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Weekly Update - Alpha Testing!

3 years ago1,427 words

The alpha test of Atonal Dreams has begun! Ten people got keys yesterday afternoon, and about half have given feedback already. If you're one of my Diamond-tier patrons and are still interested in testing, you've not missed your chance. I'll use this (day late) post to summarise some of the major points of feedback that I'll need to address before moving on, as well as a gameplay revision I've been thinking about myself for a while.

It's exciting to finally hear what some other people have to say about this thing I've poured months of my life into! Obviously it's still mid-development and riddled with issues at this point, which fresh eyes instantly exposed, but that's what testing's for.

Keyboard input

Currently, the game only supports gamepad input. The Flash games I used to make used keyboard and mouse input since I had no other options, but now that I can use gamepad input, I've been doing that exclusively since it makes my games feel more like 'real games' for me. I just assumed that anyone interested in gaming would have invested in a gamepad - they're hardly costly - but I was surprised by how many people just don't even have one, or who prefer the keyboard and mouse, which I personally find horribly clunky.



So I'll definitely need to include support for multiple types of input. It's more work for me - of the kind I find tedious rather than remotely enjoyable - but it does need to be done, so I'll be working on that starting today. No idea how long it'll take, since there are some design decision issues like how to handle these radial menus which are designed for the left stick. I talked about it with testers in the Discord, who suggested things like using the mouse, but I think the best option would be to use the QWE ASD keys to select the options, then maybe X to confirm. I'll need to experiment a bit.

Mechanics Complexity

The game uses some atypical mechanics - runes and arousal, notably - and displays all the information visually, which is apparently intimidating, even off-putting to some players because they don't understand everything right away.

This is interesting to me (and something I've written about before), because I take it for granted that I won't have a clue what's going on for the first hour or two of gameplay for whatever new game I play. I always expect a period of confusion before I become familiar enough with everything through experience. But do other people expect to understand everything instantly? Do you understand other games instantly? If a game can be understood instantly by anyone who's not played it, can it really be complex enough to be worth playing for veterans?

I know that at least some games lock away some basic features at the start, or at least hide them in the UI. I think Final Fantasy XIII did this, with the major gameplay elements only getting unlocked after maybe a couple of hours of play time (though I haven't played it in years and can't remember). Maybe Kingdom Hearts II also hid parts of its UI until you got far enough? Can you think of other (less dated) examples?

I could - and maybe should - do something like that. The intro's designed such that the more 'complex' (they're not actually complicated, just unfamiliar) runes aren't worth worrying about at the start, though they're still shown on the UI which at least some people seem to expect to understand right away. So I could have those hidden until they're explained.

I don't want to pad out the tutorial section with too much hand-holding though - I made that mistake with Taming Dreams' intro, as you can see in ∞ the video in this post ∞ - so I'll need to find a balance.

Summoning Essences?

This is something that no testers mentioned because it barely comes up in the short section I've made so far, but I've been wondering about it for a while as I've been immersed in all the game's details for longer and have an idea of how the rest of it will play out.

When battle ends, you see a screen like this:



That shows on the field after battle for whatever reason. After playing Bravely Default II, I got wondering why I just didn't have it at the end of battle before the transition out, like most RPG victory summaries. I'll probably change that. Minor detail.

When you defeat or tame all of a species, you get an essence item, which each character can equip up to three of as the primary means of growing their stats:



You can then spend 'glitter' - the only currency in the game, and this is its only purpose - to level them up, which increases the influence they have on your stats.

Currently the acquisition of these essences isn't very smooth. It takes a long time to get the first one, then you get like three or four in one battle near the end, if you've been doing all the battles as you see them (some are optional). So that's something that I need to address.

Characters can also level up their skills by using them:



I've not been sure though how characters will acquire new skills. Through story events seems like the most obvious thing, but that'd probably be uncommon.

So I've been wondering whether to make essences a kind of skill, which visually summon the associated monster when used. Probably to use a skill of its own that you had when you faced it as an opponent. I don't mean like long Final Fantasy summons, but rather something like the monster model would briefly dissolve in then perform an attack at the same speed as any other skill. (Taming Dreams did this actually, come to think of it.) I like monster-collection in general, so being able to associate collected monsters with a character and visually see them like this would be much more appealing to me than just equipping them as statistical menu displays.

Each character will also acquire a personal essence as the story goes on, and I've been wondering for a while how that'd work. Would they accompany you as allies in battle? Maybe be summonable to fight alongside you? But then they'd fill all the slots. So some way to summon them for a single skill like this would work well.

You'd be able to level these essences up like any other skill, and each skill would have an associated set of stat modifiers, like essences do currently. Glitter could still be used to improve them, so it'd act like XP-giving items in other games (Bravely Default II has 'XP Orbs').

So each character would have a set of 'innate' skills unique to them which would be learned through story progression, but could also equip whichever essences you get as you choose. Both innate skills and essences would have associated stats they'd grow through levelling up.

It solves quite a few problems, and I find it quite an elegant solution! I'd also get rid of the confusing death/life/spirit trait that skills have currently since it'd no longer be necessary.

I'm aware it's not something most people will care too much about at this point, but I thought I'd write it about it because I've been thinking about it for a while and might make the change.

Music Album

This week's album is the AFC OST, ∞ as I already wrote about! ∞

While digging around in my files yesterday, I realised that I had a surprising amount of unfinished/scrapped pieces for that soundtrack - more than for any other - so I'm interested in updating that post - and the album itself - to include and talk about at least a few of them!

So yes!

Testing's going to run for a while, so if you're a Diamond tier patron and you're interested in helping out during this early stage, you can still ask me for a key either on Discord or Patreon. The more feedback the better, really, and it's not like anything about this is especially formal!

I'm not sure when I'll be able to say that the testing period has even ended; I'll just have to see how it goes.