Oh, dang! You're right, that needs to be updated... thanks for letting me know. It was free during the alpha development but it went into Early Access last week. There's currently a free demo on Steam but I'll upload it to Itch soon as well. Sorry for the confusion!
Thanks a lot for continuing to keep accessibility in mind for this game. Many in the blind community seem to be interested in it. I sadly had a friend using Windows 7 try it and it did not work out well for them but others who use 10 or 11 have seemed to like it a lot so far. I will be downloading the latest version myself soon and post bugs and any comments I have as well. :)
Absolutely, I'm not planning on stopping with accessibility now haha
Ah, bummer about Windows 7. It's hard to test the game on all the old systems but maybe I can figure something out. Glad to hear it worked for the others though and thanks for letting me know. Appreciate it! :)
Blind accessibility is still in the launch from yesterday right? I am asking since did not have time to try the newest version myself yet (been sick unfortunately,) and some other folks on a blind forum interested in this game asked about it too. Hope things are going well, Redsneasel.
Hey, Redsneasel! Yes, blind accessibility is still part of the game. Because of the big rework of some systems, there might be a part here and there that isn't reading anymore but I'm fixing that when those come up. I'll do a more thorough test later today!
Hope you get better soon and thanks for the support!
The game doesn't launch on my Windows10 PC. In AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\Soulblaze\logs the files appear without any information. The logs just say
I have now tested it on a Windows 10 virtual machine and it launches normally for me so I'm not sure what's causing the issue. Can you remove your save files from the app_userdata/Soulblaze folder: playerdata.tres, player_config.dat and if it exists, save.tres, (make a backup of these files before) and try again?
I deleted Soulblaze from the userdata folder, updated to the new version but the game doesn't open. Even ram usage stays the same and the task manager doesn't show any process related to the game. I thought that could be an issue with NVDA, as you mentioned in the devlogs. Are there some external dependencies I could be missing?
That issue should have been fixed with the last update. If it's not too much trouble, could you test it with Window's narrator instead of NVDA? If that works that at least I know that it has something to do with it.
The dependend libraries should be included with the build. The weird thing is that the log is empty, it would probably include an error about that.
When I start the game for the first time, Windows defender warns about it and I have to tell it to launch it anyway. Did this maybe open silently?
Windows Defender warning opened normally the first time. I opened the game without any screen reader enabled. Same result. I asked for visual assistance to see if I'm missing something, but there's no change in the screen at all. At least we are sure this isn't an NVDA problem anymore.
I'm still thinking about what could be the issue. Redsneasel mentioned a few comments above that it worked for friends on Windows 10 so it can't be the operating system. Older versions of Soulblaze were running on the same machine you're trying now?
Oh and until then you can increase the text speed or even disable the battle message box which sorta speeds up the battle as well, if you haven't tried that yet :)
I like the game overall, but there is one thing I wish was different - the keybinding is much more flexible than the button images. In other words, the keybinding feature allows the game to be compatible with all kinds of controllers. However, the button images are only really friendly to Xbox One controllers. Although it may sound unpleasant, I wish there was an ability to read the names of actual moves on the screen, rather than see Xbox buttons.
Hi there! Thanks for playing and your feedback. The controller icons should swap on the fly depending on what input method you're using. When I test it, it changes betwee keyboard, XBox gamepad, and PS4 controller for example. Is that not the case for you?
Also, I'm not sure I understand the rest of your comment. The name of the moves are displayed on screen, there shouldn't be any controller buttons. Could you share a screenshot so I could get a better understanding of what the issue is? Are you talking about the battle screen or the input remapping screen?
By including a keybinder into the game, I assume that you wanted players to have a built-in alternative to profiler programs, like JoyToKey. The keybinder you provided doesn't trip on its own configurations, so it's stable, and it's also very flexible. For those reasons, I felt completely safe testing with controllers that are much weirder than official Xbox and PS ones - more along the lines of N64 and Gamecube.
