Pirates of New Horizons

Skies of Arcadia? Apparently having flying boats transcends genre.

Can’t wait until I get back from holiday to try this out.

Theres a very nice piece up on http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10 ... -horizons/

Played the prototype. Double-jumping everywhere was pretty fun, uncovering treasure and such.

- The NPC scale in comparison to my character kinda creeped me out -- there's what looks like a 10 year old boy, when I first landed at the docks, and his eye is as big as my head!

- So when I talk to people... I also automatically steal from them? But what if I don't feel like stealing from them? Some NPCs deserve it, some don't, some I feel like stealing from without talking to them... I mean, I understand that it's a way of making "talking to NPCs" more fruitful and useful, but you're also trying to break from 2 decades of RPG / action RPG convention that has "steal" as a separate verb.

- I'd definitely put the conversation textbox at the bottom of the screen, not the top.

Its part of the character building for the main character. She cant help it, she gotta steal

Imagine growing up on the street, then turning to the life of piracy. Would you have a 100% straight moral compass?

I fell through the lava in the volcano level (Where you're introduced to the third gappling hook surface) and couldn't get back up/die/restart checkpoint, and I couldn't be bothered to replay the entire thing.

But apart from that then it's pretty good. The combat is very spammy and the animations very rough, but overall it definitely has lots of potential. Really dig the small details such as the kid drawing with crayons on the pavement and the fact that she's stealing from everyone she talks to. Lots of heart in it, hopefully you can get more people hired and get it properly off the ground.

Oh and is it possible to port Unity to the 360?

not yet but soon hopefully !

the falling through lava bug or falling out of level bugs seam to have to do with blocking ! apparently if you block you dont get hurt by the fallout triggers or the lava and just continue on

i bet if we ha a qa department we would have caught that !!!!!!!

did you play it with a 360 controller ?!

Quote from Warby

not yet but soon hopefully ! the falling through lava bug or falling out of level bugs seam to have to do with blocking ! apparently if you block you dont get hurt by the fallout triggers or the lava and just continue on

i bet if we ha a qa department we would have caught that !!!!!!!

did you play it with a 360 controller ?!

Aye, controls quite well, though for my taste the camera sensitivity could get cranked up a tad.

that can be tweaked in the options but i assume you mean the DEFAULT cam sensitivity can be cranked up ey ?

I’m back from holiday now so I gave it a go. Filled in the survey afterwards but mainly wrote on a notepad as I went. I’ll try and group everything in this post though:

Movement

• [*:19hmfuin]She's very responsive and her moves come out quick, which I like in a character.
  [*:19hmfuin]You slide a lot while moving as most people have pointed out.
  
  
  • [*:19hmfuin]The main problem is you have no transition animations from standing to movement, so it goes straight into her walk loop with a foot going back. Four animations from standing to walking (front, left, right, 180) would fix a lot of this, I think.

[*:19hmfuin]Holding block and jumping looks really weird!

[*:19hmfuin]A butt-stomp move would be useful (cancel all momentum and zoom straight down)

Combat

• [*:19hmfuin]Can’t do anything with my second sword? I guess that’s the holstered version not turning off.
  [*:19hmfuin]Sword appears to be firing projectiles rather than swinging. Is this to increase range?
  [*:19hmfuin]Attacks should move you forwards
  
  
  • [*:19hmfuin]Though also make sure you can't fall off ledges in the animation!

[*:19hmfuin]No cap on turn speed while doing attack chain so, for example, wiggling back and forwards while attacking has weird results.

[*:19hmfuin]Hit pause would be a good addition. On impact both actors involved are frozen for a few frames (say 10 at 60fps average).

[*:19hmfuin]No evasion moves? I guess if you’re an adventure game it doesn’t matter as much, but block + direction currently isn’t doing anything...

[*:19hmfuin]Block feels quite wooden, mainly because there's no recoil animation.

[*:19hmfuin]Enemies don't really do much.

[*:19hmfuin]Attacking in the air is just her ground combo (obviously this isn't finished)

[*:19hmfuin]Cancelling attacks with a jump works but it sounds like the attack still comes out.

[*:19hmfuin]I had an Alien spawn before the Arena closed and he got stuck outside (on the Blackrock Mountain Volcano plateau)

Grapple

• [*:19hmfuin]I think this is something you’ll probably spend ages polishing later so I won’t get hung up on it. It’s really fun to use and vastly more fun than a lot of implementations in other games.
  [*:19hmfuin]Jumping off the rope should give her more velocity though, sometimes I wasn't sure I'd even let go.
  [*:19hmfuin]Being able to Grapple some enemies Scorpion style would be fun though. Pull them towards you, pull yourself towards them, slam them into stuff, etc.

