Re: Code Dungeon - A first person hack & slash dungeon crawler
Oh man, I'm afraid this is going to be quite a negative feedback post...
First, the sonar. I believe that it is quite intrusive. I wouldn't use this in combat, it's too distracting. I like the effort, I just think that the sounds could have been chosen a bit better. You may also consider allowing for long range sonar like swamp, where if you press shift with an arrow key you send out a much more longer pulse outwards, therefore gaining more perspective as to what is ahead of you. Naturally, such mode only scans ahead in a strait line. To be honest, when I play Swamp this is my go to mode. Granted I know the maps like the back of my hand, but I just feel like the short range sonar is not quick enough for when I'm running from swarms of zombies. Increasing the distance for the short ranged sonar wouldn't really help here, nor would an increase in sonar scan speed. I said that the sonar was quite intrusive and I mean it. The sounds grab your attention and I have to almost tune them out in order to navigate.
As for the radar, again, the idea works, but only in theory. One of the limitations was that the key couldn't be pressed more than once a second. With the current combat mechanics that's an eternity. It also does not solve the issue of you not knowing if you're within range of your sword (see my earlier statement about slow key presses). Furthermore, that kind of defeats the point of the game for me. If you look at A Hero's Call, unfortunately no demo but you can find some streams of it on Youtube, you will notice that the game gives you beacons to 99% of the locations. That kind of killed the game for me by mostly eliminating the exploration factor. This doesn't quite do this, seeing as I have no directions to the nearest object, but you can sort of make this a cheat command of sorts to find hidden rooms, doors, and enemies.
I would like to point out that this is MY opinion and thus should be considered with great care. I am known for enjoying and making content with a high curve required to play it fully through.
So, I'm sure you're wondering how to proceed by now. I am too, to be honest. Navigation works for me for the most part (I feel like crystals opening up some section of a big map later on could become a hassle), but here are some suggestions to consider.
Change the sonar to an implementation I suggested earlier on in this topic (Around post 6 maybe)? This will lower the intrusiveness of the sonar by a lot and cut down on it's feedback since you won't constantly hear clicks. If you like swamp style navigation that's cool as well, but I would add the ability to do long scans (Shift and an arrow key in swamp to start and space to stop if you want to try it out for yourself). The second option would definitely be easier to code (if I remember right when I implemented a sonar I made it take a list of directions and a distance in which to scan so all it took was a slight parameter adjustment).
Considering limiting the range of the radar? This is up in the air as that would detract from the radar's intended purpose, but it will give you the ability to create secret areas and such which the player would still have to look for. It would also probably reduce your map range scan, but I am not sure as to how much of a noticeable difference the end goal would yield. I stopped trying to optimize quite a bit ago since the compilers usually do that job and it shouldn't be a concern until this becomes a problem.
As for combat, I am honestly not too sure. I do fine until I enter the room with the waterfall and kill two enemies, then I always just die afterwards because the zombie with chains, I'm unsure if that is what you were trying to portray, kills me. Part of the problem is me not having a good idea of how far he can reach and still hit me, but I also still feel like I am not sure as to the extent of my weapon. I keep trying to swing at him and hit nothing but walls and he seems to have a longer reach than me. By the time I retreat and come back he's already ready for another swing. I will update this with more thoughts as I pick my brain as to how to represent combat awareness, but besides pointing you at trying Shadow Rine I have nothing right now. I know the game is in Japanese, but I have some recordings of it laying around somewhere. I'll try and find those and cut out the heavy combat portion to give you an idea of what I'm proposing.
On another note, I would like to say thank you. I know this is difficult and new, and I know that it can be frustrating to constantly have to adjust, but you have made a lot of progress, even if it doesn't seem like much. I can only hope that I or anyone else here won't turn you off by suggestions which require some heavy design changes on your part.
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