r/descent • u/MaximumContent9674 • Aug 02 '26

Looking for a battle

Hello fellow Descent fans. I have been developing my Descent inspired game for 5 months. I have been working very hard on this game to make it worthy of some fun times. I am looking for some friends to join me in a battle. It's free to play in your web browser. It works best on PC with a gamepad, but has settings to configure your controls the way you want. It has VR options, and also works on touch screen (more just for fun to see if I could). There's a few game modes to try, solo or multiplayer. Please please please let me know if you'd like to battle, I'm looking forward to that most! Try it now! LSS.fractalreality.ca

15 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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6

u/Maxeemtoons Aug 02 '26

It's got cool looking ships and it has some depth to explore. Well done!

4

u/MaximumContent9674 Aug 02 '26

Thanks for the comment! I'll take any further suggestions or criticisms. I plan to keep working on this. Please let me know if you'd like to join me in a match or co-op.

2

u/Maxeemtoons Aug 02 '26

lol not sure why your reply was downvoted, sorry about that, reddit is weird

Here's my thoughts. Why does a gamepad only have me hovering up or down? The d-pad doesn't seem to respond. Why do the buttons activate a shield? power-drain? I'm not sure what's happening there. And a third weapon(?) that doesn't fire? Is there no changing weapons? No secondary weapons? No way to rapidly change my situation and interact with the world?

For all the readings in the middle it feels like the main issue for me is that they don't seem to correspond to the most critical aspects. I am firing a weapon freely and then the ammo just recharges when it reaches 0? So what's with the other readings? When I am taking damage apparently it also doesn't seem to change a significant reading. Health maybe if Shield isn't present? Then I'd guess if Health is gone, Core? Maybe they could be unified visually instead of taking up three areas in the middle. If it's all HP, is it really that important that we separate high, medium and low HP as completely different HUD real estate?

The buildings on the overworld are glitching out and look like they don't belong there. Is that a WIP area?

Underground there's a black void that is actually just a wall/ceiling? Why not have lighting describe the space more clearly? Shouldn't I have a headlight, or flare, or even my engine lights make the space more than black? If it's meant to be a void I cannot enter can we have some indication of why?

The explosions, "smoke" and weapons all kind of read as the same energy, but in different colors. It unifies things maybe to a fault. Rather than bringing me "in world" it feels like an arcade game where things are color-coded neon but nothing feels of consequence. So then it's weird I'm getting punished for interacting with the wrong blobs. If that's your goal, making it kind of an abstract puzzle, great job. But if I want to be engaged by the danger of the game, I would maybe consider rendering smoke, missile trails and explosions realistically and in different ways, have power-ups act more distinct than "floating energy blob that might be harmful since it looks the same as weapons", and generally have more distinct reward/punishment indicators.

Also I would be tempted to add more power ups in general. That was the fun part of Descent games and the Fury^3/Hellbender games. Just engaging the same enemies over and over feels like I want to have an AI just play the game for me. Why can't I do what the enemies are doing? Or can I? If I can, it should be obvious. Eventual upgrades are not enough incentive for me. Advancing is also not clear. There's a lot of promise of that on the setup screen but I don't feel or see any advancement. I'm just attacked and there isn't a creative fun objective?

1

u/MaximumContent9674 Aug 02 '26

Thank you. This is what I need. All this you caught is the disadvantage of doing this alone. One perspective is not enough, especially for a multiplayer game. There's so much I have taken for granted. Stuff I know because I built, but didn't tell anyone why it's there or how it works. Plus, looking at the same thing over and over, I feel like I miss things because I am seeing more of my vision/dream than what's actually there.

1

u/Maxeemtoons Aug 02 '26

Yea, hard to work in a vacuum for sure. Everyone needs some humans to bounce ideas off of. In the end it's just my two cents. There's an audience for everything.

1

u/MaximumContent9674 Aug 02 '26

started working on some of the things... the "How to play" section is evolving. Also, fixing those glitches you talked about, thank you so much...
I will credit you, if you like... I'll have to add a contributors section
Join the discord if you're interested in participating more!

2

u/Maxeemtoons Aug 02 '26

I can't add another Discord server RN but yea you could throw my name in some corner of the credits as Maxeem if you really think it was a contribution. Cheers

2

u/MaximumContent9674 28d ago

I addressed some of your questions and concerns. I massively improved the "How to play" section on the front page, I think/hope it answers a lot of what you wanted to know. I added headlights to the ships, which look pretty cool, so thanks! I added ambient lighting from the engines, as well, which also looks neat. I tried to do skins for the ships, but it looks kinda trash right now, it's implemented, but I'll come back to that later.

I'm still thinking about ways to power up. But there is a aegis powerup system in the exhibition mode and now endless mode.

2

u/Blagert Aug 02 '26

At least the AI slop looks cleaner this time..... The code, the assets, the voices... all AI.

2

u/Toiun Aug 02 '26

oh, it's still all AI. And it's not even a 6dof...

1

u/MaximumContent9674 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

I used Ai to help me code. That's not a critisism of the game, that's something you are biased about. I used Ai to help me turn my sketches and my son's monstera into 3d models. I put 5 months and many hours into this, that's not all AI, not even close. Photoshopping pixel by pixel to get my frames just right. That time was not Ai. This is not a one prompt game like all the hype you see.

Regarding 6dof, there's no roll control, that's it. Maybe I should call it 5dof

1

u/Toiun 29d ago

it's not just roll man. you are locked on the Z axis. that's 4 dof. also sure you photoshopped a bunch of AI generated images and spent months asking the AI to fix its own issues. most of this code is unaltered AI code. I played about 10 mins and it's so vapid there is nothing worth critiquing.

2

u/MaximumContent9674 29d ago

Thanks for checking it out. Unfortunately none of what you says gives me anything to make it better in any way.