Demo Catch Up and FAQ
The Crown Trick demo version of the game has already been here for some time now and the response that we have gotten from the players and fans has surpassed our expectations. It has also helped us to solidify the core mechanics of the game that make it enjoyable namely: the synchronous movement, the elemental interactions and the rogue-like aspect. Right now we are looking to collect everyone’s feedback and questions and we’ve compiled a list of some of the most asked questions along with their answers right here!
About the Weapon Systems
We’ve had a lot of questions about the weapons and relics. In this version of the game, players have said that combat suffers from a number of issues that make it feel quite lacking in terms of difficulty and believability.
Some of the main reasons for this are:
The 9 weapon types only have one currently playable weapon in the game so there is a lack of variety
There are few relics in the game, only about 20 for now, and they don’t have clear enough differences.
There are some relics and weapons that have bugs.
A few of the weapons’ designs didn’t fit the game; for instance, melee weapons were at a severe disadvantage.
The currently planned fixes for these issues:
We will make more weapons for each weapon class, with approximately 9 weapons for each class, so 9*9, for a total of about 80 unique weapons.
Emphasize the particularity of relics, reduce the number of basic relics, add additional “special relics” and make the combination of relics more varied and meaningful.
Make the amplification of relics more clear visually. This may make the players feel like they have a much more powerful impact when they first play through. (Currently, many players feel like they aren’t that impressive)
Make the pairings between relics, abilities, and items more sensible.
Fix the bugs with certain weapons and relics.
Fix the issues around melee weapons and buff the swords and battle axe
Fix a few of the issues with the ranged weapons, make the differences between them more distinct.
Add more magic based skills.
About the Difficulty and Levels
In this Demo version of the game, we released Chapter One, the easiest difficulty level, because we didn’t want to overwhelm new players while they learned how to play the game. (We realize now this was a mistake because almost everyone who played was really good at roguelikes).
Plans for changes:
Every chapter will have a higher level difficulty and a lower level difficulty, with the lower levels of each chapter having higher difficulty as the player, descends further within the chapter.
The lower levels within each chapter while have more unique content, events and bosses that match the harder difficulty
At the lower level within the chapter players will be challenged with Bosses, main and hidden.
Main Bosses will require that you find hidden clues before you are able to challenge them.
We will aim to add difficulty settings for the game so that players can have a different playthrough experiences.
Some of this will be done through increasing the number and strength of enemies, but it won’t be the only way we look to increase difficulty.
We will add a challenge mode.
We will add a kind of “endless maze” mode similar to “SlaySpire” (we are testing how to implement this)
We will adjust and balance the mana consumption of skills, blinking, and make mana recovery more reasonable.
About the Control Input Issues
In this version we only had two input methods for the controls: mouse/keyboard and controller both of which did not have button mapping available. The game’s current character turning system also confused players.
The currently planned fixes for these issues:
Create a key mapping feature that allows players to map inputs to buttons or keys they would prefer.
Create a mouse function that allows you to click on the grid to move and click on the enemy to attack.
Implement a new turning method, in which pressing a directional input will automatically turn and move the player in that direction one space without an additional input. The player will need to control the direction they face when not moving with a different input.
We will be optimizing the UI interface.
About Homebase Upgrades and Character Upgrades:
In the test version the players Homebase upgrades become more and more expensive making it harder to upgrade each time. Furthermore leveling your character was not fully open to the players so this reduced the amount of replay value. Our game is more of a Roguelite style game in that we want players to be able to level up and defeat the higher difficulties.
The currently planned fixes for these issues:
Streamline the Homebase upgrade system.
Increase the Soul Crystal output so that upgrades requiring Soul Crystal will be achievable earlier.
Increase Homebase upgrade diversity and meaningfulness.
The player character will not lose experience points after death during a run so that they can unlock new skills and other upgrades for their next run.
The main purpose of player character upgrades is to unlock more weapons, relics and tools so that you can have access to more methods for dealing with mobs and bosses in future levels and chapters.
We are considering attaching numerical values to the player upgrade system. (Still under team review)
About Freezing and Lag: Right now there are several factors that are contributing to these issues, but mainly it’s due to:
We have used 4K picture quality for all of the in game image rendering.
There are some issues with Unity and memory usage when using this image quality level
Because of the synchronous movements certain players have experienced lag in rooms with large numbers of enemies or action animations.
About the Game Save and Game Loading SystemIn the current version of the game we have implemented a very simple Save/Load system. In the future we plan to implement an AutoSave function within the game that will allow players to exit the game at any point and come back at the exact point they left of playing.
The currently planned fixes for these issues:
Performance optimization, with the ability to select low, medium or high image resolution.
Fix the issue regarding memory usage.
Try to increase the combat animation speeds (This will be more difficulty to implement and if there are any suggestions that you all have the team would love to hear them)
The current version of the game is just a test version and there are many things that we didn’t list above that still need to be implemented or tweaked as we look to move forward with the games development. Everyone has been so helpful when it comes to assisting the team in finding bugs! Here’s a brief list of some of the bugs that players have identified and that the team has been able to fix already!
Mobs will get stuck inside walls and will disappear or become untargetable making it impossible for players to leave a room
It was impossible to directly pick up gold or items
After pressing Tab to open the mini map, Pressing Esc wouldn’t take you back to the previous screen or menu. (the player needed to manually click the return button)
Some of the maps were obstructed from view.
Progress would be deleted or lost if a player opened the large map inside the lab.
After opening the potion interface players would be unable to exit.
After completing objectives their notification icons would still remain on the mini-map
After completing objectives the mini-map would disappear
The training vial and the first blood vial were different
There were some issues with item or skill explanations
Item description optimization issues
We know that there are still many issues that will need to be fixed and we hope to be able to resolve them as quickly as possible. There are also opportunities to improve the game in many different areas and we will strive to make the game only better and better.
If you have any issues, especially issues regarding choppy or lagging gameplay, don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Discord (https://discord.gg/FbaXFNm).
We are grateful for your continued support and help in making Crown Trick a better game for everyone!
0 comments