Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
So, um, does anybody have a save in the demo for just before you go into the lower floor to fight the Fleshfather? I accidentally walked in before saving the game and proceeded to immediately get whipped for it -.-'
Really enjoying the demo so far though. The art and the battle system is really well done. The biggest problem I had was the movement speed around the map, since it takes forever to get to the ARIS system and back even after you open the shortcut (with that much weight on their chest, I really don't blame them). There is a noticeably large wait time when entering the main room, and both the normal and slow walking animation (yeah I know the main one is supposed to be running but its still pretty slow) will lag at times. The only other issue I found was that the scaffolding on the ceiling in the foreground gets a bit annoying, so maybe add a foreground transparency slider in the options menu?
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
A scenario where the heroines get captured and jailed and where they have to escape is a nice one but obviously you can't make every scenario be like that in one game. It would just get too repetitive.
A one or two such scenarios would be fine, like for example getting captured by bandits is one variation and getting captured by tentacles is another variation. The first one makes the heroines 'sex slaves' while in the other example they are captured for breeding purposes.
Both scenarios are the same in the sense that the heroines are captured for sex purposes, but changing the "sex purpose" gives them a different flavor.
But yeah, there shouldn't be too many of those kind of scenarios in one game, but a straight up game over in H-games is a bit frustrating. In some levels it would be fine if the enemies just leave the heroines on the spot after they're done with them. This is also a kind of flavor in H-games...
Oh yeah, the monster in-combat H-scenes are pretty great how they have some additional options when the heroines suits are destroyed. I'm curious if the devs have some more H-scene variations in mind when it comes to the Max Lust meter and the whatever Lust Coma after they've been played with. So far the Lust Coma thing is just a short stun after the 'play' is done, but is there going to be more? Maybe something like the heroines taking suggestive poses and triggering more different kinds of H-moves from the enemies? Or the heroines disrobing completely willingly.
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
Don't know what's Eromancer's stand on the Game Overs, but here's what I think:
additional debuff after lost fight doesn't make sense to me - if you lost the fight without debuff, what chances to win you have with one - IMHO, this would only lead to more frustration in some cases
imprisonment or something similar after lost battle has a nice ring to it, but making it would require a lot of time and resources, since it would have to be done for every game area/stage and even without it we have our hands full - don't worry though, game should be long enough that you won't miss situations like this much
TLDR: I fully agree with what Demontom and Ayra have said. And don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions you're giving us, just don't expect all of your wishes to come true .
Hello, first time poster, short-term lurker! First of all, have to say the game is looking fantastic and I have high hopes for it.
For Eromancer: I have a 2-point critique/idea spoilered below for lust and H-attacks if you're interested, as long as it doesn't conflict with something else you had planned.
Also a question: Can you describe what's going to happen with the bukakke system you have planned/what effects it's going to have?
So after playing the public demo, I was wondering if you're planning to make H-attacks and lust "matter" more?
Currently, having high lust gives you:
Armor break/Exposure
More H-attacks
Harder struggle
Lower armor
That's fine and dandy, but these seem like minor downsides currently. Maybe with tougher enemies the reduced armor will matter more, but right now it's not a big deal, it just slows down the battles somewhat.
The issue in my mind is that H-attacks only matter in the battle scene when something else is also doing damage. Besides that, they don't build up to anything, except for the self-destruct finisher. So a solo enemy doing H-attacks hardly causes any issue, at any lust level. Since I'm not sure what you have planned, I thought this suggestion was worth bringing up.
I would suggest that there be a more serious negative impact at 1000 lust in order to make it matter more. And since you said there will be ways to mitigate lust sickness, there should be (IMO) a more pressing gameplay reason to keep lust in check.
For example, a successful finisher at max lust could leave the affected heroine in an "ecstasy" or "lust coma" that leaves her knocked down for the rest of the fight, but she can't be targeted/damaged.
If both go down this way, there would be a soft not-quite-game-over with an additional H-scene based on the remaining enemies, and you recover the heroines mostly as they were: slightly less HP/energy, but with lust at the first or second threshold instead of max.