Those ones will work just fine. However, I'll still see images of Xbox buttons. I don't expect games to let me choose each individual button image, but being able to see the names of moves (rather than button images) would be nice (even though it will raise the game's learning curve). I think it would allow the flexibility of your HUD system to "catch up" the flexibility of your keybinder.
Oh, that's cool! I didn't know it even works with those older controllers. Thanks for testing and letting me know :)
I'm still not sure I understand "names of moves instead of button images", sorry. I assume with "moves" you mean the tricks that Animons can perform during battle which don't show any gamepad icons (at least not intentional)?
Do you mean these or something else? Would you like an option to disable controller icons in the UI in general?
Realistically, I'm okay with this game not including this functionality, but if you decide to use it in a later game, I would love to see it. I'm of the mindset that PC games don't need to include keybinders, except ones that require delicate analog movement.
Ah, gotcha! Sorry, I was so stuck on the word "moves" from Pokémon that I didn't compute haha. Thanks for making the images.
I could whip something up. Should be doable as I'm already reusing an object that takes care of button prompts.
Regarding the keybinders, it's an important accessibility features for players with physical disabilities that rely using different controllers. Remapping inputs enables them to play the game. So I'd say every game needs it, actually :)
Some cool ideas in here for sure! I have two pointers, during "pick a starter" if you hover over the text "PICK" on the card, it's as if you weren't hovering over it at all.
Also the map screen is a bit weird to me that it scrolls in the way it does, I would like to see either an option to left click and drag yourself across the screen or have a bar at the bottom that you can drag.
Thank you so much for playing and the feedback. That's a great suggestion for the map, I'll implement that. Will also help with touch controls on the Steam Deck :)
And I'll see what's going on with the pick button.
The game should save any setting changes to a player pref file. Which operating system are you playing on and does the game show version 0.0.10 in the main menu (bottom right corner)?
Gotcha, thank you! Settings are saved when you hit the accept button, which you can find at the bottom of the settings, there's accept and cancel, they're horizontal.
That's fair, you shouldn't have to expect elements to suddenly be horizontal when everything else is vertical. I have changed it now that everything is in a vertical line. It'll come with the next update. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Alrighty, I actually got around to playing it! :D I haven't the best skills at giving feedback, but after getting some very useful feedback recently I gotta try and pass the favor around right?
(Note: I skipped the tutorial, but for the most part I think I figured out everything)
The gameplay is very solid, and the animon passives and active attacks are promising from what I've seen. There are some concerns I have with how well certain animons scale, Difdagua and the starter dog seem loads stronger than say the fire fox or the little water dragon/lizard. If there are means to upgrade certain passives, or if some of them scale with level, I believe that would bring some balance. (The water dragon/lizard can revive dead animons if he gets hit, might be a bug?)
Bindshards should have a 100% chance to be in shops, I was looking to capture something new and left with a bunch of soda and coffee. It would be great to see your current capture chance as well. The red bindshard also did not appear in my inventory after I bought one.
The dice system is really neat overall, and makes the combat quite a different flavor than usual. Being able to partially charge a skill is great. I was only able to change one of my die's element, unsure if that's intentional, but judging from the screenshots... I might be a noob. I feel there should be more incentive to picking the dice upgrade over getting a new dice
The difficulty eased up after the first boss. Partially from the extra dice being quite powerful, and partially because of the insane damage the first boss can do compared to what's after him. Finding a heal skill is another large power boost. Currently, it looks a lot better to focus strengthening a single animon than trying to have multiple. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a thought.
I cleared the final area (Gorgon/Medusa thingy) with a silly double slap strat, using the starter dog's passive to reroll 1D4s and using double slap whenever it procced. I would get another reroll with each double, which may be a wee bit overpowered. The boss is also bugged, if it uses Parasite the game is softlocked (no animation plays, and no attack effect every occurs), so I am very grateful for the save system you have in place!
