Walthros: Renewal - Now available

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TMC
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Post by TMC »

(Oh you edited your post)

Based on a sketch by your daughter? That's awesome. How old is she?

Great to see the demo release (alas, I haven't had time to play it yet), I also saw you say on Twitter you had hundreds of downloads (just on Steam?) immediately, that's nice to hear. So is Steam actually a decent way to get attention for demos and free games, or are all those downloads from your work hyping the game elsewhere?
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

I usually edit my last post here every day or two to add new screens rather than replying, do I don't flood the thread.

She's 3, and she's drawn a whole bunch of them for use in a later crazy area. Should be fun!

I've only really done much promotion on Twitter, and with the exact same kinds of posts I had 20ish downloads for the previous demo on Itch.io and almost 600 now on Steam. I don't love their system, but people are more likely to try a game once it's on Steam.
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Our heroes gossiping about a local dummy.
Our heroes gossiping about a local dummy.
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

So the tough part with demos is not just getting people to download, but getting them to play. Roughly 1% of people who have downloaded the Steam demo for Walthros have actually started playing, vs. 20% of people who downloaded the Kaiju demo when that came out. I have no idea how to improve this.
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Cut a game trailer. Screenshots are fine, but games with trailers increase demand.

If you don't have the time, I might be able to cut one for you. I'd just need a piece of music from the game I can use as background.
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

I'll email you about that, I can't run capture software on my computer that works well enough!
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Post by Mogri »

I downloaded the demo on Steam last night, but my laptop -- no joke -- bluescreened right after I used the keycards. It's almost certainly unrelated, of course.

What I saw was very polished. My only gripe so far is that Lancoven has two specials that don't deal noticeably more damage than the standard attack.

I'll give it another go today.
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

I'll try your demo this weekend if I get an hour or two.
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Post by Mogri »

More things I've noticed (demo 1.16):

- Bob's got a DEBUG command menu in the demo. Not sure if intentional.
- You can use Ctrl for most things, but you can't use it to select whose skills to use. No one outside of the OHR community is likely to notice or care, of course.
- When you select Profiles (which is a great feature, by the way), the character moves to the left like a pixel or two compared to the regular menu -- just enough to look like a mistake.
- Every time I choose Save, it starts in slot 32. Is this an engine bug?
- Died on the first battle after the intro. My fault for picking Fish Frenzy, but also the battle seems pretty swingy with the bots randomly malfunctioning. I saved first, at least.
- When you sit down to eat with Gus, it fades in before moving Bob to the bench.
- Beta City is great.
- I really like gaining XP outside of combat.

Stopped just short of Blue Shrine. I'll probably play more tonight or tomorrow. This is great so far -- very polished. I hope you have better luck getting eyes on it going forward. It certainly deserves more attention.
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Post by The Wobbler »

Thank you! Going through point by point:

- Bob's got a DEBUG command menu in the demo. Not sure if intentional.
That was accidental, I'll remove it.

- You can use Ctrl for most things, but you can't use it to select whose skills to use. No one outside of the OHR community is likely to notice or care, of course.
That should be easy enough to fix later, but not a big deal.

- When you select Profiles (which is a great feature, by the way), the character moves to the left like a pixel or two compared to the regular menu -- just enough to look like a mistake.
Will fix this.

- Every time I choose Save, it starts in slot 32. Is this an engine bug?
So this is something I'm not sure how to deal with. James, TMC, feel free to weigh in! The game's autosave (for the Continue option on the title screen, and if you die in battle) saves to slot 33, which is not selectable. If the game has recently autosaved, the next time players go to save it skips down to start them on slot 32. Is there a way around this?

- Died on the first battle after the intro. My fault for picking Fish Frenzy, but also the battle seems pretty swingy with the bots randomly malfunctioning. I saved first, at least.
I'll add an autosave point after the into in case this happens so players don't have to rewatch the previous scene.

- When you sit down to eat with Gus, it fades in before moving Bob to the bench.
This is something that just started happening in the latest stable release. James/TMC - This is the script:

fade screen out
wait(10)

camera follows npc (25)
set hero position (me,8,10)
set hero picture (me,119)
set hero direction (me,north)

wait(10)
fade screen in

It doesn't run the stuff in between the fades until Fade In completes.


- Beta City is great.
- I really like gaining XP outside of combat.

Thanks!
Last edited by The Wobbler on Fri Jun 19, 2020 10:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by kylekrack »

If you've made a post about this in Q&A or somewhere else already, apologies.

What happens if you put a 'wait for key(any key)' before the second 'wait(10)'? Does it wait for you to press a button before fading back in?
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Post by TMC »

I suggest you write "use key" instead of checking "key:space", etc, separately. That'll help ensure your scripted menu behaves the same as builtin ones.

Regardless the fade-in problem:

Does that script run immediately after entering a map? "fade screen out" immediately after entering a map (and maybe before some other automatic fades) cancels the automatic fade in. But if the script is delayed by a tick for some reason (another script interrupts it) then it won't get cancelled.

You can use script trigger logging to try track down the problem. Find it in the debug menu. Turn it on before the scene, and off afterwards. It outputs script_log.txt, showing you when map changes and screen fades happen relative to each script triggering, running, and finishing.
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Post by The Wobbler »

Nope, it runs during a conversation with an NPC. I've attached a GIF of it happening twice in one scene.

This is the whole script for this bit:

Code: Select all

show text box(260)
wait for text box

set npc direction (2,south)



if(check tag(69))
then(
stop song
fade screen out
wait(10)

camera follows npc (25)
set hero position (me,8,10)
set hero picture (me,119)
set hero direction (me,north)
wait(10)
fade screen in
play song (4)

show text box(262)
wait for text box
)
This wasn't happening in the last pre-Gorgonzola nightly I was using previously, but I can't recall when it was from.
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kylekrack
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Post by kylekrack »

Did you try adding a 'wait for key(use key)' or using the script logger? What are the results in that case?

Also, you can refer to tags in the format of "tag:name" to make scripts easier to read, instead of using tag ID numbers.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

I've also had some strange goings on with fade screen out not staying faded out like this
is it possible changing things with the camera does this?
Or is there a certain amount of ticks you need to wait?

I think I've settled on thinking it needs 16 to fully fade out and that seems to be holding strong
but I've never reported it and gotten an official reply, or done THAt extensive of testing
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Sun Jun 21, 2020 12:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

Spoonweaver wrote:I've also had some strange goings on with fade screen out not staying faded out like this
is it possible changing things with the camera does this?
Or is there a certain amount of ticks you need to wait?

I think I've settled on thinking it needs 16 to fully fade out and that seems to be holding strong
but I've never reported it and gotten an official reply, or done THAt extensive of testing
I tried wait 10, 20, and 30, results were the same.

I tried it with the "camera follows npc" line removed... and it worked! But then I tried it again and the next time it didn't work.
kylekrack wrote:Did you try adding a 'wait for key(use key)' or using the script logger? What are the results in that case?

Also, you can refer to tags in the format of "tag:name" to make scripts easier to read, instead of using tag ID numbers.
Faster for me to just use the numbers, there aren't a lot of tags I use in multiple scripts and I remember the numbers for all of those.

I just tried the the script logger and it reminded me that I also had a timer running on this map. When I disable the timer, the fades work perfectly! So for now I'm just adding a tag that turns the timer off during this scene, since it's not needed here.
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