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Incline X Caeli - a Puzzle/Arcade/Visual Novel Amalgam - Early Access Launched

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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So it's january 30th and we're not as close to the greenlight demo as we would like to. Well, we have just 1 coder and he's plagued by various life issues so, while his work is really fast & efficient, that's only when he's actually able to work. Out of past three weeks, two were consumed by IRL crap so yeah. At least that means that, two week tops, but we'll be there.

And this gives me plenty of time to work on the balance. Not the codex's most favorite word recently, but my take on balance is pretty different, I guess. I guess I'll take the long way to explain that.

Caelum is meant to be both very difficult and rather easy at the same time. It is, what I would like to call it, a knowledge-based game. Knowledge of a game's system, that is. The enemies are pretty strong, their damage dealing capability is high and so, first of your builds are bound to get blasted to shreds. In my own case, I, despite being the game's designer, spent an hour and a half before actually killing one wave successfully. And that wasn't the toughest wave, mind you. Of course, the balance was raw then, but you get the point.

However, different enemy wave combinations & setups have different weaknesses & blind spots. And, by utilizing the tools that the game offers to you in a proper manner, you can overcome them more or less easily. Not effortlessly as the game can punish even one mistake quite harshly (I like it that way), but play your cards right and you won't have to suffer that much.

Another thing - and I guess it can be rather important for the Codex - is that our game is not really twitch-based. You have to dodge incoming projectiles, of course, but flawless dodging is hardly required and not that possible. There are some twitch-based rewards (Genesis Power i.e. cannon can be quite skill-intensive; Rosary Power rewards good distribution of its shots; many guns can hit two enemies at once if you position them rather precisely; Messiah Throne i.e. ship is quite survivable if you have nimble fingers) but the majority of it are really not about being that quick. You can easily build around taking lots of shots. I've even borrowed the Pkunk ship mechanic for one of the Acts (traits) - you have a chance to be instantly reborn with full hp & energy when you die. So you can absolutely play in the Tony Montana "I'm taking your bullets" style.

So, returning to the balance. The game is knowledge based. Since you can adjust your ship on a constant basis, you can adapt to any problem. But, of course, initially you don't know how. And, to prevent you from using the one and the same combo over and over - there are some incredibly powerful ones and I'm not going to nerf them because doing so would kill the pleasure of learning the system - we're going to implement the Chaos mode further on (not in the demo).

The game has 12 guns, 5 ships, 5 shields, 10 traits. May not look like much, but as they're all pretty decent & unique (and all of the guns have rather strongly varying alt-modes so it's more like 24 guns), the amount of combinations is rather vast. I've been doing a map of builds this week and I've found 32 main archetypes, some of which had sub-builds, so that totaled in 42 builds total. And that's with the room for slight adjustments in many of the builds.

But, to nudge the player to actually discover that, the Chaos mode (it will be on by default but it will be optional) will give access only to the 4 guns, 2 ships, 2 shield and 3 traits at any given level. Chosen randomly and changing with each level. So, even if you find that mega-powered combo, it's not like you'll be able to use it continuously. You'll have to adapt each time. Which is probably fun (at least I'm having fun with my game, lol, because there are lots of interactions I wasn't actually planning for and that's pretty cool). So the game will keep asking you new questions and you'll have to invent fresh answers (at least to a certain point - I'm not promising endless playtime here, but hey, I hope that each build will take at least 20 mins to discover and that's already not that horrible of a length).

And so, since this system destroys the need for the guns to be that close to each other and prevents degeneracy, I'm free to focus on making them as different from each other as possible. This is different for me to describe with words as I'm going more on the feelings here, but I've tinkered with each piece of equipment until it felt "right" to me. There's still better and worse stuff, of course, more used & less used stuff but each thingie has something special going about it that's worth exploring.

I'm not sure how many players will want to explore that deep, but with our shitty graphics it's not like we're gonna attract a lot of the casual crowd so it's probably fine to expect more or less hardcore audience. I'm also not sure if we're too much on the edge of the genres or not (because lots of RPG fans will feel iffy about shmup stuff and vice versa), but the time will tell, I guess.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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Updated the first post, now we have a Greenlight page and a vast demo - it includes pretty much everything but campaign modes, music & battlefield modifier effects. Feel free to check it out.