Misc/Story

• [*:19hmfuin]Art is absolutely fantastic and I loved it the whole way through.
  [*:19hmfuin]Sometimes the compass was a few steps ahead, though I guess you don't want it solving puzzles for you.
  [*:19hmfuin]I felt rewarded for exploration, though it was all a drop in the ocean compared to what I got at the end.
  [*:19hmfuin]Robbing people was funny.
  [*:19hmfuin]Switches could do with some kind of highlight, actually took me a while to realise how to open the vault!
  [*:19hmfuin]Introduction story is good, but the pan and zoom on every single shot is overkill. Perhaps go for a more animated comic book style? Only example I can think of is the

(at 5:50). But you've drawn load of stuff now so...
[*:19hmfuin]I didn't follow why I was making light beams show me the volcano stage.
[*:19hmfuin]Checkpoints just kind of respawn you, don't reset encounters. I'm more concerned that this will break things, though.
[*:19hmfuin]Ending slide to the ship made me smile.

thanks mate thats super valuable feedback !

i was gonna do one of those mega quote replays where i take position on each comment but really it would boil down to those 3 answer here at random:

-yes that was planned but we didnt get around to it

-yes i completely agree we should do that

-yes ... and thanks mate

I gave it a go though I did not have enough time to play everything...though I did want to. For years i've been wanting a good pirate adventure game, and this isn't exactly what I had in mind but the vibe is feeling right. The parts of WoW (Booty Bay esp) that have pirate elements are some of my favorites. Disney's PotC games (based on the movies) have been huge missed opportunities for me since they basically sucked terribly. I know Sid Meier has his Pirates game, but yarr I'm not into those. I just want an action/adventure game in a pirate setting, not strategy game. This is sci/fi/fantasy type pirates, but somehow it feels like it will go in a good direction...almost a Nintendo-y direction.

Taylor's feedback (and others) above is pretty spot on as far as I can tell. Overall I'm really liking the idea, and I know you'll get all those bugs/issues worked on so I'm not worried.

I've been thinking about the business model, and since this appears to be not an MMO type or persistent world etc. game the F2P model probably won't work, so you're left with (1) Steam (2) XBLA / PSN ...and that's about it. If the iPad had workable controls for something like this then sure...but that's probably not going to work.

As for getting funding, you are MUCH MUCH further along than many projects I've seen that have received funding, but that's a bigger discussion. Ultimately, the question is how much work is needed to make this a full scale, marketable product and how much money will be required.

Anyway, big thumbs up so far!

Quote from Izuno

I gave it a go though I did not have enough time to play everything...though I did want to. For years i've been wanting a good pirate adventure game, and this isn't exactly what I had in mind but the vibe is feeling right. The parts of WoW (Booty Bay esp) that have pirate elements are some of my favorites. Disney's PotC games (based on the movies) have been huge missed opportunities for me since they basically sucked terribly. I know Sid Meier has his Pirates game, but yarr I'm not into those. I just want an action/adventure game in a pirate setting, not strategy game. This is sci/fi/fantasy type pirates, but somehow it feels like it will go in a good direction...almost a Nintendo-y direction.Taylor's feedback (and others) above is pretty spot on as far as I can tell. Overall I'm really liking the idea, and I know you'll get all those bugs/issues worked on so I'm not worried.

I've been thinking about the business model, and since this appears to be not an MMO type or persistent world etc. game the F2P model probably won't work, so you're left with (1) Steam (2) XBLA / PSN ...and that's about it. If the iPad had workable controls for something like this then sure...but that's probably not going to work.

As for getting funding, you are MUCH MUCH further along than many projects I've seen that have received funding, but that's a bigger discussion. Ultimately, the question is how much work is needed to make this a full scale, marketable product and how much money will be required.

Anyway, big thumbs up so far!

it's funny that you say this, i've wanted to create a game based on pirates of dark water (story/theme/universe?) for some time now. the setting is grim enough to work, and the environments in the series are amazingly varied.

Thanks for the comments Taylor and Izuno! Izuno: That's pretty accurate. The game is playable in a browser, but I'm afraid we won't be able to really leverage this, because it isn't intended to be a F2P title making money off microtransactions. I wouldn't completely writte off physical retail though. We estimate that it would take roughly a year to complete the full game.

Quote from Sentura

it's funny that you say this, i've wanted to create a game based on pirates of dark water (story/theme/universe?) for some time now. the setting is grim enough to work, and the environments in the series are amazingly varied.

*aaaaaah* Flashback! :ssj: Have you ever played the SNES Beat'em Up based on the show? That was looong afternoons spent with my friends in front of the SNES. It didn't have a save function, but was really good fun.

yeah i loved that show !

Quote from FrieChamp

*aaaaaah* Flashback! :ssj: Have you ever played the SNES Beat'em Up based on the show? That was looong afternoons spent with my friends in front of the SNES. It didn't have a save function, but was really good fun.

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yeah i used to play it as well, two player beat em ups were the shit back then (also loved golden axe). though if i would ever get the chance to make a new one, it'd be more RPG-esque. also sorry for going OT, this is thread is yours :embarrassed:

A summary of the interim results of the survey has been posted today. If you like piecharts this is going to blow your mind. Check it out here.

i love them pie charts. seems the general community has given you a green light!

i would also advice that you guys actually start building community proper by the use of forum expansion etc. since you're likely to hit more "true fans" that way (if you haven't already).

That's really cool.

i am very pleased with those pies =^ö^=