Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Kurovadis questions.

As you already know, I want to put Kurovadis on Steam. However, it is VERY rough. After all, it's been years since it was developed. At the very least, it needs some changes to make it more polished. Like Eroico, I will be changing the title screen, the menus, and replace bad CGs with ones that have already been made to replace them. The tileset will also be very easy to change given how small it is compared to everything I work on these days.

However, there are other changes I could make, and I'm finding it very difficult to decide what course of action to take. On one hand, I know that if I was a player and a developer said they were updating an old game, I would say "don't bother, just work on new games!"

Yet, from a developer's perspective, at the end of the day I'm putting Kurovadis on Steam as a source of income, and I know from experience that there are a lot of small changes I can make that will make it substantially more appealing to new players, and overall more successful. It could be the difference between a game making money for a year, VS making money for 5+ years.

When I look at Kurovadis, I think it has the following problems:

1. Many H animations have too few frames, or are too simple.
2. The powerups you can pick up are not very intuitive, useful or engaging.
3. Level up orbs are not really a good reward for exploring.
4. Enemies are overly simplistic, and most can be bypassed easily.
5. Bosses are too simple, and not really that fun to fight.
6. Some people didn't even know melee existed until the last boss, or see it as so risky that it isn't worth using.
7. The map lacks shortcuts that prevent backtracking, which would probably not be received well, outside of those who see it as a novelty.

In my initial sessions considering what to do I tried changing the combat to include hitstun, and made some moves. (Adding a new move takes less than half a day btw, so don't panic thinking something like this takes months or even a week).


However the more I messed with it, the less sure I was of what to do. Adding hitstun essentially requires programming all the enemies from scratch (prob a day or so each, or half a day per enemy if I'm fast). Yet, adding moves is very easy, and would probably add a lot of appeal. More moves also means more appealing things to find, which encourages exploration.

The other option would be to keep the old combat, and add new moves that way. Though I think that the core animations and melee attacks are not very welcoming in the original. I think the only real "fun" move is the slam attack. Players also probably utilized the charge attack a bit. But without hitstun, enemies basically boil down to beating them up while rolling, assuming you fight them at all.

Then of course...there's the fact that at the end of the day, this is an H game, and people are playing it for that reason. Should I even focus on combat at all when I could spend that same time making H better, or just adding a bunch of new H?

All of that said, what do you think I should do with Kurovadis? What do you think should change, and what should stay the same? I've slapped together some polls, if you want to share your opinion, or you can comment below in more detail.




53 comments:

  1. Despite the fairly simplistic enemies and obstacles, I found the combat and platforming in Kurovadis to be rather fun. The combination of melee and different ranged attacks made the combat varied enough for the game's length, and frankly you do some of the best 2d melee combat I've ever seen so even if you made the updated combat more melee-centric to the point that the gun was secondary that'd be fine with me.
    The rolling and walljumping made the platforming feel great as well, so using the movement the game already has as a base I feel a lot of fun and varied obstacles could be added into areas if you were looking to expand the map a bit to add more backtracking options and provide a more metroidvania-y feel.

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  2. I'd need to replay the game to get a full idea, since it's been a while...But for the game to still feel the same and not a new game, "add, don't change" may be a good rule of thumb.

    No hitstun mean everything is dangerous.
    You said ennemies are too simple and can be avoided but feedback was also that melee is too risky to use which mean they're still a threat to alot of players.
    Unless ennemies become more complex, hitstun may just turn them into jokes you can both avoid or stunlock, making the whole engagement and "fear" factors backfire.

    New moves/powerups to make the combat and exploration rewarding seems a better road to take. After all, that's not just a game based around fights. Testing creative ways to avoid danger is a legit strategy. But here, players would also be rewarded of learning how to use new moves, rather than to have mindlessly stunlocked the baddies.

    ---

    If you add alternative paths for backtracking, you can add new sub-areas (optional challenges for new power-ups?) or even a new level if that fit in the story. New areas to explore (and map interactions) are the best way to keep returning players engaged.

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    Now, about the subject everyone is here for...
    You were already changing the CGs so that one is a given.

