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Welll, I might do an IAP thing when/if it hits Kong or Steam but that's a big if and wayyyy down the road. For now I just wanna see if some goons think its worth a drat. (Was about to link the file but then power went out due to a storm. May be a while for the link.)
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Aug 12, 2017 02:14
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something posted:Welll, I might do an IAP thing when/if it hits Kong or Steam but that's a big if and wayyyy down the road. For now I just wanna see if some goons think its worth a drat. POST THE loving LINK
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Aug 12, 2017 02:15
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something posted:Welll, I might do an IAP thing when/if it hits Kong or Steam but that's a big if and wayyyy down the road. For now I just wanna see if some goons think its worth a drat. 
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Aug 12, 2017 02:18
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Alright, here goes: https://ufile.io/wea1i (This link should work for like 30 days?) Just unzip the contents into some folder of your choice. A couple things to mention to cover my rear end: 1) Super early build, so expect to see actual duct tape holding it together 2) I was told people like their idle games to have story, so I just pushed out some cringy piss-take to the idle genre. I actively encourage you to make fun of the writing! That's about it. The game plays very similarly to Idling to Rule the Gods and Anti Idle mushed into some FrankenIdle game. edit: If you got any questions about what the gently caress to do, I can answer as best I can. something fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 02:19
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something posted:Alright, here goes: I am enjoying the stupid lock levels
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Aug 12, 2017 04:19
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The save and load buttons seem to do nothing.
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Aug 12, 2017 04:34
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something posted:Alright, here goes: Some initial thoughts - you don't have to respond to these: Energy as a concept replacing the shadow clones is a little unintuitive, the word energy generally implies something you spend and lose. I don't know what would be better, Focus maybe? Can the energy bar stop once I'm capped at 200 (or more after rebirths I guess)? Maybe this gets used for a mechanic later. It would be nice to have a 'default' home screen that I can X-out back to, after looking at Spend XP or whatever. I keep wanting to close windows after I open them up, and my cursor shoots up to close the entire program out of habit. Edit: Wow, there is nothing to do while I wait for my attack/defense for the first boss. Either make it happen faster, or add some other stuff to futz with. I think successful clicker/idlers get you hooked with a bunch of progression up front before it slows Devor fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 04:34
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Sindai posted:The save and load buttons seem to do nothing. Right, they're more meant for the (future) WebGL versions, where they open a file dialog to save/load. For standalone, it goes off your system clipboard. Quicksave and quickload will do you just fine for this. Devor posted:Some initial thoughts - you don't have to respond to these: 1)Nothing is really set in stone, so any idea for better names for stuff, I'm open to hearing. 2)Even after capped, the energy it would generate is counting to your new cap. So it's already a mechanic I guess. 3) So like a back button within the "Spend EXP" menu to head off to one of the features? Definitely doable. 4) Welp  I just lowered the amount of stats you got from training cause I had reports that it was too fast. Think I'll revert that change if it's no good.
something fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 04:36
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something posted:Alright, here goes: So it's an Idling to Rule the Gods clone with a slightly more comprehensible UI? I think one thing you could do is improve the new player experience, although admittedly almost every idle game I've played falls flat on its face in this regard. You're halfway there with a tutorial and locking most of the features, but you kind of just throw a lot of very-obvious information at the player and then leave out the actual not-obvious mechanics like how training attack and stuff works. Try using missions/quests or a forced walkthrough to explain this because honestly I played ItRtG for a while and I still have trouble understanding this kind of thing sometimes. ItRtG is already a really unintuitive and bizarre idle game so if you can make a clone of it that's much simpler to understand I think you'd have something there. EDIT: A minor thing but there's a big-rear end SPEND EXP button that glows gold but I can't even see how much EXP I have before I click on it. It should probably also be locked before I have any. No need to introduce a Rebirth mechanic either well before the player can ever do it. Pretend this is the first time someone's ever played a game like this and work your new player experience around it. Poultron fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 04:44
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Devor posted:Edit: Wow, there is nothing to do while I wait for my attack/defense for the first boss. Either make it happen faster, or add some other stuff to futz with. I think successful clicker/idlers get you hooked with a bunch of progression up front before it slows mega agreed
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Aug 12, 2017 04:44
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Poultron posted:So it's an Idling to Rule the Gods clone with a slightly more comprehensible UI? So, explain more about how to assign energy using the buttons and such? Would you say the actual boss fight mechanics needs any explicit instruction?
