Topics

1

Skyward Collapse / Animation Suggestion

« on: May 18, 2013, 11:44:10 PM »

I'm not in the alpha or anything, but I have seen the video on youtube. One thing I noticed is that the death animation for tiles is the same flipping + reduced alpha thing from Valley2 and SH. IMO it's not a great animation. It worked pretty well in SH, not so well in Valley2, and I think in this game there's a much more natural suggestion. Why not have dead tiles fall down into the void? I mean that's such a big part of this game, right?

I would even say that dead units could do the same. They could either phase down through the ground, or the ground could 'swallow them whole' by falling down. The tile would then come back up (maybe even with a slight bounce as it reaches its proper altitude) and the unit would be gone. This would all happen simultaneously for all dead units and would be pretty fast, but it would exploit the dynamic of the game to help cover up for missing animations.

Another, less important idea, is to have the units have 'weight' to them: as they move on the map, they'd cause the tile under them to sink a little, and to bounce back up once they leave the tile. This kind of thing would again serve the purpose of making the feeling of the animation more dynamic.

2

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Discussion: New stat: dexterity

« on: May 17, 2012, 06:23:52 PM »

Just about everybody seems to agree that double jumps and triple jump need some disincentive to make choosing other leg enchants worthwhile. Originally this was going to be in the form of a reduction in max mana, but that makes low mana races even weaker. So a dexterity stat makes a lot of sense. It'll take character points (base points + whatever upgrade will eventually exist) away from other stats, and some races will have more of it than others. You could specialize

There appears to be some discussion about what effect exactly DEX should have on double/triple jumps. I like the proposed mechanism of disabling those enchants if you don't have the required stats for them. This is like an ARPG where you try to equip a weapon with requirements that are too high for you. The key point here is that it's not enough to make double jump a little weaker with low DEX. It has to be done to the point that a regular jump boost enchant is the better (or only) choice, and in my opinion the only real way to do that is to disable double jump if you don't have the DEX for it, and to disable triple jump if you don't have the DEX for that.

This discussion got swallowed up in the other, mostly unrelated thread. So... opinions?

3

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Lava Escape -- what's the deal?

« on: May 17, 2012, 02:00:53 PM »

I just started lava escape missions and I have no idea how to beat them. Cool visual effects though.

Anybody got tips?

4

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Annoying Enemies

« on: May 11, 2012, 09:54:02 AM »

There are certain enemies in the game that I find incredibly annoying, to the point that I try to immediately leave any area where I find them. I wanted to see what other people think:

- The devs seem to have an obsession with homing projectiles, or projectiles that have a mind of their own. That's ok with the fairies (but fairly annoying) because they have low HP, but it gets old fast. IMO homing projectiles are not fun. They take away your ability to maneuver around them and they're just cheap. It seems like everyday there's another enemy with some form of homing projectiles.

- Enemies that constantly run back and forth like the rhino and eagle, without making a sound until they hit you, are not very enjoyable either. I'd much rather see more interesting AI on these guy, as in they would sit and wait, or just walk around (in the rhino's case) until you got close, and then they'd go psycho. Get away from them and they'd relax again.

- I hate the fact that the eagle can go through walls. This behavior makes sense for something like ghosts (which are usually slow to compensate), but not for a freakin' eagle. I feel like the game taps into some monster behaviors from 20 years ago that have gone extinct for good reason, and this is one of them.

- Fire bats: seem to be near impossible to avoid getting hit by these suckers, and they hit for a LOT including DoT.

Any others?

5

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Does Permadeath Belong Here?

« on: May 10, 2012, 09:12:30 AM »

I'd like to raise the question of whether permadeath even belongs in this game. As far as I can tell, permadeath really belongs in rogue-likes where it increases suspense, because you could lose everything any moment. In AVWW, you're not really supposed to lose the whole game. Therefore, whatever sense of loss you might get from losing a character can only be equivalent to a character dying in an MMORPG: an XP loss aka a grind punishment.

At the same time, permadeath has a serious downside which Tom Chick pointed out in his podcast: it detaches you completely from your avatar. And that's really not good. People like their avatar to grow in power and thrive. They like to identify with him/her/it, even if their avatar never talks.

