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Work in Progress / [DEMO] Xen The Alien

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hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 27th Aug 2016 00:50
Hello guys, we just uploaded a Windows Demo of our game Xen The Alien and we would really appreciate it if you guys try it out, explore and attempt to break it by doing stuff we probably wouldn't have ever imagined players would do . The goal is to find bugs, sample performance on as many machines as possible and get your feedback on load times, presentation, graphics, gameplay, and most importantly, is the game fun?


ABOUT THE GAME

Xen the Alien is a third-person action-adventure and puzzle game that follows the exploits of an Alien scout named Xen desperately trying to find his way back home after being marooned on the Alien planet Naytonia. Xen must traverse the different locations of the planet in search of the missing parts of his Ship as well as contend with a mysterious military presence on the planet using either a lethal or stealthy approach, the choice is yours!

You can check out the Original Thread for more information, screenshots and videos about the game, as well as updates on development.


XTA DEMO: THE FIERY DESERT OF NAYTONIA

The demo takes place in the Naytonian Desert; just one of the many locations that will feature in the full game. You need to find the missing part of Xen's ship and contend with the heavy military presence in the area using either a lethal or stealthy approach, the choice is yours!

Download Link (31.1MB)

Extract the "xta-demo.zip" file to any location on your computer and double-click the "XTA Demo.exe" file to launch the game.




CONTROLS

W Move forward
S Move backwards
A Strafe left
D Strafe right
SPACE Jump
LEFT CLICK Fire weapon
RIGHT CLICK Mouse look

F1 enable/disable debug info display
PAUSE ICON pause game/manage inventory
OBJECTIVES ICON display/track stage objectives
SCREENSHOT ICON freeze game/take screenshot


FEEDBACK

Please download and try it out, explore, and attempt to break it by doing stuff we probably wouldn't have ever imagined players would do. We would appreciate your feedback on:

Any bugs you may encounter
Your average FPS (use the F1 key to enable debug info display)
Your system specs
Load times (time from launch app to show menu, and time to load the stage)
Your honest brutal opinion on presentation, graphics, gameplay, etc. Is the game fun?

We would like to see your in-game screenshots if you encounter any cool cinematic situations and we would also greatly appreciate anyone willing to record in-game footage so that we can use for creating trailers and gameplay montages. Thanks!

Twitter @XenTheAlien
Facebook XenTheAlien
YouTube XenTheAlien
Official Website
Morcilla
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Dec 2002
Location: Spain
Posted: 30th Aug 2016 19:32
Hey nice job first of all

I tried the demo, found a gun and did a little walk around until a couple of guys killed me, I think I hit them once

I liked very much how Xen moves his head when pointing the camera, but he could be more elegant when moving sideways, nevertheless that's ok.

What I missed is a couple of keys (Q,E perhaps?) to turn Xen left and right.

It happened once that I started to use the camera and it detached from Xen, moving freely all along the level scenary. I was not able to get the control back over Xen. Not sure if this behaviour is a bug or if it is intended to work this way.

Overall I liked the consistent cartoonish style of the game and how everything seemed to work fine. Nice that you integrated it with external social networks, although I didn't try those buttons.

Since I don't see any craters or something that reminds me that I'm in an alien world, you could for example add some big planets with rings at the skydome, like Saturn but you know, alien worlds.
That way the sky will remind the player that he is in another distant planet at all times, making the visuals more immersive and allowing room for imagination other than being in an arabian desert.
You know, Tatooine had two suns, for example. Those little details make the extra touch.

Also, you could try to remove those rounded eyes on the enemies and leave just the space-glasses as head texture or draw some more alien-looking eyes but oh well, just my opinion.

Loading times were fine, under 10 seconds, although a cartoon progress bar wouldn't hurt.

Frames were also 59 fps stable on my old single-core AMD Phenom X4 and NVidia GTX 295.

Keep on the good work!
hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 30th Aug 2016 19:59 Edited at: 30th Aug 2016 20:01
@Morcilla:

First off I would just like to say I appreciate the time you took out to download and test our game, thank you very much!

