Sui Generis: Exanima - Preview @ Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I just tried the Examina.

I smashed a door in my character face, lol. I like the tech quite a bit, even is some stuff is a bit rough around the edges.

I don't have any other constructive thing to say for now.
 
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After watching those combat videos, I think the combat needs to provide more visual "feedback" to player. I'm glad that they added those "bleeding effects", but for example visually the weapons are occasionally really difficult to separate from the backround. In particular if the environment itself is very dark, it can become somewhat straining for the eyes in the long run.

And when the weapon hits shield or armor, you don't see any visual effect. Or when weapons collide. Same thing. Not enough feedback.

There is some of this already, like:
* Flesh sound when you cut through the body
* Intensity of the battle cry when you deal or take certain amount of damage
* Accurate collision sounds based on weapons and defenses types

There are other plans for the future:
* Change of posture (animation) based on wounds
* Different behaviors based on health
* More blood particles and visible wounds (probably decals)
* Almost unrelated: finishing movements

But the premise is that any kind of mechanic will provide a vague feedback. Don't expect fancy UI elements.
 
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Gave Exanima a try this evening and i have to say I really enjoyed it!

It's probably a good thing to start with Arena Mode first (which is really fun in its own). Combat is extremely involving and feels very rewarding when you take down harder enemies.

Since the the movement of your character is linked to your own movements with the mouse (more so than in most games) i guess it can look like the character is drunk, if the person controlling the character just sucks at the controls.. So those in the thread who claims they couldn't even walk straight.. well.. let's just say the joke is on you.

The controls are very straight forward, took me perhaps 4-5 minutes to get fairly good at fighting. In its current state this is basically a fighting game, not much else. But you can tell there has been a ton of effort put into the combat. With some effort into lore and enviroments this could become something really great (if Dark Souls could become successfull, this game could too).

I'm glad to see that most Steam comments are very positive, there's still hope for people (and evolution in the genre).
 
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It takes a lot not to get positive comments on Steam. Having no army of stalwarts as a cultural asset is a plus to achieve that miracle.
 
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Now, 2.5 years later, the team still hasn't delivered on even a subset of those promises; all they've released - in extremely early form on Early Access - is an attractive, deeply incomplete iteration on the features they already showed in the original Kickstarter proof-of-concept.
[…]
the reasons I chose not to back the KS campaign seem to be playing out as expected.

Greetings suibhne

I would like to know your reasons to claim this. Maybe because the game have been delayed?

If that's the case i strongly disagree with you. This team have a fairly special way to work. Sure, they set their priorities and deadlines like any dev team. But they are not written in stone they did seek for feedback and they keep doing now with a wider community; they have no problems in delaying some parts of the project in order to polish some others, because they are approaching a vision with passion and not with a business mentality, they have no hurries in delivering. It is true that some of the early concept showed in the KS are not present in exanima right now (thrust, thaumaturgy, double weapon wielding) but that doesn't mean they're doing nothing or they are failing to deliver it. Combat have gone through many iterations based in user feedback, and some parts of the game had to be built from scratch several times because of that. But the result is that what we see of combat is much better than the early concept. Expect to see fleshed out thrusts, thaumaturgy, kicks, double weapon wielding and ranged weapons sooner rather than later along some other new game mechanics like skill system and dialog.

Some parts of their KS vision are also in-game right now (specially regarding AI, item interaction and flexible questing with open choices) but they are not apparent, because they have set the foundations and the frameworks before. If they tried and more force brute approach they probably would have something more to show right now, but they really can't afford that; they are a tiny team so they had to build frameworks and automatic systems to build the world rather that doing everything by hand. To me that's a smart move, for others it might be seen as a fail of delivering. I am not trying to justify their delay tho, nor they are. They apologized for not doing a more realistic schedule.

My point is that you are perfectly rightful to make your own opinion based in what you can see in exanima, but if you are not have been following the project closely that can be misleading. A lot of work under the hood have been done, it should make advance the game quite faster from now on.
 
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It takes a lot not to get positive comments on Steam. Having no army of stalwarts as a cultural asset is a plus to achieve that miracle.

On the other hand it doesnt take a lot to get mostly negative comments either if you do something wrong (see latest release of State of Decay). The hate i've seen thus far has been quite exclusive to RPGwatch, i havent seen it on youtube or Steam. From the comments here i take it that most people didn't even try it.
 
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The general report on SoD is mixed, as they do have the cultural asset, that is a tribe of dedicated followers, to help the score.

Beside, most of negative comments do not even address the game but the commercial policy of the studio.
 
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That this indie would be any different when it comes to those that follows it and likes it and those that don't is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

The opinion of every game that has been made is always somewhat mixed. I also don't think the opinion of people who didn't even play it really matters that much :)

And if the negative comments don't adress the game itself, like you say, then it's also kind of uninteresting to me.

I've backed a ton of games, and thus far every single one of them have made claims that in the end didn't make it into the game. Larian and many other BIG studios included, this is a small developer doing its first game (afaik).
 
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On Steam? No, the general evaluation usually ranges from highly positive to mixed.
Finding a product with a negative evaluation is an ordeal. One was mentioned on this site: legends of dawn. When checked, it appeared that it was the result of a small number of reviews (around 150). The product is published by an eastern studio that lacks the support groups to fudge the evaluation.

The general situation cheapens the value of the positive evaluations on Steam.
Finding positive evaluations on Steam means nothing.
Not finding positive evaluations, though, that is another story...

Greetings suibhne

Some parts of their KS vision are also in-game right now (specially regarding AI, item interaction and flexible questing with open choices) but they are not apparent, because they have set the foundations and the frameworks before. If they tried and more force brute approach they probably would have something more to show right now, but they really can't afford that; they are a tiny team so they had to build frameworks and automatic systems to build the world rather that doing everything by hand. To me that's a smart move, for others it might be seen as a fail of delivering. I am not trying to justify their delay tho, nor they are. They apologized for not doing a more realistic schedule.

My point is that you are perfectly rightful to make your own opinion based in what you can see in exanima, but if you are not have been following the project closely that can be misleading. A lot of work under the hood have been done, it should make advance the game quite faster from now on.
All this will only matter when it materalizes. Until that point...
 
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All this will only matter when it materalizes. Until that point…

Well, it matters if you are into the techy side like me! but fair enough, i know it wont be of any interest for most. I don't mind talking about what have been implemented meanwhile :3
 
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On Steam? No, the general evaluation usually ranges from highly positive to mixed.

not really, check state of decay.. i somehow doubt you've checked every possible game on Steam.

But whatever, I couldn't really care less to be honest, imo it's a good game and that's what matters to me.
 
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not really, check state of decay.. i somehow doubt you've checked every possible game on Steam.

Already checked as reported in post 47. SoD first year edition is mixed while the report on the original version is highly positive.

It does not take to look under every single rock to notice it is hard to find this or that.

Positive reviews on Steam have no value, they are part of a scheme to make things look different from what they are.

The studio behind legends of dawn lack so far the cultural asset to paint things the way they are not, they are not yet used to the habit and do not have the troopers to fudge the report on their product.
So far, they are the only known report reading a negative evaluation.
 
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I remember discussion about that a while ago and my opinion is no different now. I don't mind this sort of animation at the beginning of the game when PC lack skill with weapons. But, with higher levels and better skills, PC's fighting style should improve. Not to the ninja level but to something much smoother than what's in the game now…
 
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