E3 Demo Feedback for the developer's team

I overall really enjoyed the demo. Movement and Combat felt good for what options we had (double jumps and diving/jumping kicks I assume will be in the full game. Those add a lot of dynamics to movement and combat). Aside from some of the obvious bugs mentioned already, like the funky hitboxes when attacking some enemies and etc, I wouldn't want to see much changed in those departments. The boss probably could have had a couple more attacks for varieties sake, but I think the overall difficulty is fine for what I assume is an early area.

Visuals I have a tiny bit more to say on. I like that hat, scarves and boots appear on Miriam, but I hope that this is something that can toggled. I wouldn't want to end up finding a hat that has better stats, but doesn't visually match my scarf, so I'd want to turn off the hat appearing on my character. Or if I like the moveset of boot weapons, but don't like the way it looks, I'd want to turn the boots visibility off.

The enemies look great. They match the atmosphere great (I especially like that the dullahammer looks like he's made of sea urchins). The boss's looks have been brought up frequently already but I feel the need to give my two cents. The only thing I'd think I'd like to see is the blue of her skin being a little darker so that the crystals and seaweed on her body stand out a bit more. PLEASE don't give in to making the boss less sexualized. IGA's games have had a history with these kinds of creature designs that are both monstrous and sexual (Like Scylla and the Succubus from Symphony of the Night, and Camilla from Circle of the Moon). I really like that dichotomy and the no-holds-barred enemy design in these games. I think the boss really felt like an Igavania boss and I think changing it much more would be a real shame.

I guess many of us are seeing the same issue but I don't have time to read though all the post so I am posting anyway.
with my primary gaming PC connected to a 1080P TV via HDMI, running GTX860M.
seemes the game has problem handling windows position and/or resolution. the game started in windowed mode and i changed it to full screen 1080P, and than the game is no longer visible. it is in the background or something.
so I moved to my laptop and leave the display setting alone.

is there anyway to reset the display setting? delete the save file or some ini file?

a quick comment on the game itself is that the moving objects are blending to the background compared with the other igavania games.

Greetings,

So I found the movement alright and reported some bugs. However I do think the attack time for the rapier could be done a little faster along with better reaction to the button pressing. It feels like there is a bit of a delay that I can't really explain much.

However that's not my biggest want/suggestion(or complaint maybe). Control layout. I don't know if you plan on allowing it to be customizable but it would be amazing if there were button layouts not just for the xbox controller but all platform controls. I almost panicked when I couldn't find the attack button which was luckily my mouse but that took me about 30 minutes to figure out.

I'm not sure if the boss was intentionally easy or by poor design so I'm not going to induce too much judgement on that expect for a suggestion (or two). If you can make it a little more difficult that would be nice. instead of allowing me to hit the head and the tentacles to damage her, make the tentacles immune to attack as it would be a little more difficult, not by much since all you gotta do is jump over her beam. Since she (from my play through) only did this once it would add extra difficulty (not by much) and give your game a little extra life (taking longer to beat). All I'm saying is that it was fairly easy to beat....but it was a demo so hopefully I you have some surprises for me in the upcoming bosses

Boss life bar. I don't think this is too much to ask for compared to the others. I know bosses take some time to beat but it would be nice to have some to look at for indication of if your making progress or not.


Thanks for the demo everyone. I really did enjoy it and can't wait for more. Don't let the others bring you down, everything looks greats. Make a great game and You'll show other kickstart games how a game should be done and you'll have bragging rights too

Game-Feel discussion:

The flow of Miriam's motions are very, very nice. Her walk cycle, idle animation, and jumps all have a natural flow to them in principal. Also, in particular, those jumps have a nice impact sound and the jump control in general is spot-on. It makes platforming feel great. Her attack ranges all feel generous, and those attacks have great umph. I like the feel of the melee, and how Miriam can attack while jumping back in the opposite direction is a nice touch.

The general look of her movements have a few things that look off. Her turn around animation is a bit too slow for a run. If you keep her in place and clap the movement keys back and forth it looks like she's ice-skating. It doesn't seem to get the traction and impact that shifting direction in mid run would be. The animation looks more natural for a walk.

