Wildhollow v0.2 Feedback Request

[Karja]

I'd love some feedback on v0.2 of Wildhollow, a quirky adventure game with management influences.

Information

Solve quests, discover new locations and talk to strange characters as you traverse a world filled with tongue-in-cheek references to common fantasy cliches. In your travels you will encounter greedy merchants, incompetent adventurers, clueless wizards - and much more!

In Wildhollow you will also tend animals and crossbreed them in order to create completely new species. Make sure that your animals are well fed and happy, and you'll make a tidy profit!

Download

http://www.wildhollow.com/files/WildhollowDemoSetup.exe (20 MB)
(OS X version will be available later!)

Screenshots





Thanks in advance!

[Jack Norton]

Cool game, very original.
A minor fix: when you move the mouse on topleft to check status, quest etc the texts appear UNDER the mouse pointer, while they should appear over it.
Apart for that found no bugs.

[Karja]

Thanks! And thanks - the bug is noted for extermination!

[GolfHacker]

I'm on Mac, so I can't play it. But I like the graphic style.

One suggestion: the font in the last screenshot (in the bubble) is much too sterile for the art style. I would suggest visiting myfonts.com and buying a good comic book lettering font.

[Christian]

The font looks great personally, what i dont like about it is that its Bolded try using the same font but without that boldness. Nice graphics.

[Karja]

Sorry for the lack of a Mac version. I'll get around to it in the foreseeable future, and I'd love some feedback then!

Thanks for the font comments - I'll see what to do about it. I wanted something easily readable ('cause the game focuses on dialogue), but I'll try out different things. At the very least it'll be less bold...

By the way, very glad that you like the graphics. When I'm not worrying that the game design is sub par, I'm worrying that the art isn't working.

[GolfHacker]

I agree about the boldness. But I still think it is too sterile. A good comic book font won't impact readability. You can download my Dirk Dashing trial and checkout the lettering in the narrative bubbles in the first level, if you want to see what it would look like.

[Logodae]

Very cute. Definitely liking the art and writing. I'd personally like to see some difficulty progression within each minigame, or maybe variable rewards for varying degrees of "winning." (I.E., beat the game in a certain amount of time for a chance to get more apples, or whatever.)

I can't say if I'd've had the patience to save up for a compass or not... a few minutes ago switched to the menu screen and walked away, assuming that it was paused. I came back and my animals were at zero food, zero health. Not technically a bug, but I certainly wouldn't call it a feature.

One last thing... not all players are male. You might want to make it clear that they're naming a character, not just a save slot. Alternately, give the protagonist his own name, which seems to be the usual approach in casual games.

[Karja]

Very good point, about the minigames! I'll make sure that they give more rewards for playing them well. (I'm considering adding some additional ones as well.)

Whoops! Ah yes! I seem to have forgotten to pause the game when in the menu, or when switching windows... *Cough* Definitely will be fixed. Oh, the poor critters - how they suffered!

The last point is scheduled to be fixed in the next version. You may have noticed that I never use personal pronouns for the main character - it's in order to be gender neutral. When typing in the name one will get the choice between male/female as well.

[nino_rajacic]

It's really good merge of genres. I like dialogues a lot, they are really funny Storyline is interesting and keeps attention and gives (at least to me) that "I wanna see what is next" feeling.

Typewriter sound while letters are showing is a bit too hard, IMO it should be softer.

Music is also good but, maybe, little to diverse in styles for my taste.

Since I played Spandex Force I'm sure that this is going to be good game with really contagious gameplay I won't play demos anymore, don't wanna to spoil enjoyment of playing full game

[Karja]

Thanks! Added the typewriter sound change to the to do list - and maybe I should have different pitches for different characters too.

Ah yes... The music lacks direction but that's 'cause I chose a cheap way out for it. I read an article about how Panzer Dragoon has a score that's composed to fit with the on-screen action. ...That won't be the case with Wildhollow.

I hope you'll like the complete version in a couple of months!

[HDL]

WOOOT! I've been looking forward to this game ever since I read about it! WOOOT! I love the writing and your sense of humour.

Writing this as I play so it might be a bit disjointed. I haven't read the thread yet and others opinions because I didn't want them to influence mine.

Personal pet peeve is when text appears on the screen letter by letter accompanied by a clicking sound. I much prefer having it all there at once (and an option to turn off type-writer sound.

I was disappointed when in the first dialogue choice I had, when I picked "cry like a baby" the character immediately dismissed my suggestion. I dislike it when games offer me a dialogue choice and then ignore what I picked. If he's not even going to acknowledge it why have the choice there?

I've been alt+tabbing out whilst I played it. (Does the game pause when I alt+tab out or does it still run?) After I spoke to the town greeter and asked him all the questions, when I tabbed back into the game nothing would acknowledge me clicking on it. I didn't have the menu or anything at the side either. Reloading the game seems to have fixed the problem though.

