EDIT: see request for feedback towards bottom. If you're running this game on a GF2, you're going to want to edit kasei.bat and change: -w 1280 -h 1024 To: -w 1024 -h 768 ... if not 800x600, possibly, but 1024x768 should be fine. (1280x1024 is my LCD's native resolution, and in the rush to release I completely forgot to update the bat with a more reasonable res) If you happen to have a 2.0 spec card on the other hand, it should be fine, and you'll be treated to dynamic morphing clouds, HDR'ed bloom, etc. (and if you happen to have a GF2-class card and be worried about all the spew you see in console, even though the game is rendering fine - don't worry, that's all expected, it isn't a problem) [Edited by - meganfox on November 13, 2005 2:58:56 PM]

This entry looks really good at full resolution, the animations are awesome and it has a fast, challenging, and unique fighting system and health remaining.

Has
*gorgeous graphics
*sweet animations
*tents and fires
*nice fighting system
*pirate enemies
*ninja enemies
*"throbbing heart" health

Would like to see
*story
*menu
*less terrain glitches
*music
*unique styles for pirates and ninjas
*more objects in level
*NPCs
*more enemies that are easier to kill, with some of this current difficulty

PS I almost killed all the enemies, does something happen at the end?

Nope, nothing happens at the end - we wrote an epilogue that was meant to pop up (it's in the credits.txt incidentally), but at the last minute we found out that the GUI component for the rendering engine we're using had HORRIBLE performence when rendering text - it managed to slow down my high-end PC, and I didn't want to chance whatever it would do on the target spec.

The enemy count and lack of objects are both related to performance issues we found right at the last minute, something to do with our usage of ODE. Had no time to optimize, so we had to strip the level down to it's bare essentials - anything additional that was physical slowed the system down, it was only be removing everything else that we eeked out acceptable performence. We used to have quite a few rocks, were going to add about twice as many enemies, another couple of camps, etc... heck, we even had (have) a particle system that was set up for the fires, but we disabled it to scrounge any and all performence we could from the system.

Thanks for the great review and feedback.


Also - there IS music. And sound. Is that not working on your end?


... as for the rest, well, watch Elium (http://www.elium.tk) ;) Our "real" project is Elium - almost all of the content (combat system and sky and so on) that went into Kasei was designed to be stuff we could backport into Elium. Elium is meant to be a fusion of freeform/exploration RPG with the combat you see in Kasei, just more developed and with more moves/options/styles.

For reference, the combat you see in Kasei is, roughly, the moveset you would have available to you as a newbie - dodge and parry wouldn't actually be available, but would be quick to unlock, as would shield blocking. From there, you graduate to wall jumps, backwards attacks, 360 spin attacks, shield bashes, various airborn sword swings and headstomps... etc. Stuff we would have liked to get into Kasei, but alas, just no time.


EDIT: VV Odd, first I've heard of it, thanks... I think I'm just going to rip OpenAL straight out of this and go back to DirectSound, I've had nothing but trouble with it :/


EDIT2: Point of note - it does take awhile, but you can stand still and let your heartbeat calm down as your health regenerates. Probably easier to simply restart and keep fighting the pirates, though... as you practice, you get much better - I was worried the fights were too easy, for instance.

[Edited by - meganfox on November 2, 2005 10:12:53 PM]

I've got the grunts and sword slashes but that is a negative on the music. Although it works in winamp. I like it.

I didn't know which strategy to persue, either resting after each battle or continuously fighting. Does the character regenerate health at all when running/fighting? And also death was still a bit surprising, maybe give some visual clues when you are 1/2/3 hits away from death.

To recap, the health regen system seemed it could use some tweaking. I thought maybe you could meditate and pick up meditation spells, which would still take a little time but it would at least limit the player to when they can regenerate. If the player is supposed to be at full health for each battle then I wouldn't have it take so long, but if not, then I would use a different way to regenerate health.

Bod out

[Edited by - Boder on November 3, 2005 12:24:34 AM]

We would have tried to add a more obvious health indicator for near-death... the obvious choice being a "heavy breathing" or "pained" animation to fade in place of the idle animation, possibly a damage texture as well... but my artist is based in Cancun, and STILL has no internet thanks to that damnable Typhoon ;) He got knocked out right before I implemented the health system - thank goodness I at least got the parry rebound animations beforehand.

So far I've enjoyed this game. As far as my 4e4 picks go, you've made the top 3. The total list right now is:

1. Ninja <3 Pirate
2. Zheigenbuerg
3. Kasei

Of course, I'm very fickle, so this list may warp around randomly.

Any further feedback on Kasei would be appreciated - the polish issues (lack of intro and GUI/config/yadda are what really stick our for me) were a significant nail in the coffin, but that aside, I'd like feedback on gameplay, combat, feel of the movement, etc. Feedback on visuals is welcome too.

I'd also appreciate, in a word/sentence or two, what you think really kept us from making the top 5? Just the lack of GUI and intro/outro? Gameplay difficulty? X thing that broke on your system? Performence? Other polish considerations?

This is, after all, our game's combat engine, albeit with a smaller moveset than desired - if there's a problem now, we need to fix it before stacking more on top of it ;)


... and the performence, at least, has long since been debugged and fixed - now it runs nicely on low-spec machines. Just didn't have time to get that done pre-compo.