Black Sands releases Teaser Demo and character Presentation!

[Black Sands Entertainment]

 

You can download the teaser Demo  here. https://theblacksands.itch.io/black-sands-legends-of-the-rift

Please leave feedback. There may still be room for improvement

Eventually we will have a major Demo coming which will launch before our Kickstarter. It will feature some of the gameplay mechanics and will be 45 minutes long roughly. Fully voiced of course.

The Demo is crashing for lower spec comps so we will be optimizing it tonight. Be sure to leave your specs if it crashes on you.

[Arcadeotic]

Is it just for me but when I click New Game, the whole screen turns black, the music plays for a bit and then the game freezes and eventually crashes?

[Black Sands Entertainment]

Just now, Arcadeotic said:

Is it just for me but when I click New Game, the whole screen turns black, the music plays for a bit and then the game freezes and eventually crashes?

hmm. That is a bug we never got. i'll have my programmer join this thread

[Arcadeotic]

Since you wanted them, here are my shitty computer's specs:

AMD A6-5200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 4GB Ram, AMD Radeon HD 8400

2,00 GHz

64bit

[gijimu]

Same problem with Arcadeotic's.

Sending my plebeian PC specs.

Intel i3 3.05 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and GeForce 640. Also, it's 32 bit.

 

[Black Sands Entertainment]

8 minutes ago, gijimu said:

Same problem with Arcadeotic's.

Sending my plebeian PC specs.

Intel i3 3.05 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and GeForce 640. Also, it's 32 bit.

 

that should definitely run it. hmm. There must be an issue with the upload if your comp crashes. its not that bad.

[Diamon]

Seems like it works for me, had the same freeze problem but if you leave it alone for a bit it resumes playing.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

15 minutes ago, Diamon said:

Seems like it works for me, had the same freeze problem but if you leave it alone for a bit it resumes playing.

oh so the initial load just takes long.

How did you like it since it worked for you?

[Porygon2]

Main menu:

• When hovering over a menu item, the hieroglyphics' aligment jumps - looks pretty odd, should fix the offsets on the images.
• Help item does nothing (WIP I guess, so nothing really wrong here).

 

General menu navigation:

• I'm used to being able to right-click to return to the previous menu rather than always having to click on return/etc., would be nice to have.

 

Load screen:

• Doesn't seem like enough slots for saves at all, but I couldn't find an option to save in the first place, so I guess it's still being worked on.
• Navigation at the bottom is weird, as it's different from all the other screens and isn't super practical either.

 

Options menu (Settings):

• The labels on the left aren't sticking out enough, didn't notice them at first - maybe cast the entire background in shadow except for the labels to highlight them more.
• I'd like to be able to click on the bars with sliders and have the slider jump to the position I clicked on, rather than only being able to drag the slider.
• "Skip Settings ON/OFF" isn't very intuitive, maye have Skip all / Skip read only or something similar
• Fullscreen radio button inactive/active alignment is slightly off.
• The radio buttons aren't aligned properly >.> - looks very off-putting.
• I'd like a lot more features in the options menu, like individual audio sliders for every character, Stopping/not stopping voice on click, wait for voice in auto mode, changing text window transparancy, maybe even color, option to keep game running when the window is inactive, font config, rebindable keys, ...
• Optional, nice to have, but not really necessary: Only a few items actually indicate visually that they're being hovered over, would be nice to have that indication for all items (just putting a glow on them would be enough)
• Transitions radio buttons don't actually work.

 

New game:

• This takes way too long to load, considering the power of my system - you've gotta be able to optimize that, and even if you're not able to, at least give me some sort of moving loading screen, so that I know that the game's still alive and just loading rather than having no indication whether the game's just died on me.

 

Ingame:

• Lots of features are missing here: Hide text box, Backlog, Replay voice, Start skipping, Skip to next/previous choice, Quicksave/load, Pinning/unpinning menu bar, save bar, ...
• I'd like rebindable hotkeys for things like loading, starting automode, skip, quicksave, load, etc.
• Also want to be able to return to title from ingame whenever I want

 

 

[Black Sands Entertainment]

@Porygon2 That is quite an extensive technical overlook of the demo. 

 

We were planning on making technical upgrades and all the game feature in the full feature demo which comes out in 2 months. I'll forward your concerns to our programmer.

[Diamon]

I'm really impressed to be honest, it's looking very good! I'll try to list all the stuff that came to mind when playing the demo teaser :

The good:

- The menu UI is very cool, gives the reader a good idea what they are going to get into even if they don't know what the premise of the game is.
- The art is splendid, the style is refreshing as well. Nun's animations are very well done and creates some nice dynamism on screen.
- Some good effort was put on the directing, whether it concerns SFX or VFX, I especially like the smoke effect in the background. Also the fact that the characters who are not talking have their sprites darkened is a good idea, makes it easier for the reader to associate a sprite with a voice and a name at the very beginning.
- The music fits perfectly the mood of the scene and really enhances the experience, and they are looping quite neatly.
- The voice acting is really enjoyable. Nun's voice especially is really well portrayed.
- Dialog was nicely written, pace of the narration was good.
- Definitely works as a very good hook that makes the reader want to know more about the universe
 

