Finished the game. Had a lot of fun. Graphic and theme is absolutely gorgeous.

10/10 for presentation. Its brilliant.



Not really motivated to play again. Not enough variability right now.



So, the obvious:

- No skills, characters feel samey. I hope you guys have interesting things planned here.

- No level up beyond 5 or so - food nodes make little to no sense later in the game.

- Rooms felt samey also. No real sense of exploration. Only tactical positioning of nodes matter.



Bugs:

- Only some graphical glitches with shadows. Did not notice any serious issues.



UI:

- When clicking on the crystal and exit. There is not enough feedback that something is clicked. It felt clunky. I realize it is designed so it is not clicked accidentally, but something is still wrong there, it just requires too much attention.

- No option to select and move the whole party, unless I missed it.

- The basic tactic is to open a room and move back to defensive position. The character should not enter the room automatically, it does not make sense. I end up moving the characters out of the room 90% of the time anyway.



Balance and gameplay:

- Item level (color) does not seem to match statistics. Items feel a little uninspiring right now.

General gameplay mechanics seems very solid. I just hope the character development will shine, since for me it will be the driving force to play.



At start I thought the monsters may only spawn in rooms with damaged walls, pipes, etc. But later I thought they spawned in completely random location.

If they indeed spawn in certain rooms, which I believe they should (it creates tactical decisions, instead of 'defend whatever, everywhere'), then the spawning points should have been indicated more clearly.



Currently I think there is too much motivation to stay and defend one reinforced position. For me it created a not entirely satisfying situation where one fast character went out exploring, then going back to defend at one location. I felt I could win with this strategy easily.

I think players should have more motivation to expand and defend other areas, before discovering the exit. There is defending NPC's right now, but it does not put enough pressure on the players.

Perhaps a need for securing special rooms with beneficial effects would provide more pressure (even industry/food nodes built into a room, working only if the room is 'secured')

Or perhaps running back the whole way with one character is a too low risk action?



Simply increasing difficulty level would somewhat help also.



Some more defined party relation during battle would be nice too. Even if it is the standard tank/damage/healer formula. I did not notice anything like that, I would appreciate somewhat less simplistic battles, but this is a minor gripe. Pretty sure abilities will address this to some extent.



Overall - looks extremely promising. I will surely give this another go when a new version comes out.

At start I thought the monsters may only spawn in rooms with damaged walls, pipes, etc. But later I thought they spawned in completely random location.

If they indeed spawn in certain rooms, which I believe they should (it creates tactical decisions, instead of 'defend whatever, everywhere'), then the spawning points should have been indicated more clearly.

I think the general idea (correct me someone if i'm wrong) is that you play with the powering up of rooms; since they don't spawn in rooms that are powered up, you can establish your position strategy accordingly.

Oh yeah that makes more sense : P

When clicking on the crystal and exit. There is not enough feedback that something is clicked. It felt clunky. I realize it is designed so it is not clicked accidentally, but something is still wrong there, it just requires too much attention.

Agreed. For a mechanic that is often needed in a hectic moment it is far too clunky. Maybe it should just be a right click to pick up.



Also concerning clunky controls sometimes I right click in a room to move but it doesn't register. Like you have to right click on a specific spot just to move. Have died numerous times because of this.

No option to select and move the whole party, unless I missed it.

Also agree. There should be a way to select multiple units, perhaps by holding shift.



Maybe there could even be a button sends all units to a specific room. That would be handy.

Some more defined party relation during battle would be nice too. Even if it is the standard tank/damage/healer formula. I did not notice anything like that, I would appreciate somewhat less simplistic battles, but this is a minor gripe. Pretty sure abilities will address this to some extent.

THIS. You took the words right out of my mouth There needs to be a way to taunt enemies (ie. tank) because my minor gripe of this game is that the enemies almost always go for the power source or the wrong (ranged) character rather than my high hp character, I wish there was a way to influence that. Also since we are already able to heal modules, it makes logical sense to have characters that can heal other characters.



I would also like for the characters to have area of effect abilities/weapons and a way to zoom out the map, but I'm sure these are coming soon.



Overall a fantastic game.