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Aug 12, 2017 04:46
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something posted:So, explain more about how to assign energy using the buttons and such? Would you say the actual boss fight mechanics needs any explicit instruction? Explain how it works and why it works that way, yeah. Since I've played ITRTG I know you have to assign shadow clones (energy isn't intuitive as already mentioned) but it doesn't really make any sense compared to, say, a traditional RPG. The boss fight mechanic is fine although it's not incredibly obvious to a new player that you're instantly failing when you click "fight" early on. Maybe make some kind of message for it or something; again, quests/missions early on can REALLY help guide players through this stuff. Right now there's also literally nothing interesting at all to do right away. I feel like I'm gonna be waiting a hundred years for this stuff to get to a level where I can beat a mouse. EDIT: I don't know if this is a bug but dragging the scroll bar is inverted (e.g. on the stats page).
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Aug 12, 2017 04:50
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Echoing that the first boss/new mechanic should definitely be faster.
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Aug 12, 2017 04:55
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Well, as for the "nothing to do right away" issue: The first feature unlocks at the fourth boss. Perhaps I could bring it down to after the first boss or, just right away? That's the sort-of Battle Arena equivalent, and intending to be a huge pillar of the gameplay. I think I've been spending too much time in the ITRTG chat, and getting a sort of insular set of opinions on how the game plays from people who are fans of this genre. Really needed a netural perspective on where my game falls flat vs 
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Aug 12, 2017 04:58
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Both opinions are important. Hardcore fans of the genre will stick around and (while I know most people don't like to hear this) spend money on your game, and thusly it's important to have long-tail mechanics to keep them interested. However, even the most dedicated incremental players won't play a game that takes 200 years to get interesting or go anywhere. Most of them will have forgotten how any particular game started; for example, I can barely recall Realm Grinder's "early days" compared to what I have going now. There's a very good reason most successful games like this hold your hand for a while - it's confusing otherwise. This is personal experience but I feel like it probably applies to most people. When you start an incremental game the first time, whether it's largely an active or passive kind of game, you want to be active and explore the game. Even if it's as simple as clicking a button (obviously I don't suggest you add a clicking mechanic, I think everyone here rightfully hates them), it engages you and gives you something to do. Since you listed Anti-Idle as an inspiration, go back and check the new player experience on that game. It's really quite good. It doesn't use missions explicitly as tutorials, or at least not in the same way modern designers do, but it absolutely has a ton of ways to guide the player to all the various features.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:06
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I played Anti idle for a good year and change many years ago, so I do remember, it had a fantastic way to guide you through what would have been utter chaos without the tutorial. I'm going to add a section in the tutorial to explain exactly what the +, -, and Cap buttons do, as well as have it switch automatically to the boss tab, and break down each button from there. The adventure feature (that first feature you currently unlock after boss 4) as I said, is basically a battle arena lite, where you can have a semi real-time fight with random enemies, with about 12 moves to use, and a loot system. Would that be the kind of content to give right away to have *something* to do? This input is really useful. Can't stress that enough.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:11
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I'll say that the thought of literally just watching bars go up for 4 bosses in a row, even if it was a lot faster, sounds really awful and boring. One boss is more than enough. I actually really like Anti-Idle's design (for the most part) so I'll use it as an example again. Anti-Idle has so many different systems, but what's awesome is that they all feed into each other. Everything seems to fill the Progress Bar or give you some coins or some experience or whatever whatever. So it's a good idea to have the Bosses be kind of the "main goal" of the game and have all the features in pursuit of beating the next boss. Breath of the Wild is a little bit like this; even though there's all this cool stuff to do, it's mostly all in pursuit of making yourself stronger to beat Ganon, right? So your game can be similar to that. Make the initial boss MUCH, MUCH faster to beat, maybe 5 minutes tops. Make it a little mission. Here's how you increase attack; great, now here's how you increase defense; great work, looks like you're ready to defeat that mouse. Now that you've done that, why not try out this mini-RPG while you passively get stronger? EDIT: Frankly I should just design my own idle game but I tried to figure out how to program them and I just got super lost. I really wish I liked programming more, all I can do is design 
Poultron fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 05:19
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Poultron posted:I'll say that the thought of literally just watching bars go up for 4 bosses in a row, even if it was a lot faster, sounds really awful and boring. One boss is more than enough. Sounds great! I also do give a one-time bonus of 20 EXP upon the very first boss kill, in the hopes that it sparks some enjoyment in spending stuff in the EXP shop. It's enough to buy a couple stat points for adventure, or some small gains to the energy bar fill speed. I'll also explain the mechanic for EXP gain in total, for critique. 20 exp for first ever boss kill. Floor( boss #/10) exp one time only for the first 20 bosses. Then Floor (boss # - 20 /10) EXP, every rebirth. for bosses 20 and on. So bosses 2-10 would be 1 EXP one time only, bosses 11-20 2 exp one time only. 21-30 1 exp repeatable, boss 31-40 2 exp repeatable, etc. It should make for a vaguely quadratic function of exp versus how high of a boss you take down.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:25
