This 18 seconds long gameplay video went semi-viral on Twitter for some reason, care to guess why?
Was you inspired by Risk of Rain?
Yes, and also by Returnal, Borderlands, Roboquest, Destiny and some Warframe too. But at the end of the day, Warden's Will feels like a unique game thanks to its super-duper awesome movement and once we can include the story (won't be in this weekend's playtest) it'll be even more engaging I think.
Honestly, I'm so down for a Risk of Rain 2-like game! Got the platinum trophy and the medal on steam. I'd love to play it more but have it feeling new. Tbh idk if Roboquest hit the same way for me but I haven't gone back in a while.
Lucky for us and you, we're mixing some cool elements from both RoR2 and Roboquest! We've got a demo coming up this weekend. Do try if you have some time at hand!
This looks super duper good and i love risk of rain, but when i saw the trailer i was sure i was looking at ror3 or something. IMHO it’s a bit too similar in the art style and movement, but best of luck!
Ty Ty! Yeah, the same criticism comes in the form of "This is too similar to Roboquest, only TPS" but we're doing a detailed story and our movement sets us apart from both games, I strongly believe. We're like how Titanfall is to CoD and BF.
I think something as simple as working on the overall pallette, some tweaks to the cell shader, and some work on the UI could set this apart more - it’s just something about the immediate likeness that IMHO could be fixed and make it stand out even more.
With that said, it’s an extremely good piece of work and really shows a talented crew here, it seems very cohesive and polished already.
It looks absolutely epic and very well polished!
Added to wishlist :)
Someone famous shared it ?
No, that was my first guess. No major accounts shared but it started off stronger than usual and in an hour or so it started picking up like heck. The most high value repost came from a fellow developer with 13k followers but this isn't the first time he reposted our content and it usually adds like 300-500 views, sometimes near 1k extra viewers. Nothing this big.
Gameplay looks polished, but I gotta say for a game that's inspired by comic book superheroes, your heroes have really generic and uninspired designs.
Thats also my main critique point, the player characters look incredibly generic
To elaborate more, there really isn't anything about the designs that stays in my memory the moment I look away from them even if the colors and proportions are alright. If I look away from spider man, I remember the big, oval white eyes and a skintight suit with a web pattern. Batman has a mask with two sharp ears that exposes the bottom half of his face. Superman has the iconic diamond S and a billowing red cape. Captain america has the iconic round striped shield with a star.
I look away from the player character and I remember a humanoid robot which may have been red, yellow, green or blue and maybe have worn a hood or a cape or something I guess. There should probably be a more prominent theme or motif like some sort of animal or special freezing/flaming sort of power or even an unusual choice of weapon that superheroes usually have.
u/SentientSupper and u/Kihot12 just replying in this manner so you both get a notification and this way I don't ignore either one of you :D.
Funny enough, we often get praised for both the art style and the looks of our Warden's. Especially the Blue and Yellow ones for their looks. Both Spidey and Batman have changed drastically over the years and so did Sups but they're also, by far, the most successful examples to begin with, but I get your points. Not much we can do about them, besides giving them some cool stories and voice lines and make them memorable in other manners (as well as gameplay of course).
Thank you for taking the time and writing such detailed feedback!
I think you should be proud what you built! I definitely agree that the character design is lacking, but I think everything just looks so polished and incredible, especially the animations.
I think the character design need a bit of a different direction, but the overall theme & style is very clean.
Thank you for the feedback. I'm not trying to be defensive by the way, you three could be right as the sun shines. There's always giving cape to everyone! Joking obviously, but hmm, but nah, but hmm.
As Sentientsupper already mentioned I think it would greatly help having a set theme for each character, like wolf style or crystals, working on the silhouette so it's recognizable even completely black on a white background. In the intro of the trailer when the 3 character stand next to each other, the left and middle one looking way too similar. Im not saying the design is bad, but its also not good. But if you want the designs to be iconic like risk of rain 2 ones, then I recommend looking at the character silhouettes and making them stand out black on white.
These vfx are amazing
Will relay your praises to our VFX artist :D.
Also tell the VFX artist, they smell nice. Reddit said so.
Will be a very weird morning for him when he wakes up and reads this compliment :P.
It's about character movement. It just looks like you can do so much cool stuff with your own character, instead of just shooting at things.
Oh, you can. Does it even show that much though? Because there's so much more you can do with movement and the video is barely over 15 seconds.
In 15 seconds, it's shows enough to know that you'll be learning moves like it which is exciting to think about.
And you can do combos and synergies, both alone and with your teammates, and it's not seen in the video but I guess you get the sense of it too huh :D?
this looks amazing!
Thank you very much!
Cause it looks good and has fluid gameplay
It just keeps on looking better and better!
Yeah, but we have a long long long way to go before it's fully ready. Thank you for your kind words and thank you for keeping tabs :D.
Of course! I believe that if someone does a good job, they should hear about it, so keep it up!
In my opinion, because spells and movement looks satisfying and empowering
Ty for your feedback! I especially agree with the empowering part, that's what I love about them, especially when a combo just clicks!
The attacks are great! Very dynamic and love the different options!
Super duper cheeeerios friend! It's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what combos you can do. We even have "super hero landing" as an attack and element of coolness : D.
Sorry if youve already mentioned this. I knoe the characters are ai humans created right? Are there big differences between the characters classes?
