Відео

Thanks for this awesome feedback. I’ll address it. I do have speed boots in the game that become available in twilight hollow but I can move their acquisition based on game progression. Did you play the demo and this is what happened? Or is this your perception based upon seeing gameplay?

Thanks for the good feedback. Is there anything glaring about the Night Stones mechanic that you feel I'm missing? Like you expected to be able to do something but I haven't added what you were expecting... that'd be helpful to hear. I appreciate you helping me.

@@advancenine So I played through the demo one more time after posting this comment and took notes as I played through the game. First thing, the famous bridge that shows up in all the gameplay trailers (the very first bridge of the first night stone) it actually doesn't do anything. You get to an empty area with a pond, you could just go back the way you came instead of using the bridge. This can be fixed by tweaking the map design slightly so that this bridge is necessary to progress rather than the second one that spawns behind the house. Just some thoughts and notes I made about the night stone mechanic itself: I noticed there is a LOT of backtracking at the moment, and depending on how much a player may choose to explore and loot the world instead of following the main quest (obtaining all the gameplay items such as the staff, shovel shoes etc.) the backtracking can increase by a lot. Usually backtracking is seen as bad game design, forcing the player to run back to where they were not too long ago simply because they lacked information or items. However like most game mechanics it depends how they are implemented. In the case of night stones I think they could actually not only solve this issue but create a core gameplay loop. For example, at the moment you have to progress up the mountain to collect 60 gold for the compass and stamina potion. Run back down to buy the things then run back up to progress the story. Eventually once you get the shovel you will want to go back down the mountain to get night stone shards from the first dungeon for the speed boots. If for some reason you don't have the wand OR don't know about the fast travel dungeon at the bottom, you'll again need to run all the way up the mountain. Ascending the mountain itself is already not very exciting the first time as it's just a very curvy road waving back and forth, but at least you get to talk to the fisher and receive the glider while picking up a bit of gold on the way up. The first time going down the mountain is also decently fun as you get to play around with the glider. The problem arises when you need to do this multiple times now, as now there isn't ANY content at all and it's just tedious at this point. This exact moment is when the night stones should jump in. Firstly, make it so that during these backtracking sequences the player is somehow forced or heavily encouraged to do it both during the day and at night. Ascending once during the day and once at night, and also going back down during day and night. Now to tie this all together, ascending and descending during the day and night should be completely new experiences. New paths open up, different areas unlock, puzzles that would need you to do something during the day then at night, different people show up, items are revealed etc. This is where all the creative stuff happens. I know you're working on new areas at the moment, but I think the game would benefit much more by making the beginning area much more content dense while heavily encouraging the player to switch between day and night to discover new and interesting experiences. That being said, the differences between day and night should be DRASTICALLY different, almost like you're in an entirely different world, and done more often. It really is a cool and unique mechanic that could drive players to explore, and do puzzles all on its own. I know in your lore currently it said something along the lines of "magic doesn't work underground because of the moon and sun not reaching it therefore the glider doesn't work". I really hope this doesn't prevent you from making the dungeons themselves change during day/night, because that would also be a very cool mechanic. Another example, when I was forced to go back to the first dungeon to mine night stone shards, it was completely empty since I already cleared it. This would be the perfect time to use night stones again to change things up and make it super fun to explore the same cave again! It could be that night stone shards can only be mined during night time, but the first time the player enters you need to do it during the day. But the second time you enter is at night, and the dungeon would completely different with different monsters or a different layout etc. I'm having the most fun when I explore and discover something interesting. My favorite moments were when I first found the chests on top of the roofs, and a coin in the chimney in the town. Or when the guard moved out of the way of the dungeon door, and especially I loved messing around with the glider. I can only imagine how cool it would be to revisit another area during night and have it be a completely different experience, rediscovering it in a new light. I really wished that there were more night stones around the map and they were more impactful. But either way, I will continue following your project and playtest it and see what you come up with. I find the concept interesting. PS. I would suggest not removing the @[name] when replying to UA-cam comments as they don't receive a notification. I had to manually come back to see if you had replied :) Best of luck!

I like to develop on old GPUs so it’s easier to identity poor performance. Are you seeing lag in the Night Stones demo or in your development environment?

The fabled meeting of Ryan!!?!!

@@gabrielsantana113 I was trying to be funny. My name is Ryan.

SERIOUSLY IT IS JUST A FUCKING CHECKBOX DURING EXPORT.

I’ll support Linux at release but it is more than checking a box for an OS specific release. I’m one dude with a ton to do and I just cannot support a third OS during development. I apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Yo! Thanks for being rad and commenting. Love your stuff and it means a lot you’d even watch my video. Thank you!

