Other Feedback:

-Tutorial
Definately need some explination to healing in there as well as for the waves and rounds.

-Campaign
Looks excellent so far, cant see anything i would want to change.

-Skrimish Mode
There is lots of potential for this area. Bosses wouldn't be a bad idea i think to throw in. Maybe have an option to select the enemies you fight and how many.
I encountered several waves were i ended up getting 2 healers and no damaging monsters come out at the start, then worms and kobalds that followed on the tier 3 setting. I think the T3 should have only the hardest monsters in it to make it more of a challenge

oh and ummm, make it so the monk feign death cooldown timer doesnt start till they stand back up, if someone wanted they could use one or two monks to kill everything using mend/FD till fully healed then attacking something and doing that over till its dead...takes a while, but its sort of a cheap exploit.

[noraa58]

Quote (Spazzmonkey(john) @ Nov. 09 2006,1:42)

oh and ummm, make it so the monk feign death cooldown timer doesnt start till they stand back up, if someone wanted they could use one or two monks to kill everything using mend/FD till fully healed then attacking something and doing that over till its dead...takes a while, but its sort of a cheap exploit.

Which is exactly what I did on some of the earlier builds before the monks were nerfed lol. I'd buy 3-4 and just mend FD. Took forever but I won http://pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

[lnoll]

I finally got past level 3 on easy!!!!!

Alright, not that great I admit, but... I was trying to do it with a combination of warriors and healers.  Getting past seemed to be totally dependant on the fact that I had to get the archer's attack speed talent otherwise I couldn't kill the big ogre dude fast enough.

Typical setup I was trying: 3 warriors, 2 healers, 1/2 archers.  I tried putting points in warrior and healer skills and kept getting close, but not close enough to kill him.

[Chronic Logic - Josiah]

The ogre is very challanging because he can kill a swordmen so quick.  Unlocking the swordsmen "block" skill will help they stay alive vs the ogre.  Nice work though http://pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

[ZeroG]

One thing that bugs me stems from 2 of my favorite aspects of this type of game, 1. issuing commands in pause mode, 2. a movable camera and ability to zoom.
I also see many related posts about difficulty in character selection.

What would really help is simply adding the ability to tilt the camera as well as pan, rotate and zoom. The environment looks to be fully 3d, unless some of your gui tracking/selection code hinges on a restriction to the fields of vision(ie: no up angles on the cam), then consider the following.
Not only will it boost how the current camera acts and feels, but it will provide a more top-down view on player's request--which kinda sorts out most of the player selection issues i've encountered and seen reported.<>
Perhaps but not limited to 100% top-down view ability.

It's the freedom, and you've made it look cool up close so i'd be tempted maximize that to a fully fledged, fully free tactical-cam.
At times this game gets a bit messy, heh. And this should only get messier! In some of the denser skirmishes it gets a bit clustery and hard to tell who is who. I think that is mostly due to the visualization of these 3d battles into limited dimensions of view, ie: you are seeing dense unit clustering from the sides, making character selection require some extra effort( both code wise i'd imagine and from the players perspective). I know my wife and I have been in situations where character selection from almost any possible angle was hard--and we just let time advance a sec or 2, until things became clearer. These split seconds of unused time make Chuck Norris cry.

Part 2 of what leads me to think this camera tilting ability is important is that bottom-middle action gui element. It couldn't be bigger. I hear this large chunk of screen space will have expanded uses (unit/selection icons)...it might still be way too big for the data it is supposed to convey, and hold for ease of use.

I'd kill 12 of those dragons juuust to peek over that thing at times to assist in unit selection!! So why not keep it as is and just add camera tilt.

In every other game like this i have played the viewing angles were even more restricted, so i love the cam freedom you've provided. And i'd understand that many potentially great production reasons may exist to limit this ability.
I think it would bring a degree of freshness and sell-ability to a game of this type and it would completely let you drill down into the nitty-gritty of the tactics.   [imho]

[ZeroG]

In the unit unlock/selection gui in the earlier phases of the game when you only have few players available to unlock, it really isn't all that clear on which section to click. I'm speaking from a total n00bs perspective, and the heuristics must be crystal clear--even if you covered it in the tutorial. Some things just must be spelled out.

In this case just above the small player selection bracket where you have the small unit icons to pick from, i think you could add some text that says 'unit selection', and in the area where you have the larger icon in which we unlock the current selection you would have some text saying 'unlock current selection' or something to that effect. So that these functional parts of this gui have clear labels that can help steer a rookie through it.

It has always seemed second nature to me, but it might be as clear for
new players using this game.

