Ocean's Heart Beta Testing

[Max]

Hey!

I know many of you are aware of my game, Ocean's Heart. As of right now, it's officially in beta, and I'm looking for some testers. I'd love to have some Solarus developers looking at it especially, since you know how the engine works and would have a better idea what you're looking at if you come across something going wrong.

So if you're interested, please send me a DM or message or email or something, and I'll get you a copy of the game!

[eliwolfe92]

Not a dev, but would love to give the game a shot some time. Congrats on the beta btw

[Max]

Thanks! I'll send you a link.

[stdgregwar]

Hi Max,

Congratulations for reaching so far in the development of your game.
I'm interested in testing it. I can't promess to go through all of it but I
surely can give it a shot.

Looking forward to it!

Greg

[ponderitus]

Hey!

Awesome to hear you are so far through man...so quickly as well

I'd love to test it out, is there anything in particular you want us to focus on?

[Max]

Awesome guys! I appreciate it!

The biggest things I don't have a great grasp on are balance issues, probably. Since I don't know how well hidden most power-ups and stuff are (since I know where they are, haha), I'm not sure how many of them most people will find, or if they're even fun to find. I've tried to roughly balance the enemies for doing like 60-70% of the side content, but I'm not sure if the enemies are too easy, too damaging, unfair, etc.

I'm also just very concerned that stuff will be boring or unprofessional looking, haha. Also, if it's possible to record your screen let's-play style while you're playing, that'd be super helpful, but I know that's a pain to set up if you don't usually do that.

I'll send you both messages with links to the current build.

[wizard_wizzle (aka ZeldaHistorian)]

Max, I would love to help beta test. Very exciting you're so far along in the process this fast! Congrats!

[EponasRider]

Hello Max - new to the forum. I am a professional developer but not for Solarus. My son and I have been following your project for some time, and would like the opportunity to beta test your game. We have worked with Solarus a bit, and would like to be able to learn how to make a solid gaming experience such as yours. Thanks for any direction for newbs that you would like to share.

[EponasRider]

Max - I was able to find some good starting points on the forums here. Thanks for your help.

[Max]

Thanks Eponasrider! Yeah, the forums here are a great place. Christopho has a youtube tutorial series I highly recommend, and definitely join the Solarus discord. It's a fairly active community there, much more than the forums here. I recommend messing around with Solarus for a little bit to get comfortable in the editor. Download the free resource pack, which has tilesets, enemies, and I think some items. Make a room to get used to the map editor, then make a town to get used to adding NPCs, teleports, maybe a little bit of map scripts. Then maybe make a small dungeon, but don't try and create and new mechanics, just use what's easily available to you.

After that, I'd recommend planning out a small "test" game. Maybe the hero has to go from her town to a dungeon and back, there's a couple items to find an equip. When you realize you'll need to create menus, enemies, design dungeon puzzles, figure out items, all of that, a small-seeming game like that is actually quite a lot for an amateur developer like us!

I imagine if you're a professional developer you might be familiar with agile methods and scrum boards and other tech kinda workflow strategies. I actually use quite a bit of that just myself to keep track of things and keep myself on track.

Also, I'll send you a link to join the beta! I'd love to hear what you and your son think! : D
(I'm headed out of the house right now so i'll send it later tonight)

[EponasRider]

Yes, I will definitely watch Christopho's youtube series. All of you seem to be a very talented group (to say the least). Some time back, I tried to emulate a Zelda-like engine using the Visual Studio 2010 XNA Game Studio but found it highly complex to create everything from the ground up. The Solarus framework was just what we were looking for to create a Zelda Maker (similar to N's Mario Maker) for my children to learn programming and game development concepts. I am very familiar with Agile and Scrum methodologies, and think that it's a great idea even for very small teams such as mine. Maybe not on a grand scale, but we would like to create some playable games. Given time, I would also like to check the code for the engine as well. I believe that Christopho scripted that in C++ from what I have been able to gather from the forums.

I am new, but did not see the link to join the beta for Ocean's Heart. Could you help me and let me know where to look for that? Again, thanks so much.

[Max]

Yes, you weren't missing anything. I was out of town all weekend, but I just sent you a PM about it : )

[Cluedrew]

To EponasRider: I can confirm that the engine is all made in C++. With a lot of the Qt library. Also that Max's comments about starting small are all good.

To Max: Do you have some numbers on how long the game should take to play through and when you need the results by? I'm not sure if I have time and that might help. I'm not really a Solarus Developer (I would on the editor mostly) but I'm still another pair of eyes.

[Max]

Cluedrew! I would love to have you take a look, I'll send you a link. I don't need any input by any particular time, I'm just hoping to whatever feedback I can so I can change things that don't work as soon as possible : )

I don't have a good estimate on how long it'll take to play through- it might be possible to make it through the main story in 5-7 hours? However, the game will get pretty difficult if you don't spend any time exploring or doing side-quests, which reward you with better armor and ways to make your weapons stronger. It's probably time for me to go play through the whole game again to get a new estimate, because so much side content has been added, and much main story stuff restructured and improved.

Anyone who's doing the beta have an estimate for how long they've been playing?

[ZeldoGames]

Hello Max.

Now that I finished my little project I'd like to test your beta if you need beta testers yet
I can also capture my screen but maybe not my complete playthrough, it could be long...

Also I speak french normally so I hope I'll can understand all the dialogs and report you my opinions correctly ^^