KickStarter StarCrawlers - indie sci-fi dungeon crawling RPG

[MasterSmithFandango]

Hope you're communicating all this with the devs.

Don't like the sound of that vendor trash. Even if it's valuable vendor trash, I hate useless items bloating the inventory system.

Well, I had 40 inventory slots and after the dungeon maybe 10-15 were taken up, with half of that "trash". It makes some sense because plot-wise you're basically scavenging ships. The problem is it's too valuable.

 

[Zombra]

Makes sense, doesn't make sense, whatever. Any game that has me sorting trash had better have a damn good interface for it

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Makes sense, doesn't make sense, whatever. Any game that has me sorting trash had better have a damn good interface for it

Lol, fair enough. It wasn't too cluttered, but the item interface could use some work. It's not awful, but I feel it could be better.

 

[Branm]

Kind of shocked they didnt go the early access way!!!

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Kind of shocked they didnt go the early access way!!!

I think they were planning on it. Maybe they couldn't get it greenlit? Full release will probably be on Steam though.

 

[Renevent]

Grabbed the beta last night...pretty good so far! Basic impressions (copied from official forum):

Been really anticipating this game but wasn't really following it too closely. Basically while I knew this was a game I was going to get at some point I didn't read up on it's development progress, road-map (if there is one), and stuff like that. Anyways built a crew up and played through a few missions and just wanted to put down some thoughts. This will be a mishmash of basic impressions, things that could use improving, and pretty much aimed at the devs and maybe folks on the fence for buying the game.

1) The game does feel early/beta (duh!) but has a metric ton of potential. It's already pretty fun and production values are really nice...although uneven.

2) Music and sounds effects that are there are fantastic but it also seems like there's a bunch of sound effects missing which makes it a bit uneven in audio presentation. This is most noticeable in combat as I think there's a lot of actions that don't have sound effects so it's a distraction.

3) Graphically the game is mostly very good with nice art and slick animations. Some areas look better than other though...for instance I had a mission in an office building and frankly it didn't look to par with some of the other areas.

4) Some UI issues, for instance there's been a few instances where rolling over an equipped item does show the tooltip. This happened a few times in the shop screen.

5) Only leveled up the characters a few times but like what I see so far. Skills have nice sfx and the skill tree looks fun with the different specializations.

6) Game was pretty stable from what I could tell. Had zero crashes though I did get various error messages in the text box about object not referenced, etc.

7) There's an annoying pause in the after battle dialog. I like the dialog overall but when it says "click to close" once you click there's a 3-4 second delay and it almost feels like the game is hanging a bit.

8) Some really nice touches are already present in the game, for instance, when getting enemies down very low in health they get updated look/animations. That's an awesome touch!

Anyways maybe I will update this after playing some more but just wanted to give some basic impressions and a few things that really stuck out. Overall very excited to see how this game develops and I think it could be an extremely awesome game with the right amount of content and polish.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Is it purely combat or is there an interesting story and quests behind it?

 

[Renevent]

There is a story although not 100% what it is at this point since it's very early...plus I don't care about stories in RPG's anyways lol. But, it's different from Grimrock as basically you have a central hub (interactive screen, not a 3D space to explore) where there are various services like shops, doctors, mission selection, crew recruitment, etc. Between each mission you can talk to some NPC (not really implemented yet) and from what I can tell certain missions will effect your standing with the various factions in the game. Not sure how this all plays out yet or to what extent, but that's the basic premise. It seems like they are shooting for a story type with a lot of replay-ability since it is based on what missions you take and your standing with certain factions.

Here's how they describe it on their website:

http://starcrawlers.com/faq/

We believe the heart of any decent RPG is it’s story.

There is a central plot in StarCrawlers and it doesn’t revolve around you saving the universe. Events will be set into motion by your crew and you’ll have the opportunity to go from pawn to player (or flipping the table), depending on your actions.

Crawlers are a varied group, and you can play your team however you like, whether that’s maliciously, heroically, or just self-serving.

The main plot of StarCrawlers is comprised of individual missions, all of which serve to advance the narrative of the storyline in some fashion. The main plot also has branching paths with different conclusions, and your choices about how to resolve the missions that make up this larger story alter where you are on the paths. Elements of the mission stories are randomized to keep things fresh (who’s sending you, what they’re after, where it’s at) and the levels / events / enemy groups are procedurally generated from these mission stories.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Played through two more dungeons. There seems to be some serious imbalance in abilities (Cyberninja's fly kick for instance is fucking awesome, but most of the other abilities are more limited). Part of that is so far there isn't a ton of enemy variety, and no real "big bad" enemies. In that way it feels incomplete. The dungeons themselves are okay though - decent variety and I actually suffered some environmental damage. Hopefully more stuff will be added to flesh it out. I haven't seen any benefits to the improving relationships with corps yet, and there is a TON of money for each dungeon run, and nothing to really spend it on. Still, right now it's an early build and the bones are solid - I think the things that are missing won't be too hard to add in.

The variety in the weapons and stuff is pretty good - for instance the cyber ninja gets different benefits to the skills based on which it used (dual swords has different advantages than single swords) so there is some excellent variety to be had. I think there's a lot of promise, but if you're playing the beta, keep in mind it's a beta and not a complete experience.

 

[Zombra]

Any variety in mission types yet? Is it always "go into the dungeon and find the thing"?

How about dungeon types? Is it pretty much just doing the same thing over and over on different map configurations? I can get sick of procedural dungeons pretty fast ...

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Any variety in mission types yet? Is it always "go into the dungeon and find the thing"?

