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[Christian Knudsen]

Hello all!

I need some help testing my game Hidden Asset -- an isometric assassination/stealth game. I currently have a demo that I will be using for a future Kickstarter campaign, and it is this demo I need tested. Below are some screenshots, if you're curious what the game looks like.


-- Download links --

North America:
Windows 7 or later (128 MB)
Linux 32-bit (126 MB)
Linux 64-bit (126 MB)
Mac OS X 10.5 or later (156 MB)

Europe:
Windows 7 or later (128 MB)
Linux 32-bit (126 MB)
Linux 64-bit (126 MB)
Mac OS X 10.5 or later (156 MB)


-- Debugging --

For the Windows and Linux versions, there are two executables: a normal version and a debug version. The debug version may run a bit slower on older computers, so if you're not getting a steady 40 FPS (hit F1 to toggle FPS on/off), you may want to use the normal version. But if you can use the debug version, please do so as this will provide valuable information in case of a crash:

- On Windows, the debug information will pop up in a window during a crash.
- On Linux, the debug information will be outputted to the terminal, so please run the game from the terminal (navigate to the game directory and run it with ./hiddenassetdebug).
- Please take a screenshot of the debug information and paste it here or send it to me directly in an email, while also letting me know where you were in the game/what you were doing just before the crash.

(Note that on Linux, you may have to set the run permission of the executable with 'chmod -x hiddenasset' to allow you to run it, as the permission is sometimes lost when compressing the game files.)


-- Feedback --

When you're done with the game, please send me the stats.txt file that on Windows and Linux will be located in the game directory and on Mac OS X will be in your '~/Library/Application Support/Hidden Asset' directory. You can either email it to [email protected] or write a post with a link to where I can download it.

Also, please share any thoughts or comments about the game! Were certain parts too hard or too easy? Was the game fun? Too much or too little tutorial information?


-- Linux dependencies --

If you don't already have SDL2, SDL2_mixer and SDL2_image installed on your system, they can be installed with the following commands in the terminal (given that they're in your distribution's repositories):

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-mixer-2.0
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-image-2.0

[Christian Knudsen]

Not really getting much feedback, so I've opened up testing for anybody wanting to help out. Download links (as well as a few instructions for testing) are now in the previous post.

Any help is appreciated!

[fearless_donut]

Hey, i've sent you a report. I have played until the end of Hensley Int, where i had a constantly repeating crash.
The game seems to be in quite complete state with lots of details and interesting dialogues.
Some notices:
   - stealth bar depletion. It motivates me to do Save/Load operations on almost every step i made. Each time i lose a stealth points, i use a "Load".Needless to say, i lose some gaming experience by playing this way. Maybe make some limitations on amount of saves for a single level or something else?
      
   - i like sitting in the shadows and overhearing personal conversations of unknown people in this game. Good thing. More indecent chatter!
   
   - sometimes i feel like the main character has a little delay before following player's commands. Or maybe he is just a bit slow. Also( though i'm not sure if it is the game's problem or mine) i have small issues with controls, accidentally clicking the wrong place because the cursor triggers to an interactive object(like door) instead of floor.
   
   - mobs have very strong eyes - sometimes they notice you under 90 degrees to their sight line in the far end of the dark room, but very bad ears - opening door just behind them won't make them notice you. Not sure if it is good or bad, just notice.
    
   - pls make it available to scroll screen by using mouse.
   
   - i'm not sure of usefulness of tactical view - most of the time i remain in standard one.
   
   - I got 5000$ for the tutorial mission and the doctor asked for ~4600$ for medical treatment after it. That was a hard punch for me)
   
   -"Were certain parts too hard or too easy?" - i had difficulties playing this game for the first hour. I did a lot of wrong moves in the 2nd level, not knowing what to do next. But then things went better. I suppose it needs some time to understand the game's logic. But maybe it's because i tried to avoid guards instead of killing them.
   
   -"Too much or too little tutorial information" - the tutorial level is fine.
    