[ZeroG]

i ..see(and issue orders to).. dead.. people.

I see a few posts about adding little hud images of your current party to help track who is who, who is selected and how may be taking damage or dead. [Please ignore if this has been fixed. I'll be able to test build 131 tmoorrow.]This would be awesome because with soo much pausing and the characters needing to transition into the death animaions, i find myself seeing what seems to be a player---maybe with a sliver of health left
and issuing commands or attempting to. In some situations the health meters are too clustered, so it was kinda tough to see how much health my weakest units had.

I think the addition of the party hud that allows player selection additionaly by icon click--and shows them in a dead state as soon as they die will really clean that up a bit.

[CaseyC]

Quote (Chronic Logic - Josiah @ Nov. 15 2006,10:58)

The ogre is very challanging because he can kill a swordmen so quick.  Unlocking the swordsmen "block" skill will help they stay alive vs the ogre.  Nice work though http://pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

4 archers 1 swordsman = dead orge with no HP loss for any units! Taunt kiting might need to be looked at.

[Chronic Logic - Josiah]

Try fighting him on hard when you dont have 4 archers http://pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

[ZeroG]

In level 2 the walls of the small round room dont render if they are in your way---nice! The large trees in level 1 do not. Can't they cull away also?
They do get in the way sometimes.

Greetings,

I have finally managed to post this feedback, sorry Josiah! I'm really sorry it took much longer than I promised. Being another indie I hope my feedback is helpfully, and it pains to mention, that I unfortunately have more negative feedback than positive. Let's hope some of that is constructive, though

Well now, the little feeback I've seen this far in here is quite brief; I didn't feel like going to post little bits here and then all around the threads, but post a one little more verbose post in here. Hope you don't mind! The pre-set questions also kind of - in my humble opinion - easilly derivate the attention to "wrong" things. By this I mean the fact that for example the largest issue I'm going to start with is absolutely nowhere to be seen. I shall be strict with the feedback, as it would be my own game.

Right, so. In my opinion, the game has a major identity problem. It somehow tries to be multiple of things without being anything in particular. Notice, I am absolutely not talking about the game mechanics or so, but the DRAMA and setting. It eludes me. I consider having quite good taste / intuition about the themes and styles in general (i.ex. scifi, fantasy etc) and I have also worked all my life in theaters and opera so my understanding on the classic drama should not be the worst possible. KE tries to be funny, but not enough, thus kind of being stuck in the limbo between high-grade low-fantasy with unshaken medieval style of LoTR and candy-coned Warcraft with Munchkin-like "I-piss-on-fantasy" attitude. I think the tutorial is the best example of this. I was really - should I say, in all it's dramatic value - almost insulted by this "just kidding this is not one of those games". Excuse me? What games? The games with style? Fantasy game? Did the game just insult my taste on epic fantasy with very heavy emphasis on classic story telling and drama? I'm sorry, but this is genuinely the feeling that conveyed to me, and after the tutorial my soul was tainted and the taste never left my mouth. It had a direct impact on my interest on the game itself, and everytime something "important" or interesting happened, I just realized being completely indifferent about it? Why? Well you know, this is one of THOSE games, right? It might be just me, but I wanted to mentioned this since I truly consider this the whole game's greatest flaw.

This brings me to the point that the musics and audio - excluding the voice acting which I shall write more about in a minute - are really good. Consistent, and high quality. BUT. One thing which really feels like a hot poker shoved into my ear is the synth-sounds/bleeps in the main battle music. What on earth? Isn't it for granted, that it doesn't find into the context? And if "it's not a big deal", then where are the laser guns and plasma grenades? Hence my point. I stick to my strict view on what belongs to the concept and the genre, and the scenario.

A little on the voice acting. It pains me, especially when the main reader's exaggerated speeches are one of the best voices in the game as I have the feeling that it is supposed to be the biggest joke. On the other hand the general selection voices are kind of... weak. It sounds like "here, read this." "Umm... I shall smite thee with my hammer of might?" And even more so, I'm sorry to say but the elf archers are the worst of all. The lady - who is lovely and dear I am certain - sounds like any regular girl in any standard, neutralish american TV series we see here in Finland (North Europe, those on poor on geography). I'm personally unable to visualize that, the elven women sound like 2000-decades normal women? That can't be right http://pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'> More spirit, and attitude and a little bit of attempt on acting would double, or even 3x the result in my opinion. Now it just lacks the spark and the drama, and does not support the game. I also get the feeling that there was maximum of 3 different people doing the voices. Maybe it's meant as a joke, I don't know. For perspective, our own game (Triplane Turmoil II) has nearly 500 unique voice samples, and 6 people reading them, all the countries having their own voice actor. Oh, and the british accent on the swordmen sound really fake, especially when I hear it's the same guy who does most of the other male voices as well and is most likely an american.