There's another issue as well: a much more natural gameplay element suggests itself very strongly in this game. You're collecting survivors, right? And they come from different time periods, and have different abilities etc. So the natural suggestion is that the survivors are the ones whose bodies the glyph should control. Here's how it would work out more or less: if you die, you're just incapacitated. You then have to choose one of the other characters you have in your settlement. If all characters are incapacitated, then you get some penalty. This penalty could be strategic or it could be grind-related, as time passes by for all characters to heal.

This also allows for some really cool possibilities. Inventories could be made character-specific. Each character could store a different collection of spells and enchants, and could therefore offer completely different gameplay. Getting more characters means getting another life (before the penalty hits), but it also means you could have another character to customize. You get to know your different characters, care about them, and appreciate their different abilities.

6

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Shrinking the empty space, increasing continent size

« on: May 02, 2012, 01:47:28 PM »

This is an idea that belongs on Mantis, but at the same time, I'd like to get more people's feedback.

I think one of the issues with the game currently is that the game is ambivalent about how much of an exploration game it is. On the one hand, it's a procedurally generated game, reminding people of Terraria. This suggests you should be able to go off and explore for as long as you want. Long-time players, however, know that going off and wandering is generally a recipe for boredom: there simply isn't enough variation at this point to fill up as big of a world as AVWW generates in an interesting way. So the game gives you ways to stay on target: the dungeon map shows you where to go to get stuff, and the planning menu (and now the amazing shopping list) gives you a gentle reminder to get back to the task at hand. I think this is one of the biggest tests of whether you'll like the game. If you can learn to keep yourself on a target, there's a much better chance that you'll fall in love with the game.

The problem is, you can't prevent people from wanting to explore. It's one of the big draws of the game after all. You can't fault people for doing what the concept of the game implies is possible. I had a feeling that this might be the case, but the beta testers were already used to the way the game worked so it didn't bother them, and it took a whole slew of new people playing the game to get a good feel for whether this would be a problem.

My suggestion is to shrink down the number of rooms, caves and buildings generated by the game. One iteration of this was done in the beta, but I think another iteration is in order. The key point here is that as more variation is put into the random generation of the game (interesting objects, enemies, themes, different-feeling caves per region etc), the parameters can be increased gradually to make these spaces big again. In the meantime, I think it makes sense to reduce the number of chunks per tile to 1-3, and to reduce the number of (big) buildings per chunk to 0-2 as well (it's fine to have single or 2-room buildings). Caves could be reduced as well, but I don't have any idea about the figures off-hand. As a side-effect, resources would become more strategic, since upon encountering a boss protecting a gem vein, you can't just say "let's go to another cave".

In exchange for this reduction, I believe people want to see bigger continent possibilities, and I think that makes sense. This part of the game is completely balanced by the wind effect, so it doesn't matter that a map is bigger -- if anything, it seems like it would make things more interesting. Bigger continents would make it harder to reach a specific type of tile, thus making spell selection somewhat more randomized per continent. And I think a bigger map is both more impressive and strategic: you have to decide in which direction to build the wind shield: should I head towards the overlord or should I head towards a really important resource instead? Together with the idea that you could get free wind shield missions from tier-ups, this could work really well IMO.

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / The Keyboard Challenge

« on: April 26, 2012, 08:45:13 PM »

Hey guys. As some of you might know, I've long since pushed for a keyboard configuration for people who are having trouble with the default mouse configuration. If you have a laptop, or if you don't have a mouse with many buttons, I feel like control is more fluid when you use keyboard-only mode.

However, recently I've gone back to playing a little with mouse mode, and I've become convinced that keyboard mode is just BETTER. Why? Because not only does it allow for very good control of your jumps, it also limits you in productive ways. Instead of just clicking on your target and hitting it right away, you have to line up your sights. You have to manipulate your position to aim. And you can't just run away from enemies and shoot them backwards. In my opinion, combat becomes much more interesting when you use the keyboard, because you can't just hit enemies wherever they are. Also, you need different spells to effectively hit enemies in different positions. Limitation is the key to good gameplay, and it seems to me that the limitations from using the keyboard make combat much more intense and tighter-feeling.

