• Kenny Shields (6/6) Jan 06 2023 Hello,
• Hipreme (38/45) Jan 08 2023 So, as far as my experience goes:
• Kenny Shields (42/78) Jan 09 2023 Glad to hear that. An installer is definitely a possibility,
• thebluepandabear (4/11) Jan 08 2023 Hello,
• Kenny Shields (4/7) Jan 09 2023 Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! I don't have any intent
• Ki Rill (14/21) Jan 20 2023 I played the game. I like the concept. Here are few things I
• Kenny Shields (23/36) Jan 20 2023 Thanks for giving it a try! Sorry to hear it was slow on your
• Ki Rill (10/31) Jan 21 2023 I have a gaming laptop: ASUS TUF F15. It's the first time I

Kenny Shields <mail kennyshields.net> writes:

Hello,

Yesterday I released a major update to my D-based game that I've 
been working on for about a year now, you can read about it here: 
https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog/472621/2023-01-05-physics-rework

The game is a work in progress, so any feedback on 
bugs/instability/gameplay is appreciated. Thanks!

Hipreme <msnmancini hotmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:
 Hello,

 Yesterday I released a major update to my D-based game that 
 I've been working on for about a year now, you can read about 
 it here: 
 https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog/472621/2023-01-05-physics-rework

 The game is a work in progress, so any feedback on 
 bugs/instability/gameplay is appreciated. Thanks!



So, as far as my experience goes:

1: Great installation experience, just unzip and boom it works. 
For a finished game I would recommend a proper installer or 
something that is as simple as double clicking.
2: The W button to move forward mechanic was an horrible 
experience, I would like to recommend proper WASD with mouse to 
aim, this way it makes the game more intuitive (like I pressed 
other buttons before W anyway), easier to players to avoid 
getting hit, and will allow people to rest their single finger.
3: The interface could give more feedback, like, the colors are 
blending a lot, like, flashing buttons with sound when you click 
them. The minimap could get a stroke or a background to make it 
blend less with the game.
4: Add a resize/scaler to your window. I got a 4K screen and I 
had to almost close halfway my eyes to view better (yes 4K screen 
has horrible usability, but I not being able to play full screen 
bothers me)
5: Change the weapon automatically when taking them, and develop 
an interface for that, I took some times the weapon from the 
ground but was confused because nothing changed for my character, 
I needed to look into the game controllers.
6: [-Pause: Escape]: Most people don't know what Escape is, use 
ESC instead. Same applies to Control, changing it to CTRL.
7: While writing that I found the Resize thing. It is not good 
enough, the text didn't scale together. The game gives an unfair 
advantage to people which has bigger screen, prefer scaling the 
game instead of extending the world drawable size.
8: Graphics options should contain a brief description on what 
they do.
9: Auto detect screen size is nice approach to do
10: ESC in title screen should prompt the user to quit the game
11: I could not adjust the screen to use the entire space (the 
screen moved a bit and then I could not center it).
12: Game is looking pretty darky, would be better to have other 
source of lights

Besides that refinements you could do for a complete game, It is 
looking nice, I'm looking towards the finished project :)

Kenny Shields <mail kennyshields.net> writes:

On Monday, 9 January 2023 at 00:57:08 UTC, Hipreme wrote:

 1: Great installation experience, just unzip and boom it works. 
 For a finished game I would recommend a proper installer or 
 something that is as simple as double clicking.

Glad to hear that. An installer is definitely a possibility, 
should be easy enough on Windows at least.

 2: The W button to move forward mechanic was an horrible 
 experience, I would like to recommend proper WASD with mouse to 
 aim, this way it makes the game more intuitive (like I pressed 
 other buttons before W anyway), easier to players to avoid 
 getting hit, and will allow people to rest their single finger.

Yeah this has been a contentious issue for others who have played 
the game as well. I actually at one point did implement WASD 
movement but it felt wrong to me so I ended up keeping the single 
movement key. There's really no reason though that I couldn't 
have multiple control schemes so maybe I'll look into that for a 
future release.

