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KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now available on Early Access
- Thread starter RatTower
- Start date
Are these rats in the cave invincible, or do I just suck?
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 99,628
Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,625
Rat tower? Invincible rats? Someone message Barton, the Matt Chat episode practically writes itself with this one.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2015
- Messages
- 20,653
V_K
Arcane
I do worry about some of these number being rather optimistic. Like, his funding breakdown sets 18% for "core development" (so basically his salary) - but 18% of 16.5k eur is ~3k eur - provided income tax has already been accounted for in the taxes section. That's like 3 months if you live reasonably frugally; maybe 4 if you only rent a small room.
Wulfric Pinewood
Prophet
When it hits EA on Steam i will buy in no time. Any news on that?
RatTower
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2017
- Messages
- 476
I've read this from a couple of people and looked into it. Apparently, UE4 has active Steam and Occulus plugins by default (which is automatically taken over into the build, which I assume causes that issue).
Kicked the plugins. I will test it with SteamVR later (no idea if it's really representative though, since I don't have the hardware)
ThewDev
Novice
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2021
- Messages
- 15
Backed it yesterday based on what I've already seen, but I got a chance to check out the demo this morning. It really does feel like a modern version of Kingsfield. It looks great and the level design is fantastic! Combat needs some work, however, and please, PLEASE add the ability to turn off motion blur and the strafe tilt (and an FoV slider would be great)!! I get motion sickness after only a short with this game.
Sinatar
Arbiter
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2014
- Messages
- 569
I think the biggest improvement that could be made to combat that shouldn't require a lot of work is to just increase the range that melee attacks hit by a bit. You have to get absurdly close for hits to land, much closer then feels natural given the length of the weapon.
Ivan
Arcane
cool idea to modify the range based on each weapon: dagger>hammer>sword>spear
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2012
- Messages
- 2,334
I played for a while until i found the sealed door with the four seals (and found one of them).
In general i really like the atmosphere, though the game certainly needs some work. My main issue was that i always fumbled the keys since i do not use the default key scheme - IMO it really drags down the experience when you just can't "interface" with the game - for example, i use right click to jump (something you need to do in several places in the game) but that didn't work. I tried to play with the gamepad instead (since i'm more used to the common assignments in games with it) but support seems to be incomplete.
Some shots i took over playing the game:
I think the door here needs to have its lock scaled down. Everything else that surrounds it is scaled to human level but the locks in this particular door look as if they were made for giants - they are way above head level and big.
There are some invisible walls here which feels weird as in other places in the game i can go through these thorny plans and trees but not at that point.
One thing that i think needs improvement is the lighting with the torch - it "blooms/burns out" everything in the scene and removes a lot of contrast which makes it harder to read the areas. I found the candles much more useful in terms of contrast but they were too weak. I think the torches should be similar to candles, just a bit more intense.
Also about torches:
Having the torch light source be attached to the torch's tip isn't a good idea because the lightsource tends to go behind various objects, walls, etc like here that looks jarring. A better approach might be to use the camera's position with an offset vector towards the torch and length that is around the distance from the camera to the nearest clipping plane so that it still feels that there is a direction to it but wont get clipped by nearby geometry (the candle also needs that since right now it feels as if the light comes out of your neck :-P).
On a more positive note:
I found amusing that i can sell rat meat to a rat :-P
In general i really like the atmosphere, though the game certainly needs some work. My main issue was that i always fumbled the keys since i do not use the default key scheme - IMO it really drags down the experience when you just can't "interface" with the game - for example, i use right click to jump (something you need to do in several places in the game) but that didn't work. I tried to play with the gamepad instead (since i'm more used to the common assignments in games with it) but support seems to be incomplete.
Some shots i took over playing the game:
I think the door here needs to have its lock scaled down. Everything else that surrounds it is scaled to human level but the locks in this particular door look as if they were made for giants - they are way above head level and big.
There are some invisible walls here which feels weird as in other places in the game i can go through these thorny plans and trees but not at that point.
One thing that i think needs improvement is the lighting with the torch - it "blooms/burns out" everything in the scene and removes a lot of contrast which makes it harder to read the areas. I found the candles much more useful in terms of contrast but they were too weak. I think the torches should be similar to candles, just a bit more intense.
