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The next demo is now released!

  • Red_Nova
  • 06/01/2014 04:01 PM
  • 1673 views
Holy being ahead of schedule, Batman! The next demo of Soul Sunder has been released!

Originally, the demo was supposed to go all the way through Haven after the third Stratum, but since I'm gonna be in the Indie Game Development Contest, I decided to cut it just short of that. This demo takes you all the way through the boss room of the third Stratum, so it's still a substantial amount of content.

When I played through the entire thing, collecting every item and secret that I could remember and speeding through every cutscene, my clear time was 3:58. Granted, I did skip a lot of extra dialogue, like the campsites and such, so your playtime will be longer than that. This is just an average for those that wanted a rough estimate.

I just wanted to thank unity for the 1000th time for testing the next two Strata. This game wouldn't be nearly as polished without your help!

Remember, if you've played this game before, know that the item script I'm using will not register any new items that the new download has in it. Therefore, you will have to start a fresh new game in order to not cause glitches. Sorry. But don't worry, it won't all be boring. For the Childhood Arc, you can now go into the homes that you couldn't go into before! So it's not just going to be ploughing through old territory.

Anyways, enjoy the game! Let me know of any glitches or bugs! I'm really looking forward to your thoughts on this! Thanks for reading, thanks for playing, just... thanks for everything!

Posts

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Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Hey, guys. just to let you know, unity found a whole bunch of bugs and reported them to me.

I've updated the demo with the fixes. Thankfully, all the fixes are event fixes, not item property changes. Therefore, you don't have to start a new game to have the fixes. Just download the new demo, move your save file over, and bam. Done.

Sorry about that!
Damn, yesterday my internet connection failed so I couldn't see this and now I have no time to play T_T.
I'll download it and play it at night.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
It's all good, man! This game isn't going anywhere.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
This game just gets more and more intriguing with each release, and I had a blast playing the latest demo! ^_^
Ok, in case you wanna know it took me 4:33 minutes to beat the demo from the very begining. By yesterday I was done but I didn't have time to post anything today, sorry.
So...my thoughts? Well, I loved it even more. Apparently, it was possible.
Some notes:


- On the last demo I was wondering who was more awesome. Isaac or Zero, I have my answer. It's Isaac, he's just so cool. It's like, what comes to your mind if you think "badass" and "hilarious". Love him, no gay.

- Is it just me or bosses are incredibly easy? The first boss didn't attack me in the entire fight, literally(excluding the summoned hero). The second boss just got angrier every turn but killed him before he did anything. The third one was the only one that caused some decent damage to my party, but still nothing hard at all. Regular encounters are way harder.

- I don't understand how crafting works. I mean, when I open the crafting menu by talking with Myra a huge list appears but many items are either useless and many are repeated. Almost 100% of the times I can't craft neither weapons nor armor. I just don't get it, maybe the game explains it poorly or maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know.

- Something that bothers me, why are the three main characters the only ones with charset and faceset? Cieran has a faceset(although it wasn't reworked like the other ones for some reason, I guess he's not as much as a relevant character as Alex). My point is, there are some important characters that use RTP and no faceset. My perfect example for this is Arya's father. Sure, he barely appears on the Adult Arc(up until now at least) but he's still a very important character. He should have at least a faceset so that we can differ him from any other RTP character ever. I mean, from my point of view, Arya's father is still alive and well. Yeah, didn't you know? He's cleaning puke behind the tavern on Haven. Seriously, if you could do it for the three main characters,and Alex(?) you can do it for others.

- The game clearly has some backstories hidden on every stratum but the stories are not told clearly. Maybe they are supposed to be told later or something. For example, the letter on the second Stratum. What was that? Was I supposed to understand what that means? I missed something?

- The childhood Arc got easy now T_T. Maybe I improved but it felt really easy. Beating the hideous monster was so much harder on the first version, it wasn't even close from beating this time. Again, maybe it's just me that I know what I must do but it felt that way.

- On the adult Arc enemies are a bit too weak in my opinion. After the first Stratum I bought equipment for my party and boost their defenses a lot. So much infact that most of the enemies would do 0 damage to Zero and very little damage to Isaac. Inflicting arm or head injuries makes the enemies look pathetic, excluding those annoying fliying insects that always dodge my attacks.

- A little detail, after beating the last boss I wasn't allowed to save. Which means next time I update the demo I'll be forced to beat him again. I don't mind really since he's easy but a bit annoying.


I think that's about it, I'm probably forgetting something but whatever. I will remember later.
I want to say that I really really loved this. The story and the characters are GREAT and the gameplay it's kinda unique and fresh in some ways. Still don't see the "survival horror" genre, but who cares.
Oh and I wanna know. How many Stratum will the game have in total?

