KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[santino27]

Timeslip This looks great, but just fyi, there are some typos/grammatical errors in both the written note and the infodump on the mafia which Taka-Haradin puolipeikko posted

Thanks for letting me know. Have a bad habit of editing after the text has been pasted from the word processor. Will run through it again. If you want to let me know what's wrong, please do

No problem.

In the handwritten journal note:
* "...beating the life out of an alcoholic..."
* "doesn't bring all it home" should probably be "doesn't bring it all home"

In the mafia text:

* "Reiker's gangs: blackmail, human trafficing, 'insurance' rackets, financial crime, smuggling, organized theft, and assassination, to name a few." -- Nothing egregious about this sentence, but I think adding the "and" makes it flow better with the ending dependent clause "to name a few"
* "To support these activities, they field enforcers as strong arms, hit men, and made men as troop leaders". Are they fielding enforcers as strong arms and hit men, or are they fielding enforcers as strong arms and hit men/made men as troop leaders? This sentence doesn't make it clear.
* "More numerous than the survivalists, the Mafia's strengths is their versatility…" There are two problems here... First, the sentence construction is a bit weird and makes it seem like you're saying the mafia's strengths are more numerous than the survivalists', where I think you're trying to say the Mafia itself has more people than the survivalists? Secondly, 'strengths' is plural, but you only list one strength and (correctly) use the singular form of 'to be': is. I'd change strengths to strength, and maybe look at tweaking the whole sentence to something like "With greater numbers than the survivalists, the Mafia's strength lies in their versatility..." Or, given that you've already mentioned both the survivalists and cultists in the previous paragraph, you could just skip the numbers comparison and go straight into the mafia's strength and weakness. ("The Mafia's strength is their...")

I quite like the voice you have going in the handwritten journal note.

Hope that's helpful. Some of it is a bit pedantic, admittedly, and I think you can get away with a lot more in the journal entries, because that's a person writing in their own voice. The info screens, on the other hand, should be as clear and coherent as possible.

 

[Timeslip]

Thanks, I'll patch them up.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

When baseball bats got turned into 4 AP weapons?

 

[Timeslip]

When baseball bats got turned into 4 AP weapons?

Think it was V28. Reinforced baseball bat and Sledge are still 5 AP. Thing about 5AP attacks is that 10AP is really hard to get, needs fleetness of around 12 + AP perk. For a melee character, this will make it really hard to get Destroyer + Behemoth.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

When baseball bats got turned into 4 AP weapons?

Think it was V28. Reinforced baseball bat and Sledge are still 5 AP. Thing about 5AP attacks is that 10AP is really hard to get, needs fleetness of around 12 + AP perk. For a melee character, this will make it really hard to get Destroyer + Behemoth.

Yet the game offers 4 AP blunt weapons in the form of hammers and batons.
Basic baseball bat as it is now falls somewhere in between those 2 in effectiveness, besides this change also affects enemy troops.
In prior versions bat wielders were somewhat high priority early game threat (don't want them to crit); now they are just another blunt weapon users.

 

[Timeslip]

Yet the game offers 4 AP blunt weapons in the form of hammers and batons.
Basic baseball bat as it is now falls somewhere in between those 2 in effectiveness, besides this change also affects enemy troops.
In prior versions bat wielders were somewhat high priority early game threat (don't want them to crit); now they are just another blunt weapon users.

I see what you mean. It's a + on one side and a - on the other. They still do more damage than hammers and I never used baseball bats at 5ap, too risky. Will keep your suggestion in mind.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/545600/announcements/detail/1683672858906815645

Crafting Issue
5 SEPTEMBER - TIMESLIP
Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know there is an issue with crafting in the current build. The issue occurs when you try to create more than one non stackable item, (armour, utility items) in a single crafting session. Stackable items, such as ammo, trauma kits, grenades are not affected by this issue.

This will be fixed in the next update, so for now, you can avoid the issue by creating non stackable items one at a time.