The options menu, so I could turn off the music, a little difficult to find. I expected to see it on the same screen where I could play the game but I don't think it was there.

Then I got absorbed in the story for a bit. I like the story. I liked the adventure game aspects. I'd rather have the choice whether to be male/female and to know that the name I enter as my name's going to be the character name, but those are minor things.

There was one huge problem with the game, which totally spoiled my enjoyment of it. I found gathering food for the animals extremely dull and no fun at all. The animals seemed to always be hungry and constantly wanted fed. I needed to keep feeding them so I could sell the pets to get enough for the compass but it was just so horribly boring and it seemed to take forever. A few times I wouldn't have minded but having to keep doing this so my animals wouldn't starve wasn't fun at all.

The apple tree one I wouldn't have minded but I had to move my mouse and click on the tree, move mose again and click to confirm I wanted to pick apples, move most once more and shake the tree, click to continue the dialogue, wait a few seconds whilst the "you've found an apple" flashed on the screen and then repeat it all over again. It would have been better if I could have just clicked on the tree, shook it and had a small notification I'd got an apple which didn't stop me from doing other things. I'd have also liked to have seen apples falling from the tree.

The apple tree was mindless and had no game element to it which is probably why I didn't mind shaking the tree. It might have been more fun to see the apples fall off the tree as I shook it. Or to give some sort of bonus, or bigger apple, for shaking it really fast. The berry bush would have been more fun if I'd had a bigger bush and could have picked multiple berries. That would have at least stopped the click click clicking through dialogue and made it a bit less tedious. I couldn't see how the mushroom puzzle related to finding mushrooms. It's a tried and tested memory puzzle I know but for the amount of time I spent doing that puzzle, compared to the mindless shaking of the tree, I thought that perhaps the mushroom should have rewarded more food than it did. And the fishing game... well I'd be a hypocrite if I called it dull since I do fishing in World of Warcraft which is probably about as dull as you can get with no skill involved at all but I spend hours at it, usually whilst multi-tasking. So I suppose I do have a high boredom thresh-hold for mindless tasks. When I worked out you could get different sized fish in your game I quite liked that aspect and there was a slight skill to working out when to click. But... well, I think my main problem was the animals seemed to be hungry constantly. I'd been enjoying the story and the adventure aspects of the game and then suddenly I found myself forced into doing these minigames in order to earn enough money to continue the quest.

I liked the game. At the end of the first 50 minutes I was loving it. It took me 1 hour 40 minutes to finish the beta. Half that time though was spent trying to get the money for the compass and by the time I'd done that I was ready to uninstall the game and never go back.

The grind for cash wasn't fun or enjoyable for me, which is a real pity because I was all set to love the game. It's a really good idea. It's a beautiful game with some great artwork. The dialogue's a lot of fun. The story's interesting. I really liked the idea of taking care of pets and breeding them, but the implementation of it just didn't work for me. It needs some tweaking to make those bits more fun. I think all it really needs is to be set so that animals don't need to eat quite so much and you get multiple bits of food from playing each game.

Okay, reading the thread now.

Glad to hear that there's the male/female choice, which I love the idea of much more than having a named character. Glad the pausing problem's being fixed.

And sorry if I've been overly critical here or not detailed enough in my criticism or anything like that. I think I did spot another potential problem. When I sell all my animals to buy the compass from the shop could I be stuck in a situation where I don't have enough money to buy any other animals? Hmm I guess not since you can always pick a tonne of the food and sell it on, right?

Oh and where do I get grass from? Or acorns?

[Hideo]

MessageBox: "Error could not write (...)Hideo.sav". That's it for me. Too bad.

[Karja]

Hideo: Damn! I'll have a look what could be causing that..

HDL: Thanks for the comments! Now I know that I have to give the whole animal feeding/minigames/economic structure an overhaul.

Originally Posted by HDL

WOOOT! I've been looking forward to this game ever since I read about it! WOOOT! I love the writing and your sense of humour.

Yay, go me!

Originally Posted by HDL

Personal pet peeve is when text appears on the screen letter by letter accompanied by a clicking sound. I much prefer having it all there at once (and an option to turn off type-writer sound.

Hmm... We'll see if I do something about it. I like the letter-by-letter version since it gives some animation and dynamics to an otherwise pretty static screen. But we'll see!

Originally Posted by HDL

I was disappointed when in the first dialogue choice I had, when I picked "cry like a baby" the character immediately dismissed my suggestion. I dislike it when games offer me a dialogue choice and then ignore what I picked. If he's not even going to acknowledge it why have the choice there?

Ah... That was my nod toward games like Dragon Quest and such. "Do you want to accept this quest? Yes/No" And when you select no you get a response like "Noo, that's not what you're supposed to say! Try again!" Maybe I shouldn't have it as the first option the player encounters, though...