This might complicate scenarios where one of the heroines gets the coma while the other one doesn't, or one is in a coma and the other reaches 0 HP, but I feel like there has to be some kind of outcome for max lust in order for lust and H-attacks to be more compelling in terms of gameplay.
Lust plays pretty big role even now. It takes longer to break the hold when lust is higher, so every hold removes held character from the battle for that much longer. If armor is broken, character suffers more damage from every attack, so it shouldn't be taken lightly as well. Don't worry, it's not all there is or will be to it, just not yet .
Also try to remember that this will be the first area in the game - if we would throw everything we have planned at the player at the start of the game, some people could feel overwhelmed and maybe even lost interest in continuing. Also, only Neon will be playable in this area (Malise was added to showcase her as well), so hold situation will be a bit different. In the hindsight, this may be one of our mistakes for the demo - we raised enemies' stats, even though we should change their numbers with smaller stats change.
So, um, does anybody have a save in the demo for just before you go into the lower floor to fight the Fleshfather? I accidentally walked in before saving the game and proceeded to immediately get whipped for it -.-'
Really enjoying the demo so far though. The art and the battle system is really well done. The biggest problem I had was the movement speed around the map, since it takes forever to get to the ARIS system and back even after you open the shortcut (with that much weight on their chest, I really don't blame them). There is a noticeably large wait time when entering the main room, and both the normal and slow walking animation (yeah I know the main one is supposed to be running but its still pretty slow) will lag at times. The only other issue I found was that the scaffolding on the ceiling in the foreground gets a bit annoying, so maybe add a foreground transparency slider in the options menu?
Long loading time of some maps is a known problem, but one that won't be fixed soon and it won't be removed entirely - it's really hard to say at the moment when we'll try to tackle it and how much of an improvement are we talking about.
Comparing to other game components, like battle or menu, map is really neglected... mainly because re-coding it will take a lot of time and work and for various reasons other components were much more important for now. That said, every time I do something map-related I make notes and preparations for that overhaul, and believe me, I really want to do this as soon as possible. Good news is that just the other day I did some basic optimization of the map code and depending on the PC specs and map, performance gain ranges from 1 to over 20 FPS... and I'm sure there's a lot more performance where that came from . I'll leave rest of your post for Eromancer, hope you don't mind.
Comparing to other game components, like battle or menu, map is really neglected... mainly because re-coding it will take a lot of time and work and for various reasons other components were much more important for now. That said, every time I do something map-related I make notes and preparations for that overhaul, and believe me, I really want to do this as soon as possible. Good news is that just the other day I did some basic optimization of the map code and depending on the PC specs and map, performance gain ranges from 1 to over 20 FPS... and I'm sure there's a lot more performance where that came from . I'll leave rest of your post for Eromancer, hope you don't mind.
Honestly I feel like the main issue is the movement speed and the foreground effect. Those metal ceiling beams in the foreground are really distracting and a bit of an eyesore, although I suppose that would only be a major problem for the more cramped indoors spaces. Map loading time isn't that big a problem, games like Morrowind have taught me plenty of patience
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
Hey guys!
Just wanted to drop in and say there's
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announcing V0.04.
The post also goes into some detail on new features in V0.04, mentions our new full time team member, and tries to clarify the growing misconception that we're receiving a ton of money from Patreon.
I'll be sure to swing back by and address your guys' new posts once I get a moment!
The post also goes into some detail on new features in V0.04, mentions our new full time team member, and tries to clarify the growing misconception that we're receiving a ton of money from Patreon.
I'll be sure to swing back by and address your guys' new posts once I get a moment!
I really appreciate the clarity you and your team shows, it's really important for developers to be as clear as possible about your work, especially when snags inevitably occur.
I wanted to take a minute to praise you on the work you guys have done, the last time I looked into this project was quite some time ago and I was hesitant about contributing both because I was unsure about the quality, and because of the comparatively high reward cost.
However, after playing the demo it's -very- clear to me that you guys are putting out really high-quality work, and I'm certainly looking forward to future releases.