So my challenge to you is, if you're playing with the mouse, switch to keyboard-only mode for 30 minutes. Fight some combat in the game, then give me your opinion below. Realize that it'll limit you and initially you may be annoyed that you can't hit the enemies wherever they are, but it should also make you jump around more and think deeper about your position vis a vis the enemies'.

If you game on a desktop, my recommendation is to move with WASD and fire with the numpad keys (I think these are default assignments). You can easily access all spells this way. If you game on a laptop, I recommend moving with the arrow keys and assigning the spells to Q,W,E,A,S,D,Z,X,C for 9 slots and 1 for the last slot.

Oh, and feel free to scroll the mouse to the 9th position, where you can put platforms in 9 and boxes in 0. This will allow you to still place platforms and boxes wherever you want.

8

AVWW Brainstorming / Ideas for exploration enhancement

« on: April 26, 2012, 10:55:01 AM »

I'd like to address one of the points that I think AVWW doesn't have down yet completely: exploration. The reason I'm doing it here rather than on Mantis is because I'd like maximum feedback and because I think there is SO much potential for ideas on this front.

I've thought long and hard about this topic. I used to be averse to the huge number of areas and rooms AVWW generates. I thought that it could easily generate far fewer meaningful areas rather than so many ones that are uninteresting. Remember that there's an issue with the game where people tend to over-explore after losing track of a goal, and then they get bored. This is something that's been an issue with the game for a while: you have to actively stop yourself from exploring.

I've come around to seeing the advantage of having a huge world with many rooms. As Chris says, it's more realistic: you have to zero in on the good stuff and separate the wheat from the chaff. But I think there are some hindrances from this philosophy really excelling in the game. The major problem as far as I can tell is having the map be auto-explored.

Let me explain. What is fun about exploration? I think the thing that's most fun is the thought: what's waiting for me just around the corner? What cool thing am I going to find now? Also, where can I find some secret goodies? The map really prevents that from happening. It also doesn't make sense -- how can I always see what's in rooms 2 levels away from me? This mechanism isn't intuitive and it doesn't relate to the subject matter of the game.

So how would I like to see exploration of say, a cave? First, I would like the map to be used for what it's usually for: showing you where you are and how to get back to places you've been, and incorporating new information you've learned. This will restore the surprise of "oh crap I just stepped into a boss cave and there are 3 frackin' bosses here!" and the joy of finding a gem vein. It also presents so many other opportunities. But more on that later.

Second, I keep thinking about Chris's notion of exploration in the real world. How would I explore a huge open world? Well, I would try to get to the good stuff. But how do I do that without a magical map? I'd look for clues of course. If I'm looking for a gem vein, a empty gem bag would be a clue that someone came out of that door and had gems at some point. Or I could find a broken gem on the ground. Where did it come from? There's seemingly no entrance around here? Wait a minute -- if I climb all the way up this cave, there's a hole in the wall directly above this dropped gem! That's where it came from! Another good aspect of this is that I'm looking at the main screen to try find my way and clues about where to go -- not just the map all the time.

There's also the potential for hiding entrances behind things, with clues. I've found a gem bag on the ground but I've checked all the entrances and there's nothing there to be found within a couple of chunks. Where's this gem from? Wait it was next to this mushroom... Destroy the mushroom and there's a secret entrance to another cave! This of course should be rare so you're not constantly destroying every item. Also if mushrooms can explode and spray gas etc you have an incentive not to blow up all of them.

I think there's still place for the map to expand and give you some knowledge, but that knowledge could come from maps that you find or are given. So looking for gravestones is a good idea, because someone might have etched a map onto that. Or you might just find a random map on the ground. These things are likely because the caves were inhabited at some point, and the inhabitants needed a way to find their way or to tell others how not to get lost.

Then you get into all the potential things that you could find and that could surprise you once you're not tied to the map telling you everything. You find an old madman running back and forth and shouting crazy things related to what happened to the world. He may have a clue about a gem vein, or a room where another survivor can be found. He can mark it on your map.

This also brings me to another (minor) point, which is the way that 'missions' are such a rigid, defined structure. They break the 4th wall of the game -- especially secret ones. I'd much prefer it if an Ilari stone told you about something to do, and especially if it didn't call it a mission. Or it could just be 'attempt to rescue survivor' by going in through a door. Yes, it's a mission, but we don't have to call it that. Anyway that was a tangent.