Combat wise there's two things that stick out in my head.

The first is the menu downtime. This might be impossible to solve due to limited button allocation, but going into the menu to heal or recover mana takes me out of the action. To use Dragon's Dogma (an action game with an emphasis on inventory healing items) as an example, you enter your inventory whenever you need to heal. There's magic recovery skills but it's far more efficient to pause the action and spam your potions/herbs/spirits to recover both your health and energy resource. It doesn't feel right in that game. For Bloodstained, if it was possible, I would recommend allowing the player to assign inventory items to unused buttons. I don't recall the 'B' (using an xbox360 pad for example) being used for anything. Allowing the assignment of health potions to that would allow the player to stay in the action without pausing to recover health. I find the less I'm in menus the more I enjoy a game. If there are particularly game-play affecting items, such as ones that boost damage, this could also be treated by the player as a turbo button as well. I feel it would add some more thought to the gameplay.

Also for combat, there's the implementation of magic. The use of magic pauses the player's motion for a second while the spell is cast. I feel this interrupts the flow of the combat. While it would obviously call for animation tweaks, being able to cast while on the move would give the player more freedom of movement. Going down a hallway, dispatching fodder enemies, while alternating between melee and magic would be made even more cathartic. It would also not discourage the magic system. When I'm forced to pause in place to complete an attack I generally imagine it'll either have a lot of impact or inflict a lot of damage. Taking a Castlevania game for example, Charlotte in Portrait of Ruin has these cast times on her spells. You're forced to stand in place but all the spells have both a satisfying 'pow' in their sounds and cause great damage. Miriam's, on the other hand, possess decent impact and cause damage comparable to melee. Perhaps tweaking the sounds to add some crackle to the fire or some torrential bass to the water would help fully justify that slight pause. Although I would much rather there not be one. The magic is still very responsive and just fun to use, and having two of the spells mapped and the enchant automatic is just a great improvement over the Castlevania games.

On difficulty, this is a... difficult matter to discuss.

I know it's an E3 demo, but I hope the team limits potions to a more conservative number and also balances the enemies to have faster and more damaging attacks either in the normal game or higher difficulties. The boss was the perfect introductory boss. If it's the first boss the player encounters I see no issue with her on design. Her projectile moves teach the player avoidance, her sweeps teach the use of jumping to avoid attacks, and her different damage zones teach weak-spots. Tuning her to have about 25% more health would add to her aura as a boss and also allow the player to see more of her attacks. Boss design in something like Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia were my favorite. They had patterns you needed to memorize and could hit hard while still giving the player a memorable experience. They were a vast improvement over the other Iga-vanias, and I would prefer that style of boss design over anything in SotN or Dawn of Sorrows.

Aesthetic wise I have a few points.

The multi-directional aim I love. I really do. And just to discuss magic one last time, having it go through platforms with the directional spells would give it more utility in aerial combat. I still like how it's affected by the environment (stopping when it hits the wooden platform). Yet the multi-direction aim looks a little silly. It lets you do awkward waves until you get your first spell and then you understand it's purpose. Maybe having a bit of a 'gathering energy effect' at her hand could convey that the aim is for casting spells while also showing the player what spell they have equipped. Let's not discredit showing them if they're out of mana too with this. Say fire gathering if you have a fire spell? Also say if you're too low on mana to cast the spell, the energy effect is instead replaced with a sizzle. I just see it as some visual flair, but I think it'd be nice.

On the topic of visual flair, I love the bizarre designs for the normal enemies. They all look unique and it's a great start. The stage I feel could use a little more environmental flair though. Like outside the ship it looks like it's raining but it didn't feel like a storm. Maybe it has to do with the lightning and the weather effects, but it felt like some effects were turned off. The locale of the stage (a battered ship) is a fun idea but the environment was a bit stagnant. A slight roll to the environment could convey some choppy waves. Creaking wood for ambience (I really didn't hear any significant ambiance over the fantastically catchy music). An effect with rain and water creeping in through holes dynamically would give the impression of a trashed ship.