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It's not possible to critique that system without knowing how long it takes to kill bosses. It sounds low but I have no idea.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:38
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Trying this, I should not be hands off my keyboard after 200 seconds (when Energy is maximized) and then waiting another ~23 minutes to be able to scratch the first boss. And I'm saying scratch because its attack is stronger than its defense so fighting now means you'll eventually lose your HP before they fall. Actually being able to defeat the boss took another 8 minutes, or more than a half hour all told from starting this up. I get the conceit of it is you're still progressing even if your current iteration isn't (lowering caps on what's being trained, energy maximum, etc.) but I have to agree with Poultron there needs to be more things to fiddle with at this early stage. Even Idling to Rule the Gods had training requirements kick in every 500*n levels so at least it was revealing new (though not very interesting) information. Also it feels like the bosses stats are being calculated differently than my own because it had comparably less HP regen for the same Defense value. This can make it difficult to judge when a boss is safe to fight aside from checking in every so often. EDIT: About 43 minutes to unlock the next training for both Attack and Defense. You might want to do some calculations for lengths of time and balance around that since you know how long the base rates are instead of my own rough estimates. On the plus side, the next tier is worth switching to! Sage Grimm fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 05:55
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The first 20 EXP you get also doesn't seem to be immediately Cool or Useful. I especially despise "bulk discounts" in games like this as I feel like I'm a total nimrod if I don't just save up, which is boring. I especially resent being given half the EXP required to get a huge boost to my Energy even though that would be a really cool, immediate power increase. Like it's taunting you. I think the idea is solid but your numbers overall are just wacky as hell across the board.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:18
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Poultron posted:The first 20 EXP you get also doesn't seem to be immediately Cool or Useful. I especially despise "bulk discounts" in games like this as I feel like I'm a total nimrod if I don't just save up, which is boring. I especially resent being given half the EXP required to get a huge boost to my Energy even though that would be a really cool, immediate power increase. Like it's taunting you. I think the idea is solid but your numbers overall are just wacky as hell across the board. Yeah, especially with no way to refund purchases, the presence of bulk discounts just encourages hoarding, which is lousy.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:23
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Right. I think i'll just in general head back to my workshop and rethink basically everything. Thanks for the feedback. Are you guys open to retrying after I unfuck the game balance? something fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 06:26
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The core ideas all seem to be okay, insomuch as it's fairly easy to pick up and get started. The issue is that there's basically a big giant wall in front of you for any early progress, and as you said, there's four of those walls before anything actually new happens. Are you meant to rebirth any before the first boss, or before the first new game mechanic shows up? If so, that might be worth pointing out. I know the game says "when progress gets slow", but progress is basically non-existent from the word go. something posted:Are you guys open to retrying after I unfuck the game balance? Oh def.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:30
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Great  It IS a shame it isnt working out from the start because i do have a fair bit of content i have/will have. But if people x out the game from boredom before getting to see it it's pretty much failed completely.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:35
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Sure, I won't say no for another go. loving up frequently is how you iterate to something cooler.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:36
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This is my first time trying anything this ambitious, no clue how long these kind of games take to get to an enjoyable experience. What you see is about 1.5 months of work. Also, how is the actual UI, looks-wise? Not an artist at all so i went with a sort a minimalist approach.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:39
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It's serviceable, which is good enough (see also: pre-overhaul Realm Grinder). I will agree with the "there needs to be a home screen of sorts" observation, though. E: Oh, I'd explain what the hell the "Cap" button does on the Training screens. There's not even a mouseover tooltip, so it's very  . Why is it precisely 192 energy applied?vvv That's also a very good point. Kyrosiris fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 06:44
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please make it so i don't have to mouse-over to see the boss stats
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Aug 12, 2017 06:45
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Definitely can move the boss stats on to the menu itself. I've already changed the tutorial to explain the cap button but basically: the game internally runs at 50 ticks/s. Max speed is 1 bar fill per tick. Cap attempts to set the energy to hit that speed. Failing that it tries the equivalent of 1 bar fill per 2 ticks. Then 1/3 ticks etc. So 192 energy gets you some fraction like that. Adding 200 would have that 8 energy not actually helping you get more bar fills/s.