    Altering the current animations may be quite a bit of work, but that effort can be used to create brand new interactions instead.
    Ones that makes returning players get the feel of "wait, this wasn't doing that before!" rather than a moderate "uh, there's thtee more frames, neat"

    ---

    Again, aside of minor polish, it may be more productive to spend your time and energy adding new content, than changing everything for people to miss half of the changes till they compare the old/new animations on image boards.
    New gameplay content have at least a value no repost can steal from the game. And brand new content add an incensitive to try it even if seen elsewhere.

    Now, is it the road that add less work? Or make the game to hit the stores faster? Not really...But both from a dev and player's perspective, adding back a little bit of "that sense of discovery only 1st timers have" is way more valuable than just a repolish of things already experienced in the past. As replay value goes.

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    1. Enemies would have breaks or stamina, for hitstunned state.
      For the animations, some of the animations are basically inert, like the zombie one. Those would be my main concern as far as fixing them.

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    2. I think I like pretty much all of the animations. Even though the zombie one is really simple I feel like it's okay since it's at the start of the game and things escalate as the game keeps going. I think two of my favorites are the red demons and the second boss, maybe with the witch and the giant jaw as a tie for third place. Updating the CG slides and putting it on steam is maybe the best choice out the poll options. I think people will play the game as it already, but maybe I'm wrong. Are there things you'd personally want to change regardless of anything else (like ignoring whether or not it's going to help a steam re-release) and if time wasn't an issue? Completely unrelated to everything above, Kurovadis's soundtrack was great and I still listen to it on soundcloud sometimes.

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  3. Sell it for a cheap price and put what you learn towards your current projects?

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  4. I'd be interested in seeing the entire map remixed. Maybe see how your level design skills have advanced after a decade.

    Besides that just polish up the parts that are embarrassing and call it good. Like that section before the mansion where the ground's perspective is tilted for some reason. It looks terrible.

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  5. My first play through I forgot there was a ranged attack for a good hour. And when I introduced the game to a friend, he did the exact opposite. But it was hilarious when he found the melee button and said, "I'm boxing a slime!"
    The melee damage payout always felt nice.

    Regarding backtracking, I imagine you could add teleporter rooms between some area transitions. The only time backtracking felt necessary was early after the first boss iirc (it's been years, I could be wrong here)? Just make it unlockable after the first boss, so yes there is that initial backtracking as you head back to unlock the initial area teleporters, but it shouldn't feel tedious to new players as the sense of progress will come with those tele unlocks.

    I cannot comment on the graphics because of the rose tinted glasses I have for the game.

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    1. When you reach the boss and beat them, you have to just turn around and go back the way you came. Instead, there would be shortcuts unlocked later in areas which link back or shorten the backtracking.

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  6. How exactly are you going to put it on steam?
    I mean, are you going to put it on as a game with an optional H-patch?
    Or just as a full H-Game?
    Because if it's the latter the people from Germany (like me) wont be able to buy it.

    I would love to buy the game but unless you sell steam keys for the game directly, I don't think I will be able to.

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    1. H games are allowed on Steam. Eroico is already on it.

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    2. Germany has implemented some weird fascist laws where you need to provide identification to view adult and erotic material online. Steam does not currently support this level of identification, so to comply with German law, adult games have been disabled for Steam users in Germany. They cannot buy H games on Steam.

      There are workarounds such as making a non-H version of the game and providing an H patch outside of Steam, but that's a lot of work for a problem creators are not responsible for. It would also make Germans less likely to fight for their rights. I think it's better for creators to just release H games as they are.

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  7. A big accessibility thing I'd always appreciate is an option to change the game speed. Some of the maneuvers and fights can be a bit hectic to get through, but when I was playing on crappy old machines that naturally dropped simulation speed, I found I had a much easier time on some bits I struggled with.
    Just having an option to run everything at half speed would be much appreciated - it can impact animations too, that's fine, so long as it provides longer windows to get hits and dodges right. And I hope this wouldn't be too hard to implement, depending on the system...

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    1. Can't. Game isn't programmed with Delta time.

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  8. IMO The most realistic approach would be to focus on one thing and leave the other as a side thing. I'm personally more partial to focusing on improving the H-Animations/CG's since that's probably where you would see the biggest improvements due to your experience gained over the years. The gameplay is likely to hold up even without any changes.