Also about torches:
Having the torch light source be attached to the torch's tip isn't a good idea because the lightsource tends to go behind various objects, walls, etc like here that looks jarring. A better approach might be to use the camera's position with an offset vector towards the torch and length that is around the distance from the camera to the nearest clipping plane so that it still feels that there is a direction to it but wont get clipped by nearby geometry (the candle also needs that since right now it feels as if the light comes out of your neck :-P).
On a more positive note:
I found amusing that i can sell rat meat to a rat :-P
Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,625
Don't do it, he'll build a ratflesh golem later.
Nyast
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2014
- Messages
- 609
Demo feedback:
- issue #1 are the crashes. Unlike the last tech demo which was rock solid, this demo crashes all the time. Like, every 5 minutes. Only reason I didn't give up is that it seems to automatically save progress upon crashing (a really good idea!), but it's still very annoying.
- difficulty is pretty high, which I like. But you're probably gonna die.. a lot. I'm not sure I understand the recollection of memory very well. Is that a loss of XP, and you have to collect back your original memories to get back your XP after dying ?
- the level-up screen is very confusing, I somehow never know if I have leveled up and if I have available points to rank up.
- the magic arrow arcane spell seems to fly through enemies when they're at melee range. Like no matter where I aim, they don't seem to be able to hit.
- I really like the torches, good improvement over the old demo. But they're pretty sparse, I've only found a couple in my 2 hours so far. I'm a bit confused at how they work, at some point I collected 3 of them, and after I equiped one in my left hand, it got consumed.. but I no longer had the 2 other torches in my inventory ?
- I'm not sure how the bow's supposed to work. I've accumulated plenty of normal arrows in the game but it seems to only use crystal/frosty arrows. When the frost arrows are exhausted, I can't fire the bow anymore and I don't see any way to "equip" the normal arrows ?
- speaking of the bow, I'm not sure I get it, it feels completely unusable. It zooms in AND moves around in a pretty large circle, making it almost impossible to hit any fast enemy. I even had trouble aiming at the slimes which barely move..
- ladders are pretty annoying. They seem to randomly not work. One out of 2 times I seem to get "stuck" in the animation for a second, then it gets cancelled and I have to re-click on the ladder.
- please rework the lightning sound. All sounds in game are okay except that one IMO. It has a nasty glitchy noise at the end, and most of all, it gets repeated over and over every 5 seconds.
Overall I'm having fun with the demo. It feels linear but not totally, with plenty of rooms and areas to explore, but the place is pretty big and relatively empty. If you intend to use it mostly "as is" for the final game I think it could use more, easier enemies and a couple more items to discover ( I've had that bone as my only weapon for 2 hours until I found a sword in the fortress. For gear, I've only found boots.. it's not very rewarding for 2 hours of playing ). If it wasn't for the crashes and ladders, I'd say it's a pretty good experience and can only get better from now on. Keep up the great work.
- issue #1 are the crashes. Unlike the last tech demo which was rock solid, this demo crashes all the time. Like, every 5 minutes. Only reason I didn't give up is that it seems to automatically save progress upon crashing (a really good idea!), but it's still very annoying.
- difficulty is pretty high, which I like. But you're probably gonna die.. a lot. I'm not sure I understand the recollection of memory very well. Is that a loss of XP, and you have to collect back your original memories to get back your XP after dying ?
- the level-up screen is very confusing, I somehow never know if I have leveled up and if I have available points to rank up.
- the magic arrow arcane spell seems to fly through enemies when they're at melee range. Like no matter where I aim, they don't seem to be able to hit.
- I really like the torches, good improvement over the old demo. But they're pretty sparse, I've only found a couple in my 2 hours so far. I'm a bit confused at how they work, at some point I collected 3 of them, and after I equiped one in my left hand, it got consumed.. but I no longer had the 2 other torches in my inventory ?
- I'm not sure how the bow's supposed to work. I've accumulated plenty of normal arrows in the game but it seems to only use crystal/frosty arrows. When the frost arrows are exhausted, I can't fire the bow anymore and I don't see any way to "equip" the normal arrows ?
- speaking of the bow, I'm not sure I get it, it feels completely unusable. It zooms in AND moves around in a pretty large circle, making it almost impossible to hit any fast enemy. I even had trouble aiming at the slimes which barely move..
- ladders are pretty annoying. They seem to randomly not work. One out of 2 times I seem to get "stuck" in the animation for a second, then it gets cancelled and I have to re-click on the ladder.
