Adventure Gamers - Forums

diego - 19 November 2013 01:45 PM

It’s better to say something even for the price to come as rude or ignorant or even completely wrong while there’s STILL a chance for your voice to be heard and to change something, then to stay silent until the game is released.

Good comment, Diego, and that is precisely why I released the demo in its current form.  It’s an opportunity for me and the team to get feedback on things like the look and feel, the user interface, and so on.  If I waited until the game was polished before showing any of it, the feedback would be too late.

FYI, “It looks like shit” is not a particularly useful comment.  “The character looks like a paper cutout, especially when he turns around because the movement is jerky” is useful.  “I don’t like the isometric view” is ok, but will probably not get us to change it because the cost of a fully-rendered world would break our budget.  Valid criticism, just not something we can change.  “The character looks like he’s walking through the couch” is useful; that’s an artifact of the 2D character and the 2D furniture, but it’s something we can program around with colliders.

Thanks for everyone’s comments.  We appreciate anything that can help us make the game better.

Incidentally, I’m getting just as much positive as negative feedback on the demo.  Several people have commented that it looks “amazing” and that the writing is “awesome”.  Those comments make me feel good, but are no more useful than “It looks like shit.”

We do what we can, and I personally think it’s better to tell the truth - even showing stuff that isn’t polished - rather than sugarcoat the nasty process of developing games.

KatieHal - 19 November 2013 02:46 PM

That said, ideally, a demo should represent the final product in all areas as much as possible: art, animation, interface, voice acting, and so forth.

So, here’s my feedback as a backer and as a dev:

I was hoping for more after a year of development and the amount of money being put into the game. A bug isn’t a deal-breaker—those happen, it’s been pointed out, it’ll get fixed, we’ll all move on with our lives.

For me, the biggest disappointment was the animation.

Great comments, Katie!  Thanks for posting them.  We completely agree about this.  We have had some major delays due to team members not getting the work done, but our current team is very solid.  I’m not going to go into any “dirty laundry” on the reasons for our delays, but I can say that this is the demo we originally scheduled to show last April.

We have not burned through all of the Kickstarter money - Our burn rate has been very slow.  But we also know what it will take to finish the game, which is why we have raised more personal funding to do that.

Corey Cole - 19 November 2013 12:33 AM

The first Hero’s Quest artwork would have made you puke; the art in this demo is 100x better.  But through a lot of time, hard work, creativity, and polishing, we’ve eventually managed to turn game dross into gold… with *every* game we’ve ever made. Not many designers can say that.

Lori and I are putting two years of our lives, and committing to loans equal to the Kickstarter funding, so that we can make this the best game we can create.  You chose not to put in even $20 to help us with the game; you have no skin in this and your criticism is empty.  I will be interested in playtesting your game when you decide to create instead of criticizing.

Your track record speaks for itself. I found the trailer artwork full of charm and it felt like that special ‘Cole’ magic to me. I, for one, can’t wait.

edit: I think the only thing that stood out to ME was the missing, beautiful Hero-U emblem I wanted used consistently across everything!!   

The game has obviously been beset by problems in development - the demo is decidedly less exciting than many of us had hoped, but hopefully they’re moving in a much more consistent and forward direction now! I chuckled at the humor and writing in the demo - that old touch that made me giggle 24 years ago is definitely still there.  Yes, the animation could definitely use some improvement, and the UI needs development - but it’s moving in the right direction.  I hope the next few months bring you all much fruitful progress and the game takes better shape!

What did my grandpa always say?  “Shit happens sometimes, Steve! Act tough and get better shoes.”.

As it’s been said - showing the demo is a good thing. It’ll help them improve what they have, and make sure if you DO like something too, TELL THEM.  Sure, it’s easy to point out the crap, but don’t neglect what is good, too.  I agree with Tomimt - I think people are afraid to say anything negative sometimes.  Just try to do your best, as fans, backers and potential customers, to balance the critique, so you’re not tearing the heart completely out of people.  At the end of the day, developers are people too, and not just the computers they craft the games out of.

Monty Python reference and bunny slippers? Yes please!

Bt

Oh, no, not my intention.  Just trying to give an impression from a developers side, really.  I’m not only a developer - I’m also a customer, backer and a fan.

Bt

I’d say the other developers in this thread have actually been the MOST direct about their critiques, albeit in a constructive way.  There’s a difference between mindless support of a project and skeptical optimism.  I see less of the former and more of the latter here.

I honestly didn’t expect such a direct response to my initial comments (which were, of course, laced with sarcasm—I do apologize about that.)  I’m happy to offer direct and constructive critiques, particularly in the area of art and design, which is my specialty, as an artist and teacher who has worked on numerous adventure game projects at this point.

I have several concerns about the art here, some of which have already been covered nicely by Katie (RE: the animation.)  I do agree that the flat graphic style of the sprites clashes somewhat with the more painterly approach to the backgrounds—and that, combined with the flash-like animation really gives this demo the feel of a social media game, which I can’t imagine is something that the team was really going for here.  I am struck by the noticeable drop in overall quality between the backgrounds on display in the demo and the gorgeous concept paintings we saw earlier in the campaign.  Get THAT guy back to do the art, if at all possible—that stuff was amazing.    These backgrounds have a lot of soft edges and just slightly off-kilter proportions that don’t look entirely intentional, which makes the art feel inconsistent.  It’s the type of thing I would flag and critique one of my students on in class, so it’s unsettling to see it in a professional production like this.  I think the discrepancy between sprite and background style only emphasizes the feeling of inconsistency.

Another thing that strikes me is just the frankly baffling choice to use isometric perspective for a story-driven point and click adventure game.  Because isometric perspective is, by definition, not the way we see the world, it makes visual immersion in the game more difficult to achieve.  The oddly skewed proportions of isometric perspective do not allow for the beautiful, storybook-like painted renderings that this kind of adventure game all but demands.  There’s nothing on display here that comes remotely close to the visual beauty of the original Quest For Glory games, for example.  And that is, frankly, a big disappointment.

Anyway, I think I’ve said enough for now.  I apologize for the tone of my earlier comments, and I genuinely hope that the critiques people have offered here and elsewhere are taken to heart, and that we see a better product in the long run.  I’m confident that the final product will be more polished—it only makes sense that it would be, and I certainly understand the trials of working part-time on an adventure game, especially in an online-only environment.

Karlok - 20 November 2013 06:41 PM

Good example of the US vs THEM mentality, thanks.

 

I just meant that it wasn’t a case where other developers are only jumping in to defend “one of their own,” that’s all.  Clearly they have many of the same concerns as people who are “just” backers.