A downloadable game

THIS DEMO IS OUTDATED. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PLAYING PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE NEWEST DEMO ON STEAM.

StatusReleased
Rating
Rated 4.4 out of 5 stars
(17 total ratings)
AuthorPlusw
GenreAction

Comments

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great demo! the nuanced combat was fun and interesting to see in a 2d action game. i can really see people getting a kick out of trying to master it. great art, great music. i wish the game's development well


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loved the demo. probably just me being too used to controllers, but I struggled a little bit using the keyboard to play it. the combat and the art in general are really good. specially the pixel art.

pra quem quiser ver o jogo com legendas em português:

just played through the demo. there's still some mechanics i don't understand but i get most of it? hopefully it'll be easier to grasp in the full game with more detailed tutorials
i love the poise mechanic. it's always tough to balance a game like this where the player character has four million moves. having to play cautious to break their poise before i went wild was really fun. it felt a lot like DMC DT mechanics only i didn't have to read a gameFAQs guide to know what was going on.
the vernal moves were really interesting but tricky to implement freely. the hitbox on the basic sword is sooooo tiny that i usually had to put extra effort in to make it hit. once you get it connected you can go nuts though. it's really fun putting together all the different systems. felt like every button was a whole game by itself.
the boss was tough but really fun. i opted to play without potions so it took a lot of tries. it's great finding little optimizations like being able to parry and counter in the middle of her 3 hit combo. i did notice it was tough to do much when she was in the air; you can parry everything she does but i didn't seem to get rewarded for it? not sure if that's intentional or maybe i missed something.
overall this looks super promising already and i'm looking forward to the full game. 

<3  I'm glad you had a good time!  Every button is going to get expanded on more in the final game so look forward to that!

I disagree with NathanCourima. Keep the harder enemies. What I would like is some way to charge your attack in the middle of a combo or so. It obviously needs work but this is way better than anyone would think. Keep up the good work.

You can charge your attack in the middle of any other animation, including spells, pulse attacks, item use, blocking, when you're stunned, etc.  Charging in the middle of the last hit of your 3 hit combo also matches up perfectly.

hey dude the combat mechanics are awesome and have a ton of variety and versatility, my main criticism would be the same as DMC and other combat/combo/exploration game is that i think it would be better to have fewer harder enemies to really get to combo on them instead of having a lot of weak enemies (also the poise mechanic helps fight the stunlocks but i think it deserves a little buff or combat may end up too easy :d ) Anyway great job can't wait to buy it

Yeah we really wanted to push the difficulty more, but the need to be both a tutorial and a showcase of other aspects of the game ended up with us reigning things in a bit to make sure everyone had the chance to complete the demo.
If you want something more challenging to sink your teeth into, there's a secret boss you can find on your current save file, here's a clip one of our fans took showing how to find it.

https://streamable.com/zl958p

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Hello, does this demo support xbox 360 controllers? Mine isnt working :(

The demo does support them, I play with one regularly.

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can we have a way to translate it? I'd like to help you translate it to Italian.

I've translated some games: Shantae (GBC), AM2R, Gato Roboto, and helped with Earthbound and Mother 3. I'm currently translating Trials of Mana too!

We need to work on that.  Right now some parts of the game aren't translation friendly (tutorials are png files) but we're working on translation support as soon as the Kickstarter is over.

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I played the game! it was interesting and challenging! 

hope to see this project finish soon! 

Hot damn can I get a copy of that thumbnail art?

Sorry i just logged in :P 

and sure here is the site! 

and thanks im glad you liked it! and really i enjoyed your game!

https://www.deviantart.com/alexruste/art/Vernal-Edge-Thumbnail-844171032

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The game has a nice art style as well and fun but hard to master combat mechanics. The game is more enjoyable when played on a controller rather than a keyboard.

Huh, nice game. The combat takes a bit to get into, and requires you to learn its rules. Certainly very unique, which I like. The boss was the best part, since you had to do a little dance with them, whereas the other enemies just kinda stood there and took it. My biggest gripe is walljumping - feels totally unintuitive and it was really annoying each time. Also the standard keyboard layout is uh, not good. Just make attack 'z' or 'x' and design around that. (Thankfully we all also have the freedom of remapping the keyboard to fit our own preferences, but still :p)

Other than that, a solid game that I'd like to see more of... also just realized I didn't mention the pixel art, which.. yeah, just yeah. :))

I came for the cool pixel art,  stayed for the deep combat, and weeped when I remembered I'm bad at these kinds of skill based sidescroller games.

I can't get over how good the game looks, but the UX does need improvement. However,I get this is an early demo. My major problem was not realizing there was a menu at all to do any management with as well as a lack of the settings option on the TITLE SCREEN rather than only in game.

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It is an awesome game will say so , most of the problems were already highlighted so wont deal with that but the problems i had and i believe will cut out most of the other problems by a big ton

1. improving the ui and ux of the game, while playing the game i didnt know wat i would use the inventory for i didnt understand for to interact with objects i was given a long line of text to remember and well it didnt go to well i had to mistakenly press keys in most cases to get wat i wanted. so highlight key areas more 

2. The screen size didnt work well with my laptop didnt even know there was an inventory untill i pulled the game screen over

3. whats the point of pressing space or a key to stand after damage has been dealt there was no consequences sometimes it made me lay back when i should be facing the enemy

4.breakdown the move set to wat works best for each enemy all the moves felt flat and the same even though some dealt more damage 

so basically thats all thanks for releasing a great game would love to see this progress im a programmer also so would like to see how it turns out

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Super fun if you're into character action, metroidvanias, or even soulslikes! It's a neat mixture of quite a few things. The art and music are great, and there's a good mixture of gameplay in the demo. Definitely recommended! 