The nitpicking :

- The constant scribbling sound effect during narration could become annoying to some people. You might want to add an option to disable that, just in case.
- Rah's voice lacked a bit of dynamism from time to time? Or maybe he's not the type to express himself strongly when talking? It probably depends on his personality I guess.
- I spotted a few instance where you cut a take for Nun and separated it in two sentences, I could hear the breathing being cut in the audio.
- I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but quite a lot of lore specific terms are introduced and very few are actually explained during the demo. Maybe the goal was to have the reader guess based on context, or maybe it will just be explained later on, but it could feel slightly overwhelming (at least if you're going in blind, there's a high chance it will). Just a suggestion, but something like a lexicon could definitely be a very nice addition (for example lore specific words being highlighted, and clicking on them sends you to the lexicon page where you get some elements of explanation, those explanations can actually complete themselves the more you progress in the story). It also helps preventing an "info dump" effect during the story that could break the flow of the narration.
 

Needs improvement :

- No backlog or even script rewind is a bit annoying, especially in a demo where you need to pay careful attention to the text: I can't check back a few lines prior to see if I missed any information, which happens to me often when I'm thrown in a new universe I know nothing about, and especially since you leave things unexplained, I'm often tempted to say "There's some unfamiliar word or concept here, maybe I missed an explanation before?".
- The last voiced narration from Rah doesn't have any text appearing in it, probably a bug?
- Lastly, and probably the one and only flaw I felt when reading, there is a bit of a "Show, don't tell" issue in the narration. It contrasts a lot with the dialog style of speech. For example : "The room lights up." ; "He follows Nun."; "Nun walks away from Rah" ; "Unprepared, Rah loses his balance". It feels like you're summarizing too much. It doesn't prevent the reader from enjoying the scene, but I feel you're missing a bit on the potential of immersion of the scene by just telling instead of showing, I can't feel the epicness of the dialog/art/music in the narration.

 

Overall it's a very solid demo I feel, and it show that the final game has a lot of potential, and that you know what you're doing. There's a lot of attention given to the details, and that's the mark of a very promising game imo!

 

[Black Sands Entertainment]

3 minutes ago, Diamon said:

I'm really impressed to be honest, it's looking very good! I'll try to list all the stuff that came to mind when playing the demo teaser :

The good:

- The menu UI is very cool, gives the reader a good idea what they are going to get into even if they don't know what the premise of the game is.
- The art is splendid, the style is refreshing as well. Nun's animations are very well done and creates some nice dynamism on screen.
- Some good effort was put on the directing, whether it concerns SFX or VFX, I especially like the smoke effect in the background. Also the fact that the characters who are not talking have their sprites darkened is a good idea, makes it easier for the reader to associate a sprite with a voice and a name at the very beginning.
- The music fits perfectly the mood of the scene and really enhances the experience, and they are looping quite neatly.
- The voice acting is really enjoyable. Nun's voice especially is really well portrayed.
- Dialog was nicely written, pace of the narration was good.
- Definitely works as a very good hook that makes the reader want to know more about the universe
 

The nitpicking :

- The constant scribbling sound effect during narration could become annoying to some people. You might want to add an option to disable that, just in case.
- Rah's voice lacked a bit of dynamism from time to time? Or maybe he's not the type to express himself strongly when talking? It probably depends on his personality I guess.
- I spotted a few instance where you cut a take for Nun and separated it in two sentences, I could hear the breathing being cut in the audio.
- I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but quite a lot of lore specific terms are introduced and very few are actually explained during the demo. Maybe the goal was to have the reader guess based on context, or maybe it will just be explained later on, but it could feel slightly overwhelming (at least if you're going in blind, there's a high chance it will). Just a suggestion, but something like a lexicon could definitely be a very nice addition (for example lore specific words being highlighted, and clicking on them sends you to the lexicon page where you get some elements of explanation, those explanations can actually complete themselves the more you progress in the story). It also helps preventing an "info dump" effect during the story that could break the flow of the narration.
 

Needs improvement :

- No backlog or even script rewind is a bit annoying, especially in a demo where you need to pay careful attention to the text: I can't check back a few lines prior to see if I missed any information, which happens to me often when I'm thrown in a new universe I know nothing about, and especially since you leave things unexplained, I'm often tempted to say "There's some unfamiliar word or concept here, maybe I missed an explanation before?".
- The last voiced narration from Rah doesn't have any text appearing in it, probably a bug?
- Lastly, and probably the one and only flaw I felt when reading, there is a bit of a "Show, don't tell" issue in the narration. It contrasts a lot with the dialog style of speech. For example : "The room lights up." ; "He follows Nun."; "Nun walks away from Rah" ; "Unprepared, Rah loses his balance". It feels like you're summarizing too much. It doesn't prevent the reader from enjoying the scene, but I feel you're missing a bit on the potential of immersion of the scene by just telling instead of showing, I can't feel the epicness of the dialog/art/music in the narration.

 

Overall it's a very solid demo I feel, and it show that the final game has a lot of potential, and that you know what you're doing. There's a lot of attention given to the details, and that's the mark of a very promising game imo!

