Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Vain Vullet
By scout, Martiniano Marelli and swiatowskisounddesign
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1861 | 2.59 | 28 | |
| Fun | 1833 | 2.40 | 28 | |
| Innovation | 1602 | 2.67 | 28 | |
| Theme | 1874 | 2.29 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 1505 | 3.01 | 28 | |
| Audio | 853 | 3.26 | 28 | |
| Mood | 770 | 3.59 | 28 |
Hey, congrats on submitting the game! You got the ambience and the atmosphere right for sure. The camera controls were a bit of a surprise, but there is an interesting dynamic in there since you can't just flick the view to check what's behind you immediately. Pretty neat!
Hope you get to finish it later, but definitely get some rest first!
So appreciate the honesty in your post! Hope you can finish it soon!!
I kinda liked the unique FPS feel that's alot different than other FPS games, where looking and aiming are completely seperate, something does feel a little off, maybe raise the turn speed a little more to make it more responsive? Also, the enemies take alot to die, so my main interacton with the enemies is them gettng up in my face in about 1.5 seconds, covering my screen, and me trying to move away from them and shooting them
Well, the presentation is good, but there are many bugs in the game, for example when I accidentally jumped I left the scene and fell off the map a few times. The options menu doesn't work, and the operation of the camera with the mouse is too difficult, it complicates the FPS mechanics, even so, I really like the aesthetics and I'm not going to lie to you, I got scared a couple of times xD. Nice job.
thaks guys i fixed the bug so it works mostly as intend now.
The graphics and music create a tense mood, so great job there, but the controls especially the camera made it impossible for me to kill just a single "zombie". Your game is great though.
The controls were super awkward and I got stuck in rooms when enemy corpses blocked the doorway
oi oi I came back to just to test audio sound stuff for my streaming, and you fixed the dying thing! Nice my dude, and dang now it's actually hard! And speaking of the stream, here's the vod if ya wanna rewatch;
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1002310964
I thought the aiming/moving mechanic was interesting! I think you could find some kind of enemy/map combo that really utilizes it. Maybe something where you need to be moving in one way (a boardwalk or something) while enemies come at you from the sides?
Overall a good jam project! I liked the enemies transforming as you shoot them. It made it kind of scary and frantic.
@aboogoost Glad you liked the overall game, despite the issues.
The controls combined with the map and enemies, yes, are somewhat problematic. We were on a rush, and didn't have time to properly test the game. It feels as if the issue is due mainly to the speed and behaviour of the enemies, however.
As for the movement you mention, it's actually quite similar to an on-rails system, which is quite common among the games that inspired the original idea (Killer7, House of the Dead) The small building with narrow rooms, however, had to do because we ran into issues getting most of the animations and models properly into the game (But Scout and I finally solved it!) so sadly, actualy game execution and polish does feel lackluster
@fosf0 Haha, the controls admitedly can be awkward, which was expected from such an unconventional system. The goal was to merge together the controls of Resident Evil 1 to 4 with that of on rail lightgun shooters of the arcade era. We'd need way more time to properly polish them along other variables. And thanks for the compliment... I worked nonstop to make sure every model looked somewhat ok for LD standards, mesh, texture, animation and all!
And the clipping... Yes, sadly we had a single coder who was already overworked by the project. Issues like that were bound to happen, but we decided to focus on making the game somewhat work.
All in all, the game is intended to be more of a gameplay experiment, the way thought of it while working. I really wanted to see if the controls in Vain Vullet could work.
Anyways, i do appreciate the feedback. More linear stage design would absolutely benefit the game's pace without having to sacrifice the movement. Thank you for your opinion on our game!
Initially I hated the control scheme, it just feels so unnatural after many years of standard FPS controls, and I very nearly just gave up on this game, but I thought I'd give it one more try. I moved around slowly, clearing a couple of rooms, and then as I was leaving a room and turning the corner there was a bad guy and it really caught me by surprise and made me jump in fright haha! That moment I could see what you were aiming for with the controls, I think the sort of slow clunkiness of them add to that horrory feel. You can't look around constantly, you can't just run away instantly, just like in the Resident Evil/House of the Dead games you were inspired by. So for that, great job!
Congrats on the submission and making a game that works. I agree that the controls could definitely use some tuning, but in time Im sure it could make for a pretty cool mechanic and not a nuisance. Nice setting of the mood and good job on the animation and models.
Hey, these are some neat ideas. And it was quite terrifying to play too! Good job. I don't know what else to say other that what have been said before: controls are far from perfect (but the control scheme is awesome neat little idea). I think for the aiming system like this to work well with mouse and keyboard you'd need to tune it a lot to find a sweet spot with responsive controls while preserving those suspense situations in game.
If you want to make it feel like a drunken man, then attach these control mechanics :D
@skoopidy @lesha-lozhkin Yeah, the game's controls were inevitably gonna be awkward. Being such a big change of the norm we had no choice but to do what felt right. Granted, the controls "feeling" off can be attributed to enemy and level design. If we ever make a post jam version I'd like to make sure we check on all these factors.
The core idea of the game was to implement the arcade feel of on rail shooters with a more dynamic stage progression, and this game is by no means the best execution, but i have high hopes for the direction and concept itself. I would love to keep working on this to make it a proper polished game someday.
@martiniano-marelli i think you guys did a great job
I commend you for fearlesly trying to innovate with fps controls, but I can see why all first person games these days have strafing. Sadly not being able to strafe makes it really difficult to escape from the enemies. Speaking of the enemies, they were pretty scary, but playing on an ultra-wide monitor, your dismembered arm was the scariest thing in the game:
Screenshot_2021-05-04 20.13.14_DrEUSz.png
:scream:
@joonamo It's a pretty odd thing to say, but the game was gonna have strafing. The very first test had standard WASD movement with Q and E to turn to the sides. However a couple communication issues on my part ended up having the game use tank controls.
Also i never modelled for a first person game before... Which is the reason for that uncanny arm. I admit he gun swaying around proved to be the main challenge to tackle modelling wise, though.
Amazing atmosphere. The camera movement felt a bit unfamiliar for me but I really liked it!
Feels really scary, good job!
I just uploaded a second update to fix some things I missed like putting the roof back after moving it to see better in the editor and changing the footstep sound to what it was supposed to be as well as slowing enemies a bit and have them stop further away from the player and turning off collision with their bodies.
I felt a little bit dizzy and get lost in the map until find something to do
Can't play it for too long, I got dizzy too fast. But the atmosphere is good, felt like a terror game. A beter camera control would make this game playable. Good luck
Really atmospheric. The tank controls are awful, though. I felt like I was fighting my control scheme more than I was fighting the enemies. I played about 8 times and didn't manage to bring down a single enemy. Also some doors seemed to open to blackness and if I went in I'd get softlocked. Dunno what was up with that.
Spoooooookyyyyyy. Those baddies are tough. Nice game really love the 3d modeling reminds me of me youth.