Very minor visual issue: the red hair trainer stands above their shadow lol
Now for some UI bugs/grievances. I once clicked the sticker album, and it prevented me from clicking or selecting anything else. During battles, there is some weird behavior with arrow keys which require some mouse intervention to fix, mostly experienced with the 4th attack slot (it is at least good there is a means to fix it as a player). During the Gorgon fight, I discovered you can click Party and Inventory during the enemy turn, could be related to the softlock bug but I figured it was worth mentioning.
Out of battle, clicking on nodes to select them can result in moving backwards or redoing a node. Additionally, I couldn't use the mouse to go to the next node.
Overall, fun game and I will 'watch your career with great interest!'
Wow, Jemaj, thank you for the thorough feedback and for playing for so long! That's really helpful!
Yes, the passives (quirks) aren't balanced at all yet. Most of them are just quickly thrown in to have something and find out which ones are cool. I haven't thought about scaling them with level region yet, but that might be good idea to make some of them more valid later. Brainka (the water dragon/lizard :D ) should not be able to revive dead animons and now you get the famous "I thought I fixed that?!" quote from me. I'll look into it, whoopsie!
Guaranteed bindshard sounds like a good idea and I'll look into what's wrong the improved one not being added. I'm planning to rework the capturing mechanic to incorporate dice rolling for it and instead a better chance it's a lower number you need to surpass. So that'll be the equivalent of showing the success rate.
Considering the changing of die types. You did play the version with the arrow icons on the dice and not the ring menu, right? Just to make sure it's not the older system. So you move left and right to select a die and up and down to change its type? And that only worked for one?
The difficulty curve is currently my biggest problem. It's exactly as you mention, getting more dice makes you a lot more powerful but another factor is also that since I reworked the battle system a lot of the later animons are not updated yet and have crappy techniques or still just two dice. I'm also thinking about making it so that you either get +1 die or that you can upgrade 2 dice, maybe that balances the choice a bit more. I'll also add more incentives for higher dice. For Minjaluna's passive you already need to roll two 6 to trigger. There need to be more of these things. Thank you for confirming my suspicion, though :)
Yeah, double slap is OP haha. I might have to restrict it by giving it heavy (so it exhausts after use) but on the other hand, I want players to find crazy infinite loops that are overpowered. That's the whole joy of roguelikes :D I will think on that.
Parasite, softlock. Noted, thank you.
Yeah, the mouse is the least tested input method right now and it has a lot of edge cases were it can interact cross-states when it shouldn't. Thank you for the pointers, I will check where the issues are. Considering the 4th technique not being selectable. Do you remember if you switched from an animon that had 3 techniques and then to one that had 4 techniques? Because that's an issue I know about and "I thought I fixed it?!" haha
Again, thank you so much for the feedback and I do hope you played the last version (0.0.10) which now reminds me that I should add that somehwere in the game so players can check.
Fun Game! I had a bug where if I used any menus before trying to select the next node, it wouldn't start the next nodes event on the map. Additionally some UI Bugs such as being able to click on the party button multiple times while on the map, and for some reason the sticker album exit button never left the top left.
However, with all that aside when I was playing the game I had a fun time!
Last critique, and admittedly I just have this with a lot of games in general, but making sure the volume on first start up is lower is always a nice thing for me cause games always jumpscare me on first start up.
Super excited to see where this goes keep up the amazing work!
Ope! Apologies for the late reply! Yes I played on mouse and keyboard. As for the volume it could be something with it not setting setting as like a default for some reason idk... It was fine after I turned it down after initial startup. So hope that helps in some way, either way it isn't too bad for me to go turn it down! :D
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Is there a demo available? In the game description it says:
Looks like that bit may need to get updated? Or am I looking in the wrong place?
Oh, dang! You're right, that needs to be updated... thanks for letting me know. It was free during the alpha development but it went into Early Access last week. There's currently a free demo on Steam but I'll upload it to Itch soon as well. Sorry for the confusion!
No worries, thanks for the clarification. I just got the demo from Steam.