   -"Was the game fun" - i started to feel fun when i stopped to lose on every step, but then the game started to crash . I think this game has its own pace and not everyone can adapt to it because in current state the game requires more thinking(and waiting) and less action but players often like the opposite.

       - Personally, i was more interested in scenario and narrative stuff(comic-style dialogues are especially good) rather in gameplay, because i'm not a big fan of stealth games, but that's not the game's fault.
   

[Christian Knudsen]

Sorry about the late reply! I didn't receive an email notification about replies to my thread, so only noticed it now!

Thanks for all your excellent feedback!

I'm currently working on making the game a bit more forgiving:
- adding a "delay" before hostile characters react to seeing you (an eye icon above their heads fills up -- the further away you are, the slower it will fill)
- longer delay before an attacking character will call for backup (and only one other hostile NPC will react to each call for help)
- NPCs deal less damage to player than player deals to them
- possibly lowering price of medical treatment (though if you receive less damage because of the above, this might not be necessary)

You can switch on mouse scrolling of the screen. It's "Edge scroll" in the options menu.

Yeah, the game is definitely more slow-paced/stealthy than actiony. That's by design, but I of course don't want it to be boring! I kinda suspect that the game is too hard now, which takes away from the fun.

Again, thank you for your feedback!

[Christian Knudsen]

Version 0.6.2 of the Hidden Asset alpha demo is now available for download and testing. Use the download links below.

Please note that savegames from previous versions won't work in this new version!

This version includes some significant changes to the core gameplay. In the below video, I go over some of these changes:







-- Download links --

North America:
Windows 7 or later (128 MB)
Linux 32-bit (126 MB)
Linux 64-bit (126 MB)
Mac OS X 10.5 or later (156 MB)

Europe:
Windows 7 or later (128 MB)
Linux 32-bit (126 MB)
Linux 64-bit (126 MB)
Mac OS X 10.5 or later (156 MB)


-- Debug information --
 
For the Windows and Linux versions, there are two executables: a normal version and a debug version. The debug version may run a bit slower on older computers, so if you’re not getting a steady 40 FPS (hit F1 to toggle FPS on/off), you may want to use the normal version. But if you can use the debug version, please do so as this will provide valuable information in case of a crash:

– On Windows, the debug information will pop up in a window during a crash.
– On Linux, the debug information will be outputted to the terminal, so please run the game from the terminal (navigate to the game directory and run it with ./hiddenassetdebug).
– Please take a screenshot of the debug information and paste it here or send it to me directly in an email, while also letting me know where you were in the game/what you were doing just before the crash.

(Note that on Linux, you may have to set the run permission of the executable with ‘chmod -x hiddenasset’ to allow you to run it, as the permission is sometimes lost when compressing the game files.)

 
-- Feedback --

When you’re done with the game, please send me the stats.txt file that on Windows and Linux will be located in the game directory and on Mac OS X will be in your ‘~/Library/Application Support/Hidden Asset’ directory. You can either email it to [email protected] or write a post on the forums (as a guest, if you don’t feel like signing up) with a link to where I can download it. The stats.txt file contains information about time used in the game, when certain parts were reached, who you killed, how often and where you were killed, etc. No personal information or system information is gathered!

Also, please share any thoughts or comments about the game! Were certain parts too hard or too easy? Was the game fun? Too much or too little tutorial information?
 

-- Linux dependencies --
 
If you don’t already have SDL2, SDL2_mixer and SDL2_image installed on your system, they can be installed with the following commands in the terminal (given that they’re in your distribution’s repositories):

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-mixer-2.0
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-image-2.0

(Note that on Linux, you may have to set the run permission of the executable with ‘chmod -x hiddenasset’ to allow you to run it, as the permission is sometimes lost when compressing the game files.)

[MSThalamus]

This is a great start on a fun game!