    Altering the gameplay too significantly in fact may have a negative effect to those playing for nostalgia's sake. I would stick to changes that are minor/QOL since these would be easier to implement while still improving the overall experience. Just my two cents.

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    1. I don't know about nostalgia. Thing is, people who already played it dont want to play the same thing again, and people who havn't played, dont have the nostalgia. Plus, everyone who bought the game will be get this for free anyhow, so they're not really the target audience. (Plus the old version will be available, possibly with the option of the new CGs.)

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    2. Fair, if your target audience is new players then I'd say improved H is the way to go since that's what will ultimately be the selling point. I'm sure you have a fair amount of people who had never heard of you before on Steam until you released the new version of Eroico. I imagine they will be going into Kurovadis expecting similar quality of H.

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    3. Additionally after playing the game once again, the biggest gameplay issue I ran into were the powerups. You were correct in thinking they aren't very useful as I never really felt like I had gained much from them.

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  9. I know you touched on this point already in the post. But I do feel like it's very much true. Personally I would much rather see new games.

    Kurovadis was (and I'd argue still is) a fun experience. Granted, I haven't replayed it in a while, but many of the problems you listed about it I don't remember ever having with it. Particularly your points about melee and combat. I found melee very effective. Rolling in and out for big damage hits and stuff like that. Generally I thought the bosses were fine as well.

    Constantly reworking old stuff feels like a really bad pitfall to get stuck in. As a creator you'll always look back at things and see where they could have been better, but if you put all your focus into the old you'll never end up making anything new. Seems to me it's more useful to take what you learned from the old and apply it so the new is better going forward.

    If anything I'd say just do the updated CGs. Maybe a few touchups on the animations here or there. Hell mone or two extra hentai interaction could be neat. But I'd also say really don't go crazy with all that. It goes back to the same issue I brought up above. ^ You get stuck on just constantly reworking the old.

    And mechanically, I wouldn't touch the combat/gameplay stuff at all. It's absolutely fine as is.

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    1. Hell one or two extra hentai interactions could be neat.*

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  10. I'm a big fan of your games, as I already told you some times :y The thing with Kurovadis was for me that it's all a gigantic level, rather than seperate ones. Obviously that's just my impression, but sometimes I had problems in understanding where to go. And when I knew where to go I sometimes had to go very long and unforgiving distances :x but I'm not that good of a player. I managed to get through Eroico though, which was tough, at least for me :D
    But back to Kurovadis: doing more H would be nice, improving the fighting stuff would be a nice thing too, but I wouldn't the mind missing the improvements either way.
    PS: Good to see you more active again, I was worried about you because of your health problems :x (not saying that you should be more active, I really was just worried about you)

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  11. You think of adding 1 or 2 updates to lufuclad after this?

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    1. i asked him in his comeback post. this is what he said "I will be working on it as a full game at some point, rather than as a weekly game. However I don't know what the priority of it will be over other projects."

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    2. I may work on it here and there when I feel like it, but it won't be constantly updated like before. As mentioned above, I may work on it as a full game sometime, but that would be far in the future considering how many things I need to finish first.

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  12. I'm replaying the game again for ideas for suggestions. Feel free to ignore any of these you don't like, but I feel like it would add something for both new and old players alike. I don't have any suggestions yet for the flamer / other weapons you get later on, but will keep playing and post when I do.

    Concerning teleporters, I'm not sure if this is what you already had in mind but I believe save points could also function as teleporters. This would fix any backtracking issues as well as not require much in the way of new assets (press down to save, as before, or up to teleport).

    As for the problem of not wanting to fight enemies, I haven't really noticed this much. They are often dangerous, sure, but you have to fight to earn EXP, health drops, etc.. I am often farming enemies for EXP and health drops. I get hit a lot so the health drops are invaluable to me.