Thanks a lot for continuing to keep accessibility in mind for this game. Many in the blind community seem to be interested in it. I sadly had a friend using Windows 7 try it and it did not work out well for them but others who use 10 or 11 have seemed to like it a lot so far. I will be downloading the latest version myself soon and post bugs and any comments I have as well. :)
Absolutely, I'm not planning on stopping with accessibility now haha
Ah, bummer about Windows 7. It's hard to test the game on all the old systems but maybe I can figure something out. Glad to hear it worked for the others though and thanks for letting me know. Appreciate it! :)
Blind accessibility is still in the launch from yesterday right? I am asking since did not have time to try the newest version myself yet (been sick unfortunately,) and some other folks on a blind forum interested in this game asked about it too. Hope things are going well, Redsneasel.
Hey, Redsneasel! Yes, blind accessibility is still part of the game. Because of the big rework of some systems, there might be a part here and there that isn't reading anymore but I'm fixing that when those come up. I'll do a more thorough test later today!
Hope you get better soon and thanks for the support!
The game doesn't launch on my Windows10 PC. In AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\Soulblaze\logs the files appear without any information. The logs just say
Godot Engine v4.7.beta2.official.777579205 - https://godotengine.org
Oh, dang! Sorry about that. It launched fine on Win11. I'll see if I can reproduce it. Thanks for reporting!
I have now tested it on a Windows 10 virtual machine and it launches normally for me so I'm not sure what's causing the issue. Can you remove your save files from the app_userdata/Soulblaze folder: playerdata.tres, player_config.dat and if it exists, save.tres, (make a backup of these files before) and try again?
I deleted Soulblaze from the userdata folder, updated to the new version but the game doesn't open. Even ram usage stays the same and the task manager doesn't show any process related to the game. I thought that could be an issue with NVDA, as you mentioned in the devlogs. Are there some external dependencies I could be missing?
That issue should have been fixed with the last update. If it's not too much trouble, could you test it with Window's narrator instead of NVDA? If that works that at least I know that it has something to do with it.
The dependend libraries should be included with the build. The weird thing is that the log is empty, it would probably include an error about that.
When I start the game for the first time, Windows defender warns about it and I have to tell it to launch it anyway. Did this maybe open silently?
Windows Defender warning opened normally the first time. I opened the game without any screen reader enabled. Same result. I asked for visual assistance to see if I'm missing something, but there's no change in the screen at all. At least we are sure this isn't an NVDA problem anymore.
I'm still thinking about what could be the issue. Redsneasel mentioned a few comments above that it worked for friends on Windows 10 so it can't be the operating system. Older versions of Soulblaze were running on the same machine you're trying now?
wish there was a speed up option
I can implement that! Would you prefer a general (battle) speed slider in the settings or like toggling a fast mode on and off during battle?
Oh and until then you can increase the text speed or even disable the battle message box which sorta speeds up the battle as well, if you haven't tried that yet :)
I have implemented a battle speed slider in the settings. It'll come with the next patch!
I like the game overall, but there is one thing I wish was different - the keybinding is much more flexible than the button images. In other words, the keybinding feature allows the game to be compatible with all kinds of controllers. However, the button images are only really friendly to Xbox One controllers. Although it may sound unpleasant, I wish there was an ability to read the names of actual moves on the screen, rather than see Xbox buttons.
Hi there! Thanks for playing and your feedback.
The controller icons should swap on the fly depending on what input method you're using. When I test it, it changes betwee keyboard, XBox gamepad, and PS4 controller for example. Is that not the case for you?
Also, I'm not sure I understand the rest of your comment. The name of the moves are displayed on screen, there shouldn't be any controller buttons. Could you share a screenshot so I could get a better understanding of what the issue is? Are you talking about the battle screen or the input remapping screen?
By including a keybinder into the game, I assume that you wanted players to have a built-in alternative to profiler programs, like JoyToKey. The keybinder you provided doesn't trip on its own configurations, so it's stable, and it's also very flexible. For those reasons, I felt completely safe testing with controllers that are much weirder than official Xbox and PS ones - more along the lines of N64 and Gamecube.