Quote: "I liked very much how Xen moves his head when pointing the camera, but he could be more elegant when moving sideways, nevertheless that's ok."
What do you mean by when moving sideways? Do you mean when pointing the camera around with the mouse or when Xen is actually moving sideways using the A or D keys?

Quote: "What I missed is a couple of keys (Q,E perhaps?) to turn Xen left and right."
At the moment there aren't any keys to turn Xen left and right, all orientation is handled using the mouse + right click. But if it's a feature that a lot of people expect and would use then we could easily implement that.

Quote: "It happened once that I started to use the camera and it detached from Xen, moving freely all along the level scenary. I was not able to get the control back over Xen. Not sure if this behaviour is a bug or if it is intended to work this way."
That's actually screenshot mode. It's enabled by clicking the camera icon at the top-left of the screen. It freezes gameplay and allows you position the camera at different angles to take a good screenshot using the shutter icon beside the camera icon. You can click the camera icon again to disable screenshot mode and return to normal gameplay.

Thanks for all your opinions, especially your advice about immersion, we'll definitely work with that!
Morcilla
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Dec 2002
Location: Spain
Posted: 31st Aug 2016 16:35
Quote: "First off I would just like to say I appreciate the time you took out to download and test our game, thank you very much! "

No problem

Quote: "What do you mean by when moving sideways? Do you mean when pointing the camera around with the mouse or when Xen is actually moving sideways using the A or D keys?"

I was talking abouit the A,D keys thing, strafing.

Quote: "At the moment there aren't any keys to turn Xen left and right, all orientation is handled using the mouse + right click. But if it's a feature that a lot of people expect and would use then we could easily implement that."

I think most people would want that, I found difficult to shoot to my enemies, maybe I didn't get the right way of handling the camera with the mouse and fire at the same time.

Quote: "That's actually screenshot mode. It's enabled by clicking the camera icon at the top-left of the screen. It freezes gameplay and allows you position the camera at different angles to take a good screenshot using the shutter icon beside the camera icon. You can click the camera icon again to disable screenshot mode and return to normal gameplay."

Alright then.

Quote: "Thanks for all your opinions, especially your advice about immersion, we'll definitely work with that!"

Glad to help!
hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
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Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 31st Aug 2016 20:16 Edited at: 31st Aug 2016 20:19
Update: XTA Demo on Google Play Store

Hello guys, we just published the Xen the Alien Demo on the Google Play Store. If you've got an Android device and a moment to spare then we'd appreciate it if you download it, play it and let us know what you think. Cheers!

Google Play Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hexgear.xta_demo.apk&hl=en

Chris Tate
DBPro Master
15
Years of Service
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Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 11th Oct 2016 11:10
This looks like a cool game. I will download and give it a try.
hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 11th Oct 2016 12:58
@Chris Tate: Thanks, appreciate it! Looking forward to your feedback.
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 25th Oct 2016 21:09
I have not had much time, but I have played the game for a few moments. It looks promising and runs nicely.

I did encounter an error message while walking towards an NPC.

'Array index out of bounds, Index: 1, Array Length in aiVehicleNone.agc at line 854'

Also, the inventory screen has some overlapping icons and buttons as shown in the screenshot.

Love the music and the art style of the game. That account creation experience was pretty fool proof and lovely.
hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 25th Oct 2016 23:26
@Chris Tate:

Thanks for trying it out, we appreciate the feedback!

Quote: "I did encounter an error message while walking towards an NPC."


There are still a couple of bugs that we need to fix.

Quote: "Also, the inventory screen has some overlapping icons and buttons as shown in the screenshot."


Did you upload the screenshot? I can't see anything, or could you drop a link to the screenshot please, thanks!
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
15
Years of Service
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Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 26th Oct 2016 15:11 Edited at: 26th Oct 2016 15:13
Quote: "Did you upload the screenshot? I can't see anything"


Hmm, I did select the image in the attach button. Let me try again.

Ok it worked. As you can see, some text is offscreen, and some icons overlap. I have a large 4:3 ratio monitor which is not very common.

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hexGEAR
21
Years of Service
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Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 26th Oct 2016 17:04
Great, I see it now and understand perfectly, thank you!

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