 

[Strange Fellow]

So I'm fiddling around with this one for a bit, though I'll probably wait until release to start playing seriously. The character system seems good and complex, with checks all over the place. I also like the writing and voice acting in the opening cutscene and the doctor and Cuda's introductions, which are delightfully cheesy. Other things seem rougher, but I've seen enough for now to give it the benefit of the doubt . I stopped just after clicking the map icon at the home base screen, which threw me into a combat encounter. Might want to add a confirmation window there, at least for the first time the player clicks on it. And the combat is slooooooooow. The lack of a speed slider will kill this, mark my words -- especially here on the Codex.

FYI Timeslip, there's a pretty egregious spelling error in the first tooltip at the character generation screen: "[...] or choose a Close Combat or Firearms build by click the buttons on the top centre, then the arrow button to proceed." "Click" should be "clicking," obviously.
Honestly, that whole sentence is a bit awkward IMO. I'd go with something along the lines of: "[...] by clicking the buttons at the top (of the screen). When you have finished creating your character, click the arrow button to proceed." That might be too long, though. The tooltips also inconsistenly refer to the buttons as being "in" and "on" the top centre. There are a few inconsistencies and syntax/typing errors in the skill and stat descriptions as well.

This is some hardcore nitpicking, but since these are some of the first lines of text a new player will read, I think it's worth it to get them just right. I'd also recommend letting the player hold down the mouse button to quickly increase/decrease stat and skill points.
You'll forgive me if you're already aware of these things.
Fake edit: You need to go over the tooltips in general. There are a lot of mistakes and awkward phrasings.

 

[Timeslip]

Hey Strange Fellow. Appreciate the feedback. Can I ask which parts of combat you think are slowing things down most? Movement, animation, enemy computing turn? Not much I can do about this now, but will keep it in mind for the future.

Will have a look at the spelling error and tutorials now!

 

[Strange Fellow]

Can I ask which parts of combat you think are slowing things down most? Movement, animation, enemy computing turn?

Yes, movement and yes, animations. The split-second delay between performing an action and anything happening on screen, and the characters turning to face the direction in which things are happening, as well as the animation for getting hit. It's everything and nothing in particular, to be quite honest. I'm surprised you didn't develop with a speed slider in mind, as one of the most common complaints you hear about almost every single tactical game is that turns take too long. It's not awful right now, but I have a high tolerance for this sort of stuff, judging by my own reaction to similar complaints about other games. However, when your playtime starts approaching the triple digits you've already seen the animations a million times, and you just want to get on with it. As it is, the speed of combat will turn a lot of people off.
PS: I just played through the encounter with Arcadi, and one of the enemies spent both her turns edging towards Sam, one square per turn, and doing nothing else. I hope this sort of behaviour isn't too common. In fact, so far I haven't had a single enemy do anything but rush at my characters mindlessly. Maybe I've gotten lucky, but in four combat encounters I've only had one enemy actually attack one of my characters.

 

[Timeslip]

Can I ask which parts of combat you think are slowing things down most? Movement, animation, enemy computing turn?

PS: I just played through the encounter with Arcadi, and one of the enemies spent both her turns edging towards Sam, one square per turn, and doing nothing else. I hope this sort of behaviour isn't too common. In fact, so far I haven't had a single enemy do anything but rush at my characters mindlessly. Maybe I've gotten lucky, but in four combat encounters I've only had one enemy actually attack one of my characters.

The enemies in the first few encounters have reduced stats, to allow the player a few mistakes. Once you've met Arcadi, the game proper starts. Only exception is Ray Case's encounter, which puts you up against a higher tier enemy.

 

[agris]

I'm surprised you didn't develop with a speed slider in mind, as one of the most common complaints you hear about almost every single tactical game is that turns take too long.

 

[Timeslip]

I'm surprised you didn't develop with a speed slider in mind, as one of the most common complaints you hear about almost every single tactical game is that turns take too long.

I'd agree that adding more options is generally good, and that adding options to speed up the game will improve it for some players. However, if you ask 100 players what they felt the most essential improvement would be, you would get 50 different answers. I've acted on a fair bit of player feedback over the years, but realistically, not every suggestion can be pursued(especially a few weeks from launch), if the intention is to ever finish a game.

 

[Timeslip]

Hi all. Looking for feedback on the first draft of a release trailer. Still some detail work to do, but want to make sure the basic structure is solid first. Interested in all feedback, bad or good, but there are a couple of areas of special interest.