Praise:

1) I love the art style, especially the film noir feel.
2) I liked the music.
3) Great start on a settings dialog! This is often missing on games in early(ish) development, but it's the first thing I look for in every game I play.
4) The game launches and exits very quickly. What engine are you using?
5) I like your credits! I especially like that you're thanking the developers of the free tools you've used. I think that's an important thing to do, even if it isn't required. I'm doing the same in my game.
6) I like your title / load screen.

Constructive Feedback:

1) Adding an additional Windowed (Fullscreen) mode (on top of Windowed and Fullscreen) so that the game window doesn't minimize when it loses focus would be helpful.
2) Usually games don't continue to produce sound once minimized unless the player selects an option to enable that.
3) When selecting a resolution, I clicked on one in the list, and it gets populated under the "Custom Resolution" heading... but it isn't a custom resolution. It might be better to leave that empty and leave a highlight on the one the player actually clicked on.
4) Sound effects are very loud compared to the music. A Sound config dialog can help the player balance these volumes.
5) Is the Apply button in the Settings dialog really necessary? Or can you just apply the changes as the player clicks?
6) The mouse moves really slowly (2560x1600 full screen)
7) Regarding your credits, I use freesound.org as well. (They're a great resource!) You aren't listing specific licenses, though. If all the sounds you used are licensed under CC0, you're fine, but many sounds up there are CC BY, or even CC BY-NC (which can't be used if you're intending to sell the game). If any of the sounds you're using are covered by either of those licenses, you need to provide a more complete attribution to be within license compliance. What I do in my game is:

~ SOUND EFFECTS ~

= CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 3.0 UNPORTED =

cupboard door 3     © 2013 thecityrings
https://freesound.org/people/thecityrings/sounds/175373

Door_Hinge02     © 2017 corpocracy
https://freesound.org/people/corpocracy/sounds/403351

It makes the credits a lot longer, of course, but this way I know I'm in compliance. (I also include a text copy in the install folder so people can actually copy/paste the links.) Again, if all your sound effects are CC0, you're actually doing more than you absolutely have to, which is commendable, and you can disregard this comment. This same basic comment applies to the fonts you listed as well.
8 ) Once in the game, shouldn't "Exit Game" be "Main Menu" and, perhaps, there be an "Exit Game" option as well that returns the player directly to the desktop?
9) Got the knife in the drawer, but I wasn't able to figure out how to put it in inventory, equip it, or anything.
10) While I was trying to figure out how to get the knife, I missed the conversation I was supposed to overhear. A scrollable corner dialog (like what most MMOs use for chat) that lists the things previously said to / near the player would be very helpful.
11) I also ran into a problem where I tried to click on a table and it instead opened the door. Also, even when the door was highlighted, it wouldn't open when I clicked on it once I'd gone past it. It was frustrating, because it meant I couldn't go back the way I'd come and try to get the knife again, and so I had nothing to attack the bodyguard with. So I had no choice but to kick him in the crotch repeatedly, which was entertaining but ultimately not very effective. Then he called his buddy in and I died.

[Christian Knudsen]

Thanks for the feedback!

4) The game launches and exits very quickly. What engine are you using?

It's my own custom engine programmed in Pascal and using SDL+OpenGL.

5) I like your credits! I especially like that you're thanking the developers of the free tools you've used. I think that's an important thing to do, even if it isn't required. I'm doing the same in my game.

Yeah, I feel like thanking/mentioning any free tools you use is the least you can do. Those are some really awesome tools for free!

1) Adding an additional Windowed (Fullscreen) mode (on top of Windowed and Fullscreen) so that the game window doesn't minimize when it loses focus would be helpful.

I don't think that's possible in SDL anymore. It just has basically FULLSCREEN and NOT FULLSCREEN.

2) Usually games don't continue to produce sound once minimized unless the player selects an option to enable that.

Good point! I should be able to just pause the game when minimized (which will also stop sounds/music). Or just mute it when in a menu where you can't pause.