Great job man :D
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=urano23
Ok, in case you wanna know it took me 4:33 minutes to beat the demo from the very begining. By yesterday I was done but I didn't have time to post anything today, sorry.


It's all good! And wow, 4:33 to beat it? That's pretty good.


- On the last demo I was wondering who was more awesome. Isaac or Zero, I have my answer. It's Isaac, he's just so cool. It's like, what comes to your mind if you think "badass" and "hilarious". Love him, no gay.


Awesome!

- Is it just me or bosses are incredibly easy? The first boss didn't attack me in the entire fight, literally(excluding the summoned hero). The second boss just got angrier every turn but killed him before he did anything. The third one was the only one that caused some decent damage to my party, but still nothing hard at all. Regular encounters are way harder.


Wait, you mean that he didn't have any kind of attack at all? That's not supposed to happen. Did you inflict an arm injury on him? He should still have at least basic attacks... I'll work on that.

- I don't understand how crafting works. I mean, when I open the crafting menu by talking with Myra a huge list appears but many items are either useless and many are repeated. Almost 100% of the times I can't craft neither weapons nor armor. I just don't get it, maybe the game explains it poorly or maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know.



Unfortunately, due to the item script I'm using, the crafting menu will look really wonky for items. If you select the item and press space, the item will automatically be created as long as you have the materials and recipe. All the weapons to craft require a base weapon. Something that each character comes with. Unfortunately, the weapons that qualify that the characters already have equipped don't count.


- Something that bothers me, why are the three main characters the only ones with charset and faceset? Cieran has a faceset(although it wasn't reworked like the other ones for some reason, I guess he's not as much as a relevant character as Alex). My point is, there are some important characters that use RTP and no faceset. My perfect example for this is Arya's father. Sure, he barely appears on the Adult Arc(up until now at least) but he's still a very important character. He should have at least a faceset so that we can differ him from any other RTP character ever. I mean, from my point of view, Arya's father is still alive and well. Yeah, didn't you know? He's cleaning puke behind the tavern on Haven. Seriously, if you could do it for the three main characters,and Alex(?) you can do it for others.



To be honest, when I envisioned Cieran, he already looked exactly like the RTP sprite I used, so I didn't see a need to do a sprite for him. As for the faceset, I did want to rework it, but I got roped into the contest, so I didn't have time to do it. I will rework the faceset and put it in the next update, though.

You are right about Arya's father, though. I might do just as simple face and charset for him.


- The game clearly has some backstories hidden on every stratum but the stories are not told clearly. Maybe they are supposed to be told later or something. For example, the letter on the second Stratum. What was that? Was I supposed to understand what that means? I missed something?


It was meant to be vague, so you can interpret it however you want. More plot points will be added in the 4th stratum and on to help add clarity to your interpretations.

- The childhood Arc got easy now T_T. Maybe I improved but it felt really easy. Beating the hideous monster was so much harder on the first version, it wasn't even close from beating this time. Again, maybe it's just me that I know what I must do but it felt that way.



I think it was a little bit of both. I thought that the Childhood Arc didn't do a good enough job teaching the player the battle mechanics, so I made the enemies a little easier so the player wasn't punished for a wrong move as early. If it's a problem, I'll amp it back up in the next update.

- On the adult Arc enemies are a bit too weak in my opinion. After the first Stratum I bought equipment for my party and boost their defenses a lot. So much infact that most of the enemies would do 0 damage to Zero and very little damage to Isaac. Inflicting arm or head injuries makes the enemies look pathetic, excluding those annoying fliying insects that always dodge my attacks.


The Adult Arc was meant to be an endurance run. If you blew all your stamina on strong Drives and Magic, you would get destroyed. It sounds like you did a good job of managing stamina. As for the insects, Zero's Sonic Fist is 100% accurate, so you could use that to beat the insects easily.



- A little detail, after beating the last boss I wasn't allowed to save. Which means next time I update the demo I'll be forced to beat him again. I don't mind really since he's easy but a bit annoying.


Well, I didn't see a need to include a save point. When there's a new update, you will probably have to start over again anyway, so a save point there would be kinda useless.

I think that's about it, I'm probably forgetting something but whatever. I will remember later.
I want to say that I really really loved this. The story and the characters are GREAT and the gameplay it's kinda unique and fresh in some ways. Still don't see the "survival horror" genre, but who cares.
Oh and I wanna know. How many Stratum will the game have in total?

Great job man :D


The survival part is managing items like in a survival horror game. The "horror" isn't so much like dark corridors and grotesque imagery as much as it is unsettling atmosphere, tense situations, and a storyline full of mystery.

There are five Strata in Purgatory total.

Thanks for playing! Can't wait to get back to this after the contest is over.
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