1: Does the the trailer do a good job of getting what the game's about across?
2: Would it encourage you to buy the game?
3: Is it hard to follow what's happening in certain scenes (perhaps because they are too fast) or do you lose interest at certain points in the trailer, or feel scenes are unnecessarily long?

 

[Nutria]

1: Yes
2: Yes
3: Maybe you should dwell on the character screen for a couple seconds longer so viewers have a chance to read what some of the skills are? That's the only criticism I can come up with.

 

[Roqua]

1: Does the the trailer do a good job of getting what the game's about across?
2: Would it encourage you to buy the game?
3: Is it hard to follow what's happening in certain scenes (perhaps because they are too fast) or do you lose interest at certain points in the trailer, or feel scenes are unnecessarily long?

Fantastically done. I hate when trailers don't show mechanics or rpg elements. My only input is that it didn't really show much of the city map/mission select screen but had a lot of combat (more so than is necessary to get the gist of it, but the right amount maybe to show the different aspects?). Maybe have the dialogue stuff earlier to entice the storyclowns? The chardev stuff was perfect to entice people like me. I may have missed it if it was in but showing crafting may pull in some people and kids in? I have a hard time paying attention to things so I could have been thinking of boobs if the video showed more than just a quick glimpse of crafting and the map grid screen.

 

[Lyre Mors]

This shit looks badass as fuck. Good job man.

1. Absolutely
2. Yes, I'm sold
3. Didn't lose any interest during the trailer

The only real problem I can see is some of the UI elements are a little too bright and flashy, and don't really seem to fit the rest of the aesthetic. Things like the AP counters, the character highlight circle, the enemy highlight circle, etc. Also the floating numbers could probably be a little smaller in general. Really looking forward to this, man! You have clearly put a lot of love into this.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Trailer's good men. Kinda miss that aria from the KS though

 

[Ivan]

Great trailer. I'm sold.

I would only add a voiced line to introduce the combat possibilities

 

[lightbane]

Soo, how long until the endgame is done? Asking for a friend.

 

[Timeslip]

3: Maybe you should dwell on the character screen for a couple seconds longer so viewers have a chance to read what some of the skills are? That's the only criticism I can come up with.

Will have a look at that, cheers Nutria

 

[Timeslip]

Fantastically done. I hate when trailers don't show mechanics or rpg elements. My only input is that it didn't really show much of the city map/mission select screen but had a lot of combat (more so than is necessary to get the gist of it, but the right amount maybe to show the different aspects?). Maybe have the dialogue stuff earlier to entice the storyclowns? The chardev stuff was perfect to entice people like me. I may have missed it if it was in but showing crafting may pull in some people and kids in? I have a hard time paying attention to things so I could have been thinking of boobs if the video showed more than just a quick glimpse of crafting and the map grid screen.

Fair points on both map and moving dialogue further up. The dialogue started closer to end, but moved some of it up. The crafting is in there, so yeah, at least you were having fun

 

[Timeslip]

This shit looks badass as fuck. Good job man.

1. Absolutely
2. Yes, I'm sold
3. Didn't lose any interest during the trailer

The only real problem I can see is some of the UI elements are a little too bright and flashy, and don't really seem to fit the rest of the aesthetic. Things like the AP counters, the character highlight circle, the enemy highlight circle, etc. Also the floating numbers could probably be a little smaller in general. Really looking forward to this, man! You have clearly put a lot of love into this.

Yeah, I probably need to get the artist to look at them. Unlikely can do it before release and get it into trailer in time (working on final cutscene illustrations at present). Appreciate the encouragement, Vigilantes has pretty much consumed the last 4 years of my life. It's mostly been fun.

 

[Timeslip]

Trailer's good men. Kinda miss that aria from the KS though

Me too. It was a lot of hassle getting it cleared on youtube, and after doing some reading, it appears that the person who was licensing has allegations of licensing copyrighted music. Their account was then terminated. Have become wary of licensing classical/opera music since - there was some I wanted to add, but couldn't confirm it was legit.

 

[Timeslip]

Great trailer. I'm sold.

I would only add a voiced line to introduce the combat possibilities

Thanks. Will have a chat with voice actor about it.