Concern: too invested in little details?

[Karel]

I'll get right to the point, since some time now I have had the feeling that the devs have been focusing on little details rather than the key features and the core gameplay.

It sure is nice to see that the stance of a rabbit with a sword changes when close to another one, or to have your rabbit using his two hands to throw a bigger sword ... (though some features kinda feel, uh ... I dunno ... Changing blood's color, really?)

but the game is an alpha, and is still lacking major features, that should be added before adding the details. There is only one really well made species so far, the rest are WIPs or must still be added. There are no real scripts (other than little stuff like displaying a message and stuff), parkour is not finished at all, and we didn't see any real level with decent level design so far allowing infiltration and parkour properly, aside from some custom maps.
The game is also still pretty unstable, not optimized (though I am confident that this will be one of the last things the devteam will do), and doesn't run well at all on some OSes. To me it seems that the priority is here, not on having animations for throwing heavier swords and such, even if I'd still like to see these details added later to get a better fighting feeling.


It would be cool to have at least some signs of life regarding that stuff, I mean proofs that the devs are working on it, just not on little details like what we've been getting so far.

[last]

I think that those are the most time consuming changes that they made this time:

ported to SDL2 (should improve Linux/Mac fullscreen and resizing)
improved field of view for really wide or tall screens
improved skinning weights for all characters
updated angelscript to 2.26.3
fixed problem with angelscript Object.GetRotation function on Linux
re-enabled Linux character LOD

Most of the other small changes are just making and adding some new animation and very little script code:

alternate close-range stances for swordfighting
added additional slash attack animation for small swords
small sword stance always has dominant hand forwards
new sword throw animation
updated run and walk animations
alternate close-range stances for swordfighting- can parry thrown items if hands are full

I think that Aubrey made and i hope that he also rigged all the new character models, unless he still don't know how to do this properly.

[DI0BL0]

The little details are one of my fav things in the game. It makes is stand out from almost any other game even AAA titles. As for the free-running, they will be working on that in the raider meta-game.

But I would also like to see bigger things just like anyone else. Like the wicker armor in art asset overview #18. But that's a different conversation.

[AmorphousGamer]

The little details are one of my fav things in the game.

But it isn't a game yet. As the original poster said, the big details need to come before the small ones. You need to get in the core gameplay features, then polish them. You don't create one feature, then polish it, then move on to the next. You get the entire core game set up, then figure out if everything works together, then you polish it up when all that's done.

[TheRedGuy]

The game has been in development for very long. Long enough that questioning the team's work ethic is silly, I think. If anything, considering all the side projects and updates that have been trickling over months and years, they're using the game's developments just as much for personal learning experiences (and it's a labor of love) than trying to push out a videogame product.

[Endoperez]

But it isn't a game yet. As the original poster said, the big details need to come before the small ones. You need to get in the core gameplay features, then polish them. You don't create one feature, then polish it, then move on to the next. You get the entire core game set up, then figure out if everything works together, then you polish it up when all that's done.

The developers have touched on this. They made Lugaru, which is basically the prototype with all the gameplay mechanics intact. Since they knew the core game would work, they were free to make Overgrowth in the way that they thought would result in the best finished game. What they were missing wasn't gameplay features, but gameplay levels and connections between them. The combat system has existed for almost 100 alphas already, and it's still being polished.

I think levels are one of the "single features that are polished last". In addition, they need to be based on underlying features such as combat mechanics. I also think they would have been able to complete some sort of a rabbit fighting game faster than this, and it would've been good enough for all Lugaru fans. That's a danger when you're working on something you love - you want to keep working on it and making it even better because you can imagine it being even better, when for most other people it's already a thing of wonder and they can't imagine how it could be any better.

The game has been in development for very long. Long enough that questioning the team's work ethic is silly, I think. If anything, considering all the side projects and updates that have been trickling over months and years, they're using the game's developments just as much for personal learning experiences (and it's a labor of love) than trying to push out a videogame product.

No, the game has been in development for a long time, and people have been questioning the developers' way of doing things for a long time. I think I posted something like this, oh, maybe two years ago? or four? To be honest, I can't remember.

If someone is concerned, there's no rule saying they can't tell that they're concerned.

[Ylvali]

For me the concern isn't really about how or in what order the game is developed, but rather the extremely long time itself. I bought the game when I was relatively young, now I don't even play games much anymore and all the excitement about actually playing the game is long gone. I'm still here to appreciate the open development process, since I have professional interest in it.

But I'm no longer the kid who bought this game because she wanted to play a cool new fighting game.

I'm sure there's a new generation out there who will love it once it comes out, my two kids to begin with, but ya know you could have given a heads up that it could take 10 years of waiting back when the hype was on