 3: The interface could give more feedback, like, the colors are 
 blending a lot, like, flashing buttons with sound when you 
 click them. The minimap could get a stroke or a background to 
 make it blend less with the game.

Interface sounds are on the list for sure. As for the minimap, 
you can adjust it's opacity values in the settings menu.

 4: Add a resize/scaler to your window. I got a 4K screen and I 
 had to almost close halfway my eyes to view better (yes 4K 
 screen has horrible usability, but I not being able to play 
 full screen bothers me)

Ah yes, sorry about that. I develop primarily on a QHD monitor, 
but 4k is something that I've never tested. I do plan on 
implementing scaling support in the future, though this will 
likely take a bit longer as I plan to do it at the engine level.

 5: Change the weapon automatically when taking them, and 
 develop an interface for that, I took some times the weapon 
 from the ground but was confused because nothing changed for my 
 character, I needed to look into the game controllers.

I think it actually used to switch the weapon automatically in a 
previous version, though I didn't like that way it felt so I 
removed that functionality. You are definitely right about the 
not being able to see it immediately though, I think a possible 
solution to this could be to show the other non-equipped weapons 
above the active weapon panel. I'll look into that.

 6: [-Pause: Escape]: Most people don't know what Escape is, use 
 ESC instead. Same applies to Control, changing it to CTRL.

Interesting, I hadn't really considered that to be honest. Makes 
sense though as those match the exact letters on the keys.

 7: While writing that I found the Resize thing. It is not good 
 enough, the text didn't scale together. The game gives an 
 unfair advantage to people which has bigger screen, prefer 
 scaling the game instead of extending the world drawable size.

Yeah, this is another thing that I want to implement support for 
at the engine level. Not sure when I'll get to it but it's on the 
list.

 8: Graphics options should contain a brief description on what 
 they do.

I agree, I'll see about adding description lines or tool tips for 
the next release.

 9: Auto detect screen size is nice approach to do

For sure, looking into this as well.

 10: ESC in title screen should prompt the user to quit the game

Good idea, I'll add that in.

 11: I could not adjust the screen to use the entire space (the 
 screen moved a bit and then I could not center it).

Not sure I follow, are you referring to when it's in windowed 
mode?

 12: Game is looking pretty darky, would be better to have other 
 source of lights

Yeah, Zombie Onslaught is pretty dark by default, though this was 
done intentionally to help build the feel/ambiance of the 
gamemode, but also to help show off some of the lighting effects 
that are present in the later phases. You can however work around 
this by using the map editor -- any map can be loaded and 
modified and static light sources can be added or removed as 
desired.

 Besides that refinements you could do for a complete game, It 
 is looking nice, I'm looking towards the finished project :)

Thank you for trying it out, I really appreciate all of the 
feedback! Not sure it will ever be truly finished but it's 
certainly getting better with each release!

thebluepandabear <therealbluepandabear protonmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:
 Hello,

 Yesterday I released a major update to my D-based game that 
 I've been working on for about a year now, you can read about 
 it here: 
 https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog/472621/2023-01-05-physics-rework

 The game is a work in progress, so any feedback on 
 bugs/instability/gameplay is appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,

The game was fun.

Have you considered open sourcing it?

Kenny Shields <mail kennyshields.net> writes:

On Monday, 9 January 2023 at 01:43:14 UTC, thebluepandabear wrote:
 Hello,

 The game was fun.

 Have you considered open sourcing it?

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! I don't have any intent 
to open source the game or the engine at this point, though maybe 
somewhere further down the road.

Ki Rill <rill.ki yahoo.com> writes:

On Friday, 6 January 2023 at 21:58:41 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:
 Hello,

 Yesterday I released a major update to my D-based game that 
 I've been working on for about a year now, you can read about 
 it here: 
 https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog/472621/2023-01-05-physics-rework

 The game is a work in progress, so any feedback on 
 bugs/instability/gameplay is appreciated. Thanks!