Also, I've posted a couple of tracks from our OST:



 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
Pretty good. Kinda similar to mine in some ways, but mine is more targeted to reflect the mood.
 

Pipeweed

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Feb 12, 2012
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I had to give up on the demo because the ship creation doesnt provide any info for all those attributes, powers and ships with obscure names.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
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I had to give up on the demo because the ship creation doesnt provide any info for all those attributes, powers and ships with obscure names.

There's a tutorial in the game, man. It has all the info. I know it's a shitty answer, but it's just a beta demo, we haven't done all we want with the GUI yet.

If you wish to, you can check out the builds I've recommended to Andross in the Funbuilding thread.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
but with our shitty graphics

The problem with the graphics isn't that they're shit, it's that you're mixing up two different styles. You have modern looking effects, backgrounds, player ship, etc. Then you have cartoonish pixel art for enemies. It's jarring and IMO you're gonna have to do something about it. Shmups are already a hard sell, and without consistent art the game will come off looking amateurish. I'd recommend finding a 3d modeller to redo the player ship parts. High resolution pixel art requires a considerably more talented artist than you'd need to get a slick looking game by making the enemies 3d.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
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The problem with the graphics isn't that they're shit, it's that you're mixing up two different styles.

You think we're not aware of this? The problem is, we're pretty poor so we really can't hire a good modeller (and the cheap ones will look like trash - tbh, there are very few 3d shmups that look good). And, the way the game is coded, it's easier to write a new project than to switch it into 3d.

Our main (and only) selling feature is a deep and nuanced gameplay (which requires some time getting into, yes). That won't attract the casual crowd, of course, but I thought we're on the Codex.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The problem with the graphics isn't that they're shit, it's that you're mixing up two different styles.

You think we're not aware of this? The problem is, we're pretty poor so we really can't hire a good modeller (and the cheap ones will look like trash - tbh, there are very few 3d shmups that look good). And, the way the game is coded, it's easier to write a new project than to switch it into 3d.

You don't need to switch the whole project to 3d, just model the parts in 3d and take a screenshot. You don't even need a good modeller, the ships are small so it'll look decent even if you just replicate the stuff you have now in 3d. I can understand money concerns as a solo developer who can't even replace his broken PC, it just seems like a shame to put so much work in something only to get bogged down by this. I'd scour the internet a bit for someone willing to do it, it doesn't look like a lot of hard work. Or have someone on your team learn basic modelling. You're gonna need a new artist for whatever project comes afterwards anyway, right?

Our main (and only) selling feature is a deep and nuanced gameplay (which requires some time getting into, yes). That won't attract the casual crowd, of course, but I thought we're on the Codex.

I don't think shmups have enough of an audience that you can afford to be this picky. It's not like you need to compromise on gameplay anyway.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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it just seems like a shame to put so much work in something only to get bogged down by this.

TBH, at the moment I'm not sure if we are getting bogged down by this specifically. I guess we can afford the way of rendered 3d models if the graphics are really the source of our downfall, but we'd want to see more feedback on the gameplay first to see if it is even worth bothering.

And we're really not your traditional shmup. Our gameplay is quite different, it is our own. It's just that I dunno how else to categorize it.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
I'd love to see the lore expanded and truly alien music added. Something along these lines, except closer to alien setting.

Of course, we can't have everything, but ffs, why not. Since your artist decided to fuck you over, maybe you can win by sound and some informative flavor text here and there.
 

4249

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I gave the demo a quick spin and unfortunately I can't say I got much out of it. Felt really rough, but it's an early demo, so I guess it should. Some thoughts:
- Didn't feel like a SHMUP as stated earlier and I can't really see it attracting that crowd.
- The controls felt really janky (Or do the stats/ships affect that?).
- Tried fucking around with the stats without a clue and then trying one of the builds you posted for Andross. Quite a difference. I can see why people who like to fuck around with builds a lot might like this.
- Dunno if it's just me, but the enemy ships look really samey. The general shape seems to be the same across them all, with some minor nuances and some different colors.
- Are all the acts just the same kind of Space Invaders lines of ships coming at you? I didn't see much difference when I tried the different acts (This kind of ties in with the ships all looking the same). I can see the game getting really dull very quickly if that's the case.

