Some Questions and Suggestions

[Ra_influenci]

Just finished my first play of the demo. It took me about 6h. Yes, as a demo it is surely 'absurdly long', and its content is abundant. The world in the game is so lively, and we can see those NPCs have different appearance and character. I’m quite optimistic about this game, and the Kickstarter fund percentage keeps growing fast. Keylocker may be even better than VVTZ, and hopefully it will get popular as it deserves!

I've got some questions and suggestions below. This post may be long, and I'm afraid some of my opinion may be too subjective, or even ridiculous from your perspective, also, I can't say I fully understand everything in the demo, so please pardon me if I made a mistake. Sincerely thank you for your patience!

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questions

1. The world's structure in Saturn
It seems that Saturnians live in a huge tube. The tube was inside the Saturn atmosphere. How is this huge tube placed in Saturn? Does it reach out of the atmosphere so that some part of it is in the space? Does some part of it touches Saturn's core, which is made of rock and ice? Also, where is the place Bobo lives? It seems that Scrapyard Zone are going to be detached from the tube by Titan, their emperor. Is the Scrapyard Zone the lowest part of the tube or highest?

2. The essence of the world
It seems that all the object or weapons are so called 'downloadable', and a giant database is used to govern the society, by operating the database we may control those citizens. What's the essence of the world? Is it based on material, or based on information? If it is based on information, then are they living in something like 'Matrix' in the movie? And where is this huge mainframe located?

3. LP and EP
I still can’t organize some accurate impression about LP and EP. We know that if we want to win a battle, we need to remove enemies’ LP and maintain our own LP. But what’s the use of EP? Is it the same thing like the Purity in VVTZ, which act as the shield that protect damage from Heart or LP, since I found that some skills damaged EP first when it’s high and can damage LP when it’s low? Or it is the energy to launching skills, since some time I can hold Z to consume EP and transform it into some blue bar on LP and make the skill more efficient? What’s that blue bar? Is that the real Purity?

4. Doppelgangers
In the game there is a concept called doppelganger, and Bobo and Dealer seem to be a pair of doppelgangers. What is this actually? Does this ‘doppelganger’ in Keylocker have something to do with ‘Gemini, the Doppelganger’ in VVTZ?

5. Counterattack system
I don’t know how the counterattack works in Keylocker’s battle system. In VVTZ I can forecast whether an enemy or fellow can launch a counterattack by looking at their purity value before getting attacked and their location in the team. But in Keylocker things get quite different. Sometimes enemies or fellows can launch a counterattack when hit while sometimes don’t. I don’t have any ways to judge whether a counterattack can be launched. And sometimes you can even counterattack a counterattack, but I still don’t know how to judge whether this can happen and how can I find the right time and rhythm to launch it.

6. Macross
To be honest, I have no idea what this ‘Macross’ is. Is this word the conjunction of ‘macro’ (macroinstruction) and ‘cross’? It seems that in this world Macross is something like currency. I remember in the demo it said that many people believe that owning more Macross means a better afterlife. Are they believing in some religion? Is this the reason Macross become the currency?

7. Different classes
I still don’t understand what those 4 different classes are. I chose Rocket to be juggernaut and Bobo to be sequencer. Among these four, sequencer doesn’t seem to be a name for a fighter, but the device for arrangement when making music. What’s the difference among these classes?

8. OST
The music suits my favor so accurately! You can always trust Elektrobear! I hope we can get access to the OST album as soon as possible! When is the OST ready? I can’t wait for it!

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Suggestions

1. Map needed
It’s so easy to get lost in such a big area. It’s hard for me to get to the right place without a map. I hope you can add a map system, like blueprints in VVTZ.

