understand what type of game it is, what should I add to be more clear this is a RTS squad based Horror ?
Also, do you got any opinion about their feedback?

I think most of their feedback is pretty fair, especially regarding trailer, capsule and description.

Trailer
You show your logo at the beginning (no point in that unless you are famous) and nothing happens for 2 minutes.
If I were a gamer browsing gaming websites or YouTube I would move to the next one in 30 seconds or less.

Capsule
I would definitely get rid of the small text and of the black framing. Clear rectangles in design are almost never visually appealing.
I do not agree when the shark guy says the characters look generic though.

Description
Saying "RTS squad based Horror" is just defining a genre, but that could mean everything.
What's missing is what you do in the game and how you control your squad. That's not clear from the trailer and it's not explained anywhere in the description.

Overall they have been a bit hard on you, but they tend to do that sometimes whereas they go easy with terrible pages (I have watched several of their videos before).
I believe they raise more critiques when they see potential, whereas they try to be kind with people who should not be on Steam in the first place.
Which is good, as it means they clearly see potential in your game.

BTW, how not to like Josh considering he totally sounds like Homer Simpson? 

[Ramos]

I think most of their feedback is pretty fair, especially regarding trailer, capsule and description.

Trailer
You show your logo at the beginning (no point in that unless you are famous) and nothing happens for 2 minutes.
If I were a gamer browsing gaming websites or YouTube I would move to the next one in 30 seconds or less.

Capsule
I would definitely get rid of the small text and of the black framing. Clear rectangles in design are almost never visually appealing.
I do not agree when the shark guy says the characters look generic though.

Description
Saying "RTS squad based Horror" is just defining a genre, but that could mean everything.
What's missing is what you do in the game and how you control your squad. That's not clear from the trailer and it's not explained anywhere in the description.

Overall they have been a bit hard on you, but they tend to do that sometimes whereas they go easy with terrible pages (I have watched several of their videos before).
I believe they raise more critiques when they see potential, whereas they try to be kind with people who should not be on Steam in the first place.
Which is good, as it means they clearly see potential in your game.

BTW, how not to like Josh considering he totally sounds like Homer Simpson?  

trailer
I agree but the current trailer is beyond repairs. No worries, I do plan an action-packed trailer soon.

Description
I made some modifications and also I used some of Alain suggestions


Capsule
Yes I agree and I just fixed it I hope, I posted the progress but need to choose font between the last 2 iterations

I do not agree when the shark guy says the characters look generic though.
Don't put me on a croce but I actually wanted those characters to look generic ahahahah

BTW, how not to like Josh considering he totally sounds like Homer Simpson?
I will never see him with the same eyes again

-------------------------------------------

So, since I received feedback regarding the thumbnail of the Chromosome Evil steam page. I took it very seriously so I remade it.

Old:



Iteration A

I am not happy with this but I wanted to share it



Iteration B

And now final iterations, I got 2 of them, the only difference is the font, maybe if someone wants to help me out can vote one of the 2 so it would be easier for me to make a decision:

B1


B2



Edit: I ended up using B1 version