I played the game. I like the concept. Here are few things I 
thought about while playing it:

* It was slooow on my laptop. Don't know, if its my setup or on 
the D side, or something else. (I use windows 10)
* Maybe add a story to the game to catch the player's attention 
and deepen it, to add some dynamic elements to the game... the 
apocalypse theming is wonderful though.
* The movement key `W` - I didn't get it at first and spent 
sometime trying to understand why it wasn't working. So, it would 
be great to display a small hint while the level is being loaded 
or as a separate message in the beginning.

That's it, keep up the good work! I'd like to check out the 
finished game some day.

Kenny Shields <mail kennyshields.net> writes:

On Friday, 20 January 2023 at 16:10:20 UTC, Ki Rill wrote:
 I played the game. I like the concept. Here are few things I 
 thought about while playing it:

 * It was slooow on my laptop. Don't know, if its my setup or on 
 the D side, or something else. (I use windows 10)

Thanks for giving it a try! Sorry to hear it was slow on your 
laptop, would you be willing to post the specs? If you're running 
without a dedicated GPU then the performance likely won't be 
great, especially if it's an older generation of onboard graphics.

One thing you could try is disabling "Soft Shadows" in the 
settings menu. This feature was recently added and likely won't 
perform well without a GPU as it uses a shader for smoothing the 
edges of the shadows from light sources.

 * Maybe add a story to the game to catch the player's attention 
 and deepen it, to add some dynamic elements to the game... the 
 apocalypse theming is wonderful though.

Yeah I haven't worked much on any type of story tbh, though that 
may change with future releases. The new scenario that I'm 
working does have some basic story elements to it, so we'll see 
how that evolves.

 * The movement key `W` - I didn't get it at first and spent 
 sometime trying to understand why it wasn't working. So, it 
 would be great to display a small hint while the level is being 
 loaded or as a separate message in the beginning.

I think I may just build a simple tutorial mode to acquaint the 
player with the control scheme, especially since the W key thing 
is a bit unorthodox. This way I would be able to display a prompt 
on first launch asking if they want to do the tutorial, and 
they'd be able to re-visit it too if they wanted.

 That's it, keep up the good work! I'd like to check out the 
 finished game some day.

I update the project fairly frequently so be sure to give it a 
follow if you have an itch account! Alternatively, you can 
subscribe to the devlog RSS feed to get updates without an 
account: 
https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog.rss

Ki Rill <rill.ki yahoo.com> writes:

On Saturday, 21 January 2023 at 05:16:55 UTC, Kenny Shields wrote:
 On Friday, 20 January 2023 at 16:10:20 UTC, Ki Rill wrote:
 
 Thanks for giving it a try! Sorry to hear it was slow on your 
 laptop, would you be willing to post the specs? If you're 
 running without a dedicated GPU then the performance likely 
 won't be great, especially if it's an older generation of 
 onboard graphics.

I have a gaming laptop: ASUS TUF F15. It's the first time I 
bought one and I'm not yet familiar with how the discrete 
graphics card should work. I guess, it should be almost the same 
as PC.


 One thing you could try is disabling "Soft Shadows" in the 
 settings menu. This feature was recently added and likely won't 
 perform well without a GPU as it uses a shader for smoothing 
 the edges of the shadows from light sources.

I tried running it on PC. Works smoothly. So, it's my laptop, but 
I have no clue why.


 I think I may just build a simple tutorial mode to acquaint the 
 player with the control scheme, especially since the W key 
 thing is a bit unorthodox. This way I would be able to display 
 a prompt on first launch asking if they want to do the 
 tutorial, and they'd be able to re-visit it too if they wanted.

A prompt is a good idea. That would make it a lot easier for 
first-time players.


 I update the project fairly frequently so be sure to give it a 
 follow if you have an itch account! Alternatively, you can 
 subscribe to the devlog RSS feed to get updates without an 
 account: 
 https://kenny-shields.itch.io/imperium-scenario-system/devlog.rss

I saved the link; will visit your blog from time to time.