Active and passive skills for your heroes

Technology Tree that will allow you to upgrade your modules with science

Meta progression and different game starts (heroes, ship, modules, skills etc.)

30 heroes include the sevens of the Alpha

New monsters

New environments (Endless laboratory, different biomes etc.)

New modules

New items

Develop background and stories of each heroes

Tactical view

And much more to come!

Omg I am super excited.

I didn't see a tech tree coming. This is beyond awesome.

Also major thumbs up for tactical view. Especially later in the game, when the dungeon grows large, the game needs it.

As you can see from the list above, there is plenty to come



glad you like it



The goal of the Alpha was for us to prove the most basic gameplay loop, and get your feedback on it, and see from there what you guys would want the most.

Hi, I would like to add my impression as well, if that's ok with you guys.



First of all: Sure I know its still Alpha!

Second: I usually am not very much into that old arcade-stuff (just too spoiled from AAA-Games!).

Third: I love this game! Really, i couldn't stop playing it again and again. More diversity to the game and I won't come out for weeks.



GAMEPLAY:



As mentioned above, the GP lacks a bit balancing and diversity. After several tries, I finally managed to finish the third Level by using allways my fastes Charakter for Exploring and than defending a fortified position. But sometimes the waves are just overwhelming, while other times they are very weak.



Also I don't know if it is intended, but sometimes when I send my heroe with the energy-core to flee to the exit, sometimes he seem to lose the core and stands around unmotivated and about to die/or the core takes to much damage and the game is over!



A big Problem for me is the heores weakness to sometimes die really quickly without a proper warning. A alarm in case a hero is about to die would be very usefull or a "auto-heal-function" you can turn on and of.



This problem occurs mostly because sometimes you fail to click fast enough into another room (managing 4 charakters isn't that easy) or you fail to select the proper hero and press "H". It would be very nice to have a little better help here.



Artifakts and Blueprints are sometimes everywhere, sometimes not to find at all. That's a little frustrating. Also, that I mostly don't have enough Items or the Dust for it at all!





GRAPHICS:



I know it is supposed to look old school (and that's what I kind of like so much about it. Not sure why?), but a little less pixels would be helpfull. Because sometimes, I can't even see what is going on or which hero is doing what! Perhaps it would help if heroes would spread across a room (like Soldiers).



I like the UI.





OTHER:



And yes, a longer game and especially a Co-Op Mode would be fantastic!



I can't wait to see the impact of the science-modules and the other possibilities, coming with Beta and the full release.



SUGESTIONS:



- Don't loose heros you don't need anymore, but send them back to stand by the core or on to another safehouse.

- More encounters like the merchants - but something different. Like a Blacksmith, Artifak-Dealer... even though it seems somehow weird that therer are actual humans in this dungeon other than the heros! Perhaps turning the merchant into a vending-machine would make more sense?

- Diffrent types of doors, like rocks or selfmade doors. For real: where the hell did we strand???

[0.1.3]

Single playthrough report.



Bugs

- Equipping items. When selecting a character to equip items via the top right icons and right clicking on an item, everything seems ok.

But after that if I select another character and NOT expand his inventory, equipping an item equips the item to previously selected character.

- Clicking on a room does not always seem to result in a move to that room. This has to be very precise.



UI

- 2560 x 1600 resolution here. I am feeling some fatigue with the small icons and text. This is a big resolution, I do not expect the graphics to scale (everything looks georgous), but I think I cannot change the resolution to anything lower (something which I would normally do in this case, I need normal settings).



Gameplay

The difficulty seems too low. If on top of that, abilities and tech trees will be added, then it will be way to easy.

For me a low difficulty level of early level is a small drawback, since it turns the early levels into an unentertaining chore, until some difficulty arrives. I think only the first level should be vanilla.

Also, I am a biatch for properly testing the difficulty out with abilities turned on, during Christmas.



This open door and run back tactic seems silly, and too effective. To have a more dungeony feel, characters should be locked in the explored room, until it is cleared. Or monsters should have some move crippling effects, to make this sort of action more risky.



At this point, not much more too say. There is no synergy between anything. No need to build anything beside attack modules, although placing 4x +attack power module in one room proved to be quite powerful.