    One problem I can't help but notice, however, is the powerups. Most of them seem to make little difference. There's one with a slight AOE, one with multiple tiny shots, etc.. which seems negligible to me, but the far ranged boomerang-esque shots are very useful for sniping enemies. These tend to be problematic though, as it's very random and you lose them if hit (which I do get hit a lot). A system like this would work much better in a shoot-em-up R-Type or other such game, but doesn't lend itself so well to a metroidvania.
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    My suggestion is to instead have machines drop weapon parts, and any organic enemies drop their specific DNA. Randomly, of course. They should be at least as rare as the weapon drops were previously.
    ---
    Weapon parts would be spent to complete powerups that essentially function the same as weapon pickups did before, except now you can select which one to equip in the menu and even upgrade them (more range, more projectiles, etc..). This would be a much bigger incentive to fight and kill robotic enemies. Also, if you want to add more goodies to find on the map then you could have each weapon design hidden in a different location.
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    Enemy DNA would work differently. In the menu you could spend each enemy type's DNA toward a variety of upgrades. Each enemy would have 2 types of upgrades you could purchase.
    Stat bonus - (depending on the enemy type, such as a zombie might increase HP, while mantis would increase attack, and soldiers would give a charge bonus).
    Pheromones - First level would decrease the reaction time of that enemy toward you. Second upgrade would cause them to ignore you unless you attack or touch them. Third upgrade would cause them to ignore you, even if attacked. Final upgrade would turn them into allies (although you can still attack/kill them).
    And if you manage to complete the upgrades for an enemy type, then you could have sex with that type (using the H key) and then it would actually follow you (limited to one of any type). Those slimes could be particularly useful, although it would take a long time to farm them...

    Before enemy DNA will drop, however, you must defeat the first boss and, instead of being obliterated as before he now begs you to spare him in exchange for these DNA upgrades. (or maybe it's another scientist working there?) But first you have to have sex with an enemy type and make it back to him for umm "extraction" (maybe a kinda new H scene where she pulls off naked and gets probed by the doctor?). Doing this will then allow that enemy type to drop DNA when killed. Saving the game or teleporting will destroy/reset semen, and having sex with multiple types will contaminate it. The scientist needs a pure sample but will do the probing anyway if you don't have what is needed (he'll tell you what's wrong after the scene).

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  13. do you already have price for a game in mind?

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    1. Same price as before. Free for people who already bought the original.

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  14. Geez, those poll results, people really want you to work to the bone huh?!
    I don't think you need to do any major overhauls, people enjoyed it the way it was anyway. If you do, I think it's totally justified charging people for the new one regardless of whether they already own it. You don't need to get suckered into the artists trap of refusing to take money for things, value that work!

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    1. I was surprised too. I thought most people would say to do the minimum.

      If Eroico is any indication, Kurovadis will probably make more on Steam in a year than it has since it's release. Steam is that much bigger than DLSite or selling by yourself. So I'm not too worried about milking existing customers for something they already bought.

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  15. you really need to do something about abusing mob respawn. cause there are some places there you can kill mobs then leave the room and immediately return and kill mobs again and repeat it over and over again to gain a ton of exp.

    also in case you make more detailed h scenes it would be pleasent to be able to zoom in and out. and can you please add gallery with all the CGs and H scenes?

    and the last thing - say that you can punch downwards, 'cause I letrally had to go to youtube to see what im supposed to do with boss's 2nd stage

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  16. Yeah, a gallery and zoom would be greatly appreciated. If you want to see some animations, you'll have to travel across the entire map just to see them, and if it's a boss, then just forget about it. I don't really know if it'd be difficult to do, but I think a gallery is really appealing when it comes to H-Games.

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    1. Gallery is essential in H games (mostly). I'd say it is in Kurovadis.
      The only time it isn't is if significant behavior would be missing from a gallery, but in those cases you need the equivalent of a free mode.

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  17. No specific feedback I guess but I'm grateful for your keeping the old version available, I really enjoyed it (I even speedran it for a little bit at one point,) I'd be a bit sad if it was totally gone even though I'm real excited for a Kurovadis update too, my favorite part of the game is probably the kinetic and speedy movement it just feels good to bounce around in

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  18. To be honest, more intuitive combat is more appealing than H scene.
    H scene are more like extra spice that other games are not provide, but that doesn't meant the game should focus on that point alone.
    So yeah, engaging combat, difficult enemies, powerups, moves, stages, platforming, etc etc are something I would look forward rather than 200+ H scene

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  19. I think the H-scenes need only minor improvement, and certainly more would be nice.

