Norloth feedback

[Gregor]

Hi all,

Been a lurker here for some time and I must confess that I'm a complete noob as far as the indie game bussiness is concerned. Anyway, I've recently finished my first indie game, called Norloth.

For anyone interested, the demo can be downloaded from here (http://freeweb.siol.net/7arc/NorlothDemoSetup.exe).
Any feedback is welcome.

Screenshots:
1 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot01.jpg) 2 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot02.jpg) 3 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot03.jpg) 4 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot04.jpg) 5 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot05.jpg) 6 (http://www.sapientstone.com/images/screenshot06.jpg)

It is a semi-hardcore game, so the minimum hw requirements are somewhat high compared to the more casual games. I started developing it in my spare time, but having completed it I decided to release it as shareware.
I've put it on some download sites like download.com and tucows and for now I was hoping to make just a couple of direct sales and invest that into marketing since I have no marketing budget at the moment. Hopefully this will happen soon, but I would appreciate any kind of advice on what to do with this kind of more hardcorish type of game.

I have a feeling that Norloth is a little too much hardcore to have a decent conversion rate. Maybe I'm wrong. Nevertheless, it was fun making it.

Tnx,
Gregor

[Night Elf]

I've tried your game, Gregor and I think it's very nice. Great graphics, especially the effects.

The only problem is I couldn't get through the second level. How am I supposed to destroy the enemy's "base" if it keeps healing and I have to fight the other monster at the same time? If I kill him, he just reappears and right there, where I'm destroying his base, so I have not enough time to destroy it... I couldn't even destroy it once! I used the shield to protect me, but that made little difference... Is there something I'm missing?

[Gregor]

The only problem is I couldn't get through the second level. How am I supposed to destroy the enemy's "base" if it keeps healing and I have to fight the other monster at the same time? If I kill him, he just reappears and right there, where I'm destroying his base, so I have not enough time to destroy it... I couldn't even destroy it once! I used the shield to protect me, but that made little difference... Is there something I'm missing?

Yes, I'm aware of that. Some people have the same problem when facing the first enemy Norloth. I'm working on a solution right now.
The trick is to steal all the power(blue particles) which is released when you destroy a level of its base. This way it will not have enough power to rebuild or upgrade the base. Build and upgrade your altar(base) as much as you can, destroy enemy Norloth's altar and steal the released power, keep destroying enemie's base using shiled until the base is almost completely destroyed, kill the enemy Norloth, finish the base while there's no Norloth.

[indiemaker]

Great graphics. This game reminds me a little bit of Diablo. I notice you did everything yourself: design, programming, and art. That is quite an accomplishment. Does this game use 3d hw acceleration?

[Gregor]

Tnx, indiemaker.

This game reminds me a little bit of Diablo.
I'm a great fan of Diablo, so I guess it shows. :) If I'm going to start on another game, it will probably be even more similar to Diablo, at least at the design level, beause I love the idea of game just building its content with random level generation, random item drops, maybe even random quests and an enormous amout of possibilities.

I notice you did everything yourself: design, programming, and art. That is quite an accomplishment.
Tnx. As far as I know this is quite common in indie development. I wouldn't mind working with others thou, sometimes it's really difficult to manage everything by myself and it takes quite a lot of time.

Does this game use 3d hw acceleration?
Yes, it's OpenGL hw accelerated but only to quickly render 2D quads with various types of blending - no real 3D stuff going on there.

Gregor

[codeminion]

Hello

I must admit I had great fun playing Norloth untill it crashed on the first level when i was killing the zombies/whatever. (WinXP Sp2, 1 GBRAM, Radeon 9800 PRO) you can imagine I wasn't too happy because I was about to destroy the hive! :)

Anyway a very interesting game, a nice cool down from all this "casuality" around.

Seems a bit unpolished and the look and feel is a bit grudgy but I guess you wont put it on portals like BigFish anyway with all the devils around ;)

If yhou are interested on a scale of (really bad, bad, average, good, great!)