Thanks for the love and for playing the demo! I really appreciate your kindness :)

Are you kidding me? When do YOU want to? I'd love that... the public demo gets a MAJOR upgrade this week. Just saying... :)

Hey! Thanks for your awesome feedback. I definitely overstated it in this video and alot of people took issue with it (which is fair). I explain what I was trying to get across in the next vid if you want to take a look :)

Maybe I need to resize something... which UI are you referring to? The main game screen? A menu? My UA-cam overlays? Or are you referring to ALL the UI?

​@@advancenine The game UI like the texts and icons looks gigantic

@@glowglew I gotcha... thanks for the heads up... that's good to hear. I look at this stuff way to long so its nice to have a fresh perspective!

I appreciate the kind words! So nice of you! I know successful solodevs 20 years younger than me and and others that are 20 years older than me. Don’t worry about when it happens. We are all on our own paths and I’m pumped to see what you can create!

Hey! I looked at your channel in hopes I could offer some feedback to grow your community but I couldn't find any content in your channel. Let me know what I missed and I'll be happy to help :)

Cmon. This is the nicest compliment I could ever imagine getting. Thanks for checking out the demo and for the rad support. You are freaking amazing!

HECK YEAH! thanks so much for playing the demo and im SO PUMPED you liked it :)

I’d be overwhelmingly pumped if you played the demo on Steam and REALLY appreciate your kind words!

@@advancenine oh wow you responded!!! I finished this video and several others that you made recently. They were great and you’re a really kind soul. I’ll definitely give this game a try maybe I’ll post it to my channel! Thou.. I’m a really small UA-camr but I still love to show people how cool this game is.

@@dacwardztv aww thanks for the kind reply! And thanks for playing the demo. I’d appreciate any coverage you could provide for the game immensely. This whole project is built one small piece at a time so any help you can offer is massive and appreciated :)

@@advancenine of course thank you so much for your response!! I’ll keep you updated on my coverage with the game! Hopefully I can come out with a video soon!!

Thanks for giving it a shot. You’re awesome. Just to be clear, the game plays better with a controller which you can totally play with. Or are you saying I should change the keyboard controls in some way? Thanks for helping me be better.

Aww but thanks for letting me know. That’s cool of you. Appreciate the love!

Well no such thing as bad press I guess lol

Hey, do you have a link for that vid actually? I’d love to use it on my next video…

@@advancenine just search "cozy games suck" and you might see. I'm not 100% sure if it's your game because it's a brief footage. Maybe it's a game similar to yours because there are many animals crossing clones having similar camera perspective and artstyle.

Aw man. I know that vid. I don’t think it’s me but dang that would have been cool… thanks for replying!

@@advancenine It just mean 2 things. 1 your game might need to have some distinct elements compared to other similar games. 2 it'd be hard to distinguish your game from others if you're using the same artstyle, though I'd say it's partly shader. As fellow indie gamedev I think it's fair to try and help each others if stumble upon one. I just stumbled upon your vid, so I'm willing to help as much as I could.

Thanks for the awesome feedback. Any shape or color issues jump out at you that I can address? Thanks so much for your support!

@@advancenine You honestly did a pretty good job overall, but it needs more of a unique visual art style. Some parts like the terrain, trees, and some stonework feel like generic cartoony assets. A thing that bothers me a lot is the lack of contrast. Everything is just so colorful and my eyes can’t decide what to focus on. I would tone down saturation where unneeded and reserve glows for special interest points for clarity. Also probably add a stronger atmospheric depth fog/ shallow DOF blur to establish a sense of distance between spaces. Another thing is majority of characters look a bit bland tbh. They all share mostly the same basic humanoid form, body proportions and sizes just with a different head basically. I would exaggerate shapes and ratios to make them unique or even weird or add a unique accessory to identify them. like the climber lizard guy would probably have super long square arms/ long curling tail or weird hat etc, plant enemies would be thin vines with big pointy things poking out/ strange flower shape on top, owls have massive wide round head and eyes and tiny body and so on, just to give them more of an identity. Honestly I’d just go wild and experiment with ratios and proportions. Let me just clarify I know making a game isn’t an easy feat by any means and you’re obviously very skilled. Hope this could help you in any way and if not feel free to completely ignore me lol. Keep up the good work! ✊️

@@MataNataM yo! I really appreciate the time you took to write this. That’s honestly some of the more helpful and insightful feedback I’ve received along the way. You’ll see some changes thanks to your help. Thank you so much.

@@advancenine Np man happy to help. Honestly as a self taught artist I find myself struggling with this stuff too so hey, if I can point it out and help a fella out why not. Helps me be better at recognizing my own flaws and work on improving them. (Gotta practice what I preach lol) Much love dude

Sounds right. Only about 10% of wishlists ever convert. But wishlists are the major indicator steam has for the appeal of unreleased games. So it’s like the most important thing for us lowly developers.

Hahahaha. Now this is a good freakin comment. Well done - made me actually LOL