    Combat though is more complicated, a priority for me would be getting customized controls, I couldn't get my controller to bind to anything intuitive, so ended up just playing with keyboard. Extra moves just sounds kind of intimidating to my former keyboard-bound self. I think the combat was at a good difficulty so making significant changes while maintaining that sounds like a challenge. I would never presume to tell you where to put your development energy, so if you'd enjoy it absolutely go for it, but I don't think it's necessary. Though I agree the bosses could be more interesting.

    Also I never really said this anywhere before but I really enjoyed my time with the game! The exploration and atmosphere were great, the animation on the jumping dodge roll just felt so fun I never minded getting lost and wandering around. (Me getting lost isn't a game design thing, I'll get lost in any game I play)

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  20. I too am surprised that people are going for the "greedy" options in the polls. Of course it would be nice if the game was improved a lot rather than a little, but there is a cost.

    My personal recommendation would have been to go for the best value improvements. Retouch a few CGs if they're particularly bad (these only pop up for a few seconds once in a while and aren't that important in the grand scheme of things), fix a few frames of the worst animations, maybe a few changes to the game itself if they are easy to implement and improve the game significantly enough.

    If there needs to be a bigger rehaul, I believe it should be on the animations. There are plenty of games with good gameplay out there, but virtually none with Kyrieru-level animations.

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  21. I'm a bit of a mixed bag on the Content over H poll. I'm a sucker for platformers of any kind, and one with engaging gameplay is always great. I also like your art style for H scenes, I like both of the approaches, but I don't think I could decide independently on either one. I also don't want you overworking yourself and putting your health at risk again. I like your style and you are one of the few H-game makers I actively follow. I would like to see you make some new content but I also actually worry about your health. I also have very little frame of reference to how much effort goes into making any kind of game so I feel like this is more of your choice overall than our own. I appreciate you taking your fan's opinions into account, but I would be satisfied either way. TL;DR: Do whatever feels comfortable to you and doesn't impact your health too badly. I'll be happy either way.

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  22. Ky, we love you, you're an inspiration and a talented artist in many mediums. We just want to see you finish -some- of these ideas you've had.

    You can nitpick about Kurovadis endlessly, but Kurovadis and Eroico are the games that got you this fanbase, flaws and all. You made money publishing games, not by remastering the one over and over and dropping projects left and right. Do your touch-ups and leave it be. Those games are completed. You're losing fans who are hoping you'll bring us another new game.

    ALL your game ideas were good. Even if they weren't what you wanted them to be, they were still good enough to be fun and worth buying. Keep your health on the path to recovery and try to bring us any one of these games you've started.

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  23. Personally I think the game is pretty solid as it is, and adding new content is more important than improving old stuff. Stuff like new enemies, combat abilities, H-animations, cgs, alternate outfits, etc will help lure veterans back in to the game, who will hopefully hype the game to newbies in the process.

    This wasn't mentioned yet, but consider having a steady steam of updates instead of launching everything at once, as it would help build interest, give you feedback, reduce stress (probably), and maybe keep the pirates on their toes.

    As for your points:

    >1. Many H animations have too few frames, or are too simple.
    I don't remember H animations being particularly bad or boring, though it's been a while since I've played.

    >2. The powerups you can pick up are not very intuitive, useful or engaging.
    I don't remember having trouble with powerups.

    >3. Level up orbs are not really a good reward for exploring.
    Stat ups are pretty common metroidvanias. Since this is an H-game though, having custom H-scenes might be a nice reward.

    >4. Enemies are overly simplistic, and most can be bypassed easily.
    Consider adding changes to enemies as a higher difficulty setting (if there isn't one yet?) to accomodate different playstyles. There's lots of ways to tweak the difficulty though, some easier to implement than others:
    * Increase enemey HP / movement speed / bullets / attack pattern speed
    * Increase the number of enemies
    * Add "Elite" versions of enemies with higher stats (you could probably get away with simple shading)
    * Add new enemy types?
    I think as long as combat doesn't become a slog then it's ok?

    >5. Bosses are too simple, and not really that fun to fight.
    Same suggestions as above, with the addition of,
    * 1 or 2 new attack patterns

    >6. Some people didn't even know melee existed until the last boss, or see it as so risky that it isn't worth using.
    I liked melee though and used it pretty often. I think having risk is good when it means more opportunity for incidental H.