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Aug 12, 2017 06:51
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Yeah things definitely need to be rebalanced because at it is there's nothing to do right now in the early game. I'll for sure give it a shot once rebalancing happens because i have a weakness for watching numbers go up
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Aug 12, 2017 07:51
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I've unlocked adventure but can't seem to make any progress in it? The tooltips on the inventory screen imply you need to kill a boss to get gear, but killing a boss without any gear seems impossible.
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Aug 12, 2017 08:27
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something posted:Right. I think i'll just in general head back to my workshop and rethink basically everything. Thanks for the feedback. Are you collecting gameplay stats and metrics? I know shs was doing that with his game to get an idea on how people progressed. I want to say you have a good game here that needs some balance work. The UI is slick, it's got some compelling mechanics, but it needs work. You could have waited and worked a lot longer before testing and then you'd have to do even more balance work, this is a great time to take a second pass at it. My #1 suggestion is that you need some stuff to fill the early game up to the first boss. How about this. Let me know if it makes sense. Have some special offer EXP purchases that you can buy once each in order. Maybe costing, 1,2,3 and 3 EXP, and that increase your energy speed by .1, .2, .3 and .4 accordingly. Add four mini-bosses that similarly award 1 2 3 and 4 EXP. Remove 10 from the EXP for the first real boss. This ends up being the same price as the +1 energy for 9 EXP, and you've smoothed out the early progression. Similarly, when you think it's an appropriate level for people to consider the other purchases, you can guide them with special one time purchases that become available at certain progression milestones.
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Aug 12, 2017 08:41
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I actually love one-time purchases as a player, so... I like that idea.
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Aug 12, 2017 08:51
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Sindai posted:I've unlocked adventure but can't seem to make any progress in it? The tooltips on the inventory screen imply you need to kill a boss to get gear, but killing a boss without any gear seems impossible. I got a random drop that gave +1 defense to a piece of gear from a non-boss fight, but yeah, it seems very difficult, even with careful block/defense buff use.
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Aug 12, 2017 09:38
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Do people really care about story in their idle games? I'm okay with the story being "you want to make more money". Idling to Rule the Gods is a great example of going overboard with the story (at least it's just an optional extra hidden in a menu, but still). E: Haha you want us to beat a boss that has 1.3 million attack with 200 energy and it taking 5k levels to unlock the next level of training? What the hell, man. GrossMurpel fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 11:47
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GrossMurpel posted:Do people really care about story in their idle games? I'm okay with the story being "you want to make more money". Idling to Rule the Gods is a great example of going overboard with the story (at least it's just an optional extra hidden in a menu, but still). For me I like there to be something beyond numbers getting big. That's why I can't get into Realm Grinder because there's no reason to restart except the numbers get bigger faster. Mine Defense is probably my favorite because it actually changed things numerous times and added content rather than a reset to go faster system.
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Aug 12, 2017 12:01
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something posted:Definitely can move the boss stats on to the menu itself. I've already changed the tutorial to explain the cap button but basically: the game internally runs at 50 ticks/s. Max speed is 1 bar fill per tick. Cap attempts to set the energy to hit that speed. Failing that it tries the equivalent of 1 bar fill per 2 ticks. Then 1/3 ticks etc. So 192 energy gets you some fraction like that. Adding 200 would have that 8 energy not actually helping you get more bar fills/s. After idling overnight it's not as bad, the fact that you're constantly gaining energy for a long time (long enough to kill Boss 1-4) is nice The Rebirth Time Factor going down so much after a long run, negatively affecting attack/defense power is kind of a bummer. I think ITRTG just did a penalty if you were below a certain time? Or maybe this mechanic is just purely carried over, not sure. Maybe I just need to kill more bosses Edit: The basics of the battleground system are there, but it really needs some more methods of advancement. Again, having the first boss check telling you to gently caress off for a long time while you train your attack/defense skills some more isn't very fun. Spending gold on something right away would be nice, I don't see a use for it yet Devor fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 12:03
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Devor posted:After idling overnight it's not as bad, the fact that you're constantly gaining energy for a long time (long enough to kill Boss 1-4) is nice Pretty sure ITRTG had no time factor at all, the time you needed to get back up to your rebirth multiplier came from having to do the training all over again. But even when you went away for a long time and got a huge multiplier offline, you'd usually get it back quite fast after resetting if you just killed one or two more bosses.
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Aug 12, 2017 12:07
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In NGU, are there any other things you can unlock after adventure/inventory, or are those buttons placeholders? I'm at the 10th boss and I'd love to see more.
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Aug 12, 2017 13:40
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