What would going through buildings be like? Actually it would be even cooler than going through caves. Remember, buildings are mostly empty, but there were some survivors who tried to protect themselves from the monsters that were unleashed before they died. So they created bunkers out of objects and crates and... traps!. So you're going through the building looking for some signs that something was alive here recently. Some food on the floor would be a clue that you should keep going down this hallway. A trap would be a great sign, because survivors would have set that. As you get closer to a stash, you'd find more traps and barricades. This would have the serendipitous effect of making the path to the stash more and more difficult as you got closer and closer, making things more and more interesting.

Anyway, I think that this method of leaving clues to the whereabouts of things and distributing maps minimally would really restore that sense of exploration that's missing with the map uncovering stuff for you. What do you guys think? And what ideas do you have for exploration (along the lines I sketched here)?

9

AVWW Mods & Maps / Crowd-sourcing animation?

« on: April 24, 2012, 09:40:02 AM »

One of the complaints that's been leveled against the game's looks is that the animation is stiff. This is one I tend to agree with, and we all know the reason for it -- it takes time and money to do animation and there are many many characters in the game. I've been thinking though: there are probably a few people on the forums who are pretty good with pixel graphics and could try to slowly fill in the gaps in the animation. The key here is that this is something that can be done slowly over time. Preferably, one animation at a time could be added per character, so that you don't suddenly have one character that's fully animated while others aren't animated at all.

What do the devs think of this idea?
Also, could you explain the way the characters were rendered, and how we could go about filling in the gaps (if it's possible?) I see that while running has a full dictionary of movements, the other 'animations' are just static pictures.

10

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Wherefore art thou Lumbermancer?

« on: February 26, 2012, 05:46:31 PM »

It seems that every advancement for my settlement/guardian powers requires that I first construct residential areas, and those require lumbermancers, which I don't have. I keep looking for secret missions with new settlers but haven't found any for a while. Is this a deliberate bottleneck? Also, has anyone else been stuck at this spot? Finally, is the only way out right now to find secret settler missions?

11

AVWW Brainstorming / Remaining Parts of the Strategic Game

« on: February 09, 2012, 12:13:30 PM »

I'm really happy with... just about everything in AVWW really.

Getting rid of EP in favor of CP was a good move and I think shows how hard it is to nail the tone of the game. My question is, now that EP and continental destruction is gone, perhaps some strategy can still be left in the game?

My thoughts are:
- The settlement is fair game for the overlord to target. It's the rebels' outpost. I don't think it makes the game too tense (unlike the impending destruction of the continent).
- I also think it's important that attacks on the settlement NOT be visible on the world map before they arrive. This would create a mission that the player had to do which involved simply attacking rampaging monsters, and never allowing them to reach the settlement. I think from tier 3, it should be possible for the overlord to attack the settlement by sending monsters. This would be a mission that lasts several mission time turns or until the player returns to the settlement to recharge (it might be better to still allow the player to recharge by, say, just walking over the settlement, so he can choose not to take on the mission right away). If all survivors are wiped out, the settlement is lost and the player has to move on to another continent. If the mission is left alone for several mission time units, it auto-resolves randomly and your remaining settlers ask you where you were to defend them.
- There could be some missions to spy on the overlord, which would give the player knowledge of attack plans. The attacking party would then become visible on the map, at which point the player can attack them.
- A secret mission could involve stumbling into where the attacking party is. It could be underground (they travel by caves) or above ground, or they could be resting in a building. This prevents the attack on the settlement from happening and sets back the overlord.
- The overlord doesn't know where the settlement is initially. He needs to send scouts to find the settlement.
- Encountering scouts and killing them in random places will weaken the overlord and set him back.
- When a scout arrives at the settlement, another mission becomes available which is to kill the scout(s) (in a similar way to the defend settlement mission). This is a tower defense style mission that really benefits from storm rush. The scout is really buff and runs past the settlement and other chunks next to it. Your goal is to prevent all the scout from reaching the end, at which point it's assumed that the overlord has learned of the settlement's location.
- In addition, the overlord can set up visible attack camps that are too powerful to take on (too many strong monsters). The player can then have missions to try break up those camps before they invade the settlement too.