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
Thank you very much for the update! While I'm a bit disappointed that May is so far away, I really appreciate how you do business and be so fair to your patrons. While I haven't actually paid anything yet (joined after the public demo), I got to say I'm pretty confident and happy with where my money will go in May. The content of the update looks to be pretty good, and some things are quite unexpected (animated battle backgrounds???). Looking forward very much to see the new female enemy!
I have had one "concern" since I've seen this project announced, which got amplified after playing the demo. After reading this update, I figured I might as well mention it since it seems that the biggest bottleneck right now seems to be the art.
My concern is about this part: "A lot of games in the past utilize picture overlays to simulate different clothing/outfits. In Malise and the Machine every outfit truly has its own unique artwork, and every single H attack has different artwork for each character and outfit (and many times the attack changes entirely!)."
While that sounds super cool, is it really viable? Let's just take the flying bee enemy thingy as an example. It has two h-animation sequence per character, and each sequence has 5 or so steps. So one enemy required 10 images for one character, for one costume. That's a whole lot, but the result is pretty good.
The problem is that for every enemy with similar h-content to the bee thing, you need 10 more images for every single costume. The amount of art necessary to add just a single extra costume is extraordinary... And that's just for the in-battle art. Then you have to add the cutscenes. That's a lot of additional work per costume, especially when including armor damage and the fact that both characters can be in alternate costumes and probably appear in the same image.
Hello, first time poster, short-term lurker! First of all, have to say the game is looking fantastic and I have high hopes for it.
For Eromancer: I have a 2-point critique/idea spoilered below for lust and H-attacks if you're interested, as long as it doesn't conflict with something else you had planned.
Also a question: Can you describe what's going to happen with the bukakke system you have planned/what effects it's going to have?
So after playing the public demo, I was wondering if you're planning to make H-attacks and lust "matter" more?
Currently, having high lust gives you:
Armor break/Exposure
More H-attacks
Harder struggle
Lower armor
That's fine and dandy, but these seem like minor downsides currently. Maybe with tougher enemies the reduced armor will matter more, but right now it's not a big deal, it just slows down the battles somewhat.
The issue in my mind is that H-attacks only matter in the battle scene when something else is also doing damage. Besides that, they don't build up to anything, except for the self-destruct finisher. So a solo enemy doing H-attacks hardly causes any issue, at any lust level. Since I'm not sure what you have planned, I thought this suggestion was worth bringing up.
I would suggest that there be a more serious negative impact at 1000 lust in order to make it matter more. And since you said there will be ways to mitigate lust sickness, there should be (IMO) a more pressing gameplay reason to keep lust in check.
For example, a successful finisher at max lust could leave the affected heroine in an "ecstasy" or "lust coma" that leaves her knocked down for the rest of the fight, but she can't be targeted/damaged.
If both go down this way, there would be a soft not-quite-game-over with an additional H-scene based on the remaining enemies, and you recover the heroines mostly as they were: slightly less HP/energy, but with lust at the first or second threshold instead of max.
This might complicate scenarios where one of the heroines gets the coma while the other one doesn't, or one is in a coma and the other reaches 0 HP, but I feel like there has to be some kind of outcome for max lust in order for lust and H-attacks to be more compelling in terms of gameplay.
I agree with AltairPL's response in that what we have in the demo is pretty much just a framework and isn't necessarily indicative of all the cool stuff that can be done. I also like the idea of something happening when a character reaches 1000 lust, but if we build in too many mechanics this early it can be really tough to balance later.
EDIT: Woops, missed your question about the bukkake stuff. The idea right now is for certain attacks to stack the effect on either the upper/lower body, similar to how exposure is divided into upper and lower. I'm not sure whether it'll be anything more than visual, but the initial idea was that as it stacks it would create a debuff that gets stronger.
I just wish there would be scenarios where losing a fight wouldn't end up as a Game Over but as a H-scene and the heroines ending up captured and transferred to some jail room.
There was discussion about this earlier in the thread, but I can't find it. The basic thing is that while I'm all for more H content, it doesn't fall into the core design philosophy and thus would be something added later. I think what you're suggesting could work really well for certain parts of the game, and it becomes much more viable in that context, but it would create a lot of issues trying to shoehorn that idea into every situation. So, for now I'd say don't expect the instant game over screen to occur 100% of the time throughout the game, but don't expect it to go away completely any time soon.