2. QTE indicator
The battle in Keylocker is more interesting than that in VVTZ because here you fight in a grid (2d) instead of a line (1d), which gives it more variety. However, I feel something wrong. During the battle. Sometimes fellow’s or enemy’s attack don’t have a QTE indicator, which means sometimes I must carefully investigate their action to judge when to press the key. Sometimes an enemy suddenly move from one side of the screen to another and right after that he cast the spell, which is difficult for me to track him and see his movement or QTE indicator. I hope there is more QTE indicators and other indicators to express characters’ action. Also, I hope the QTE indicators and LP/EP bar is not pixel, but normally animated as those in VVTZ, which will make it easier for players to get accurate information from them.

3, EP generating skills
When we launch EP generating skills, we need to press the direction keys in a certain sequence and frequency decided by QTE indicator and background music. I think maybe you can add more things on it. In the game Bobo cast the spell by playing bass (or guitar? I’m not so sure), and Rocket plays drum. It may look or sound batter if the sound effect they make be more variable. For example, Rocket was hitting a big drum repeatedly when the spell is casting. Actually I’ve learned playing jazz drum for several months, so I feel like if we let Rocket playing jazz drum, and the corresponding sound effect is some drum fills pattern, the EP generating process would be more exciting. On Bobo’s side you can also make some optimization, such as changing the single tune into harmonic chords, or make the tune more attached to the background music. I don’t know if it is hard for you to realize these in the game, I’m just saying what I think is cool.

4. More storage space for milkshake and oil juice
This must be changed! I can only take 3 each of them at the same time! I always use them up in the last boss fight of the demo and it is so damn hard!

5. About the music show minigame
I wonder how long is the judging interval of this minigame, or in other word, how accurate should I press the corresponding key to hit the note? I tried the minigame at the end of the demo, and I don’t feel like the judging interval you set here is appropriate. I always strangely miss some note, especially those hold note, even though I press or hold the button. In expert mode I can only catch 90% of the note. I think maybe you are making the judgement too strict or too short judging interval.
Several years ago, I was a music game lover, mainly playing Cytus and Deemo produced by Rayark. Both games have comparatively long judging intervals (+-175ms for Cytus, and +-120ms for Deemo), and both are on touchscreen devices. In my opinion, such music game on PC should have an even longer judging interval, because pressing the key on keyboard is quite different from touching those note on the touchscreen!

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Those above are temporarily what I want to say. I can’t assure that all these arguments are constructive enough, but I still hope you can take some of them seriously. Thank you for your reading!

[Nana7]

Hello, Rain and Fluency!
Thank you so much for your extended support on waiting for Keylocker, playing the demo and by further supporting us on Kickstarter, it means a lot! I'm quite optimistic about the campaign too, I hope we reach our goal asap!

Oh my god, 6 hours is pretty long indeed! I assumed it would be 3 hours long, so I can say we'll probably have to reduce this demo to cover maybe only the prologue when the game is out, or something like that! xD Also, don't ever be afraid to speak up your opinions about this game or any of our games, we are open to feedback and endorse it! We are currently on a experimental phase with Keylocker, seeing what people think and where we can improve. The demo and people's feedbacks about it helps a lot with that.

First off I'd like to say, finally, someone commenting on the story, thank you so much! This makes me very happy since this is probably the hardest I've worked on lore for a story of mine lol and as I always say to myself, if it makes a little impact to even only one person, that's what matters the most to me! XD

1. The world's structure in Saturn
The TUBE currently does not reach the atmosphere layer of Saturn. That's the Satellites' goal as of now! The TUBE used to have a section for Saturn's core, but once the Satellites detatched the Rocky/Icey core section from the tube, it was further propelled upwards, entering orbit, and the TUBE now has no access to that section that was abandoned. As some Pioneer in Circuit Barricade East says and I quote:

"The people of the ice core forgotten as we walk on streets paved by their corpses."

The Scrapyard Zone is the current lowest part of the tube, where Bobo lives!

2. The essence of the world
Yes, that is correct, the "giant database" you mentioned being the Keybase Network. There are two essences, one is material and the other is based on information, the only difference from Keylocker's world to our world is that the information layer (Keybase Network) can control people's existences in their real world. If someone is permanently deleted from the Keybase Network, they'll die, and they won't die from normal means like "being shot", because a copy of them will still be stored on the Keybase Network, here a quote from Bobo about this (talking to a Grumbler Kid):

"If you die I'll just log up your data on the keybase network and bring you back!"