    >7. The map lacks shortcuts that prevent backtracking, which would probably not be received well, outside of those who see it as a novelty.
    Shortcuts would be nice.

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  24. Honestly, enjoyed the game as it was. But I felt it might be a bit too easy? I remember editing the config as a challenge to make it so I could only take 1 hit and while it was challenging, it was still very doable. Having something like that as a extra mode would be neat.

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  25. Simple improvement to H-animations: Don't add any new frames, just add a slower loop at the beginning to help build anticipation. Then go full speed as normal. Right now they kind of just start out of nowhere, and it's a bit jarring.

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  26. I'm playing Kuro v8, and I think that intro-room's large screen should have some control information. If our heroine is waking up from a capsule, I think it makes sense to have information about whatever combat abilities they might've installed in her, or observed in her.

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  27. I happened to try replaying the game recently, and I agree, it definitely felt a bit rough around the edges (much more than I remembered). The main issues in my eyes are: being able to bypass enemies, and the leveldesign/pacing.

    I liked the H-scenes (though I am biased to pixel art), and the power-ups felt good to use. I would say you should keep the current combat system for the most part, and just improve the melee aspect in some way.

    I generally don't like hit-stun, because it makes enemies too safe to kill, but adding it to melee could create an interesting dynamic where it becomes safer, and a bit more defensive. Charging melee attacks was amusing, but felt kinda weird to me.

    The beginning sequence feels good, and the last half of the game feel good. but the difficulty seems to spike a few times early on, and the level design wasn't that intuitive for me.

    To try and elaborate, I mainly take issue with the laboratory(?) section. One of the paths is a dead end if you do it first, and the boss took me a long time to beat, with most of the difficulty stemming from how long it takes to kill him. After beating the boss, it wasn't clear to me where to go.

    Once you get to the castle area, things get better, but that area still felt a little too difficult at times compared to the previous section. A couple of the stronger enemies were a bit punishing. (the sky demon and neko girl)

    I do prefer difficult games though, so that part isn't an issue.

    Also, in addition to not knowing about the melee mechanic until the end, I also didn't notice the level up systems until after I beat the first boss.

    I generally don't like exp based level systems to begin with, so maybe you could boost the level up orbs, and remove the exp system. Leveling up after bosses would make sense too.

    Oh, and part of the issue with enemies is that you can pretty easily abuse jumping on top of them to stay safe.

    This is just my personal biased and opinionated feedback, so take it with a grain of salt, but hopefully it can be of use to you in some way.

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  28. I dunno if that would be too much to ask for but two specific Game features that to me have always been big appeals for any Hentai Games I played were:

    1. Rape doesn´t deal Dama (this way you can enjoy watching the Heroine getting abused without going Game Over all the time)

    2. Hentai Games with capture mechanisms rather than Game Overs!
    It´s like, if you lose the Heroine gets raped, a scene gets triggered AND THEN (this is the important part) instead of going back to the Main menu the Heroine get´s captured and taken back to either a nest, Prison, personal Bedroom or whatever fits depending on the type of opponent!

    This Capture mechanism then triggeres a small Mini Game with different options:

    1. Stay in the Prison or Nest for a short while until an opponent arrives: Get raped (One scene could be triggered that then after a second time of not escaping slightly changes, as in continuation to the first scene! After the third time not escaping this could either turn into a Game over or just keep repeating itself until one decides to escape)

    2. Try to escape but Fail: Same as Nr. 1

    3. Escape: Then be back at the last Save Spot or Connect the Prison with the Map somewhere!

    Ps: Some of my personal favourite Things in Hentai Games (specifically those with no Game Overs):
    1. Impregnation and Birth
    2. Parasites (that stay until removed)
    3. Incubation of eggs (that stay until egglaying or straight away egg laying)
    4. Lesbian! (Big fan of that!)
    5. Clothes Change! Either voluntarily or forced by opponents (Bondage, Bunny Suit, Dog collar Etc.)
    6. And one of my personal favourites: Transformation and/or mutation! (That stays until removed) This can be pretty much anything and range between the heroine getting darker skin, getting bigger breasts, getting genderbender'ed or best of all getting (Real) Cat ears and a Cat tail (Or any other Animal traits for example Bunny Ears and Tail or Wolf Ears and Tail Etc.) (Big Monster Girl fan)

    But all this depends on how much extra work and effort you are willing to put into the Game! Whatever you do it´s your Game and you shouldn´t do something you don´t like!