I think the general feel of missions like the ones above is that there's some danger, but all in all it's 'strategy-lite' which I think is what suits the game best: it should be pretty hard (but possible) to really lose a continent.

12

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Mission fails when anyone dies

« on: January 21, 2012, 07:23:49 PM »

Just saw the note in the unreleased release notes saying that in many missions, if anyone dies the mission is failed, and I just wanted to say that this could cause a lot of frustration for players. Taking one weaker player on a mission could doom a mission, and this could cause unneeded angst between players.

I think a better way of handling it is to say that a mission is only failed if ALL players are killed. This creates the opposite situation, where any remaining player becomes the "last remaining hope" of the group -- a much more positive experience. I think the key is to allow the dead players the option of watching the remaining live players in action. You already have a pretty easy way to do this: just have players float around as (very transparent) ghosts. They would have the option of leaving the mission and doing their own thing in the world, or they could just keep watching the remaining players.

Maybe you could even have a rare powerup from killing some bosses that resurrects a ghost player. The only down side with this is that it would almost force players to keep watching, which some may find boring. Still, it's worth considering as an idea.

13

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Tier Replacement #1: Degradation On A Per-Spellgem Basis

« on: December 05, 2011, 07:36:51 PM »

The 1st comment here http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9555.msg88197.html#msg88197 made me think about the spell gems. I know there's a lot of deconstruction of the game taking place as is, but maybe this is worth a look as well. We already know that the game is not an RPG. I think the only thing that remains of the RPG paradigm is spell gems decreasing in power, and spell gem tiers that keep going up.

Why is this a problem? Because, as Orelius describes, it's frustrating to become completely powerless as time goes by unless you go hunting for new gems. It's not entirely clear to the user that gems should become weaker, and they all become weaker at the same time, leaving you with no other options or strategic decisions other than being forced to obtain new gems.

So here's another variation on the spellgem idea. What if there weren't tiers of spellgems? Instead, gems would degrade and crack as you used them. If you abused them they would degrade faster.  I'm not sure what abuse would entail -- perhaps if you used them too fast, or too many times in a row, or you fired them right after certain other gems, or perhaps you could have a charging mechanism by holding down the button that could cause them to overheat. Anyway, you'd always see clearly what shape your gems are in. Also, you could only ever have one of any spell gem (for balance reason).

The key differences here are the following:
- Spells don't artificially become weaker relative to the monsters. It's especially artificial now that the game doesn't try to be an RPG.
- There's clear feedback as a gem degrades.
- The player is in control of degradation. Use the gem gently, don't overpower it, follow the rules (which the game will try to persuade you to break) and it'll last longer.
- Not all spells degrade at once. This is the critical difference. It means that as one spell degrades from overuse, you still have other spells to choose from. You can change your strategy, or hunt for other types of spells.

The other nice thing about this is that it also suggests a method for handling super spells. You'd create gems that are very rare, very fragile, and which break after only a couple of uses.

As an aside, there could be more ways to craft spell gems. Some could involve materials or objects only present in buildings. Some rare spells could only be crafted during a particular time of day or in a particular place, etc.

14

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Why I Dislike Monster Nests

« on: November 29, 2011, 07:53:08 PM »

So in my original post ("Constructive Criticism") I mentioned one of the things I dislike about monster nests. I do think the incentives to destroy monster nests far outweigh reasons not to, but that's not the real thing I dislike about them. It took me a while to put into words what I didn't like about them.

Monster nests are a throwback to some old games I can't even remember. The only games that have used monster nests recently that I can remember are puzzle games like Braid and Abe's Odyssey.
The reason for this is that monster nests are completely artificial. They're entirely non-immersive IMO. In puzzle games, you sometimes need to replace specific enemies once they've been killed. This is because puzzles may depend on a monster being in a specific place. It's artificial, but it works. 

There's no reason to have monster nests in a realistic game though. Most ARPGs just spawn monsters off-screen, and this works really well. AVWW has a bit of a unique problem in that it's split up into screens -- there isn't one open area. Still, I think specific solutions can be thought up for each area to make monster spawning more realistic.

Overland areas could spawn just like ARPGs. They could generate monsters offscreen, or in the worst case, if there are too many players onscreen, monsters can spawn from caves, out of building doors/windows (as if they broke out of the building) or from the corners of the screen (including the top corners for flying monsters).