3. LP and EP

LP = Your life, can be hit directly by life attacks (your LEFT skill and your counter-attack). EP = Electric Attacks (UP skill) and Electric Retaliation (after a successful parry following an OK or PERFECT at the rhythm sequence for Electric Defense, the DOWN skill) deal damage to EP before dealing damage to LP. This is a constant for you and for enemies. You can spend EP to power up Life Attacks and Life Defenses. They deal/protect more damage depending on how much you charged it.

The light Blue bar is Armor, which works pretty much like Virgo's purity, in which you counter-attack when enemies hit you when you have Armor up. Life Defenses (your RIGHT skill) can charge more armor, but every life defense has a base-armor value that is added regardless of how much EP you had. Armor that was left on you by the time of a counter attack is converted into bonus damage for your counter.

Hope that makes it all clearer!

4. Doppelgangers

The Doppelgangers are twins born at the exact time, created in lab, each is born to serve one of the zones, Bobo and Dealer are from Scrapyard Zone, as well as Ivy and Ophelia, Simon and Yu, Patricia and Gordon etc. There are many in the demo. They don't exactly look alike, because the Doppelgangers in the Scrapyard Zone are sort of...defective, let's say. There are two types of living people in Saturn: Organics and Inorganics, organics being like the Grumblers, Vultures and those Octopus people you can see from the Juggernaut prison, they came in from the hydrogen layer. The Inorganic need electricity to keep on living, those are the "people" of the scrappyard and the robots.
Before, Humans existed, but they were extinguished due to an event that will be discussed later on the game. Doppelgangers are made in the image of these humans, created to occupy the society that was developed by the efforts of these humans and the Satellites.

Yes, it has to do with Gemini, even the Save Dinosaur works for her. You'll have to play the full game to discover the rest!


5. Counter-Attack system

It's the same method as virgo, really. If you have any amount of Armor (light blue bar on top of your LP pink bar), you will Counter-Attack enemies if you got a Perfect/OK or Block when they attacked you.
Enemies will Counter-Attack you even if you get Perfect hits on them, if they have the light blue bar on top of their LP pink bar. The only difference in Keylocker is that all Counter-Attack stats (damage, effects applied, range, cooldown, etc) are defined by the single item equipped in the Life Defense (RIGHT slot) instead of the counter-turn from Virgo.

You can counter-attack enemy counters if you had Armor on by the time you got hit by an enemy counter-attack but the timing is really strict as counters have less wind-up frames.


6. Macross

A Macro in programming would be a "big" block of code that can be expanded from a small sequence of characters, making the work for programmers easier by using these macros to code. Since the currency in Keylocker is connected to the Keybase Network and to the Church of the Hum, these monetary blocks (nicknamed macros because of the programming term), are controled by the Church Of The Hum, worshipers of the whale, that named the currency "Macross", Macro + Cross. So yes, the people saying that are believers of the Church Of The Hum, who think that music is sacred and shouldn't be used by civilians (hence Bobo's nickname, as sinner).


7. Different classes
I selected that name (Sequencer) because of the device, since I thought it sounded cool and it related to music! In the end, the Sequencer creates sequences of melodies using timed-hit Sequences and it's the class with the biggest arrangement of instruments in the game, so that's it!

The difference between each class, in the demo, is:

At the start, each class begins with different items equipped:
Juggernaut has a Life Attack Axe and an Electric Defense Guitar, they can find Life Defense Shoes in the Prison.
Samurai has a Life Defense Sword and an Electric Attack Guitar and are gifted a Life Attack Sword early.
Hacker has a Life Attack Glove and an Electric Attack Guitar and can find an Electric Defense Guitar.
Sequencer has a Life Defense Hammer and an Electric Defense Guitar, and can find the Electric Attack guitar.

the missing fourth item can be bought later on if you get a nice deal from Dealer.