Those ones will work just fine. However, I'll still see images of Xbox buttons. I don't expect games to let me choose each individual button image, but being able to see the names of moves (rather than button images) would be nice (even though it will raise the game's learning curve). I think it would allow the flexibility of your HUD system to "catch up" the flexibility of your keybinder.
Oh, that's cool! I didn't know it even works with those older controllers. Thanks for testing and letting me know :)
I'm still not sure I understand "names of moves instead of button images", sorry. I assume with "moves" you mean the tricks that Animons can perform during battle which don't show any gamepad icons (at least not intentional)?
Do you mean these or something else? Would you like an option to disable controller icons in the UI in general?
I put 3 images together to show what I mean. Use this link:
https://www.conflexgames.com/918034
Realistically, I'm okay with this game not including this functionality, but if you decide to use it in a later game, I would love to see it.
I'm of the mindset that PC games don't need to include keybinders, except ones that require delicate analog movement.
Ah, gotcha! Sorry, I was so stuck on the word "moves" from Pokémon that I didn't compute haha. Thanks for making the images.
I could whip something up. Should be doable as I'm already reusing an object that takes care of button prompts.
Regarding the keybinders, it's an important accessibility features for players with physical disabilities that rely using different controllers. Remapping inputs enables them to play the game. So I'd say every game needs it, actually :)
Some cool ideas in here for sure!
I have two pointers, during "pick a starter" if you hover over the text "PICK" on the card, it's as if you weren't hovering over it at all.
Also the map screen is a bit weird to me that it scrolls in the way it does, I would like to see either an option to left click and drag yourself across the screen or have a bar at the bottom that you can drag.
Neat game! :)
Thank you so much for playing and the feedback. That's a great suggestion for the map, I'll implement that. Will also help with touch controls on the Steam Deck :)
And I'll see what's going on with the pick button.
the game is nice. is there a way to save settings?
Hey there, thank you for playing!
The game should save any setting changes to a player pref file. Which operating system are you playing on and does the game show version 0.0.10 in the main menu (bottom right corner)?
i am a blind player on windows 10. i use nvda
Gotcha, thank you! Settings are saved when you hit the accept button, which you can find at the bottom of the settings, there's accept and cancel, they're horizontal.
thank you. didn't know that they were from left to right
That's fair, you shouldn't have to expect elements to suddenly be horizontal when everything else is vertical. I have changed it now that everything is in a vertical line. It'll come with the next update. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Alrighty, I actually got around to playing it! :D I haven't the best skills at giving feedback, but after getting some very useful feedback recently I gotta try and pass the favor around right?
(Note: I skipped the tutorial, but for the most part I think I figured out everything)
The gameplay is very solid, and the animon passives and active attacks are promising from what I've seen. There are some concerns I have with how well certain animons scale, Difdagua and the starter dog seem loads stronger than say the fire fox or the little water dragon/lizard. If there are means to upgrade certain passives, or if some of them scale with level, I believe that would bring some balance. (The water dragon/lizard can revive dead animons if he gets hit, might be a bug?)
Bindshards should have a 100% chance to be in shops, I was looking to capture something new and left with a bunch of soda and coffee. It would be great to see your current capture chance as well. The red bindshard also did not appear in my inventory after I bought one.
The dice system is really neat overall, and makes the combat quite a different flavor than usual. Being able to partially charge a skill is great. I was only able to change one of my die's element, unsure if that's intentional, but judging from the screenshots... I might be a noob. I feel there should be more incentive to picking the dice upgrade over getting a new dice
The difficulty eased up after the first boss. Partially from the extra dice being quite powerful, and partially because of the insane damage the first boss can do compared to what's after him. Finding a heal skill is another large power boost. Currently, it looks a lot better to focus strengthening a single animon than trying to have multiple. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a thought.
I cleared the final area (Gorgon/Medusa thingy) with a silly double slap strat, using the starter dog's passive to reroll 1D4s and using double slap whenever it procced. I would get another reroll with each double, which may be a wee bit overpowered. The boss is also bugged, if it uses Parasite the game is softlocked (no animation plays, and no attack effect every occurs), so I am very grateful for the save system you have in place!
