It is still fun, glad to see some lore slipping into the game now. I played the tutorial and the first few missions, got the big-ass gun etc. I am very curious to see where this goes storywise. When it comes to immediate upgrades I think making some real environments would do a lot for the game feel.
Controls work swimmingly.
Can't wait for an actual mission with story and characters with this sort of gameplay.
If I have any other input I think it would be to not be afraid of making the main tank unrealistic, upping the speed, the speed of the realignment of the barrel and so on. It does not seem like this will go for simulation, so tweaking things towards "fun" may be good.
You're right that I should focus on making the game fun by leaning on the arcady side, I'll try not to worry about guns being overpowered. I do want to add some story content but I want to try making 3D cutscenes and that's just not something I can focus on this early when performance and some core mechanics still need improvement.
Gotten around watching this, it's been extremely helpful.
Some things will take time and deliberation to tweak but there's also a lot of immediate things I can improve right away so I'll get to it. Thanks again for taking the time to record this.
The UI is properly scaled now. I'm playing on a different monitor than last time so I don't know if you actually added proper scaling or not, but I'm glad either way.
I looked like this in the cutscene after destroying the player tank clone in the tutorial, not sure if it's intentional but it made me chuckle.
Beat the first level with relative ease and watched the replay. I still don't understand the point of this but it's neat, I suppose. I would add an on-screen prompt for pressing ESC to exit the replay, I was lost for a second.
You misspelled "independently" in the chaingun description. I picked the landsword (nice) rockets for the second mission, which I expected would replace the coaxial chaingun. Turns out that it goes into a separate secondary weapon slot that you are not introduced to in the tutorial. I had to go into the keybinds to find the binding for the rockets.
I beat the subsequent levels with the 40mm cannon and the rocket secondary. I don't know if you made the game easier or I'm just more well rested this time, but the game feels a lot easier. The third-person view is fun but the sights option is simply superior for combat, I only find myself using third-person when I'm in one of those goofy "drive in circles around the guy" fights or when I'm just coursing through the map.
The railgun doesn't seem to land exactly where I'm aiming, it goes slightly up and to the left. I don't know if you did something to the 90mm cannon but it feels pretty usable instead of just being a meme weapon. It's cool that you can play as enemy tanks, I find it a little lame that you still have access to the sci-fi repair minigame with them but I understand why you made it that way.
I had no framerate issues, whether that's due to optimizations on your end or not is a mystery to me.
There is automatic UI scaling now so glad that's working, same with the optimization.
The 90mm now has some vertical aiming making it viable, the railgun will need some buffs aside from making the thing aim correctly.
Turns out that it goes into a separate secondary weapon slot that you are not introduced to in the tutorial
Oh yeah I forgot to explain it, whoops. You can also select the weapon by pressing 2 like it says on the UI but it's small and tucked in on the bottom left so I can see how that'd be easy to miss.
I find it a little lame that you still have access to the sci-fi repair minigame with them but I understand why you made it that way.
I could remove the particles if that helps with immersion, but the ability to play as the enemy tanks is more of an easter egg than anything serious.
It's fun but it definitely feels very early. I have multiple monitors and the game opened in an awkward position between monitors, although this fixed itself upon starting the actual game. It doesn't really feel like I'm driving a tank, speed build up should be a bit slower. Also, vehicle destruction doesn't feel very impactful so maybe louder sfx and other visual and camera effects could help with this. Other than that the basic combat mechanics are work well, I also like the way you handle repairs.
Game opens in a weird position of the screen, it takes a while to boot up. And those are the only downsides really! I like the idea of war thunder'y tank combat with a more fast paced and casual approach to gameplay and health system. Really cool project, gonna follow it more.
There are some elements of procedural generation in the missions regarding how things are placed, in theory a completely procedural mission is already possible so maybe I can add that as a "side" mission from the regular campaign. I'll put it on the to-do list.
Game took about 40 seconds to start up and clicking on it made it go white as if it would crash.
I went to the options and unchecked TAA and it stuttered for ~10 seconds, rebuilding shaders I guess.
Toggling most options caused a stutter of 2-5 seconds.
Trying to type in the max FPS box did not work. Rather have buttons for each one or a notched slider if you won't let me enter my own value.
Controlling the tank felt pretty good, I feel like the head of the tank should counter-rotate faster than the body should be able to turn.
The first dozen times I shot stuttered like crazy.
Yeah the head rotating is way too slow compared to the arcade speed of the tank itself.
I don't really understand how the armor works, the tanks are around 32 pixels tall max from the distance they're introduced, there's no precise way to aim and target them at all.