I gave you a vote on greenlight though, it certainly felt like something I've not seen before and will probably give it another try when it's in a more polished state.

I had to give up on the demo because the ship creation doesnt provide any info for all those attributes, powers and ships with obscure names.

There's a tutorial in the game, man. It has all the info. I know it's a shitty answer, but it's just a beta demo, we haven't done all we want with the GUI yet.

If you wish to, you can check out the builds I've recommended to Andross in the Funbuilding thread.

The tutorial felt really all over the place. I mean, for example, yes it goes through and describes the thrones, powers and dominions, but doesn't tell me what the hell a throne, power or dominion actually is beforehand. Didn't feel like it had any kind of a logical order and it could use some editing by a native english speaker if at all possible.

I would much prefer the ship creation menu giving me the information (or atleast some of it, maybe being more detailed in a manual of sorts) when I hover or click on the items to be honest.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
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- Didn't feel like a SHMUP as stated earlier and I can't really see it attracting that crowd.

Well, we didn't really tried to attract it. I mean, Space Invaders is sorta shmup, right? But then, it really isn't. I dunno, perhaps the biggest fuckup of this project is its stylization and categorization - if we painted something like tanks it would've been better?

- The controls felt really janky (Or do the stats/ships affect that?).

Logos has intentionally janky controls (and a high reward to compensate that).

- Tried fucking around with the stats without a clue and then trying one of the builds you posted for Andross. Quite a difference. I can see why people who like to fuck around with builds a lot might like this.

It's made pretty much exclusively for such people. Guess they're not that much of a crowd?

- Dunno if it's just me, but the enemy ships look really samey. The general shape seems to be the same across them all, with some minor nuances and some different colors.

That's something between the budget decision & the intentional design choice. The enemiees are constructed from the different sets of hulls & cannons and, since they're supposed to be, like, a faceless fleet, they look that way. Once you play a bit of the game, you get used to it and can discern which does what more or less easily.

- Are all the acts just the same kind of Space Invaders lines of ships coming at you? I didn't see much difference when I tried the different acts (This kind of ties in with the ships all looking the same). I can see the game getting really dull very quickly if that's the case.


No-no-no, acts are not as in "the game act", they are as in "act of god". Acts are traits, pretty much. And in terms of lines of ships - yeah, that's all that there is. But, since there are lots of enemy waves & builds for the player to discover (and the full version will pretty much push the player into discovering them), it should last for 20 hours at least.

The tutorial felt really all over the place. I mean, for example, yes it goes through and describes the thrones, powers and dominions, but doesn't tell me what the hell a throne, power or dominion actually is beforehand. Didn't feel like it had any kind of a logical order and it could use some editing by a native english speaker if at all possible.

I would much prefer the ship creation menu giving me the information (or atleast some of it, maybe being more detailed in a manual of sorts) when I hover or click on the items to be honest.

It will, eventually, but it was a somewhat quickly done demo tutorial. And the random order was done to cut off the memory load - we've kinda hacked it so it's a bit too memory heavy. If it was bigger, it would've been even worse.


I guess our problem is that we've released the public demo a too early and that we have no incentives for the player to invest himself into the game. Because it's a game where you read the tutorial for half an hour, you die for an hour or two after that and, once you've past the fledgling stage, you feel all proud and mighty for finally becoming able to kill something. But no one cares enough to struggle through that period. TBH, our current salvaging plan is to find an artist who is able to work for a part of the total revenue and make this into a fanservise-heavy visual novel with lots of romancing (and, considering that the protagonist of the game is an evil, evil deity there will be lots of mindrape & stuff probably; if we're lucky, some SJW retard will even call out our misoginy publicly). Anime boobs should provide all the emotional engagement we need. But then again, we need to find the artist who's willing to bust his ass for just a perspecitve first and that's not easy.

Thanks for the feedback, btw.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You could post a .txt or something we can use as a reference for all the stats.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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Well, stats are one of the things that are sorta explained in the main menu, but ok, it's actually not that complicated:

Every stat except splendor gives you +1 to each of the described values.

+1 attack gives you +4% to the basic damage dealt. The effect is additive - 10 attack is +40%, not 1.04 in the ninth grade.

