Hi all,
A big thanks to everyone who's played the Dino Time Raiders demo so far and left feedback, either in the form of a review or in the Steam forums... there's also the Armor Games and Webbysoft Discord channels if anyone feels like hanging out and chatting... just sayin' XD
I take player feedback seriously and have added a bunch of new features, improvements and bug fixes to DTR as a result. While there's an absolute boat load of changes since the demo went live, I'll keep the following list to just demo changes since the last build, they include:
SPECIFICALLY REPORTED ON BY PLAYERS (THANKS)
- Greatly improved performance during battle when lots of units on screen at once. Should run a lot smoother on low-end PCs now (turns out there was a shader issue affecting certain GPUs).
- A common theme in the feedback was that it was a bit too text-heavy early on. I've culled a bunch of those early lines and added a tip system to replace some of the tutorial onboarding that was happening through dialogue. Tips can be accessed by pressing 'T' in the park. They can be disabled in the menu.
- A couple of users mentioned not being aware that holding the mouse button increases the accuracy rate of the rifle. This should be a lot clearer now with the tips menu, but just to be sure, I've added some additional sfx which I think helps to convey the aiming system further.
- While we're on the tips system, I added a tip that explains the % number on the enclosures in order to better convey how paths affect enclosure visibility rating.
- I've changed the way placing roads works. It's now a left click to place, right click to remove. This feels more natural than the old system. The only reason I didn't do it like this before was because right click acts as a cancel or back input for every other screen in the game, so placing paths is now the one spot where it doesn't work like that. The tradeoff for having a clearer system for path laying is worth it I think.
- Unwanted dinos can now be executed directly in the holding (HUD icon) state by clicking on their portrait, once the rifle is unlocked.
- Facilities no longer get their range mucked up when being upgraded from the upgrades menu.
- Dinos retain colour when being moved back to HUD (enclosure pick up)
- Made the summary screen snappier.
GAMEPLAY BALANCING
- Changed the way dinos go amorous and break out. This actually no longer happens at all on the first level as I'm keeping that island disaster free. Instead the system gets introduced on island 2, and it only happens for specific dinos now (three all up in the game), making the system a lot more bearable.
- As the amount of dinos breaking out was drastically lowered, the amount of amorousity was increased a bit to compensate...
- Tranquiliser dart shoot speed increased
- Increased power upgrade skill to give more power. This becomes more noticeable later in the game, but the change affects the demo.
- Limited amount of xp gained on earlier eras and increased later era dino xp gain as it was a bit too easy to farm xp off those Permian (non)dinos.
- On beating the final (3 colour dinos) room, players can now return to previously visited rooms if they want
- increased AOE hitboxes for multi-hit dinos
- Added a DNA sequencer. When you capture a dino, it fills up a little dinoDNA meter. Once you get to 100%, you can purchase dinos in the present without having to go back in time to get them. This is more of a late game benefit, but it'll show up in the demo so thought I'd mention it.
- removed edge panning while in building mode as it didn't feel great
BUG FIXES
- Testing facilities alongside enclosure visibility was bugged - change: no longer adds to enclosure visibility
- Amorous dinos could trigger on the summary screen, requiring game exit to resolve
- Fixed characters sometimes getting stuck when knocked back, preventing move to next room and requiring exit from time travel
- Fixed bug where mouse would get locked in drag mode on park
- Level select dialogue - mouse cursor finger and overlapping of buttons in background
- World select newspaper, could still hover over islands in background
MISC
- Removed the T-rex's third finger on the titlescreen. We got accused of this being AI over on Youtube, with someone pointing out that the third finger was likely what made them think that. Either way, I can confirm that that was a real piece of pixel art drawn by a real person - Killer Rabbit Media - go check out their stuff on Instagram, they're fantastic!
- Time travel - no finger cursor while hovering over sleeping dinos
- When leaving island, -$ icons now popup to go along with screams and explosions. The idea here is that it hopefully better explains why you start each new island without much cash (even if you were hoarding it), as a result of being sued into oblivion each time a park gets abandoned...
- Added a goofy pop sound when rotating enclosures
- Guests now scream on being killed.
- Added a subtle ticking coin sfx in the park that gets louder as you have more and more money coming in. Can be disabled in the menu.
- Plus a bunch of other small sfx additions for different interactions.
Thanks all for your support :)