Thoughts on the Jan 30th 2025 playtest version

[dn]

Tactical Warfare playtest review

First thoughts

I feel that the game as it is, while mostly feature complete, does not feel finished.
Performance needs to be addressed. The game is lagging (~20FPS) against 5 cpus, where my CPU has a 25% load, 35% load on GPU, and 100% of ram used (16GB). There is clearly a memory management issue. In this condition, the game is not pleasant to play. Edit: I forgot to check if it was properly using processor threads, but I would assume not, in which case it would explain the low cpu usage.
Also, it needs a bit more time to iron out the bugs and finalize the sound and visuals. I understand the usage of AI gen for 2D art and audio, but makes me feel like it currently has a bunch of cheap placeholder stuff.
The mission narrative, while not bad, has some distracting elements, such as the narration talking to the player and the delayed camera movements which seem to be waiting for a timer to finish so the next stuff can happen.
The skirmish maps feel unbalanced.
The menus feel very inconsistent in terms of visuals.
I honestly hope the release date is pushed to allow for more work on the game.

Now, some scattered notes

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MAIN MENU

General concerns

The usage of AI art is very obvious. It makes it fell cheap and careless.

Main menu

Positive points
Background video is an interesting choice.

To improve
Menu on top left is a weird choice.
Font choice does not fit into aesthetics.
"Load" button could be "greyed out" (inactive) if there are no saved games.
When windows open in front of the main menu, it looks like the video is still playing in the background, eating resources for no gain.
The "click" sound on mouse over seems to not trigger for all buttons when moving the mouse over them.

Load Screen

To improve
Big "X" button for going back instead of the "back" menu like in the settings window.
Lack of consistency in the window border compared to settings menu.
Window animates during opening but not on closing like on "Campaigns" window.

Campaigns Screen

Positive points
Darkened previews of next missions look good.
Being able to see the full length of the campaign is also appreciated.

To improve
Preview images look AI generated.
Lack of consistency in "Start" and "Back" buttons compared to other screens.
"Terrans" and "Assarlions" improvements look pixelated and downsized.
"Assarlions" description lacks a space after comma.

Multiplayer Screen

* I have not played a multiplayer game.

To improve
Way too long loading screen for another menu. Could be done in the same scene.
Again, lack of consistency in button colours and effects.

Skirmish Screen

Positive points
Spawn points are easy to spot and identify.

To improve
Rather use "Random" instead of "?????" for team selection.
Drop the "Enemy" of the difficult settings caption. Easy, Medium and Hard are enough.
With multiple computer enemies, the loading reaches 100% in a few seconds, but takes 10x longer to actually reach the game.
Do we really need to put a name on skirmish?

Settings Screen

To improve
Visual identity completely different from main menu.
Weird spacing, maybe too much space between items.
Abstract quality preview images are not representative: either leave it as text or put a larger image with real in-game screenshots.
Music controller does not update music volume on the menu in real time.
Sounds and voice sliders does not have preview.
Camera speed value does not update in menu, and value looks arbitrary.
Controls key caption looks way to big compared to its label.
Lack of consistency in button colouring (click action) between Settings and Keybindings, and also the back button.

IN-GAME

"Game Manual"

Positive points
Very good usage of video footage to display the tutorial.

To improve
The background texture of the game manual window does not tile correctly in the horizontal axis.
The "mouse over" color of the arrow buttons is too dark and clashes with the background.
Item 4 talks about how to "deploy" a unit, but it does not explain what "deploy" means here.
The "Nuclear attack" video takes a bit too long to showcase the action.
Tutorial does not explain how to rotate buildings before placing them (if that action is available)

Controls

To improve
An option to invert the direction of the camera movement when dragin with the middle mouse button would be nice.

Gameplay

Positive points

Min, Max and default camera distance are really good.
Building is fast, which encourages fast gameplay.
Fog of war looks very smooth and reveals nicely. I would consider a second fog of war to hide areas far from my units.