Caves could spawn off-screen if they're big enough, or at their exits. An exit to the outside should always be able to spawn monsters, but entrances to other caves could also spawn monsters so long as those caves haven't been cleared.

Within buildings, monsters could spawn from either doors, windows, vents or perhaps holes in the walls.

The one exception to this is boss rooms, which are somewhat artificial (but in a cool way) to begin with. You expect bosses to have minions spawning around them. I'm totally ok with using monster nests of some sort for this, though I'd prefer something like magical portals instead.

However, I'm not sure if my reaction to monster nests is shared by other folks. What's your opinion?

15

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Constructive Criticism

« on: November 22, 2011, 01:07:57 PM »

I've been following the development of AVWW for a while. Like many people, I was disappointed when Arcen made the switch to a side-scroller -- a decision based almost entirely on art assets. Nevertheless, I trusted Arcen's instincts and had high hopes. I've since played the demo many times, trying my best to get into it, and I have a lot of feedback. I've waited a long time before writing this post to make sure I wasn't the only one with this opinion -- it's easy to become overly subjective when you hold a strong opinion.

First, there are a few things I want to warn Arcen about. I think you have a great forum here, but I think it's not giving you enough constructive criticism. This is a really big problem. Everyone here is gushing about how great the game is, but not enough people are saying what they don't like about the game. Or maybe they're expressing their opinion on Mantis -- I'm not sure, but I am sure that this forum isn't the kind of forum I'm used to in a beta.

I also think there's another problem, and that has to do with the way Arcen is partly gauging the popularity of AVWW -- via sales. I think there are quite a few people who bought AVWW because they like AI War and they sporadically followed AVWW's development, but after buying the game became quite disappointed with it and don't necessarily plan to keep playing it. I can't tell how big this group is, but I suspect it's not insubstantial.

Now to the problems with the game itself. I understand that it's beta and everything, but I think the core mechanics have serious flaws that need to be addressed. Adding more monsters is not going to solve the problems. The way the game plays right now is just too boring -- really really boring. I've tried to analyze why that is, and I've come up with a few points as well as a few possible solutions.

1. The areas are too large. Arcen is approaching the size of this game as if it's AI War. In AI War (from what I understand) there was good reason to make a huge galaxy: you were hunting for the location of the AIs. Also, space games by their nature lend themselves to being overly huge. In an exploration game, though, if exploration is tedious, then something is very wrong. And exploration in this game is very tedious. Here's my reaction to finding a house in one of the first areas for the first time: "Wow -- a house! And I can enter it! Sweet! And there are rooms! My there are lots of rooms... lots and lots of rooms... and they're all fairly similar... OK I gotta get out of here; this is too much. But it was cool that there was a house there I could enter. I'll remember this as 'The Region With An Awesome House'. Wait, there's another house... and another one... and... 12 more houses! In this one little area alone!" You basically take the natural curiosity/sense of exploration of gamers and trample it to death with the amount of areas and rooms in this game. And let's not even mention the caves -- they go on forever and ever.

I understand you've tried to cover up for the size of areas with warp potions, colored maps and such. But I think this is just avoiding the main problem. I shouldn't need a colored map to tell me there's a huge stash of stuff in the room 2 doors down if I head in this or that direction. It should be the palpable feeling of seeing that stuff that surprises me.

2. Monster nests. They're really not a good idea as they are. Why? Aside from the fact that 3 skulls spawning all sorts of mobs is ridiculous -- that's obviously just a cosmetic issue -- the problem is you're teasing players into smashing every one of them. Time is not a resource in this game. So if you give the option of destroying monster nests, players get a feeling like they should destroy them -- they have no reason not to except that it's tedious. And tedium should not be a limit on doing things. If you give players tedious ways to do things that have no other disadvantage, they'll carry those things out and just get bored. You could try telling them not to do those things, but they'll get a funny feeling in their stomach that they should do them anyway. Indestructible nests, which is what you had initially, is not a good solution, as could be seen by the objections that came up.