How about dungeon types? Is it pretty much just doing the same thing over and over on different map configurations? I can get sick of procedural dungeons pretty fast ...

I just had a dungeon that had three levels to it with some traps and stuff. Also the looks are different as well, with fairly different ambiance, but there are also similarities.

As to variety in mission types - there are Bounty missions, but I haven't tried one yet. I'll do one this weekend and let you know how it goes. I also haven't read the descriptions so I don't know if they are actual bounty missions or "bounty for item" missions - the latter would suck, admittedly.

 

[Renevent]

I had a bounty mission...you go into the mission and search for a unique target, kill it, then head back to the exit. The level was full of those dust mite enemies but the target was a pretty strong human officer.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I had a bounty mission...you go into the mission and search for a unique target, kill it, then head back to the exit. The level was full of those dust mite enemies but the target was a pretty strong human officer.

Awesome. Was hoping for that.

 

[Renevent]

It was pretty cool too, unlike most encounters where you can't see the enemies while exploring the level, the officer you could actually approach and I believe there was a small bit of dialog as well.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Did a killing chefs mission - some variety. The biggest issue right now is there is no challenge. One enemy at a time, sometimes two (had three once), and they're pretty much pushovers. There are some environmental hazards, but not enough, and dungeons seem a bit repetitive, but they get bigger as it goes. Also, I'd be lying if I said HP bloat isn't a pretty big issue. While your characters only gain ~30 per level (which is not insignificant, but it does grow), but your weapons grow at a faster pace - but they can be sparce. Axes and pistols seem hardest to come across, but that's just my own isolated experience.

Enemies need to be tougher, have some abilities, and the fights just need to be plain harder. I haven't lost more than a handful of HP in a fight yet (although happily I lost more to environmental hazards).

There's a lot to go before it's done.

 

[Zombra]

The biggest issue right now is there is no challenge.

Well, as you said before, that can be OK. Balancing the numbers is one of the last things to take care of in game dev - gotta lay that solid foundation first.

Dungeons seem a bit repetitive, but they get bigger as it goes.

This sounds like a much bigger problem to me. Repetition does not get better in bigger doses. "Oh good, the next mission is more of the same except 3x as much?" Sounds like this thing is going to turn into a mindless slog real fast.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Dungeons seem a bit repetitive, but they get bigger as it goes.

This sounds like a much bigger problem to me. Repetition does not get better in bigger doses. "Oh good, the next mission is more of the same except 3x as much?" Sounds like this thing is going to turn into a mindless slog real fast.

I think one of the things that isn't fully implemented are environmental hazards. They're there, but in pretty small doses. I do think there should be a few more designs - it doesn't need to be all grey corridors and industrial wrecks. At the same time, there has been some variety - there was an office space and what looked like living quarters complete with a cafeteria in one of them, and another you could go down into the hold and on the bridge, which was kind of cool. I think one of the issues is there isn't much mystery to the dungeons, and there's more flavor that could certainly be added. Show areas exposed to space - or have that as a hazard - have doors where you need to hack to enter, go through a hydroponic farm, stuff like that. The dungeons kind of feel repetitive largely because when you enter a room you see all there is to see on the mini map. The other thing is because it's so easy, you feel like you're just filling in the map before you get to the exit to make sure you get all the loot - there's never a trade off of "do I keep exploring and risk getting wtfpwned in the next fight or do I head for the exit". It's kind of hard to judge the dungeons when the game is so unbalanced, ya know?

Another... downside or meh side, kind of one of the pitfalls of procedural generation, I guess - itemization gets a bit wonky, and the fact that there is (perhaps necessarily) level scaling. I'd prefer the mission screen having like a level range + difficulty, so if you're one of those players that wants to go and try to take down a much harder dungeon, you can select a mission like that and you'll be outleveled and whatnot. I don't know how plausible that is with the game - there is ostensibly difficulty ratings of missions (but the challenging missions I took felt no harder than the normal ones), but having another layer would be nice.

Also, there's some UI issues at the hub. It took me awhile to find out that I can outfit all of my characters, not just my main, at the hub screen. You can, but I don't see why they don't use the same UI as the dungeon where it has the entire party on the top.

 

[Zombra]

I'd prefer the mission screen having like a level range + difficulty, so if you're one of those players that wants to go and try to take down a much harder dungeon, you can select a mission like that and you'll be outleveled and whatnot.

This seems like a very good idea to help keep things fresh. Tell the devs.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

I am excited in the same manner as Grimrock: hopeful, but not yet convinced. Still, is cyberpunk. An untested team is an untested team, so until it arrives, color me a skeptic. Seems promising enough to keep at least one ear to the ground, however.

 

[veevoir]

Early access trailer is out, planned EA release - 17 march.

 

[Zombra]

Wow, 1½ whole weeks of public beta, huh?

 

[pakoito]

2015 Wizardry without waifus? Nice.

 

[Gozma]

I'm down

Only thing that kinda sucks is the music being so boring. Sounds like bad FTL leftovers (edit - it was done by the same guy as FTL lol). Hopefully they just made bad trailers by using the most low key pieces that are designed not to be distracting.

I'd think music would be the cheapest easiest part of indie kickstarters because the internet is absolutely crawling with amateur musicians that have already done a billion pieces you can sift through to find what you want and they'll give you their life's work for a pat on the head

edit: OTOH using kickstarter micro-celebrities like the FTL guy is probably sound marketing so nevermind

 

[Morgoth]

Sci-Fi M&M doesn't click with me.

 

[Inquisition]

Looks good to me. Music sucks, though.