- please rework the lightning sound. All sounds in game are okay except that one IMO. It has a nasty glitchy noise at the end, and most of all, it gets repeated over and over every 5 seconds.
Overall I'm having fun with the demo. It feels linear but not totally, with plenty of rooms and areas to explore, but the place is pretty big and relatively empty. If you intend to use it mostly "as is" for the final game I think it could use more, easier enemies and a couple more items to discover ( I've had that bone as my only weapon for 2 hours until I found a sword in the fortress. For gear, I've only found boots.. it's not very rewarding for 2 hours of playing ). If it wasn't for the crashes and ladders, I'd say it's a pretty good experience and can only get better from now on. Keep up the great work.
Wunderbar
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2015
- Messages
- 8,825
RatTower i don't know if it was mentioned before, but there needs to be a half a second delay between player pressing the button and the game reacting to it. It's hard to understand what exactly happens after you have pressed the button, because the door opens almost instantaneous and you miss the audio cue.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 99,628
Never mind.
Last edited:
xuerebx
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2008
- Messages
- 1,026
Nice job man! I played for a while until I put in one rune out of four runes on that magically locked door.
Enjoyed the atmosphere in the game. As for the gameplay, I think it feels a bit rough, but I'm not one to give advice on how to build your game so I'll leave it to the others here. I'll back the game tomorrow on Kickstarter.
Enjoyed the atmosphere in the game. As for the gameplay, I think it feels a bit rough, but I'm not one to give advice on how to build your game so I'll leave it to the others here. I'll back the game tomorrow on Kickstarter.
Nyast
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2014
- Messages
- 609
Quoting myself with more feedback.
First of all, the crashes that I got seemed related to the SteamVR plugin. The updated demo removed the plugin.. and I haven't got any crashes in an hour of play ( I had one every 5 minutes before ).
About the ladders, I think I understand the issue (bug?) better now. When you press F on a ladder, you need to let the game finish its animation before you hit up or down. If you "interrupt" the anim in the 1-2 seconds after it has started, it gets confused and seems to cancel it. So, click on ladder, wait anim to finish, then press up or down, and it works reliably.
For the arrows, I hadn't tried to "use them". They somehow transform into those water arrows which the bow can then use. Why can't it use the normal arrows, I'm not sure, seems counter intuitive..
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2016
- Messages
- 781
Ok, I just played some hours of the demo. I have gotten as far as the East Wing key, not sure how far that is but I would guess perhaps halfway through.
I played v1.01.
I ran into a bit of flicker and one faintly annoying bug, which was that when the light spell wore off the little stars effect never stopped. Oh and I had some mild jank around ladders but nothing problematic.
I'm glad I read the hint about the white rat because I was ready to muller that little guy when I saw him. His room is dimly lit and he looks a lot like a normal rat. In general it was confusing to me that some rats were much tougher than others so you had some mobs who I could take easily and others who would kill me - both with the same appearance.
I picked a magicy char but found it really hard to attune spells - couldn't figure out the UI. Once I did get my chosen spell attuned (magic missile) I could not figure out how to switch between that and the thing in my other spell slot. Looks like you added a list of controls to a newer build.
I have played (but not completed) most of Arx Fatalis, finished Deus Ex several times, Thief and some other souls like games but I think nothing else on your influences like Ultima Underworld or Kings Field. For me, it was a phenomenal demo. 10/10. I was completely drawn in.
Managed to bake too:
Backed you at a decent tier. Godspeed.
I played v1.01.
I ran into a bit of flicker and one faintly annoying bug, which was that when the light spell wore off the little stars effect never stopped. Oh and I had some mild jank around ladders but nothing problematic.
I'm glad I read the hint about the white rat because I was ready to muller that little guy when I saw him. His room is dimly lit and he looks a lot like a normal rat. In general it was confusing to me that some rats were much tougher than others so you had some mobs who I could take easily and others who would kill me - both with the same appearance.
I picked a magicy char but found it really hard to attune spells - couldn't figure out the UI. Once I did get my chosen spell attuned (magic missile) I could not figure out how to switch between that and the thing in my other spell slot. Looks like you added a list of controls to a newer build.
I have played (but not completed) most of Arx Fatalis, finished Deus Ex several times, Thief and some other souls like games but I think nothing else on your influences like Ultima Underworld or Kings Field. For me, it was a phenomenal demo. 10/10. I was completely drawn in.
Managed to bake too:
Backed you at a decent tier. Godspeed.
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