- The
UI layout is broken at 1680x1050, some elements exceed the horizontal boundaries left and right, I've identified the following: Rat Tower splash at boot is off-centre, inventory description panel cuts off to the left, "Press Esc to skip" on intro and "Quit to desktop" at the end of the demo both cut off to the right. Screenshots below.
- With regard to
the save system, I've made no bones about how much I hate save limitations and respawn systems. In this demo's case it's not even a source of tension, because instead of savescumming I found I could just spawnscum - it has the minor inconvenience of moving around to pick up your XP, but you lose nothing if you want to "thin the herd" by killing enemies one by one, it's even less challenging than a regular Quickload approach. This doesn't have to affect design, but simply offering an optional, non-default at-will save system would make a huge difference.
-
Melee combat balance will need some attention - right now, with Vitality 9, the dagger trivialises all encounters because you can keep slashing and stunlocking enemies faster than your stamina will deplete. After I got the dagger, the only danger I found was facing two enemy archers. Obviously, one option is to rebalance stamina consumption, but more generally you'll want to either remove stagger effects from smaller weapons and/or develop the AI to be able to block effectively.
-
Art direction is solid, no gimmicks and it makes good use of the Unreal tech. Objects and the environment look great, but the creatures have a bit of a hopw roweur ne thing going (are the humanoid enemies orcs, are they draugr, it's a mystery) and could use investment in the long run. The only major issue is what others have already pointed out, keys and locks are too big, make you feel like you're Shylo-sized.
-
Level design was delightful, I liked that there were all these secrets to be found and how areas connected to one another, but it would be nice to see some more overhangs, crawlspaces and other alternative ways of traversal, like in Thief and Deus Ex, even though it would only be to get a better attack vector, seeing as you still wanna kill enemies for XP.
- The lack of an
automap did end up with me circling around quite a bit after I'd cleared most of the enemies, I'd find a key and then randomly try doors I couldn't get through. I think an accessible middleground would be to label the doors that need special keys.
- Being able to look around while on
ladders would be very useful.
- Turning up the
volume on enemy footsteps would better facilitate stealth gameplay, Thief-style.
-
View bob on movement wasn't as bad as I expected from the preview videos, didn't turn my stomach, but it's worth including a toggle to turn it off, the strafing tilt is particularly trippy.
- Increase the
mass on chandeliers, I keep knocking them over at the lightest bump.
- In the
keys configuration page, mouse inputs didn't fit in the slots, you could expand the panel with a scrollbar to make elements larger and also contract some input names (e.g. Middle Mouse Button to MMB or Mouse Wheel Up to Scroll Up).
-
Minor bug with the looting interface, some containers, like closets, close with Tab per the tooltip, while others only close with Esc (e.g sacks, chests). Also, the Middle Mouse Button tooltip overruns its UI button here too.
- The
instinct effect with the red corners on-screen is a little confusing at first, I wasn't sure whether it was telling me there was a secret door there (I knew there was, but I still haven't figured out how to open it) or if I was taking a status effect penalty. Maybe go to a blue/white graphic.
- When
holding objects, they should be a little farther away from the player. For example, if you pick up a bottle from a table, you can't actually put it back onto the table. This interferes with stacking boxes a bit too. On that note, it would be nice if we could mantle stacked objects instead of having to jump onto them, but it's not worth spending too much development effort on it.
- For the full release, some options for
UI fade and scaling would be a nice touch.
- Spotted two
typos/grammatical errors in the dialogue with Shylo: should be "please spare my
LIFE" and "if I
WERE you." The letters I only read diagonally, but didn't pick up on anything at first glance, they were flowing fine.
- Speaking of Shylo, I also might've rushed him if I hadn't already been aware of the white rat from this thread. Setting up a force greeting might help, but only for melee characters, anyone working ranged will still gank 'im. In that respect, a better solution might be to implement
colour coding for the crosshairs, like red for enemies, green for friendlies.