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Really solid demo, great visuals and it definitely makes me want to see more and find out more about the game world. Good luck with the Kickstarter!

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Made another video

So... I just downloaded the demo and my antivirus detected a trojan. Anyone else got this?

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I just finished the demo and thought it was great! I already pledged on kickstarter because this looks like it'd be really great when its all finished.

The only problem I ran into was that the three valves you have to hit at one point looked like background decoration, so I went right past them initially. Other than that, it looks like you guys have some real potential. I'm looking forward to seeing more!

We'll have to look into increasing clarity on those kinds of elements.
Thank you for your pledge and thank you for playing the demo too!

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Made a video

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Wonderful graphics and awesome combat system! it's definitely on my to play list for sure. The climbing was a little hard but with forced repetition i got the hang of it. Awesome job!

 
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I know this is going to be super long and really critical so I apologize ahead of time, but criticism like this is usually super helpful. Also I know this is just a Demo so most of this stuff will probably be fixed in the final game already. I hope you read this, thank you.

PROS:

  1. I don't know if you have a team or not, BUT DAMN YOUR GRAPHICS ARE AMAZING!! I'M a huge fan of pixel art and your designs and background art are absolutely stunning.
  1. The main character has some funny moments I enjoy, I like her tomboy personality, super cool 

CONS:

   I am only on PC so I only have a PC perspective

  1. Trying to figure out how to press Star Game took a few seconds, space is one of the few buttons I don't try, Usually it's Z or Enter so I got a little stuck on that. That's not a Biggy but maybe add a small bar that says press space to start
  1. This one feels big for a pc but having you main movement controls being the arrow keys  is fine, but having space instead of the up arrow really threw me off, especially in the beginning fight sean where you fight the mummy like monsters, I lost a lot of health because I instantly pressed the up arrow.
  1. Ok this also kinda goes with the space problem. When I have my hands resting on the arrow keys and A and D for attacks I keep getting confused( by memory ) If I should press W,A,S,D or the arrow keys, I think maybe changing the keys to Z, X will work a little better because they are close to the shift and spacebar and maybe change the hotwheel keys to C,V to be close by.

4) I don't know if this was just my crappy PC, But I got a Code Error pop up when I tried fighting the Circle Roblot thing. And my whole game froze up so I exited out, and when I tried to reopen the game the same Code Error popped up, I'll copy it so you can see it.

Hope that's helpful. I can't run the game anymore so If you can tell me the problem I would LOVE to Finish the Demo, once I get some cash I am totally going to contribute some cash. I love the little amount of the game I got to play. I hope this was helpful. Have a great day!!!

___________________________________________

############################################################################################

ERROR in

action number 1

of Draw Event

for object o_titlemenu:

File is not opened for reading.

at gml_Script_load_1ways

############################################################################################

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

stack frame is

gml_Script_load_1ways (line -1)

gml_Object_o_titlemenu_Draw_75

Hi, you can pause the game at any time with escape, and use the option menu to change your keys to whatever you prefer.

The crash you experienced was a result of not unzipping the game before running it.  The game crashed when you touched a save point because the folder was zipped and could not find the file to save to.

I just tried what you said and unzipping the game worked, thank you for telling me.

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Demo was amazing, only had 2 problems

1. The wall grab poles blended in to the background regularly

2. During the 2nd phase of the boss battle, I managed to get stuck in the bottom right of the screen (behind the rock)

We'll be documenting these issues and pushing out a patch for them very soon.

Just finished the demo and it was really fun, the combat was solid and the pulse system is very refreshing, however there are some problems that I faced when playing the game.

  • The first problem was that the poles that the player could grab onto easily blended with the background and were hard to see (I spent 2 minutes walking in the area above the green door wondering how to get up the ledge before realizing that there were poles), I would recommend adding some torches or glowing things at the ends of the poles to draw the player's attention to it while using the old pole sprites for hidden areas and secrets.
    (If you play Devil May Cry 4/5 you will see that Nero's latch-able areas always have a blue/cyan glow or fire around it)
  • The second problem was that the area where you climb up a broken wood stairs was VERY confusing, mostly because I easily mistook the foreground for platforms, it also happened in other areas but this specific area really made me frustrated, I would recommend making some different shades for the foreground and background so that they don't get confused with the platforms and walk-able areas (or it might just be me being stupid :P ).
  • The third problem was that the enemy health bars easily blended in with the colors of the sky that it became hard to notice, I know that visual consistency is important but sometimes the colors are TOO consistent that it all blends in and becomes hard to notice.

Overall it was a really fun and refreshing game with amazing visuals but it suffered from lack of visual "depth" (idk what the correct word is but it feels like the world is flat without much distance between the foreground and background).

Good luck and hopefully it keeps getting better and better.

Hello.
So I tried this game and I really enjoyed myself. It gave me flashbacks when I used to play Elsword. Yet it seems to be much more in depth. If your interested then you can check my video.