So, um, does anybody have a save in the demo for just before you go into the lower floor to fight the Fleshfather? I accidentally walked in before saving the game and proceeded to immediately get whipped for it -.-'
Really enjoying the demo so far though. The art and the battle system is really well done. The biggest problem I had was the movement speed around the map, since it takes forever to get to the ARIS system and back even after you open the shortcut (with that much weight on their chest, I really don't blame them). There is a noticeably large wait time when entering the main room, and both the normal and slow walking animation (yeah I know the main one is supposed to be running but its still pretty slow) will lag at times. The only other issue I found was that the scaffolding on the ceiling in the foreground gets a bit annoying, so maybe add a foreground transparency slider in the options menu?
I may edit the scaffolding overlay so that it is easier to differentiate from the background, but it's sort of intended to be in the way to make it kind of claustrophobic for those scenes. Regarding your load time and lag issues, expect these to hopefully clear up in future versions once the map overhaul is complete. As AltairPL said, the map is the last thing to get overhauled, and thus is much slower than the rest of the game. About movement speed... I don't really want to touch anything involving that yet since we're not 100% sure how it could affect balancing for later areas. I think it could be possible for gear to add movement speed, or there could possibly be a global speed up setting, but these aren't really high priority at the moment.
I really appreciate the clarity you and your team shows, it's really important for developers to be as clear as possible about your work, especially when snags inevitably occur.
I wanted to take a minute to praise you on the work you guys have done, the last time I looked into this project was quite some time ago and I was hesitant about contributing both because I was unsure about the quality, and because of the comparatively high reward cost.
However, after playing the demo it's -very- clear to me that you guys are putting out really high-quality work, and I'm certainly looking forward to future releases.
Thank you very much for the update! While I'm a bit disappointed that May is so far away, I really appreciate how you do business and be so fair to your patrons. While I haven't actually paid anything yet (joined after the public demo), I got to say I'm pretty confident and happy with where my money will go in May. The content of the update looks to be pretty good, and some things are quite unexpected (animated battle backgrounds???). Looking forward very much to see the new female enemy!
I have had one "concern" since I've seen this project announced, which got amplified after playing the demo. After reading this update, I figured I might as well mention it since it seems that the biggest bottleneck right now seems to be the art.
My concern is about this part: "A lot of games in the past utilize picture overlays to simulate different clothing/outfits. In Malise and the Machine every outfit truly has its own unique artwork, and every single H attack has different artwork for each character and outfit (and many times the attack changes entirely!)."
While that sounds super cool, is it really viable? Let's just take the flying bee enemy thingy as an example. It has two h-animation sequence per character, and each sequence has 5 or so steps. So one enemy required 10 images for one character, for one costume. That's a whole lot, but the result is pretty good.
The problem is that for every enemy with similar h-content to the bee thing, you need 10 more images for every single costume. The amount of art necessary to add just a single extra costume is extraordinary... And that's just for the in-battle art. Then you have to add the cutscenes. That's a lot of additional work per costume, especially when including armor damage and the fact that both characters can be in alternate costumes and probably appear in the same image.
It's a ton of work no doubt, but the power of 3D really comes into play here. The work required to create the extra versions of the art reduces exponentially after the initial one is finished. This is also something that I'm comfortable with delegating since most of the creativity is required for the initial version.
Just as much (if not more) work goes into the environments as into the portraits and H content, so once that is out of a way it's a huge relief. This knocks out time required for variations on story scenes as well, since their backgrounds and the staging requires at least half of the effort.
The thing you mentioned about multiple characters appearing in the same image (in which some component is variable on each character) is actually one of the areas our scheme falls apart, as you're correct in that it'd require a ton of combinations. We've come up with some clever solutions to this though, so it shouldn't diminish possibilities too much.
Honestly I feel like the main issue is the movement speed and the foreground effect. Those metal ceiling beams in the foreground are really distracting and a bit of an eyesore, although I suppose that would only be a major problem for the more cramped indoors spaces. Map loading time isn't that big a problem, games like Morrowind have taught me plenty of patience
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
One more thing about gameovers:
Would it be viable to have a "continue from last savepoint" option on gameover, so you can keep items/XP earned?