Is it because bubbles??? But ya game is just Risk of Rain 3 and it's so great. I'm happy the UI looks so good and not just an afterthought. It still does look like it needs a little more work though. Like it looks good and feels close to done, but there are a lot of different sizes and the realistic iconograpy on the right doesn't match the basic iconography on the left. I'd imagine Overwatch is a good UI example for this game.
Amazing vfx, people are always looking for a new game like this and it looks polished
Just as amazed that people think our VFX is amazing. I mean we love them too, but most people agreeing that they look awesome and polished is also good. We're not done with polishing yet though, but getting there. We're yet to include several more VFX families though.
They really look great and the style is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The viewer can so easily imagine playing the game with this video and it really just screams smooth and polished even if it's not, it doesn't matter, you can easily imagine what this game plays like
Looks like DBZ with gunz - love it!
I bet the eye-catching environmental colors helped a bit too.
Wish that was the case then all posts would do this well, haha.
The Algorithm gods have heard your prayers and sent you to high heavens to showcase your masterpiece to the masses.
Solid looking game btw. Look forwards for its release.
Ty ty and we'll have a demo this weekend too! I strongly believe it was the algorithm gods as well :I.
Gameplay looks fun and a unique experience. If it looked too similar to other games, you probably wouldn't get the same reaction. The movement and abilities looked great too.
I guess it’s my age showing, but this looks incredibly stressfull to me, something I swipe away from after 2 seconds.
That is not meant as discouragement, the animations look super smooth, art-style looks consistent, it‘s just not my cup of tea.
How dare you!?! You should like what you see and if not pretend! Nah, friend. It's all good :D.
I'm gonna guess "Flashy Lighty".
Wish all flashy lighty content did this well haha :D.
Looks like you used trending words in your post
That's my guess too, but not the first time I do either. Maybe also hit the jackpot with the captions.
Tbh just looks fun. Nice job! 😁
Thank you super kindly!
Fast, short, explosive, to the point
No bullshit story or lore explaining, no talkie talkie, no dramatic pauses
Everyone understand whats going on here and whats your game is about
Take this video as benchmark while creating new videos
I try several forms, like that talkie bsing content too and that one always does well around 7,5 to 10k views and this one not so much tbh :I. Wish it did half as good as this one did, then life would be much easier haha.
The Vfx look amazing.
The camera system does a really good job framing the enemies and the environment.
The environment has a really nice color palette that contrasts well with the player.
The main character has really responsive animations and cool acrobatic tricks.
Perhaps try marketing it on Risk of Rain 2 subreddit.
Yeah, that's a good idea, but I want to do it when we actually have a demo ready and done. We're preparing a proper demo/playtest and while it'll only have one level, it will be polished and deliver a fun experience, give a taste of what to come. I think posting there when we achieve that makes more sense, so that I wouldn't seem like bsing my way to that crowd, especially considering how RoR community is usually made of super awesome people. Like before Helldivers sub went ballistic recently :D.
day one.
Our Twitter page has been doing somewhat okay, punching above our expectations. This video is nothing new, shared near identical level videos before as well. In fact, shared nearly fully identical video before, but this one got nearly 45k views and over 650 likes. I've been doing some deconstructions, but would like to see others' input as well.
As always, if you want to wishlist like other 500 or so folks did via this video, here is the link to the Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1689640/Wardens_Will/
Your game looks polished. At this point it comes down to persistence and finding the right audience.
True true, and hi there. Love your game, big fan :D. But I think you already know it. You had me at Dwarves :D.
Back to the topic at hand. It just felt weird that it blasted off almost right away and whenever I thought it was about to die down, it kept going. Not complaining here, but I've been here before with other games and it's rare that you're able to keep the flames alive. I fear this was mostly Twitter algorithm doing us a favor and that's it :I.
The twitter algorithm is weird. Seems to depend a lot on who sees and retweets it first. I've had some posts go beyond 50k views, while others died around 100-200 views.
Trying slightly different variations and keep posting is a valid strategy.
It really is. What's worse is, you're sure that you've got a video and a caption you think will do well, it starts strong then crashes after two hours like BAM. At least when they don't give you hope, you know not to expect anything haha.
Did you hashtag this badboy any differently?
Not at all :I
Wake up babe, RoR3 just dropped
I'll take that as a compliment, and if not, my puppy will be getting a hug with tear-souce :I
The map!!! Robocraft, i remember those maps!
Because people probably thought it was a Risk of Rain update or sequel
I did until I came to the comments.
From everything i have seen this is your best short. You have good presentation of the moment to moment gameplay and variety. The music also supports it well. Also it has a lot of clarity. It is easier to follow the action compared to your other shorts that show combat.
So I want to believe it is because of the quality and clarity ;)
I wish that was the case, but I'm still heavily leaning toward Twitter just liking us in that moment and boosting us :D. Funny enough, the moment LotR news dropped, the post lost its traction.
The algorithm is on your side buddy, and that's totally deserved! The game looks amazing!
Thank you kindly! It stopped being on our side as soon as new LotR movie news dropped :D.
Oooof.
I got a chance to play this game as part of a limited friends and family release and I gotta say, no offense to the devs (I know some personally and I know they tried), the game feels and plays like hot trash and looks nothing like this clip. Like one of those mobile game ads that keeps popping with the puzzle and then when you try the game it's actually sobering different entirely
1 missing reply
Thanks for posting to r/IndieGames! Please take a look at the rules in our sidebar to ensure that your post abides by them! If you need any assistance, don't hesitate to message the mods.
Also, make sure to check out our Discord!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.