Very minor visual issue: the red hair trainer stands above their shadow lol
Now for some UI bugs/grievances. I once clicked the sticker album, and it prevented me from clicking or selecting anything else. During battles, there is some weird behavior with arrow keys which require some mouse intervention to fix, mostly experienced with the 4th attack slot (it is at least good there is a means to fix it as a player). During the Gorgon fight, I discovered you can click Party and Inventory during the enemy turn, could be related to the softlock bug but I figured it was worth mentioning.
Out of battle, clicking on nodes to select them can result in moving backwards or redoing a node. Additionally, I couldn't use the mouse to go to the next node.
Overall, fun game and I will 'watch your career with great interest!'
Wow, Jemaj, thank you for the thorough feedback and for playing for so long! That's really helpful!
Yes, the passives (quirks) aren't balanced at all yet. Most of them are just quickly thrown in to have something and find out which ones are cool. I haven't thought about scaling them with level region yet, but that might be good idea to make some of them more valid later. Brainka (the water dragon/lizard :D ) should not be able to revive dead animons and now you get the famous "I thought I fixed that?!" quote from me. I'll look into it, whoopsie!
Guaranteed bindshard sounds like a good idea and I'll look into what's wrong the improved one not being added. I'm planning to rework the capturing mechanic to incorporate dice rolling for it and instead a better chance it's a lower number you need to surpass. So that'll be the equivalent of showing the success rate.
Considering the changing of die types. You did play the version with the arrow icons on the dice and not the ring menu, right? Just to make sure it's not the older system. So you move left and right to select a die and up and down to change its type? And that only worked for one?
The difficulty curve is currently my biggest problem. It's exactly as you mention, getting more dice makes you a lot more powerful but another factor is also that since I reworked the battle system a lot of the later animons are not updated yet and have crappy techniques or still just two dice. I'm also thinking about making it so that you either get +1 die or that you can upgrade 2 dice, maybe that balances the choice a bit more. I'll also add more incentives for higher dice. For Minjaluna's passive you already need to roll two 6 to trigger. There need to be more of these things. Thank you for confirming my suspicion, though :)
Yeah, double slap is OP haha. I might have to restrict it by giving it heavy (so it exhausts after use) but on the other hand, I want players to find crazy infinite loops that are overpowered. That's the whole joy of roguelikes :D
I will think on that.
Parasite, softlock. Noted, thank you.
Yeah, the mouse is the least tested input method right now and it has a lot of edge cases were it can interact cross-states when it shouldn't. Thank you for the pointers, I will check where the issues are. Considering the 4th technique not being selectable. Do you remember if you switched from an animon that had 3 techniques and then to one that had 4 techniques? Because that's an issue I know about and "I thought I fixed it?!" haha
Again, thank you so much for the feedback and I do hope you played the last version (0.0.10) which now reminds me that I should add that somehwere in the game so players can check.
Ah, I see the problem with the dice changing now. It doesn't work with the mouse yet. Good find, I'll fix that!
Fun Game! I had a bug where if I used any menus before trying to select the next node, it wouldn't start the next nodes event on the map. Additionally some UI Bugs such as being able to click on the party button multiple times while on the map, and for some reason the sticker album exit button never left the top left.
However, with all that aside when I was playing the game I had a fun time!
Last critique, and admittedly I just have this with a lot of games in general, but making sure the volume on first start up is lower is always a nice thing for me cause games always jumpscare me on first start up.
Super excited to see where this goes keep up the amazing work!
Thank you so much for playing and reporting bugs, much appreciated! I'll look into it. So it sounds like you played with the mouse, correct?
I think the volume starts on lower settings but I'll double check :)
Ope! Apologies for the late reply! Yes I played on mouse and keyboard. As for the volume it could be something with it not setting setting as like a default for some reason idk... It was fine after I turned it down after initial startup. So hope that helps in some way, either way it isn't too bad for me to go turn it down! :D