Ok, herem y little comment.

Really impressive game you have created. Its made in a nice
UnrealTournament / Race fashion.

But instead of reviewing the whole demo (everyone should test it
himself), here some direct notes:


-Offer the Cursor keys paralel to WASD for stearing
(for lefthanders)


-I missed an option to zoom out, or did not find it.
best is to use the Mousewheel for that

-in the SunDesert Map, you should add some markers (arrows / sighns) where
the track goes.
I often drove in a curve off the track, as it was not obvious
where the normal track continues.

-let the Options for the quicksetting: Fast/Normal/Good (or so) Graphics
stand out a bit more. They should get some bigger slider.

-when entering the SingleRace screen, and hitting main, it
doeas not go to the previous page, but the MainMenu.
best is to have a "Back" Button always on the same position,
and jumping one page back.

-performance wise it runs ok on my computer. The main
problem is a big slowdown, everytime I close in
on a "bundle" of transparent sprites. (effects, fog, etc)

-BUG: when i was in the timetrial/VSMode, the Backbutton did not react, making the game hang in the menu

-the settings where not saved after exit/restart of the game

-------------------------
nice to have:

-If possible let the user set the graphics/input options in
the ingame pause-menu

-showing the race as a replay afterwards (would be a lot of work though)

-Im not happy with the stearing. I like it in UT2004 Onslaugt more.
There the mouse is also turing the view direction while aiming.
Please test the Onslaught mode a bit, and try to see how
they realized the controls, as its very similar to
your projected mechanics.

-the weapons are hard to choose / to know which is which on.
There are several options:
Write on the lower bar, the weaponname.
Or make a voice.message wich weapon was just selected or picked up.
like "Phaser!"

-for sliding, I would not use shift, but the spacebar.
In a way, that when turing to the side (A or D), and shortly
tipping the spacebar, the car switches to Drift-mode.
When the player releases A or D, the car jumps out of drifting.
This reduces the need to use one additional key (shift is hard
to reach in WASD anyhow)

Awesome Gameplay.
I also like the graphics.I can not wait for the full game

The game is awesome ,but the steering is too smooth.

PS: I love the Extras Section.
Really cool things in there.

Thumbs up on that one.

Also nice music you have in there.
I especially like the house/techno style levelmusic.

The "History" Rooms is also cool.
Wish it would have more rooms.

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

A general Thing about online Games:

Its hard to get small real-time multiplayergames
to have a big enough playerbase.
If a user logs into the multiplayer, and noone is there,
he will log off after a minute.
Thus resulting in having noone ever be online.

Its a good idea to make some "mark me" message or history
into the online room.
Such that you can see: someone logged in 30mins ago,
and left a message: "Wubsi98: want to play?"
And then the player can enter "Player: Im online at 6pm"

This could help getting people know when there might
be other players online.

-------

Another idea is to have an "asyncronous" multiuser mode.
Such that you dont actually play live agains another player,
but you try to beat his score/time/performance.

I could imagine a list:
-most recent players
-best players (for that mode/map)

The players race on a map, with static enemies (turrets)
and try to beat a time/score

Even better if you could load a "ghostcar" (a recording
of another player, starting at the same time), and directly try to outperform this one.

There are many ideas how to set up asyncronous multiuser
modes. Its a good method to keep a (small) game have
a useful longterm online experience.

Actually I use this very control setup all the time. WASD to move, shift to run, space to jump, mouse to aim...

But that's just my preference and therefore doesn't matter. The player should be able to change the controls in the game.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I am definitely considering it all and will implement parts of it.

Sorry about the slow server, it downloads in 15 min for me, but this is probably because I'm in North America.

Below I'll comment on some requests:

The kart movement - Yeah, this is a tricky devil. I noticed someone said it was too smooth and another said too tight. I modeled it a bit after the DS version of MarioKart, which I always thought was the best(didn't like the console ones past N64). But there is always room for improvement. So I am going to be editing some camera work to better flow with it, and I still have to add the differences to the different karts better. That way weight will actually come into play. I will also add an option to turn on the spot for battle levels.

As for controls, you can already change these through the settings screen for keyboard and joystick. There just not saved yet, saving/loading only works for the main graphics options. But if this is not working either, please let me know? It should output to a text file.





Good idea for the race mode!



I will do that. Most of the levels have these, but I guess I forgot to put in desert and temple, lol.



I can increase the panel sizes for these a bit.



This makes sense. I will definitely put this in.



Yeah, I'm not sure on this one, but I've noticed the slow down too. I'm thinking of going light on sprites and particles due to it. Is it A8 or something with the post-processing?



Did the game hang infinitely? Or eventually make it's way back to the main menu. If the latter, it might have just been loading things slowly.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try the onslaught mode and see how it reacts.


As for the online modes:

Yeah I understand that people want to play others. So I like the idea of a persistent posting board. As well, I will add so you see how many are playing, and how many registered. On top of that, I plan to add dedicated server support before release, and run my own server 24/7.

The multiplayer battle is actually the best part of Silas, so I hope everyone tries it on their LAN's, or we make a time to do some gaming.

There is not many playing right now because these boards are the only place I posted the demo. But Silas will be released through some digital distribution services when done. Though I can't say forsure which ones yet.

The bug might be related to the demo mode.
When the "not in demo" popped up, and going back one menu,
the game hang somehow.
It might not come up in the full release.

What I especially like in the UT Onslaught Carcontrol,
was that the camera view was free to move, while still beeing able
to control the car perfectly.
Also look at the time it takes for steering acceleration.
They optimized this part very nicely.

in the flight-mode the camere.arc should be higher, as
the player has to have a broader view than in the
racemode.
Try camera.arc=80; or so
(could be a setting aption too)

Ahhh yeah, this is definitely for the demo. I actually pause the user from hitting buttons when those warnings come up. The final game won't have such warnings.

I'm able to play a game right now if you want? Let me know, and I'll host one.

I can see your game, but can not connect...

k, cool. I'll setup a game.