 

this will be extremely helpful to edits. We can probably add a back button pretty quickly.

P.S. Rah has suppressed all his emotions over the years because he suffers from Dementia. He has random burst of rage but if you decide to let him embrace his emotions, he may become quite a nice guy....But what will happen to the voices in his head that thrive on your willingness to let go?

Muhahahaha

[Black Sands Entertainment]

we are going to put it in unity 5.2 for now because the performaance issues might be related to 5.3

[Arcadeotic]

5 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

we are going to put it in unity 5.2 for now because the performaance issues might be related to 5.3

Hopefully that'll fix the horrendous glitch you're having

We'll see

[sanahtlig]

The character profile is interesting and shows off some very good voice work.  The background music is also quite good  However, I don't think "dementia" is the right word when the last character is describing himself.  Dementia usually implies a progressive decline in cognitive function, typically associated with old age.  The word you're probably looking for is "schizophrenia", but given the tribal nature of the character, he probably wouldn't use this word from Western medicine to describe himself.  If I were you I might study up on African folk medicine and see how they characterize the disorder (my guess is some variation of insanity, possession, or "hearing voices").

Rather than an extended "trailer" like that, I'd break up the segments by character and feature them next to other character information on a website.

All in all nice work.  What I've seen so far is very professional.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

The teaser is interesting and shows off some very good voice work.  However, I don't think "dementia" is the right word when the last character is describing himself.  Dementia usually implies a progressive decline in cognitive function, typically associated with old age.  The word you're probably looking for is "schizophrenia", but given the tribal nature of the character, he probably wouldn't use this word from Western medicine to describe himself.  If I were you I might study up on African folk medicine and see how they characterize the disorder (my guess is some variation of insanity, possession, or "hearing voices").

this is true. I think we used Dementia because most people think "hallucinations" when they hear the word, though scientfically speaking, it is as you described.

[Vorathiel]

Random thought - it's really...hard to read fast, while characters are speaking, because I kept distracting by voices. Don't have such problem with japanesse, cause I can't understand jack shit, but here... I must really focus on what I read and 'turn off' attention to voices to comprehend what I'm reading.

But...it's still good that voices are here. They need probably slight polishing (sometimes cuts are obvious because of breaths, sometimes hissing is little too high), but it's still just a nitpicking, and nothing that couldn't be improved.

Overall - really nice demo, good job and keep on with your work!

[Deep Blue]

Really good teaser, I'm going to be honest, the first time I backed your project I wasn't really sure about it or if it was worth it I just wanted to support your game but I wasnt really interested in it.. now I really want to play it and back you for that xD

The voice acting was really good but there were some slight desync between when the text was being displayed and when the characters started to talk, as soon as the text is displayed the character should talk or else it looks a bit awkward even if it is a second or less.

The scribble sound is annoying after a while, put an option to turn it off.

A way to turn down the speed or the auto text (I tried changing the settings but nothing worked is not clear if I'm turning down the volume or something else xD )

A way to move the text forward by pressing the enter key and not just the space bar or the right click button.

 

Keep up the good work!

[Black Sands Entertainment]

1 hour ago, Deep Blue said:

Really good teaser, I'm going to be honest, the first time I backed your project I wasn't really sure about it or if it was worth it I just wanted to support your game but I wasnt really interested in it.. now I really want to play it and back you for that xD

The voice acting was really good but there were some slight desync between when the text was being displayed and when the characters started to talk, as soon as the text is displayed the character should talk or else it looks a bit awkward even if it is a second or less.

The scribble sound is annoying after a while, put an option to turn it off.

A way to turn down the speed or the auto text (I tried changing the settings but nothing worked is not clear if I'm turning down the volume or something else xD )

A way to move the text forward by pressing the enter key and not just the space bar or the right click button.

 

Keep up the good work!

We will perfect it over time. Thanks for the show of faith.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

@Arcadeotic Here is the playthrough. its not HD like the in game but atleast you get to see it firsthand.
 

 

[Arcadeotic]

2 hours ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

@Arcadeotic Here is the playthrough. its not HD like the in game but atleast you get to see it firsthand.
 

 

Thank you very much

Now then:

I did enjoy the slight cosmetic touches like the continuous animations, the fog in the background and the shadowed sprites, that don't speak. They're all nice polish

I understand the lackings on the technicalities and UI, as this is just a promotional demo.

I especially love Nun and everything about him. The laugh and voice acting is superb.

Overall, it shows a lot of promise.

Looking forward to more

[Black Sands Entertainment]

http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2016/03/of-demi-gods-and-aliens-an-interview-with-black-sands-entertainments-manuel-godoy/

We just got an interview with Decay. I am very please with it. Check it out if you wish to learn the developer side of Black Sands.

[Arcadeotic]

1 hour ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2016/03/of-demi-gods-and-aliens-an-interview-with-black-sands-entertainments-manuel-godoy/

We just got an interview with Decay. I am very please with it. Check it out if you wish to learn the developer side of Black Sands.

That was a very good and informative interview

Thank you for sharing