3) When selecting a resolution, I clicked on one in the list, and it gets populated under the "Custom Resolution" heading... but it isn't a custom resolution. It might be better to leave that empty and leave a highlight on the one the player actually clicked on.

Hmmm. Yeah, that might be better.

4) Sound effects are very loud compared to the music. A Sound config dialog can help the player balance these volumes.

You can set music and sound effects volumes separately in the options.

5) Is the Apply button in the Settings dialog really necessary? Or can you just apply the changes as the player clicks?

The apply button appears when the game has to reload/reset the screen to apply the settings, so it's necessary when changing the resolution, fullscreen/windowed, constrain mouse cursor to window and the like.

6) The mouse moves really slowly (2560x1600 full screen)

I'll have to look into trying to implement some mouse acceleration. The issue is that I get the current mouse position from SDL, and this is based on the screen resolution, I believe. So the higher the resolution, the slower the mouse will feel like it's moving. I believe it's moving the same amount of pixels, but on high resolutions, there are of course more pixels, so it doesn't "travel" as far.

7) Regarding your credits, I use freesound.org as well. (They're a great resource!) You aren't listing specific licenses, though. If all the sounds you used are licensed under CC0, you're fine, but many sounds up there are CC BY, or even CC BY-NC (which can't be used if you're intending to sell the game).

I only use CC0 or CC BY (but include all of them in the credits). So, yeah, I guess I ought to include more info...

9) Got the knife in the drawer, but I wasn't able to figure out how to put it in inventory, equip it, or anything.

I take it you didn't get far if you didn't figure out how to take/equip the knife?

You take an object from a drawer by dragging it to the bottom bar (your inventory). This is where the envelope of cash was at the very start of the game that you dragged onto the bouncer to give it to him. You equip a weapon by dragging it to one of the boxes on the left or right of the inventory (if you move the mouse over these boxes, it will tell you this).

10) While I was trying to figure out how to get the knife, I missed the conversation I was supposed to overhear. A scrollable corner dialog (like what most MMOs use for chat) that lists the things previously said to / near the player would be very helpful.

All these kinds of conversations are just flavor/world building. They don't give you required information. So you won't be stuck or anything if you miss them.

11) I also ran into a problem where I tried to click on a table and it instead opened the door. Also, even when the door was highlighted, it wouldn't open when I clicked on it once I'd gone past it. It was frustrating, because it meant I couldn't go back the way I'd come and try to get the knife again, and so I had nothing to attack the bodyguard with. So I had no choice but to kick him in the crotch repeatedly, which was entertaining but ultimately not very effective. Then he called his buddy in and I died.

Did you left-click on the door instead of right-clicking? Left-clicking is the walk button, right-clicking is interact. But if you click to walk to a tile and the path to that tile goes through a door, you will automatically open/close the door. So there isn't much need to click on doors (except for summoning an elevator).

Again, thanks for giving the game a try and providing feedback!

[MSThalamus]

Thanks for the response! Just wanted to let you know that you can manipulate window state via the Windows API, and I'm guessing your other platforms have similar APIs. Let me know if you'd like more info.

[Christian Knudsen]

I just checked my window setup code and it already uses the "fake" fullscreen setting (SDL has, among other settings, SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN, which includes a videomode change, and SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN_DESKTOP, which is the one I use).

https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_SetWindowFullscreen

But I see what you mean by the window minimizing when you ALT-TAB away, for example.

What you're asking for seems to be what you get if you just set the resolution to match the desktop resolution, though? It then fills the entire screen, but the window doesn't minimize if you ALT-TAB away.

[MSThalamus]

Exactly! Windowed (Fullscreen) is just a window the size of the target monitor's resolution without the frame.