1 Structure gives you +7 to the starting structure and +14 to the maximum structure (can be reached by using any of the structure buffs - pleaders, sacraments, penance alternate)

1 Energy gives you +7 to starting & maximum energy.

The basic ship's energy & structure are both 50 starting & maximum.

1 recharge gives you 0.5 energy per second.

1 speed gives you 0.125 of velocity. So 8 speed is 1 extra velocity.

1 armor gives 1% of damage absorbed (the innate ship's bonus is 5%, btw). After the 50% threshold, all the armor gains are halved (for both stats & equipments - so the 0.15 from the Testament becomes 75%). After 75% they are divided by four. 90% is the maximum.

10 splendor give you 1 extra experience point at the end of the level.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
By stats I meant everything, not just the first tab.

Also, read Steam description and I'm about to go Andhaira on you.

X Caeli is an ugly RPG / Shmup mongrel. Too shmup for the rpg fans, too rpg for the shmup fans. It takes the basic Space Invaders gameplay (which probably doesn't even count as a shmup these days, but how do you call it then?), crossbreeds it with the Tyrian / Jets n' Guns style gun shop and actually evolves those into a full-pledged RPG system (because they always felt like a mini-RPG system to me). It's also fixed less on dodging & memorising patterns (as, obviously, that's quite dull in the 1d movement) and more on precise weapon usage & combo-play.

The gameplay is supposed to be pretty good (if not exactly balanced - it's still beta) and I've spent lots of efforts to make sure that each gun is unique, memorable & useful. Enemies also differ quite strongly in their tactics so the player won't be able to kill each wave with one and the same combo, he'll need to adapt. But, anyhow, as out of 1.5 people, who have actually downloaded the demo, no one has even managed to read the tutorial to the end (our game totally requries spending half an hour with the tutorial and then dying for about an hour until you understand the flow of it - I guess it's moronic of us to make such high skill-entry game this day).

Anyways, if you want a short post-mortem on this - we should've put more boobs in it as it's the only way to attract players to the hardcore/bad graphics games these days. Anime boobs sell. Hardcore crap does not.

But let's not be overly negative! Time for some PR speech!

:what:

:retarded:

Are you trying to dethrone Pierre Begue as the world's shittiest indie marketer? Remove the passive aggressive shit about graphics from the description. In fact don't mention the graphics at all. If they're not a selling point then you don't want to draw attention to them. If you can replace them you can replace them. If you can't you can't, there's no point in shouting SHITTY GRAPHICS so every potential customer can see you're a butthurt codexer (is there any other kind?) and have a bad impression of the game before they even play it.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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The stats of the guns are in the last tab of tutorial (easily accessible by just going left).

As for the greenlight - we have the best goddamn description on the Greenlight atm (and the only honest one) so we're not changing that. It's pretty much the only thing that's good about the game atm so we stay adamant. And, since we know the number of upvotes & we count the demo downloads from our links, it's not like there are any customers there (or anywhere), lol.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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KK, since, apparently, the entry threshold of the demo is way too high for anyone sane to get in (guess we fucked up - shouldn't have released it without a proper tutorial; I'm pretty much the sole tester of the game and I guess I've got just too accustomed to the game to understand how murky it can be), I've made a short video to showcase the essence of X Caeli. Note that it features an interaction that I really, really, really didn't want to spoil and wanted for someone to discover it on their own (theoretically, it should've been awesome to find this on your own), but what can I do.

 

Snorkack

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Hey Pope, since I felt guilty about playing like a dumbass the last time, I gave it another, more sophisticated try.

Disclaimer 1: You have my utmost respect for trying something unheard of yet and investing time and resources in it. For that alone the least we can and should do is to try the demo and vote on greenlite.
Disclamer 2: That being said, I find your overall description highly misleading. X Caeli is neither a shmup (I like shmups) nor a RPG (I like RPGs). I think its a mixture of Space Invaders (I don't like Space Invaders) and a Puzzle (I don't like Puzzles). If you continue developing into this direction, it most certainly will become a game I won't enjoy very much. So I hardly can tell you what's fun and what not, but I have at least some quality-of-life stuff to say that you might find useful.