Sound and music is important, please don't make foolish contradictions with it and add some consistency about the quality of the voice acting itself. Which reminds me, the music in the (main) menu does not loop if it's played over. I noticed this as I was taking notes and alt-tabbed several times.

On the technical side, everything seem to be in order. I had no problems whatsoever, excluding the slight "flicker" which seemed very random in the opening speech of the campaign game (on the graphics). However, it is slightly annoying that the game doesn't appear to support window mode; shouldn't this be for granted these days? What if someone wants to play with a computer with more monitors than one? Extra hassle; besides a busy man like myself has plenty of stuff open which I should be able to see all the time. Just little points, nothing life-threating.

Few little other things which I thought of. In my opinion, the neat fade - especially when entering the main menu first time - is at least twice as slow as I'd do it myself. It kind of fits the mood combined with the music, but where everything is already well visible and you realize the fade is only 50% there, it kills the effect. I'd definately cut it in half, or let the control on the menu somewhere around 50-60%. Oh, I didn't test but are the confimation dialogs consistent? I had the feeling that sometimes the ok was on the right and sometimes on the left. I suppose it goes without saying that the confirm/cancel dialogs are supposed to be the same all the time. I'd add some little eye-movement to the mighty paladin in the main menu, to make him look less like an undead with 2 glass eyes.

Then the animations. Why everything works in slow motion? Why there isn't any vertical swaying when characters are moving? Or am I really just having uniquely high standards what becomes of content development. Adding some y-axis sway should be a piece of cake, so why leave it out, when the just little extra work gives the overall content a huge boost? The timings in general is also a bit wrong; I'd probably modify everything by 1.2x or 1.35x in general to give it more "feeling". Now they look sadly just candy-coated polyongs floating around on a larger polygon. Dying animations are the worst. It looks like dying un-theatrically in a low-g planet, who  knows maybe this is one? Okay, sorry, I was being sarcastic without too much of a success. Anyway. I'd at least DOUBLE the dying animation speeds. I also kind of dislike the fact, that without the the powerup the archers are just ridiculously slow, like they'd be cursed with a stasis-field or something!

The game mechanics is pretty nice, but I'd add some kind of information in the ingame that the spacebar toggles the pause. I was kind of confused with the balance, especially when you are not allowed to save between the missions (or are you?). There seems to be mostly like only 1 or maximum of 2 different choices of characters and boosts you must choose in order to survive. If you unlock wrong... the game kicks you in the teeth, and you have no other chance than to restart the whole scenario. Of course, it might be possible it was only because of my unadequacy and that I missed something vital.

That's it, I think. I'm really sorry if this sounds all negative, but from this point on, what some indies might consider as "finished" I consider the point where the final polish is added. That part of the process is the last, hardest final sprint which requires sometimes tremendous amount of mental fortitude, and even revamping much material. But, this is the point where the developer shows his ultimate level of standard and that small extra work might result in thousands of dollars of difference. In here, we do it every time without question. I hope in  there as well Even with it's problems, KE certainly is not a bad game, especially if this is the first game of the developer.

Nice bloom post-filter

Oh, also. I definately vote YES for adding camera tilt!

[TonyP]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! I'm sure we'll all take it to heart as we push and push to get this thing done!

I didn't write the tutorial, but I did voice it. I don't feel like it's mocking the fantasy genre so much as satirizing it. Not laughing at but with, hopefully. I can't imagine anyone feeling truly offended by anything said or done in this game.

And we feel really silly saying over and over into a microphone "For the good of the whole!" "For the good of the whole" "For the good of my hole!", the alternative is a bunch of generic "yes?" "Mm-hm?"'s and from ten different heros? Trying to inject as much character as possible into little sporadic phrases is difficult, but I think we got it. I feel certain characters have..well characters. And attitude! The druid is noble, the swordsman is heroic, the elemental wizard is infinitely wise, the paladin is both righteous and strong, the bard is a little ditzy (who goes into battle with a guitar anyways?), the necromancer clearly doesn't like anyone or anything alive... The archer I believe could have used more of a 'combat-veteran' emphasis even without simulating a race who's lifespan is thousands of years, and we've tossed out new ideas for her but nothing really stuck. So I agree that she could be improved, but I don't think she's a misfit by any means.

Again, thanks so much for forming such a valid opinion of the game. You clearly played through and formulated some great points for us to ponder!