In C#, for example, using pinvoke, where User32 is a class that contains the external declarations of the C functions:

IntPtr windowHandle = User32.GetActiveWindow();
IntPtr flagsIntPtr = new IntPtr(User32.WS_OVERLAPPED | User32.WS_SYSMENU | User32.WS_VISIBLE);
User32.SetWindowLongPtr(windowHandle, User32.GWL_STYLE, flagsIntPtr);
MONITORINFO monitorInfo = new MONITORINFO { cbSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(MONITORINFO)) };
User32.GetMonitorInfo(User32.MonitorFromWindow(windowHandle, User32.MONITOR_DEFAULTTOPRIMARY), ref monitorInfo);
User32.SetWindowPos(windowHandle, HWND_NOTOPMOST, monitorInfo.rcMonitor.left, monitorInfo.rcMonitor.top,
                    monitorInfo.rcMonitor.right - monitorInfo.rcMonitor.left, monitorInfo.rcMonitor.bottom - monitorInfo.rcMonitor.top, User32.SWP_FRAMECHANGED);


For me, it's harder, because the Windows API and Unity duke it out, so I end up having to call SetWindowLongPtr like three times to make sure Unity doesn't re-add the frame, or stretch the window out to cover what the frame used to occupy.

Hope this helps!

[Christian Knudsen]

Thanks for the info!

When I currently set the resolution in the options to match the desktop (and don't set it to fullscreen), it already fills the screen and I don't see the frame. Does this not work for you?

[MSThalamus]

Sort of.... I have a three monitor setup (primary and one on either side). You can see the frame on the left and right monitors, although interestingly enough it is covered up on the primary monitor such that if you only had one monitor you'd never see the frame. But, the taskbar remains on top until you either Alt-Tab away and back again or exit and restart the game.

[Christian Knudsen]

Ah, yeah, I guess that makes sense when you have more than one monitor. I was actually surprised that the window frame is properly offscreen like that to fill up the screen. I'll have to test it in Ubuntu, for example, where I imagine it won't properly fill the screen but will be pushed off to the side and down by the left-hand dock and the top taskbar. Will also have to test it in Mac OS X. Otherwise, I'll play around with some SDL functions to raise the window to the top to hopefully cover any docks and taskbars there might be.

[Christian Knudsen]

I'm trying to figure out the slow mouse cursor movement issue and have some questions...

Does the mouse cursor movement lag? Or is it slow in the sense that you have to move the physical mouse more for the cursor to move across the screen? If it's the latter, do you have to move the mouse more than you do on the desktop?

I suspected that the game didn't "catch" any mouse acceleration from the desktop, but I tried turning mouse acceleration up and down in Windows, and that was carried over 1:1 to the game.

[MSThalamus]

The mouse is just slow. It moves fine, but I had to physically move it much further than I did in any other app (or the desktop) to get the same screen space covered. (Really I just kicked up the DPI on the mouse itself two notches though.)

[Christian Knudsen]

Since you're on such a high-resolution monitor, do you by any chance have display zoom set to anything other than 100%? I believe this is the "Change the size of text, apps..." setting under display customization on Windows 10.


EDIT:

I found this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2907016/mouse-input-in-some-games-is-incorrectly-scaled-on-high-dpi-devices

Does doing these steps help:

1) Right-click or press and hold the file explorer icon for the application, and then select Properties.
2) On the Compatibility tab, select the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check box.
3) Tap or click Apply, and then tap or click OK.

[MSThalamus]

Good guess! I'm at 115%. I can't test what you're asking me to test right now, because it requires a log out and I'm working. I'll try to do so soon.

[MSThalamus]

I checked this out this morning. Setting DPI back to 100% made the mouse cursor movement feel equivalent across all monitors, and setting it back to 115% made it feel noticeably slower on the game monitor. I'm not sure how to suggest you "fix" this.

[Christian Knudsen]

Did you try this?

1) Right-click or press and hold the file explorer icon for the application, and then select Properties.
2) On the Compatibility tab, select the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check box.
3) Tap or click Apply, and then tap or click OK.

[MSThalamus]

No I hadn't because I'd thought those were instructions for how to disable DPI scaling altogether, which I already knew how to do. That's what I get for being in a hurry and just skimming! Disabling the DPI scaling via Compatibility settings did seem to make it better.