First and foremost: The very next milestone you should set yourself is implementing tooltips. Really, no kidding. It's not like the skills were any self-explanatory (I even have to look most words up in a dictionary, and I consider myself having a decent english vocabulary). Also the tutorial is only partly helpful because it has no order, it's barely usable as a reference and by the time you are in character generation you will already have forgotten most of it.

I used some of your builds you posted in the other thread and managed to get to level 3. The first one I beat with the rosary gun build and lots of luck. I stayed around the center, shot myself a swath where I could stay and recharge (all enemies were straigth shooters), then went left and right and pushed enemies back and/or destroyed them. Here's my first Idea: The visual Indicator of the next rosary's color is hard to see. I'm playing on 2560x1200 and the hud is really tiny.
The next level was incredibly dull: Only straight shooters again, I went with Gehenna Shism Empty walls build. Then I hid behind a wall and held my LMB down. Period. Occassionaly I locked on a tanky dude with the other cannon, smacked him around and hid again. Level finished.
The third one, don't know what to there. Enemies come nearer at an incredible pace and none of your builds seem fit to stop them.
So here ist some loose thoughts that came to me during play.
- You provide 8 Attributes that derive into 6 Stats. I don't quite see the point of that. Or do you want to deliberately prevent the player from skilling only, say Attack and Recharge? Or Structure and Speed,...
- An idea would be to provide basic Classes to choose for noobs like me, that don't have a clue what combinations work
- Enemies are incredibly hard to distinguish. Green and yellow look so familiar. Also the booster enemies don't stand out in any way. Maybe you could animate those a bit in order to make them more distinguishable?
- I see where you are going with this 'build for a specific situation'. But this is a rather moot point since every time you click on new game everything is randomized. Maybe implement a level selection?

Overall this game feels to me a bit like Arcanum: It offers an incredibly sophisticated and varied character customisation. Sadly I can't seem to enjoy the gameplay attached to it enough. So I don't think I'll be the proper person to give you insightful input, but maybe you find my post somewhat helpful. Also I'm feeling somewhat sad that you have crafted such a detailed and innovative system and yet struggle to get the resonance it deserves. I wish you good luck anyways!
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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Disclaimer 1: You have my utmost respect for trying something unheard of yet and investing time and resources in it. For that alone the least we can and should do is to try the demo and vote on greenlite.

Yeah, I'm totally interested in the nonconventional ideas and approaches (if only you'd knew my RPG plans, man). And, since we have low budget, I tried to make it our edge. But I guess I've missed the timing window here - indie-scene stopped being about this, it seems. So no one will care about that unless someone tells them. And, obviously, no one bit will write a review for us. Now, whether are we the RPG is questionable (though I'm thinking about adding a CYA/Visual Novel element at this point), but I really hope (hoped?) that at least the Codex will give us the preview. Maybe not at this stage (the game is not that accessible, as you can see), but eventually.

Disclamer 2: That being said, I find your overall description highly misleading. X Caeli is neither a shmup (I like shmups) nor a RPG (I like RPGs). I think its a mixture of Space Invaders (I don't like Space Invaders) and a Puzzle (I don't like Puzzles).

Well, I'd argue about it not being an RPG, but once again, it's a matter of priorities. For me, RPGs are about gameplay mechanics first and foremost. The older I become, the less I care about fiction & plots & stuff (as they are very seldom good and not cringe-worthy). But I guess I clinged to that two because how do you describe it otherwise?

But yeah, going for a shmup aesthetics was a mistake. If I could, I'd redraw it with tanks or something, just to cause different connotations (I, myself, don't like shmups apart from the Tyrian/Jets n' Guns, but I really like aesthetics of the genre, hence the choice here).

First and foremost: The very next milestone you should set yourself is implementing tooltips. Really, no kidding. It's not like the skills were any self-explanatory (I even have to look most words up in a dictionary, and I consider myself having a decent english vocabulary). Also the tutorial is only partly helpful because it has no order, it's barely usable as a reference and by the time you are in character generation you will already have forgotten most of it.

No arguing here, mate. It's the first thing we're gonna do, we've already planned that. As for the words - well, it's for stylization's sake, mostly. At first, I wanted to make a strong story element (and who knows, maybe I'll still have to make it) so I wanted to make everything rather fluffy. And the hero is an ancient deity, sorta - obscure & religious stuff should fit, right? I wonder how many people know, for example, that Powers, Thrones & Dominions are the names of angelic Choirs (just like the more commonly known Angels, Archangels or Seraphim are).

