Hey folks! Even though HN is more hacker-oriented, I still thought I'd give it a shot.
Factoids:
- It's the first commercial game fully made in ooc
- It's sold only on itch.io (which recently made HN frontpage)
- It was originally a Ludum Dare submission
- We just released a Christmas update!
- It's lame because the game is not about killing stuff!
I have no idea how this post will do, but I'll happily take your questions here. Thanks for your attention and happy holidays :)
The trailer tells me nothing about the game. The description "non-linear 2D exploration game" is much more enticing than anything on the site, how is this game non-linear? I was expecting some sort of insight (or at least hint at) on the website, but I didn't see any. Then again maybe if I had gone even further into the trailer than however long I did (a couple of minutes?) I would have found something.
Ah well, I'm still working out my marketing skills - a field which I hate with a passion, but there's two of us and, well, someone has to do it.
Basically — environments to explore, set to an original soundtrack. That's really the selling point. The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Since the Christmas update, there are two separate worlds with different 'quests' - the latter being a snow/winter/Santa-themed world.
We definitely plan to add other gameplay mechanics, but we think the "charm" of the game is already there. We're happy with how Early Access is working, and totally understand if people don't like that niche and/or want to wait until there is more content / gameplay arcs.
To shed some light on the "non-linear" qualifier I used in the submission, allow me to refer you to the Ludum Dare Postmortem for Lestac: http://amos.me/blog/2013/lestac-the-making-of/ — which explains some of it.
As a side note, to anyone on HN who is interested in following the development of Lestac right from the devs' mouths, let me know, I can totally give out a few http://devsofa.cc keys for the Lestac channel.
Fun little game. I have a few suggestions that would make it better, in my opinion.
1. Include a 'save' feature or save automatically when a person steps through a door or transitions from one screen to another.
2. Maybe allow a person to adjust how much left/right movement happens to a degree in the options. The guy seems a little 'floaty' to me, and I had trouble not over-shooting my intended jumps. Of course, a max would be needed pretty close to where he's currently at, and a min would be needed that's still enough to play the game.
3. Allow it to support controllers and/or customize the controls.
4. Make picking up items more forgiving. It's currently a little too picky, in my opinion.
2 and 4 we've had on our mind (2 is already an improvement over the previous builds! still has work to do. I believe sane defaults would be enough though.)
And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.
As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.
Any chance of adding some other method of payment?
I don't have a PayPal account (and would rather not use it), but have all my credit card info already loaded up in for instance Google Wallet and "amazonpayments".
I have to admit I'd probably have made an impulse purchase if there hadn't been that small hurdle (and, for me, moral dilemma).
nddrylliog|12 years ago
Factoids:
I have no idea how this post will do, but I'll happily take your questions here. Thanks for your attention and happy holidays :)mhlakhani|12 years ago
if so, can you share any thoughts on how that affected the development process? Any quirks? Any features that made it much easier?
Thanks!
[1] http://ooc-lang.org/
com2kid|12 years ago
Either way, not a good way to sell something. :(
nddrylliog|12 years ago
Basically — environments to explore, set to an original soundtrack. That's really the selling point. The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Since the Christmas update, there are two separate worlds with different 'quests' - the latter being a snow/winter/Santa-themed world.
We definitely plan to add other gameplay mechanics, but we think the "charm" of the game is already there. We're happy with how Early Access is working, and totally understand if people don't like that niche and/or want to wait until there is more content / gameplay arcs.
To shed some light on the "non-linear" qualifier I used in the submission, allow me to refer you to the Ludum Dare Postmortem for Lestac: http://amos.me/blog/2013/lestac-the-making-of/ — which explains some of it.
As a side note, to anyone on HN who is interested in following the development of Lestac right from the devs' mouths, let me know, I can totally give out a few http://devsofa.cc keys for the Lestac channel.
lalc|12 years ago
Anyway, buying to support, and wishing you success.
nddrylliog|12 years ago
bichiliad|12 years ago
pawn|12 years ago
1. Include a 'save' feature or save automatically when a person steps through a door or transitions from one screen to another.
2. Maybe allow a person to adjust how much left/right movement happens to a degree in the options. The guy seems a little 'floaty' to me, and I had trouble not over-shooting my intended jumps. Of course, a max would be needed pretty close to where he's currently at, and a min would be needed that's still enough to play the game.
3. Allow it to support controllers and/or customize the controls.
4. Make picking up items more forgiving. It's currently a little too picky, in my opinion.
nddrylliog|12 years ago
And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.
As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.
cskau|12 years ago
I have to admit I'd probably have made an impulse purchase if there hadn't been that small hurdle (and, for me, moral dilemma).
( For reference see https://www.humblebundle.com/ )
The game looks nice though ! It's exactly the kind of "quirky" indie game I love :)
nddrylliog|12 years ago
I'll take a look and see what our options are. Thanks for the kind words!
edit: Stripe does support France, but in closed beta — just signed up, we'll see when/if we get in the beta!
wingerlang|12 years ago