Each class has a different Talent Tree, which is shaped the same but has entirely exclusive talents. Talents include: Weapon unlocks, Stat boosts, Active Effects (buffs, debuffs, equippable on your items) and Passive Effects.
Later on you can pick a secondary class to compliment the first. Both their talents trees will be available to add points to.


Outside of battle, classes have some differences as well, such as different events and quests. In the demo the Hacker can hack in some vending machines and robots. In the full game other classes will have their own specific world interactions as well.

8. OST

Thank you for your kind words! Elektrobear is sure to be happy when listening to this! Right now we have part of the demo soundtrack available for free to listen on Soundcloud[soundcloud.com].
The full OST will be available for everyone when the full game launches!

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1. Map needed
Yes, this will be added ASAP! A map system was already planned and will be present in the full game, a bit more robust than the one from Virgo.

2. QTE indicator
Yes, we will add the QTE indicator, but only on the Soft Punk mode! We believe the experience can be further enhanced in Keylocker by looking directly at the enemy's animations. We can work on having things be more consistent however, and we will keep an eye on this. We will continue to update this demo as we further improve on this, so feel free to come back and check the demo again in the future and check our updates for it.

3, EP generating skills

This sounds like a fun idea, I'll talk with our sound design guy!

4. More storage space for milkshake and oil juice

Eventually you'll come across rare items that will upgrade your storage space of battle consumables. In the demo you can find some of those already!
I also highly advise for you to use Cherry Bombs while playing as a Sequencer at the prison!

5. About the music show minigame

Veyerals, who programs this minigame is looking into your feedback as we speak!

Thank you so much for your feedback, it's valid, and we know it comes from a place of love for the game! Feel free to always share your opinions here!

[Sun Hat]

wow, this is like the most useful thread I've seen so far.
I tried finishing the demo as musician class in hard punk while ultimately still hazy on what charging does. Overdrive also took me by surprise until I read the whole skilltree.

Really have a mix feeling on counter stacking for both sides in this game though.

Both having a counter ready but doing another action (for example when musician class hammer counter is still up for many turns because the enemy is stalling)
or when countering a counter which sometimes made things strange like not having enough armor or lp to survive perfect timed prompt twice in the row. These applies to both sides.

The everlasting counter on either side really make the game very lopside on eating the risk on counters.

[RexxorVT]

Originally posted by Nana:

hey dev i just wanted to say .. aww man it seem i was too late for commenting about the game .. i wanna say that i finish playing the demo took me 3 hour to finish it and i just want to say like he said but i was late for the review :3 but i really enjoy the game about the fighting and story line and songs looking forward on the official release game ...

[Nana7]

Originally posted by Rexxor:

Originally posted by Nana:

hey dev i just wanted to say .. aww man it seem i was too late for commenting about the game .. i wanna say that i finish playing the demo took me 3 hour to finish it and i just want to say like he said but i was late for the review :3 but i really enjoy the game about the fighting and story line and songs looking forward on the official release game ...

Thank you so much for your kind words, I hope you will enjoy the full game as well!

Originally posted by Sun Hat:

wow, this is like the most useful thread I've seen so far.
I tried finishing the demo as musician class in hard punk while ultimately still hazy on what charging does. Overdrive also took me by surprise until I read the whole skilltree.

Really have a mix feeling on counter stacking for both sides in this game though.

Both having a counter ready but doing another action (for example when musician class hammer counter is still up for many turns because the enemy is stalling)
or when countering a counter which sometimes made things strange like not having enough armor or lp to survive perfect timed prompt twice in the row. These applies to both sides.

The everlasting counter on either side really make the game very lopside on eating the risk on counters.

We are currently working on improving tutorial for classes as well as general tutorials about the game. I believe explaining overdrive could come a bit later than in the prologue zone to avoid too much information exposure. I believe maybe we could add more information for charge there, thank you for the feedback!

Currently we are also changing the AI for the enemies in the sequencer class as well, to better teach the classes' mechanics.