The fact that some items changed Miriam's appearance was great. I didn't expect it, but it's the modern triple-A gaming environment so I guess some people expect it. Having more of these items change her appearance would be great and also lend towards the feeling of progression. Sprites have to be re-drawn to receive new gear, but we have 3D models. It could be used to show Bloodstained as not being just a cut-paste-and-polish of Iga-vania but also a progression of it by using the technology on hand.

Speaking on the boss' aesthetic, the moment I saw it I knew it was going to be a focus for a lot of people. I don't care about whatever fake controversies could result from it. The honest answer I have to give is that the bottom looks menacing and the top kinda silly. Mixing motherly characteristics with deep-sea horror is an idea I like and I'm not hateful or fearful of seeing mammary glands in my video games. But if you want the boss to menace, those tits are just fucking gigantic. It's a joke I can get, they're the boss' 'weak point' and she has an animation where she lounges back with both of them in full view while the player is man-handling sea-cocks. Spending days of your life animating a scarf on a characters neck would drive me to try to have some dumb-fun too. Honestly though, It'll just trigger the annoying sort of people and drive the other vocal sort to waifu-shipping. Neither are a healthy fanbase for a game. Ultimately, it's the team's decision, but I just cracked a really stupid smile the moment I saw Ol'Mother-Kos at the front of the boat. It's a memorable design but not very intimidating.

For other feedback?

The demo is drenched the up-beat gothic feel I've been wanting since OoE ended. The soundtrack was fantastic and ultimately stood out from all the other sound effect except Miriam's landing sounds. So perhaps tweaking the other sound effects could help them live up to that great soundtrack.

The animations on Miriam's face could also be a little more expressive. There's a rough cutscene where Mother-Kos is introduced. Miriam dodges some tendrils and has a look at the challenge ahead, but our heroine's face appeared kinda dead and blank. Probably by adding some expression of apprehension it could assist in making that boss 'feel' more intimidating. If our avatar is nervous about fighting it, we by extension feel a bit nervous.

I could also watch that scarf fly around for hours and it'd never get old.

Lastly, that little blood-drop on the hud is a nice flair but the color looks a bit plain to where it clashes with the environment.

As an amendment to gunlord500 's post on level design, I'd ask IGA to recall the Training Hall he designed from Order of Ecclesia. IGA can do real platforming and traps without endless pits or other nonsense. I think a lot of people would appreciate seeing more of that in Bloodstained and not just hallway after hallway after hallway ad infinitium (though some of that is fine from time to time). We know Galleon Minerva is only the first level but I think this is still worth mentioning.

I don't think we should worry about level design at this point. Most first levels (if not all?) from other Igavania games are pretty simple and the difficulty increases as we keep going. Don't forget (can anyone?) the Clock Towers or Labs. Also we can't visit all of Galleon Minerva in the demo so maybe be encounter other difficulties in the finished version.
I trust on this

The demo was awesome XD just a few things.

• The magic replenishing rose should glow and give off the same kind of blue energy that comes out of Miriam's back.
  
• The shadow when Miriam "goes through the wall" (most likely they will fix this) 
  
• and please bring back the button combination spells

Oh and will the shards that you already have do anything when you collect them again? it would be cool if they:

• Refill your health
• Rifill your Magic
  
• Or we could use the extra shards as ingredients in weapon, armor or Items
  

But I know whatever you guys do it will be awesome XD. Thank you again for the demo again. it was AWESOME!!!  

Who's saying it's sexy? Oversexualized does not mean sexy. Instead, it's too silly. I don't see any disturbing factor in it; the bouncing blobs are too huge for me to take the boss seriously. xD

Pros: -Graphics looked beautiful!
-Combat felt really smooth.(loved her kicks.)
-Movement felt good in general. (That's always important)
-Music sounded great, albeit a bit too quiet.

Cons: -Super easy.
-Enemies didn't have many dangerous attacks.
-Enemies were slow.