Here's my first Idea: The visual Indicator of the next rosary's color is hard to see. I'm playing on 2560x1200 and the hud is really tiny.

KK, note taken.

The next level was incredibly dull: Only straight shooters again, I went with Gehenna Shism Empty walls build. Then I hid behind a wall and held my LMB down. Period. Occassionaly I locked on a tanky dude with the other cannon, smacked him around and hid again. Level finished.

Yeah, that's the point. You see, in our game two things will be different from the demo. First, in demo, if you die, you're figthing the new wave. In release, you'll have to fight a certain wave until you succeed. But you'll have a choice out of three waves. Second, instead of all guns being available to you, you'll have only 4, chosen randomly. That's to prevent degeneracy. So, while Gehenna-Schism is pretty potent (stupidly broken, actually), you won't be actually able to perform it that often. And when you do, you'll know the context.

Because the point of the build I've posted is not hiding behind the wall, actually - this build is for crashing the foes into the wall. As you can see in the vid I've posted, it's more for that or for flamer action. Against the straight-only builds, there is a much stronger build of
either 50 dominance (they die much faster) or And They Shall Bow and 10 Dominance, 40 splendor + logos, so you gain a crapload of experience as the reward for tedium
. And, well, this is why I'm really against giving precise builds for this game - it's against the flow of the game. It is designed as a, to put it in codexian terms, rape engine and you're supposed to feel, like, proud or clever whenever you are actually able to rape the rape engine. But we need to implement the auto-fire button somehow, I guess - the game works in the alt+tab mod and, well, that can be the solution.

The third one, don't know what to there. Enemies come nearer at an incredible pace and none of your builds seem fit to stop them.

Well, fast enemies are generally squishy so you can do some strong all-in openings against them. Or maybe toy with the exodus+apparition combo (as both slow down your foes). Once again, the problem of the current build is that you fight new wave each time whereas in the proper version you'll be forced to bang your head on the wall until you finally find the solution (but, as everything is viable, it won't be impossible).

- You provide 8 Attributes that derive into 6 Stats. I don't quite see the point of that. Or do you want to deliberately prevent the player from skilling only, say Attack and Recharge? Or Structure and Speed,...

Yeah, I do. I think the game is easier to balance that way. Also, some of the stuff is strongly tied to the attributes (many of the Acts and some of the guns, and there will be even more ties in the final version) so the player is offered some tough choices that way.

- An idea would be to provide basic Classes to choose for noobs like me, that don't have a clue what combinations work

Actually, we're planning to do that. We'll have the save & load your combination option and we'll put in some presets.

- Enemies are incredibly hard to distinguish. Green and yellow look so familiar. Also the booster enemies don't stand out in any way. Maybe you could animate those a bit in order to make them more distinguishable?

We'll think about that. You see, our artist left us in the middle of the project (and even before she didn't put as much effort as we'd liked her to do) and we didn't have the money to hire anyone so yeah. Maybe we'll add some special effect aura, those we can do.

- I see where you are going with this 'build for a specific situation'. But this is a rather moot point since every time you click on new game everything is randomized. Maybe implement a level selection?

Already answered this one.

Overall this game feels to me a bit like Arcanum: It offers an incredibly sophisticated and varied character customisation. Sadly I can't seem to enjoy the gameplay attached to it enough. So I don't think I'll be the proper person to give you insightful input, but maybe you find my post somewhat helpful. Also I'm feeling somewhat sad that you have crafted such a detailed and innovative system and yet struggle to get the resonance it deserves. I wish you good luck anyways!

Yeah, I did, thank you. And, well, I hope that i will be able to eventually whine & attention whore until it gets noticed. I won't say that this game is for everyone (we were aiming for a niche audience, even though we don't know what niche that is, and we won't be happy with it, but even something like 3.5k sales will work for us, probably), but it's definitely not just another shmup.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
KK, so how's the progress on this one. Since X Caeli is not well received (to say the least), we're doing three things to salvage the situation:

1. Redo the enemy and player ships sprites: yeah, they'll probably too ugly at this point, let's hope that our composer (who is also an artist) will do the better job than our previous artist.