I just hope the game will push players in specific directions, because of found module schematics and given characters. Thats right, I want to be presented with an advantage for taking a particular tech/strategy/advancement route.

Right now I cant say anything like 'oh damn, if I placed this module in this room that would have been so much better, it would take advantage of this dungeon setup and my blablabla'.

[0.1.14] Single play-through report.



Bugs

Inventory/character selection bug still exists.



UI

At first I found the ability tooltips confusing, but that cleared up later.



Abilities

Work great. The cooldown set to 'per opened door' is a great idea. Places focus on 'when' to activate the ability. Good decision encourages planning instead of spamming it and adding micro menagement.

I like that repair and operate are passive abilities, it already sets the characters majorly apart and creates some interesting gameplay decisions.



Gameplay

I believe there is a problem with the final crystal run. I find it too easy. But most importantly I find it uninteresting and stresfull at first, because I have little impact on the result.

All there is to do, is to disable power of every room in 'the back' and power up every room in the exit portion of the dungeon. This way the run is fairly safe, no worries about the back of the dungeon, the monsters are not gonna catch up with my crystal guy. If they do, the remaining heroes can slow there guys down no problem. I even don't feel a need to place defenses in the powered rooms.



I am not sure how often the situation occurs, but I had tons of dust to power a pretty far away section of the dungeon with the exit (after disabling all the other rooms). There is really no point of keeping the 'rear' rooms powered (even if they have tons of defenses), since they are going to power down almost immediately after start of the run.



So in my humble opinion, the final run should be more about planning the defenses. Deciding on how much industry to spend to defend the crystal carrier, and how much should be carried over to next level.

This does not exist now, because:

- 'Rear' rooms are powered down immediately. This pretty much removes the decision to place defenses to defend the rear.

- There is no threat from the front, if you power it up.



This leaves everything in the hands of heroes. Is that what you wanted the run to be?



So ideas for solutions:

- Keep the 'rear' rooms powered. Not sure if power down is such a great mechanic, or perhaps it is missing something.

- Keep the 'rear' rooms powered for at least 10 seconds.

- Do not allow to power up rooms during the run (probably it is this way already).

- Add threat from the front. Maybe unpower exit and spawn enemies there?

- Add threat at points of interest. What are these pipes/vents/creepy stuff for? Maybe bad guys should be spawning there during the run.



I think that the game now needs more rooms and events that are a strategic point of interest and add some more thrill of exploring the dungeon. I realize events and specific special rooms will fix this.

The playthrough was very enjoyable. Probably will play again, but there is too little customization and endlessness in the current build for me. Adding more levels (and making them nearly impossible) would fix this.



Thanks Devs, you are l33t.

Hi,

Thanks for this interesting feedback

I agree with your criticism about the final crystal run and... I really like one of the solutions: if we prevent the player from powering the exit room and increase here the probability of spawn, that can indeed improve this phase!

Mysterarts wrote:
Hi,

Thanks for this interesting feedback

I agree with your criticism about the final crystal run and... I really like one of the solutions: if we prevent the player from powering the exit room and increase here the probability of spawn, that can indeed improve this phase!

I'd like to propose instead a countdown, once the crystal is in the exit room. The powerup should not be instantaneous. Also, if you want to have all heroes next lvl, you should have them all in that room, before the countdown finishes.

Each level, the countdown, until the crystal has fully powered up the exit, should take longer.



But I'm evil, probably you shouldn't listen to me.



(This also implies you'd need a prompt, whether you want to exit right now, lest you loose a hero. Only if not all heroes are in the room, of course. ^^)

I like the non-instant exit idea.



However to add to that idea to make it more viable.



Crystal while moving powers the room it is in. If it is not moving but being held, powers the room it is in + adjacent rooms (but no further).



This combined with the current "slowly depowering rooms now that the crystal is no longer socketed" would allow for a 'delaying action' against the now endless swarm of monsters. Your defenses are slowly shutting down, forcing everyone to retreat into the smaller area until finally they can escape. Turning off all the power when exiting defeats the purpose of building "defenses" with a longer exit time, since they'll be useless during the countdown.



