SAM'S PROFILE

So, the theme's Nuclear Contamnination and the three hours are from 11pm tomorrow to 2am Friday for the UK?

... Sod it, I'm in.

My internet's finally back on - meaning I'll be hanging around the forums again! =D

Can't wait to see what everyone's been working on while I was away.

I think that's possibly the most in-depth feedback the internet has ever given me =O

Thanks man, this is great! Exactly the kinda stuff I need to go back and spruce things up with.

To answer a few questions:

- The Health Bar
- In all the times I tested the demo, I never managed to make the health bar disappear. It really is quite a weird occurance but I'll definately be looking into it.

- You respawn with 3 health out of 5. Also health pickups respawn along with enemies. I'm not sure what caused you to respawn with one health. It might be linked to your health bar disappearing though. If anyone else comes across this problem, please let me know.

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- Bullets
- Sound effects are placeholders, don't worry, they will be replaced ^^;

- The bullets being stopped by dead enemies is a problem I came across too. The weird thing is, when the enemies are alive they're on the same layer as the hero, but when they die they're set to Above Hero, and the bullets are constantly set to Below Hero. I might just need to add a Paralell Process event to teleport the dead enemies off screen. But if anyone has a better solution, please let me know.

- The shotgun only has 50 shells when you get it, and the machine gun has 300 rounds. There's currently no indication of your remaining ammo on screen due to time restrictions. This will be fixed in later versions and ammo pickups will be placed around the maps in the same fashion as the health pickups.

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- Enemies
- I think the enemies you're referring to are the ones set to "Move Towards Hero" which is true for some of the small Crawlers and the security guards before the demo's end boss. I plan to change their movement patterns. The rest are on Custom Patterns to hide behind boxes and pop out to shoot, etc.

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- Dying
- Dying usually returns you to the start of the current room with 3 health and the enemies you've already killed still very much dead. And seeing as the game's rather linear, I don't see exactly why you'd need to jump between rooms so much. The only exception to this being the boss rooms where the checkpoint is placed outside.

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- Plot
- The plot's very basic, agreed. The thing is, you can use the computers to read diaries, logs and even order forms that reveal little things about the plot so it can be pieced together very slowly. Though I agree the intro could probably be beefed up a little, I wanted the player to be thrown straight in, slightly confused and just getting right down to the action.

It just seems to me that a lot of the time there's too much plot, and it conflicts with the gameplay. No one wants to sit through a 20 minute intro. The plot will speed up as you get closer to the end of the game. Things start getting answered and laid on thicker the further you get in, but in the meantime I'd like the player to know very little about what's going on, and to try piece it together if they can from the computer logs.

Oh, and the main character's more or less a mute as to not spoil a twist at the end. We get the occasional thought from them, and will obviously utter simple words like "OK" from time to time. You won't hear anyone mention their name, age or gender though.

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- Graphics
- They could be darker, and moodier, agreed. At the moment I've been concentrating more on gameplay than anything else but I feel it does need to be a little desaturated and darkened. The atmosphere of the game at the moment is too "Let's shoot everything!" resembling tons of arcade games - like you said yourself, rather than being a slower, more atmospheric experience, ala Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Galerians. It'll definately be something I'll concentrate on in the final release.

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I'm really gald you enjoyed the demo, particularly the final boss of it, and I'm amazed you put so much time and thought into your feedback, it really does make the time I've spent working on it so far worth it man. I really appreciate it =)

If you're up to it I wouldn't mind getting the second demo of Fenrir reviewed.
http://stilllifecomic.co.uk/extra/FenrirPublicDemo2.rar

Now downloading Normal Mode. I might be able to put up a mirror link for this game