2. I've found another artist who is willing to help us to transform X Caeli into a Visual Novel. With anime graphics, obviously, and with some heavy fanservice going on. It's, like, the ship full of sexy girls have found the tomb of Caelum in the X Caeli system and has awakaned him. Instantly, they're attacked by the dronefleet. Caelum repels those attacks, but his powers are limited and depend on the affection of the girls so now he must battle for both survival and their affection. So it's gonna be romance > battle > romance even more. I plan the whole thing to be both hilarious and outrageously over the top. I also plan to intertwine both modes a bit - so depending on which girl you'll please/anger, you'll receive according bonuses (or penalties) to your stats.

This whole plan will take a while but, considering we need, like, 12 times more votes to ever hope going through the greenlight and I'm not sure how we're getting those (I have the plans in motion, but they're not very reliable).

3. Since we've done pretty much all coding & game design on the X Caeli (about a month worth of it remains, that's nothing) and assembling all the art will take much more, we'll probably start another project somewhere in the beginning of the summer. It's gonna be a crossbreed of Wasteland I and Underrail, with somewhat unordinary setting, open world and a great focus on exploration. I'm in the early stages of designing the system atm.

Also, we'll probably release X Caeli with an enhanced tutorial somewhere in march.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
Can I suggest some of my artwork as inspirational material for your artist? I have some pictures that could give interesting results if they were adapted as a ship design.
 
Unwanted

jcd

Punished JCD
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10,681
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UNATCO HQ
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Bubbles In Memoria
Nice, arcadey, space-invader-ish designs. Not sure how detailed you're planning to make them in-game, when there's a lot going on on the screen at the same time no one will pay attention to the finer details. Some of them might be mistaken for some others in the heat of the battle, but then again maybe you're going to colour-code them.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
And so we're launching:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/708970/X_Caeli_The_Iron_Hand_of_Love/

The code is absolutely different, though - we've scrapped the old demo as it was too autistically about numbers and reshaped it anew with more "visceral" mechanics. It still looks like shit (honestly, our gameplay has about zero visual appeal), but everything feels & plays different and now combos are not just "use this set of numbers" or "use that set of numbers" - you're actually manipulating the battlefield in various fashion.

I have a long ass vid where this can be seen.

The Visual Novel (which wasn't planned initially but was tacked on so we could have some story) is in a teaser shape right now. That's kinda my fault - I've been sick for, like, last month and a half so I haven't been investing as much strength there as I should've. It's all planned and drawn already, just need to put some text in.

My russian community wasn't too warm to the entire thing, lol. They went mostly apeshit, actually. I dunno, so for the past couple of years I'm showing people that I know my way around gameplay and that I know how to do stuff, but they still refuse to believe that I can craft anything good, lol. Yeah, sure, it looks wonky, crazy and mish-mashy. So what? It plays pretty good, that's all that matters. To me, at the very least.

So the biggest hurdle here would be to get someone to actually play this stuff and see that it works. Ugh. At least we still have the VN audience untapped - once I'm about halfway done with scenario, then I'll be trying to do some PR. But even that caused lots of whining already - people wish cancer to our artist, people dislike our girls not being lolis, people dislike their brows being too thick, people dislike us being lewd, people are people.

What pains me somewhat is that no one even noticed how hard have we tried to make some non-trivial scenes - like, I dunno, most novels right now just don't even try to show something fun. Oh, here are the heroine shoving her tits into the screen. Oh, here's her butt into the screen. Oh, here's her pussy, omg! Like, is this what we really want from life? And all heroines are cliched, they all look the same.

Our price is probably too high, but I don't care. It's a niche product, it's reaching 5-10k sales tops so it's pointless to set up a low price - you're never getting anywhere. On the current market, damping just doesn't sound smart.

Well, whatever. I'm not even that happy about release because the toughest battle is ahead - actually persuading people to try this stuff. I'm not shilling for sales here, btw - you might as well go out and pirate it (if it shows up on the torrents, but it should, I guess; anything seems to be) as long as you play it. You have my blessing. I'm making my stuff so people can have fun, first and foremost.
 

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