Idea: Great!
Sounds: Average
Graphics: Average
Streering: Average (you could add some mouse steering, that would be really nice and some small menu for building altars etc. it's a bit of work but you might want to take it under consideration)
Overall fun: good

Thanks for making games like that, the mood really hit spot for me. I ll be watching this topic for newer versions :)

Best regards
Konrad

[stan]

Nice lava effect!

Hmm... The tutorial messages shouldn't go away by themselves I think. When the game started, I watched the gfx and lava effect, then noticed that the text had faded out and been replaced by another one...

It looks like there are too many messages at the beginning, too. I didn't feel like reading that much, at least.

And, well, I was disappointed that the game wasn't mouse controlled, but keyboard only. I was expecting something like Starcraft (that's what the screenshots make me think about).

[electronicStar]

Hi, first of all this is a great achievement to have done all that by yourself.
My impressions:
-there's a little problem with gameplay. I spent most of my play time waiting for something : waiting for my life to restore, waiting for respawn etc... plus it's a bit repetitive to die->respawn->attack enemy altar->die etc....You should make something about that to make the gameplay less tedious
-It's difficult to tell which level is my altar or the enemy one, there should be an indication (number)
-the scaled-up sprites are way too blurry.
-the game lacks a bit variety, I don't know what, maybe there should be some items to pick up in the level or treasures or things like that.
-some of the level starts are too difficult with the player spawning in the middle of monster lairs

Otherwise, I like the mood of the game (even though I don't like diablo) but It would benefit from a bit more of variety in the level graphics and the enemies and the weapons. It certainly has some potential with some players.

[Sirrus]

Try contacting spidweb.com - they may carry it...

[Gregor]

Thanx for all the feedback/info guys.
I will try to implement some of your suggestions in the next update.

When the game started, I watched the gfx and lava effect, then noticed that the text had faded out and been replaced by another one...
If you press 'h' you will get the hint history window where you can review all the hints shown so far in the level.

Otherwise I get very mixed feedback on every point of the game. Some people like gameplay as it is, some find it boring. The same goes with graphics, levels, etc. so it's very difficult to merge all those suggestion together.

-there's a little problem with gameplay. I spent most of my play time waiting for something : waiting for my life to restore, waiting for respawn etc... plus it's a bit repetitive to die->respawn->attack enemy altar->die etc....You should make something about that to make the gameplay less tedious
I think this is a problem only in the first few levels while your Norloth is still quite weak. But I undestand what you mean. Well I guess it all depends on how much time are you willing to spend on leveling up your Norloth.

-It's difficult to tell which level is my altar or the enemy one, there should be an indication (number)
OK. Good idea.

-the scaled-up sprites are way too blurry.
Can't help this. The only thing that would solve this would be higher res sprites - not an option at this moment.

-the game lacks a bit variety, I don't know what, maybe there should be some items to pick up in the level or treasures or things like that.
OK, maybe. But there is some extra stuff to do even now, thou in the demo version there's only one: try to destroy all the energy orbs in lvl 4. :) I know there should be a lot more stuff like this in the game, but then it would take me another n months to complete the game. I had to stop at a certain point. The other idea was to implement mini random quests that pop up randomly during the level and I'm still thinking of implementing it.

-some of the level starts are too difficult with the player spawning in the middle of monster lairs
The only level I can think of in the demo version with this problem would be the boss lvl (5). But I think that at this point your Norloth shoud be strong enough to handle them. And like I said before - the game becomes much more interesting when the Norloth has higher lvl skills and weapon powers.
Maybe I'm expectiong too much of the player to replay some of the levels to get more experience. I don't know. It wouldn't bother me.

Tnx again,
Gregor

[Gregor]

Oh, and for anyone interested I was just working on a trailer.
Here's a version that shows gameplay from the full version too:
Trailer. (http://www.runicblue.com/sha/NorlothTrailerSmall.avi)
It's quite large - 30 mb. But it shows the real power of a high lvl Norloth. :cool: