Scimitar Playtest Feedback Thread

[cycloid]

http://www.cyclomedia.co.uk/doom/scimitar.asp

From the text file:

This is an alpha release, do not play it if you
don't like spoilers or bad texturing, it should
not be posted for review or uploaded to any archives
feedback should be made to the author at the
appropriate doomworld forum post, via doomworld
forum PM or via email. To elaborate:

Do not post reviews of this work
Do not distribute this work
Do not record demos of this work
Do not divulge spoilers or demo routes*
Do not base new works on this work

The full final release will have the usual friendly
terms/permissions so don't flame me!



basically: so what do y'all think?

the text file has a list of known issues in but i suggest you ignore that (contains minor spoilers for a start!) and just have a blast through from start to finish to get a feel for the complete package then proceed with your constructive nitpicking.



it's targetted squarely at WinMBF and has recieve most of it's testing in Eternity, i've fixed the prboom/glboom deh issues too and zdoom should be able to handle it. i'm only online on my work pc so from 3pm GMT today (friday 31st) until about 8am GMT Monday i'll be away, so you've got all weekend to construct your notes.


BTW if you think you've found a handy demo trick, keep it to yourself :-) if you really want to ask me a question that might pose a serious spoiler (inc the new monsters) then i suggest you PM or email me.


enjoy!

[cycloid]

wow, 3 days and no feedback, wandering if that's a good or a bad thing, heh. not to worry i'll be working on the second alpha in the mean time anyway, working on some of the "known issues" as it is though i'm still hoping someone can help me with some of the gfx work, or at least suggest some wads who's gfx i can re-use (and give credit for, naturally)

[Apocalypse]

I just had a quick look around it looks very nice and i really liked the knife and the sword I hope to see more of it soon keep up the good work.

[Sporku]

Hmm, this seems to have slipped past me. I'll have to check it out when I get home. Screenshots look good, too. :D

[cycloid]

almighty [[[bump]]] !!!

[Deeforce]

Hello Cycloid,

you may already know that you should take care of your textures, for example the beginning of map01 till map07 seems to be very repetitive, because of the player start locations, which are in a room surrounded with the same textures of previous levels. I would change these transitions, because it doesn’t look interesting. How? Well, just do it like you did in map 04 from sector 18 to sector 102(the room with 13 platforms in it). Furthermore, you should put in many light sources, because your levels look very empty, for example map 05 sector 144 (down left). I recommend using candles, tall torches or short torches! Try to use them as often as they seem to fit…

Implement difficulty settings, otherwise you are a noob! It is very easy to create some more health here and there for lower skilled players. Therefore you can exchange the monsters too, but I would pay attention to the action that lower skilled players should get like higher skilled ones (do not simply delete monsters for lower skilled people, exchange them, for example exchange an IMP with an typical trooper(only an example!))…

I think your levels need some more contrast. You create contrast, if you put in light sources or change textures. For example map05 in the near of the player start location you will see that everything is so yellow. Maybe you can change something there and in other places too…

Your unfinished levels are nice to play (good gameplay). I look forward to see this being ready to release.
Good luck with improving!

PS.: I cannot answer any questions until 1 week has past, because I’m off…

[cycloid]

thanks for that, yeah i know the texturing is a bit sucky, i'm very slowly working on some custom textures to break the first two episodes up better but the first lot i made were massively overscaled, doh! difficulty levels will come eventually but glad you liked the gameplay :-)