Project6014 demo release

Signed up to mention that I just played the demo (found it randomly while Googling for some older games I enjoyed).

I saw the vids (intro and lurg conversation), and I was impressed (Talana looks pretty happy in the intro. And the Lurg are creepy - if a bit on the exaggerated side). The vids are a good way of promoting the game, you should make more as you progress further.

Tried playing the game with the Linux download. Didn't work because I'm running a 64-bit release. However, the compile from source went very well (after I found out which dev-related packages I needed to install in Debian. You might consider adding this in some "how to build from source on Ubuntu/Debian" guide).

My impression of the demo is that you've done a lot of work, and it shows a lot of promise, but that it still needs more work and polish.

I did feel a bit disappointed that it wasn't quite up to the quality I was expecting - eg: relying too much on SC2 material (artwork, characters, backstory, etc), and not enough originality, and the setting and characters are awkward in a few ways (eg: the reason why the captain was reenlisted for the game, and suddenly thrown into a new space ship to do a scouting-type mission, felt contrived. The intro also moved a bit too quickly, to move you from the end of SC2 over to the start of the demo. Also, not really epic/space opera enough to justify the start of a new story. Basically I think the game premise and intro need a bit of work, story-wise, to make it more convincing).

I think I'm also making the mistake of comparing the project too much against the original SC2, rather than seeing it as a fan work. As a fan work, it's really good. But if compared against a professional title (like the original SC2) it's somewhat lacking. It's important to remember that distinction.

Onto the game itself, I had these main problems:

- Reusing the SC2 intro music for the fangame's intro felt tacky (made it feel too much like a rip-off of the original intro). Ideally you want a different intro music theme.

- There's one planet where you can get infinite bio points, which I found by chance. Zap one of the critters to get the "hamburger" marker, and then just land on it and take off repeatedly (Delta Bessel, Planet IV, moon 1, towards north east) - the marker never disappears. Kind of like the PC SC2 lander cheat. It might be a bug caused by compiling for 64-bit use.

- I found it very hard to figure out exactly where I was meant to go in the demo. The original SC2 held your hand a bit more, and told you exactly where to go most of the time once you talked to the right character, after helping them with something else. And then when you get to the general vicinity, you'll get another pointer or two telling you where to go next. I didn't really want to explore every planet of every star in each area (in the end: I was Googling around for a walkthrough for the demo, and by chance found a comment in a source code commit in google code, which told me where to go to find the final challenge).

- Not being able to get more RU's (unable to mine) is pretty annoying. You have to use your RUs very carefully, especially if you want to be able to beat the final challenge for the demo (I needed to start over, so that I could use my RUs effectively).

- Too many dangling quest-type things. Got a lot of hints from Hayes and captains for things that need checking out, but didn't see any way to complete them. It felt very incomplete. Yes it's just a demo, but it was still kind of frustrating.

- Explorer ship is too weak, compared to the enemy ships seen near the start of the game - pretty useless in combat (or maybe I'm just bad at it - but those enemy ships are pretty tough, too). There need to be more weaker enemies that can be defeated early on in the game (if the Explorer is by itself). Unless the intent is that you never use the Explorer in combat near the start of the game except for running away (perhaps reasonable, since you can buy 2 Chmmr Avatars right at the start of the game. Still, it does feel a bit "off").

- Not enough progress updates/hints/etc with Hayes/the Chmmr. Once you start progressing through the demo, the dialogue should vary a bit to acknowledge your progress, and to give you a few hints and reminders for where you should try next. Also in general, the dialogues should be a bit more interactive that way (have a lot more flags, which are triggered by other parts of the game, rather than being static). This was one thing I really liked about SC2 - going back to the same characters later, and seeing how they react to story updates.

- Similar to the above: There need to be more side events. Basically, some minor (or not-so-minor) things that Hayes/Chmmr/etc talk to you about when you visit, that you can choose to follow up on. Some of them main story related, others, more side-quests, and others time-based (will always happen X days into the game, etc). Basically, make the setting more alive, and give the races their own agendas that will progress by themselves over time, rather than doing nothing, and reacting only to the what the player does. For instance, some of the things which Hayes tells you about the races (you should check out X sometime), might work better if he tells them to you a bit later.

- Some very important information is only mentioned once (by some traders). You have to be paying attention and write it down right away, before progressing further with the dialogue - otherwise it will be a lot harder to complete the demo. It would be nice if there were some reminders about important facts like that, rather than just seeing them once.

- I don't think the game tells you that you should go see Hayes. The earthlings do have a sphere of influence at the start, but it's not made obvious that you should go to him to get some important information (I mainly went to him by habit, from SC2). Similarly, the player should be reminded more to visit other places of interest that they haven't been to yet. Basically, hand-holding and making it obvious what they should be doing next, especially near the start of the game until the player gets their stride and knows their way around more (though, maybe not going to the same extent as SC3's built-in walkthrough).

- I went back to Vela looking for Unzerwalt, but couldn't find that planet. Or in fact any inhabited planets, bases or space craft there. The system looked pretty deserted.

- Don't like the change in the Chmmr's personality. Hopefully the change is justified later in the story.

Well, those are the main things I can think of now. Overall the demo is looking very good (there were a lot of things I liked about it, even if they were of "fan" quality), but there are some details that I found troubling.

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