I don't know if this is on purpose because I'm not a tank guy, but I feel like going reverse and turning should behave like a car. So going back and to the left should turn the rear-end of the tank to the left, instead of the right.
I think an improvement to the first-person view would be if instead of the aim cursor going back to the center while rotating (being world-space locked), it should instead just stay in place (screen-space) so I can rotate forever.
There's no screenshake or feedback for shooting/hitting anything, feels like that should be the main thing.
Oh I can RMB to zoom in first-person view.
It seems like the repair QTE is timed but the timer isn't visible? I failed a lot even though I was hitting the correct buttons, seems like it timed out? It'd be better if the buttons were randomized each time you failed.
The head turning is so slow I can't hit the infantry when driving by. They also continue to damage me in the next cutscene/tutorial text.
Died quickly in level 1, seemed a little too open and grid-like. Would like to see some more hilly terrain where you can go up and down and maneuver to obscure yourself.
The head rotation speed being so slow put a big damper on how much I believed I could win. It felt arbitrary instead of physical. Maybe some mechanical sounds would help if you really want to keep it.
You're right that the game should have more feedback and screenshake when being hit especially, I'll try to remedy it. There's an option for reverse steering, and the QTE must have bugged out somehow because it's not timed.
I could speed up the turret rotation, it's currently depending on what turret/weapon is equipped, the starting 20mm is a bit weak so it should probably turn much faster than everything else, I'll buff it, eventually.
Thanks for playing, I'm leaning towards making this specifically a "light tank" game but this is far from the final version so there will be room for experimentation. The crosshair could use some transparency, you're right. Also thanks for the addon suggestion, I'll check it out.
Comments
Pretty sure you watched me play this, but I'll mark out my thoughts anyway:
Tutorial on this is solid for teaching the player how the game works.
Level designs ultimately feel like big empty boxes. More terrain or destructible miscellania would be good for alleviating that feeling.
Engaging enemy tanks at melee range is extremely overpowered and allows easy kills through commander window.
Tutorial for equipping new weapons would be good.
90mm cannon is a lot of fun.
Tankgame starts at 2hrs 17mins:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2250376964
It is still fun, glad to see some lore slipping into the game now. I played the tutorial and the first few missions, got the big-ass gun etc. I am very curious to see where this goes storywise. When it comes to immediate upgrades I think making some real environments would do a lot for the game feel.
Controls work swimmingly.
Can't wait for an actual mission with story and characters with this sort of gameplay.
If I have any other input I think it would be to not be afraid of making the main tank unrealistic, upping the speed, the speed of the realignment of the barrel and so on. It does not seem like this will go for simulation, so tweaking things towards "fun" may be good.
Hey thanks for playing again!
You're right that I should focus on making the game fun by leaning on the arcady side, I'll try not to worry about guns being overpowered.
I do want to add some story content but I want to try making 3D cutscenes and that's just not something I can focus on this early when performance and some core mechanics still need improvement.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Hey thanks for the video, I'll watch it as soon as I can!
Gotten around watching this, it's been extremely helpful.
Some things will take time and deliberation to tweak but there's also a lot of immediate things I can improve right away so I'll get to it.
Thanks again for taking the time to record this.
The UI is properly scaled now. I'm playing on a different monitor than last time so I don't know if you actually added proper scaling or not, but I'm glad either way.
I looked like this in the cutscene after destroying the player tank clone in the tutorial, not sure if it's intentional but it made me chuckle.
Beat the first level with relative ease and watched the replay. I still don't understand the point of this but it's neat, I suppose. I would add an on-screen prompt for pressing ESC to exit the replay, I was lost for a second.
You misspelled "independently" in the chaingun description. I picked the landsword (nice) rockets for the second mission, which I expected would replace the coaxial chaingun. Turns out that it goes into a separate secondary weapon slot that you are not introduced to in the tutorial. I had to go into the keybinds to find the binding for the rockets.
I beat the subsequent levels with the 40mm cannon and the rocket secondary. I don't know if you made the game easier or I'm just more well rested this time, but the game feels a lot easier. The third-person view is fun but the sights option is simply superior for combat, I only find myself using third-person when I'm in one of those goofy "drive in circles around the guy" fights or when I'm just coursing through the map.
The railgun doesn't seem to land exactly where I'm aiming, it goes slightly up and to the left. I don't know if you did something to the 90mm cannon but it feels pretty usable instead of just being a meme weapon. It's cool that you can play as enemy tanks, I find it a little lame that you still have access to the sci-fi repair minigame with them but I understand why you made it that way.