---



As an alternative... rather than have to carry the crystal, have it get there through some other form of locomotion (on a vehicle/hovers on it's own), moving at a fixed speed (I haven't tested but it feels like faster characters carry it slightly faster, a fixed speed negates this). The moment it reaches the exit you have X seconds (say long enough for Gork to travel 2 'large' rooms) to get everyone into the room, and then the people in that room are teleported. Increase the frequency of Wave spawns during that, or grant them increased movement speed in unpowered/empty (no NPC or PC present) rooms so that they're always caught up with you, forcing you to defend the crystal the whole duration of the escape.



This would encourage more defense along the path, as well as allow more involvement of the characters in actually protecting the escape, rather than simply getting out of the way and waiting for the exit. Removing the 'carrier' makes it easier for unlucky recruiters (if you only have 1-2 PCs then there's little to no defense while carrying) but only slightly increases firepower for larger teams. 1 PC = 100% more defense, 2 = 50%, 3 = 33%, 4 (full) = 25%.



If the trip to the exit becomes a delaying action/last ditch defense while escaping, having no one to actually fight back could cause a 1 PC team (due to losses) to be doomed, especially if the trip becomes more deadly.

In my opinion the Crystal-phase should not be that important.

I mean you probably spent an hour on the level, did many correct strategic choices and now you want to increase the chance of everything getting ♥♥♥♥ed up in the 2-minute-crystal-phase?



The amount of strategic choices in this phase are limited to: "be fast!"



Losing it it will feel more like an unjust punishment than your fault as a player.



I certainly would be pissed off for dieing in the crystal-phase when no one can tell me what I did wrong (when there's no chance to do anything other than what I did).

I'd be more in favour of this:



When you put the crystal down; the doors go lock of that room and you'll have to kill whatever enemy that's gotten inside there with you.

Heroes not in the room when the crystal is placed are left behind. When all enemies in room are dead and the crystal is placed then we should see some kind of elevator sequence or maybe the whole room acting as a elevator to the next level.

And then the first room of the next level is the exit room of the previous level.

It would require some strategic planning, sure. Powering and fortifying the crystal room and possible surrounding rooms should become important on later levels.

That would make industry more important as a resource, as you'd need it for building defenses for the crystal.

It would make dust less easy to just hoard first and buy merchants goodless second, since you'd need the dust for actually powering the exit room and surroundings for defenses.

Yes, it would rebalance the game focus, making the end lots more important. And it would kill the "just be fast" strategy, mostly. But that's the aim.

Under the idea I suggested



If the enemies are faster than the crystal, but only slightly, then any defense in the room behind the crystal (if still powered), or PCs that are defending there will be able to keep the enemies from rushing forward to maul the crystal carrier. By slightly I mean if Crystal has Speed = 13, then Enemies move at 15 or greater. Empty rooms (no power and no PCs) increase their speed by x2 or x3 so they can catch up. Give the room behind the Crystal some residual 'vision' so that the speed boost doesn't apply there, if no one defends then enemies will catch up, but gradually, not jump right into the room.



Assuming your maze is such that there are limited spawn areas until power starts to fail you'll be able to get some lead, and auto-defense and/or PCs will be able to hold off the enemies long enough for the crystal to make it's way forward.



It will remove the "be fast" strategy, but will also encourage greater diversity in defense. Rather than a single kill zone, you'll need some degree of defense all along the route.



Stronger PCs or stronger room defenses will both lead to more survival. Perhaps provide some odds that enemies will drop items as well as dust, so that you can get gear in ways other than simply merchants or door opening luck.



During this portion set the targeting priority for monsters: Active Defense (PC or Turret) -> non-combating PCs. Alien weakening turrets are active defense, PC improving turrets should be targeted by some species, but not others (A new breed that prioritizes them when PCs are in the room). Retain the Crystal priority targeting for enemies that already do so. Defense then serves a purpose in slowing down enemies (rather than having them ignore it and march through) as long as the rooms are powered. Without room defenses the PCs will have less odds of survival/defense, without PCs the turrets will only serve to delay the enemies.