Originally Posted by HDL

I've been alt+tabbing out whilst I played it. (Does the game pause when I alt+tab out or does it still run?) After I spoke to the town greeter and asked him all the questions, when I tabbed back into the game nothing would acknowledge me clicking on it. I didn't have the menu or anything at the side either. Reloading the game seems to have fixed the problem though.

Pause will be added - and I hope that it'll solve that issue as well. :/

Originally Posted by HDL

The options menu, so I could turn off the music, a little difficult to find. I expected to see it on the same screen where I could play the game but I don't think it was there.

Yep, I definitely need to move that to the front screen! Slipped my mind!

Originally Posted by HDL

There was one huge problem with the game[...]

Extremely useful info! This is great feedback, and I'll really try to improve these aspects of the game. Not much else to say, other than that I'm going to give this a massive overhaul now.

Originally Posted by HDL

And sorry if I've been overly critical here or not detailed enough in my criticism or anything like that. I think I did spot another potential problem. When I sell all my animals to buy the compass from the shop could I be stuck in a situation where I don't have enough money to buy any other animals? Hmm I guess not since you can always pick a tonne of the food and sell it on, right?

Not too critical at all! I asked for feedback after all!

Yes, that's what I intended - even if you sell your last animal you -can- collect stuff and earn money that way. But it's a really cumbersome way, and it causes a lot of trouble: if I can sell an apple for $1, then I need to earn more than $1 by using the apple on an animal instead. (Otherwise the system is kinda broken.) That means that the profit margin on healthy animals needs to be pretty large. But that in turn means that the player might earn too much money too quickly. Etc etc. I've been trying to juggle these parameters lately, but I'm going to have a look at the complete picture instead - what would be more fun to play.

Originally Posted by HDL

Oh and where do I get grass from? Or acorns?

The acorns are in an area that one can access directly after the dwarven city! And the grass is...ehm...hidden a bit too cleverly. It appears randomly in town, the campsite and zachary's ranch. Again, I'll have a ponder about this...

Thanks a lot for the comments! It feels much better to have a concrete example of what doesn't work, rather than trying out different things oneself. Now I don't have to have a nagging suspicion that it doesn't work; I can rest assured that I really need to look over these issues!

[whisperstorm]

I really enjoy this game! It's definitely one that I'll be buying when it comes out. I have one question so far. I got to the point where I got my first animal, then saved the game. When I restored the game the next day the animal was really sick and I'm not really sure what to do to help it feel better - there's no hints as to what to do.

[Hideo]

My problem is probably caused by the fact that my OS is a polish version. You save file in a user folder which might contain nonascii chars and your game does not handle it properly. The path in my case contains "ł", since my name is "Paweł", but msgbox displayed it as "B". Simplest solution would be simply saving in a local save game folder, within installation folder.

[HDL]

Oops wrote this a week ago and forgot to post it.

You might want to move the fishing rod on the fishing screen so it's not sprouting from the character's groin. (Hahhaa I can't believe I just typed that.) If you can move it just a bit, or to one of the hands or something.

I do quite like the fishing game. Well it's growing on me but I'd like to be able to get more things than the small fish and big fish. Of all the mini-games it's working best for me now since it's quick, there is a slight skill element to it, and the better you do the better the reward. It'd be interesting to be able to occassionally catch something different in the lake and be able to sell it or whatever. And it'd be drastically improved if you did either the character telling me I'd found a fish, or I had the thing flash on the screen telling me I'd got it, but not both. And also if I had a 'stop fishing' button and it was assumed that I could just repeat the fishing over and over until I say not. Less button clicks and moving the mouse at least. I did have the screen positioned so it was click on the lake where it was also automatically clicking through the "do you want to fish" question, then I could fish with one less click than before.

Oh! You know that's the exact thing I thought of when I had that choice and it ignored it. I went "this is like Dragonquest" but it didn't feel as if that reference was deliberate. It just felt that it was the game ignoring my choices and it'd be yet another game in which it would offer the pretence of choice and then override the choices I made. I'd have snickered if you'd responded with "But Thou Must" regardless of whether or not it was relevant.

It took me just over three hours of play in order to purchase the grooming brush and start breeding my animals. (I chose to buy the compass first which was undoubtedly a mistake since being able to breed the animals means I was suddenly making an awful lot more money).

I'd have liked a wider variety of animals to choose from. Just having three on the screen, and usually the three of highest value was frustrating since I'd buy an animal then sell it in an attempt to get the breed of animal which I wanted. I'd have liked to have been able to name them though that's not too important.

Finding the grass made the game a lot easier. I ended up using grass mostly to feed my animals which was a tad less frustrating than the tree for apples.

I think the first pet I bought was glitched. It was worth 0 gold to start with and when I asked the guy to check it out he kept telling me there was no animal in the field.

Also I'd have liked to save the game in save files as opposed to just having the automatic save whenever I quit the game. That at least would mean if I accidentally sold my animals and bought the compass I wouldn't be hugely penalised and could just reload a saved game to fix it.