I had no framerate issues, whether that's due to optimizations on your end or not is a mystery to me.
Good fun, I hope to see more in time.
Hey, thanks for playing.
There is automatic UI scaling now so glad that's working, same with the optimization.
The 90mm now has some vertical aiming making it viable, the railgun will need some buffs aside from making the thing aim correctly.
Oh yeah I forgot to explain it, whoops.
You can also select the weapon by pressing 2 like it says on the UI but it's small and tucked in on the bottom left so I can see how that'd be easy to miss.
I could remove the particles if that helps with immersion, but the ability to play as the enemy tanks is more of an easter egg than anything serious.
But yeah, thanks for the feedback!
It's fun but it definitely feels very early. I have multiple monitors and the game opened in an awkward position between monitors, although this fixed itself upon starting the actual game. It doesn't really feel like I'm driving a tank, speed build up should be a bit slower. Also, vehicle destruction doesn't feel very impactful so maybe louder sfx and other visual and camera effects could help with this. Other than that the basic combat mechanics are work well, I also like the way you handle repairs.
Game opens in a weird position of the screen, it takes a while to boot up.
And those are the only downsides really! I like the idea of war thunder'y tank combat with a more fast paced and casual approach to gameplay and health system.
Really cool project, gonna follow it more.
tldr; war thunder but fun, needs polish
oout of scope for having scenarios, perhaps make a proceudral scenario generator
i liked the gun choice
ui sfx etc you know what to do with those things
red alert apocalypse tank build?
Thanks for playing.
There are some elements of procedural generation in the missions regarding how things are placed, in theory a completely procedural mission is already possible so maybe I can add that as a "side" mission from the regular campaign. I'll put it on the to-do list.
Perhaps in the future.
Game took about 40 seconds to start up and clicking on it made it go white as if it would crash.
I went to the options and unchecked TAA and it stuttered for ~10 seconds, rebuilding shaders I guess.
Toggling most options caused a stutter of 2-5 seconds.
Trying to type in the max FPS box did not work. Rather have buttons for each one or a notched slider if you won't let me enter my own value.
Controlling the tank felt pretty good, I feel like the head of the tank should counter-rotate faster than the body should be able to turn.
The first dozen times I shot stuttered like crazy.
Yeah the head rotating is way too slow compared to the arcade speed of the tank itself.
I don't really understand how the armor works, the tanks are around 32 pixels tall max from the distance they're introduced, there's no precise way to aim and target them at all.
I don't know if this is on purpose because I'm not a tank guy, but I feel like going reverse and turning should behave like a car. So going back and to the left should turn the rear-end of the tank to the left, instead of the right.
I think an improvement to the first-person view would be if instead of the aim cursor going back to the center while rotating (being world-space locked), it should instead just stay in place (screen-space) so I can rotate forever.
There's no screenshake or feedback for shooting/hitting anything, feels like that should be the main thing.
Oh I can RMB to zoom in first-person view.
It seems like the repair QTE is timed but the timer isn't visible? I failed a lot even though I was hitting the correct buttons, seems like it timed out? It'd be better if the buttons were randomized each time you failed.
The head turning is so slow I can't hit the infantry when driving by. They also continue to damage me in the next cutscene/tutorial text.
Died quickly in level 1, seemed a little too open and grid-like. Would like to see some more hilly terrain where you can go up and down and maneuver to obscure yourself.
The head rotation speed being so slow put a big damper on how much I believed I could win. It felt arbitrary instead of physical. Maybe some mechanical sounds would help if you really want to keep it.
Thanks for the play-by-play feedback.
You're right that the game should have more feedback and screenshake when being hit especially, I'll try to remedy it.
There's an option for reverse steering, and the QTE must have bugged out somehow because it's not timed.
I could speed up the turret rotation, it's currently depending on what turret/weapon is equipped, the starting 20mm is a bit weak so it should probably turn much faster than everything else, I'll buff it, eventually.
Thanks for playing!
Game opened in the middle of my two monitors instead of the middle of my main monitor. Toggling Fullscreen option fixed it.
The crosshairs are very thick because they're low resolution; they block a lot of your view.
The tank seem really fast, I hope you can drive stronger, slower tanks in the final version.
Really neat you have a replay mode.
Someone recently released this godot addon which might interest you: https://github.com/cloudofoz/godot-smashthemesh
Thanks for playing, I'm leaning towards making this specifically a "light tank" game but this is far from the final version so there will be room for experimentation.
The crosshair could use some transparency, you're right.
Also thanks for the addon suggestion, I'll check it out.
Thanks again for the feedback