I've found that recently, I'm becoming more and more frustrated by games that go "you screwed up, now re-do those last 30 minutes as punishment."
I'm perfectly fine with this creating some "filthy casual" status annotation somewhere so the hardcore gamers have a reason to not use it,
it's just that I personally would enjoy the game a good deal more if I didn't have to worry about saving at every turn -
I see the argument that taking away gameover-as-punishment removes "pressure" from combat, I just don't agree with it
Then again, this might also make it inviable to design "trap" chests that contain valuable items but then trigger a bunch of fights to get back to base...
Not the biggest of deals, though: As long as you keep the ability to save from worldmap (almost) anywhere,
I can just save before every door and switch and get mostly the same effect, as long as I remember to do so...
*snip*
I agree with AltairPL's response in that what we have in the demo is pretty much just a framework and isn't necessarily indicative of all the cool stuff that can be done. I also like the idea of something happening when a character reaches 1000 lust, but if we build in too many mechanics this early it can be really tough to balance later.
EDIT: Woops, missed your question about the bukkake stuff. The idea right now is for certain attacks to stack the effect on either the upper/lower body, similar to how exposure is divided into upper and lower. I'm not sure whether it'll be anything more than visual, but the initial idea was that as it stacks it would create a debuff that gets stronger.
*snip*
Lust plays pretty big role even now. It takes longer to break the hold when lust is higher, so every hold removes held character from the battle for that much longer. If armor is broken, character suffers more damage from every attack, so it shouldn't be taken lightly as well. Don't worry, it's not all there is or will be to it, just not yet .
Also try to remember that this will be the first area in the game - if we would throw everything we have planned at the player at the start of the game, some people could feel overwhelmed and maybe even lost interest in continuing. Also, only Neon will be playable in this area (Malise was added to showcase her as well), so hold situation will be a bit different. In the hindsight, this may be one of our mistakes for the demo - we raised enemies' stats, even though we should change their numbers with smaller stats change.
Awesome, thanks for the honest responses guys. I was aware while making the suggestions that we don't have the full picture yet, but it's good to hear some insight for the developers, and be heard as a (future) customer. Whatever you guys have planned with max lust, or any other mechanic, I'm sure you'll execute wonderfully.
It's a ton of work no doubt, but the power of 3D really comes into play here. The work required to create the extra versions of the art reduces exponentially after the initial one is finished. This is also something that I'm comfortable with delegating since most of the creativity is required for the initial version.
Just as much (if not more) work goes into the environments as into the portraits and H content, so once that is out of a way it's a huge relief. This knocks out time required for variations on story scenes as well, since their backgrounds and the staging requires at least half of the effort.
The thing you mentioned about multiple characters appearing in the same image (in which some component is variable on each character) is actually one of the areas our scheme falls apart, as you're correct in that it'd require a ton of combinations. We've come up with some clever solutions to this though, so it shouldn't diminish possibilities too much.
Fair enough! I don't have any further concerns. So all that's left is just waiting patiently for those animated battle backgrounds, female enemies and new story elements (especially since all I played was the public demo). Juuusst needs to be patient... *twiddle thumbs* *tap foot* *look at watch* *sigh*
Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
I find it becomes a cycle. Eagerly wait for information, eagerly await the release date announced in the information post, devour the new content in the demo, eagerly wait for information regarding the next update, repeat ad nauseam. Suppose that's a sign of their quality, yeah?
Well, technology in the game actually builds or rebuilds body parts completely, so some organic parts become inorganic and vice versa depending on the frame type she has equipped.
Well, technology in the game actually builds or rebuilds body parts completely, so some organic parts become inorganic and vice versa depending on the frame type she has equipped.
That's actually a really cool concept, I like that. So with a different frame, it might be inverted where her bottoms are fully mechanical and indestructible but her top can be broken and will reveal breasts. Then another might be more or less entirely inorganic, resulting in a stronger progression piece as she's vulnerable to fewer H attacks?
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