Landscape is very confusing!

[UK_John]

The whole landscape is a maze. I am spending so much time finding out which way I can go, and how I can get to a new area. Like another player in the forum, I couldn't find out how to get the telescope, only to find out the way to get to it is very convoluted! I think this is a 15-hour game, with an added 10-hours spending time how to move around the map! Quite frustrating really.

[Brutallion]

I presume you're a younger fella, but I just wanted to say the whole point of this project is to put you back in the seat of a gamer loading up your stack of floppys for your B drive and part of that experience was difficult to navigate systems. It's not an oversight; that much I can guarantee.

[C-zom]

Left clicking anywhere on the map will auto-route you to it, even through the fog of war. It's a handy way to learn how the tiles layer into each other. Eventually, it'll come naturally to you and you'll mix between wasd for control and lmb for distance pathing in no time.

A good tip is if you can see it but you can click it and don't move, it has a particular way "in" you need to solve. E.G: Grip marks on stone for an athletics check or rope item. Holding shift will reveal all interactables, too.

[Puff Crouton]

It's even more frustrating and awkward in combat - at night and even in daytime on some terrains... It's hard to see where the characters are on the battlefield, you want to click an enemy to see its info but you can't find him and click next to him and it makes your character move there which spoils the fight for you... and so on. Very awkward.

[Noordelijke Ziel]

Imagine what it was like playing in the 80s and 90s... this is a vast improvement on that.

[daveyd]

Originally posted by doq2r:

It's even more frustrating and awkward in combat - at night and even in daytime on some terrains... It's hard to see where the characters are on the battlefield, you want to click an enemy to see its info but you can't find him and click next to him and it makes your character move there which spoils the fight for you... and so on. Very awkward.

You right click to see an enemy's info and left click to move / attack so I'm not understanding the problem you're having.

[MilesMk1]

I don't really mind the landscape, except for the weird blue... shadows... mists? I'm not 100% sure what they're supposed to be, and I wish I could turn them off.

[khamsun]

I didn't mind it for the most part, except ship navigation was a bit annoying due to the (intentional?) lack of color-coded water tiles.

[johngreenart]

Originally posted by MilesMk1:

I don't really mind the landscape, except for the weird blue... shadows... mists? I'm not 100% sure what they're supposed to be, and I wish I could turn them off.

You can! Turn off "weather effects" in the settings (this will turn off other weather like rain, though, just FYI.)
I'd actually love an option to turn off the fog/mist/clouds *just* during combat. I like the atmosphere when exploring, but during battles those clouds just block the action.

[UK_John]

Originally posted by C-zom:

Left clicking anywhere on the map will auto-route you to it, even through the fog of war. It's a handy way to learn how the tiles layer into each other. Eventually, it'll come naturally to you and you'll mix between wasd for control and lmb for distance pathing in no time.

A good tip is if you can see it but you can click it and don't move, it has a particular way "in" you need to solve. E.G: Grip marks on stone for an athletics check or rope item. Holding shift will reveal all interactables, too.

This is not correct. You cannot click on "anywhere", you can only click where you have previously been to.

[Darke]

Originally posted by UK_John:

This is not correct. You cannot click on "anywhere", you can only click where you have previously been to.

You can click where you've 'seen', and if there's no direct route there, the game will route you through the dark areas you haven't seen yet. IMO it's a bit of a bug, but still it's there so there's actually no need to have been somewhere before to get there again.

[Bodipy]

Everyone saying "oh it was even worse in the 80s and 90s" - no, I was playing games like this back then and the navigation was never this frustrating. This game has so much potential, but the insane challenge of getting from one place to another - especially outdoors - made progression so slow that I've just given up. I keep checking back to see if any updates have fixed this, but no luck so far.

[Dire Wombat]

Originally posted by Bodipy:

Everyone saying "oh it was even worse in the 80s and 90s" - no, I was playing games like this back then and the navigation was never this frustrating.

Yeah, the issue is that they gave themselves old-school constraints on resolution but tried to add in more modern graphical 2.2D perspective, shadows, "atmosphere", etc, instead of the straightforward tiles & clean sprites & fonts of the Gold Box & early Ultima games. It just doesn't work very well with the low resolution. Combat especially is way too muddled.

[qwert_44643]

Originally posted by daveyd:

Originally posted by doq2r:

It's even more frustrating and awkward in combat - at night and even in daytime on some terrains... It's hard to see where the characters are on the battlefield, you want to click an enemy to see its info but you can't find him and click next to him and it makes your character move there which spoils the fight for you... and so on. Very awkward.

You right click to see an enemy's info and left click to move / attack so I'm not understanding the problem you're having.

I didnt know that thanks for the info.

[qwert_44643]

Originally posted by Bodipy:

Everyone saying "oh it was even worse in the 80s and 90s" - no, I was playing games like this back then and the navigation was never this frustrating. This game has so much potential, but the insane challenge of getting from one place to another - especially outdoors - made progression so slow that I've just given up. I keep checking back to see if any updates have fixed this, but no luck so far.

Damn that what i was thinking to

[Acid Bath]

I am one of those old school gamers that had to switch floppies on my Amiga 500 and even remember the tape days vaguely but I can't stand a game with no auto mapping. I am too old to waste time drawing maps with pencil and paper so don't give me that nostalgia excuse. There is good nostalgia which this game hits on a lot but the no auto map feature put me off.