3. Allowing the player to go everywhere. You guys keep mentioning Metroid, but one of the coolest things in Metroid was seeing some tantalizing powerup, not being able to get to it, and then finally getting the movement powerup needed to get that other powerup. You used this gameplay element in the tutorial, but for the rest of the game we have at least ride the lightning and storm dash, which albeit cool, allow us to go anywhere we want. The best side-scrollers limit where the player can go so that later on the player can finally get there, and you're just not making use of that at all.

4. Rinse, wash, repeat. Every game has a repetitive core, but the best games hide it. By separating out the caves as the place to get weapons, and the above-ground areas as the place where you fight the main bad guys using said weapons, you've created a very obvious cycle and essentially separated the game out into 2 mini-games (aside from the strategic and action part) that have to be iterated over constantly, whether the player wants to or not. I may be enjoying myself on the overworld area, but here I go again heading into the caves to improve my weapons. It's not even a matter of how often I need to update my weapons. Just the fact that weapons can only be improved in the caverns means there's a strong incentive constantly pushing me to go there to see if I can improve them. Contrast this to the way standard ARPGs do things: you find loot wherever you are. Some could be worse, some could be better. If you want to make sure you get better weapons, all you have to do is visit the shop. It's trivial, and the way you find enough money to buy better weapons is simply by killing mobs ie doing the main activity. So the game rewards you for a)planning ahead and b)just playing it. Imagine if every time I went to the shop I had to solve 10 puzzles to be able to find a better weapon, and imagine that was the only way to get better weapons. I'd hate going to the shop, but I'd be forced to do it repeatedly. It would become a chore.

5. This one isn't a criticism: I just want to say I love the art. I think it's what draws me back. I see that random opening shot every time you start up the game and I just want to be in that world again.

OK now for some possible solutions:

1. Area sizes should be reduced dramatically. The way areas are now, they're way past what can fit in players' memories. Right now players can really only remember the boss rooms because those are relatively few. I should be able to recall: this is the area that has this building with cool stuff. This is the area that has that really deep cave. That's how dynamic stories are woven in the player's mind. But it's all just a blur because there's too much stuff. With the decreased sizes, tedium will be reduced and areas will be more fun to explore. I suggest you try to initialize a world with much fewer and smaller areas/houses/caves/rooms etc and see if it helps the experience.

2. Turns should advance every X minutes. There could be a countdown on the screen to remind you. X could vary by difficulty level. With time turned into a precious resource, suddenly it makes sense that I can't destroy every monster nest -- it's a waste of precious time. The goal of the game now shifts to finding the best stuff I can to equip my settlement/increase my strength before the inevitable invasion of the overlords and their minions. With time as a resource, a large world suddenly makes a lot more sense -- I need to sift through it to find the best stuff I can -- though I still suggest reducing the size. Building wind shelters would also be a real strategic choice: should I waste time trying to build this thing, or should I instead head straight for the resources and take my chances? I think this change alone would make the game far more interesting.

3. Since the game is infinite, movement powerups such as ride the lightning have to be severely limited. This allows you to construct areas where things are out of reach unless you use a movement powerup. I recommend turning all movement stuff into time-limited potions. There could also be a very rare permanent version of one of these movement methods, but it should have serious negative consequences attached as well, so that activating it has a very real cost. Another possibility is to only allow one movement powerup at a time, but that would still allow reaching virtually every place.

4. You have permadeath on your side in a very cool and fairly original way. Don't neglect to use it! Caves should be hazardous, and difficult to go down, with appropriate rewards. Perhaps you could make it such that if you die, you lose only the (town) supplies you gained since the last time you visited a town, unless you spelunk back to go back to retrieve your latest possessions. Wooden bridges should be rare. I also recommend adding in a suicide button in case the player gets stuck with no way out.

5. Get rid of the lather/rinse/repeat cycle. Weapons (crystals) should be available everywhere. Perhaps in the caves you can get bigger amounts since they're the source, but surely other people stashed rocks away as well if they're so precious. You then get to explore what you want to explore rather than being told by the game that it's now time to head to the caves because you need new weapons.

I don't expect people -- especially people on this board, who are enamored with the game as it is -- to agree with my criticisms. I do think, however, that they're shared by a not insignificant number of people who used to be very excited about this game. Hopefully at the very least my comments will allow the devs to take a step back and re-evaluate some of these points.