Improvements

The perspective camera angle is too low. It should either be set higher or be adjustable.
It is not trivial to "grid align" buildings. A grid/guide would be helpful.
A background option for the construction menu would help distinguish the menu from the background action. Without a clear distinction, the right hand side of the screen looks "busy"
The "DE Cube" amount of credits will show off-screen if the cube is at the top. It should display inside the game viewport.
It is quite hard to see where the units will be deployed from the factory/barracks on max zoom out distance. Idealy the line would be consistent regardless of zoom level.
Since it's possible to send a unit anywhere in the map, right-clicking the map should send the unit there, without needing to move the camera and click on the terrain.
The helicopter sound is very loud, so is the misile silo construction. Sound levels should be normalized.
It is a bit immersion breaking that the edges of the map are black. Ideally they would extend off-screen.
The edges of the map can be blocked using environment, like water and hills.
Asking the unit to move beyond the map, makes it move to elsewhere in the map.
Color of cliffs is too different from the ground they're in. It's fine if they're different, but not so much.
Putting a construction on hold could trigger the build of the next structure, otherwise it's hardly justifiable to "hold" a construction.
Also, once on hold, the button action should change to "Resume" or similar.
Deployable units, like the Iron Behemoth, once deployed, should display the action of "undeploy" instead of keeping it as "deploy".
Trees and vegetation look very "2D" compared to the rest of the elements in the level.
The Missile Marauder is awkwardly large, and the mesh clips through other ships.
Herculeanhauler should have a "deploy at location" action.
The voice over will say "unit ready" for each soldier. Since the deployment time is short, she spams unit ready way to often. A cooldown for the same unit type should be considered.
Trying to move a unity to a cliff, cancels its movement. Ideally it would move them to a valid location closest to the clicked point.
It is shown that Engineers can "get into" "DE Cubes", but they just stand next to it.
Right after starting a skirmish match against 5 cpus, fog of war seem to be cleared in many spots even before I have any units.

Bugs

A helicopter I built disappeared from the map. I saw another fly outside the playable area, forever gone.
The "Select All" functionality is not working does not seem to work on skirmish without CPUs.
Targetting friendly units does not seem to cause damage.
Loaders does not respect your choice of resources. Selecting a resource will trigger them to move to whatever resource they choose.
Hovering the mouse on trees will display a random unit name, like "Skyhawk" or "Tank".
Once started the research process on the investment center, it will not stop even at max level.
Shield Frigate weapons does not seem to work.
Herculeanhauler can land at the same spot as tanks and units.
Narrator will spam "unit lost" for each lost unit. If a bunch is killed in nuke, she will talk multiple times.
When selecting multiple soldiers (10+), upon selecting a destination to move to, sometimes, not all units will move to that location (if you click on a tree for example). Curiously, they might also move one at a time, instead of all at once.
One of the CPUs built a marine structure even when I disabled it before entering the skirmish.
Camera movement seems to be somehow tied to framerate, in which case, if a stutter happens while you're moving it, it will teleport to somewhere far.

Units

To improve

In general, performing action switch multiple different units at the same time triggers them all to say their "move" lines, making it loud and annoying.

Selecting and re-selecting a unit multiple times prompts them to say "Yes sir" over and over, the voice line could be more randomised.
Some voices lacks the audio filter for "radio" style chatter that other units like the Scout Rover has.
It feels a bit weird that some units have a different accent.
Selecting the engineer and right-clicking on the ground makes them move to somewhere unknown in the map.

Campaign Gameplay

First mission of [Terrans]

The Intro and the entire first mission plays out very laggy on ultra, very high, and high settings. Weirdly enough, it was not laggy on skirmish even with many units. The lag is not a stable low framerate, but a "hickup" ever few frames, which indicates to me that this is not necessarily a render issue, but something that happens at intervals.
Sounds accumulate and plays very loudly.
The hero unit talks awkwardly to the player, which breaks immersion again. Ideally, they would be talking to someone in their comms, and this someone would be giving instructions and updates about the battle field.
At the end of the mission, after the lasers destroy the base, the screen flashes quickly. Be very careful because this trigger seizure in some individuals and can be life threatening.

After cutscene, it is unclear how the main character is still alive after the base was destroyed by the lasers.
Engineers can't capture the factory or dynoforce. It was only capturable after Jack Dakota cutscene and destroying the dynoforce and loaders.
Jack Dakota destroyed a group of soldiers, but kill count shows "2".

Now after the mission ended, it became clear that it was a prologue. It was not clear from the start.

I have not played other missions yet.

Edit: formatting