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  29. Played that game a long time ago, i'll try to remember the first time what i found was lacking :
    - No context at all, I mean yeah I get that I have an android girl but why did she wake up, what's the deal ?
    The "story" aspect of the game felt a bit confused to me as well, I couldn't really imagine a narrative based on what I played. So yeah, personnally, some polishing about the story/context is a big + .

    -Powerups felt too weak, the fire was kinda nice, but then you get the laser and you're like "oh well at least it can still open passages". And also I remember that I really didn't get what the "Charge" stat meant when I first played, I more or less guessed the rest of the stats so maybe just adding a line of text to explain would be nice ?

    -I would really love updated CGs and/or new/special interactions like getting trapped and having to escape for exemple. The pixel animations felt fine to me if I remember correctly. Altough if you update them it's always nice.

    -For the combat section, I remember I could easily grind a ton of exp when I got to the laboratory and after that the game felt too easy. Maybe the level system should be removed, melee attacks could hitstun but deal no damage whereas gun attacks deal a lot more damage than originally for example. It's just a suggestion.

    -Exploration : I lost my way so many times. That I remember well, maybe a map or some very distinct visual cues could be added to orient the player towards the latest objective ? Whatever works fine is good.

    If you really remake parts of the game, I'll consider buying it on Steam to support you :)

    Good luck !

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  30. "Should I even focus on combat at all when I could spend that same time making H better, or just adding a bunch of new H?"

    Why not both? A porn game is only as strong as its game portion. Otherwise you'd just be making a glorified gallery.

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  31. Dude! That fucking sidekick she delivers is stunningly animated! I can't stop watching! Your work has massively improved and I'm so happy for you. I'll buy Kurovadis again just to encourage you! I know you want people who already own it to have it, but I want to encourage you to keep going, if only to see your progress.

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  32. Melee combat system looks cool,but all I wanna really see is updated CG's and in-game animations and maybe just like 1 new enemy to have a pure
    target to replay the game. The previous time I has started to replay the game(like 1 year ago) I noticed that animations were retired.

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  33. Got a feel of Kurovadis again.

    The reson why I liked Kurovadis was not so much because of its melee. When I first played two things appealed to me:

    1) This game is compact. These sprites were impressively small, and the detail and style of the game was really tight.

    2) This game is reminiscent of Megaman in the way you have blue lemons and a charged shot, but it's at a faster pace.

    I fight all enemies that are meant to be fought in these games(that's my nuzlocke), but even so I'll highlight this:

    "4. Enemies are overly simplistic, and most can be bypassed easily."

    Noaika(from what I've experienced in the demo), is pretty much a true successor, and it fixes this issue with having aggressive base enemies and limiting the jump.

    I love that crazy combo, but unless this is a fighter or enemies have insane health and need combo multipliers to defeat, I don't think melee combat is necessary if you don't have a limiter on ranged. Perhaps that is the answer.

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  34. Honestly Kurovadis is still my favourite game of yours, not cause I think it's the best, but just for like sentimental reasons so I am absolutely pro anything that makes it a better game. I would absolutely even buy it again if you updated it enough to think it was worth a full resale.

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  35. Honestly your games are miles above the competition when it comes to pixel art H games, even the old ones. Your name is the one that comes up first in mind and conversations about the topic.
    Kurovadis is old and it does show, but I think the only thing that would renew its value would be to increase the scale of the H animations, and that's probably more work than it's worth. As you yourself say, as a player (and a fan) I'd rather see new work first. You can make a more complete renewal later (or never! I work with creators and perfectionism always has a certain limit past which it's always detrimental).

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    ReplyDelete
  37. you are the most pixel artist man I ever man in my life, it gives me like MMMMMMMMMMHH! god perfecto! tabarnaque de delicieus content MOUA! * Canada National Anthem start playin * ᵇᵗʷ ᵏᵉᵉᵖ ᵗʰᵉ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ʷᵒʳᵏ ᵐᵃⁿ

    ReplyDelete