#Helpthedevs - My first experience, and changes that NEED to be made :)

[MrJBeetle]

Hello developers. Thank you for allowing me to play your game. I'm putting together a video of my gameplay footage for my Let's Play channel, but first I have a list of things that are gamebreaking and will severely hinder your EA funding if they aren't fixed. Some might have been mentioned, but I'll just tell you my experience.

First, I feel like the game starts off too slowly. There are times where I'm just waiting for the ball to come back. This might have something to do with my last point.

Secondly, the menu system isn't intuitive. The main menu works with the mouse, the pause menu only works with the arrow keys. It's just a hodge podge of partial compatibility across controller and mouse/keyboard. The player 1-4 part of the menu is confusing too because it's under the gamemode selection yet is required to continue to story mode (I'd assume if no players were selected, it'd be singleplayer). It all works, and I can get to the game...but the journey to get there just doesn't make sense.

Thirdly, the ghost/phantom ball feature is annoying but more importantly, it makes my real ball disappear so that even when I lose all the fake balls, I'm stuck and it won't give me a new real ball.

Fourth, the dialog makes very little sense. It's English, sure, but it's not cohesive at all. It almost sounds like Google Translator. (This isn't too big of a deal because if I remember correctly, your native tongue isn't English...also Early Access)

Lastly and most noticeably, the physics are very inconsistent most of the time, and too consistent other times. The ball will speed up crazy faster after hitting a wall, or it'll slow to a crawl...so I'll just be sitting there waiting for the ball to return as it floats around When I get the video together, it'll be clearer what I mean by this, but every time I've stopped playing was because I either lost my ball because it went out of bounds, or the ball gets stuck in a continuous loop that never allows me to hit it with my paddle. Because there's no reset button for the round (or even a forfeit button), I have to start the game over from whereever it decides to let me.

This all might sound harsh, but I don't mean it to be. It's been ages since I've played a Breakout clone, and I'd love to enjoy this one. The look and sound of the game is great (though the announcements might be a bit loud and are probably placeholders), and I really like the powerups and debuffs aspect of the game. So keep it up, and I hope I didn't discourage anybody.

[Kenshiro]

Thank you very much for your feedback! All the info you provided are with the team and we working on it!

[Kenshiro]

Also if you want to give us more feedback via email that would be great! Please email us at [e-mail] so we can help you more direct. Also this email can be used for other gamers who bought Nanos and would love to give feedback

[Whiterabbit-uk]

To the developer: I've also posted a short review but you've not replied to it yet. I've had problems with the ball disappearing and also sticking to the edge of the arena. Another problem is if you position the bat directly beneath the greatest concentration of bricks you can release the ball and it will bounce back vertically and in the case of the first level, you don't even need to move the bat becasue the ball continues to move up and down vertically untill all of the balls are destroyed. of course moving the bat slightly will casue the ball to veer off; however, in virtually every breakout/arkanoid game I've ever played (I have well over two hundred commercial breakouts and at least the same number of freeware and adandonware titles in my collection), the ball always veers off at an angle, even from the mid point of the bat.

Overall I know I'm going to love this game. i like the unusual arena shape, which makes trying to judge where the ball is going to go harder; i also like the overall design.

suggestions:

• ... Change the bat physics so that the ball veers off at an angle at any point on the bat
  
• ... Include different shaped balls which will add even more possibiliteis with respect to ball angles
  
• ... Include a level editor so that we can create our own levels. If you included a page on your web site where the community could share these levels, you may get something as successful as ricochet Infinity - We may even get a workshop section here on Steam.
  
• ... Create more arena shapes, not just the one used a tthe moment, including the traditional square/oblong arena;s. A round one would be nice.
  
• ... Possiblt include some 3D tables. i've never seen a breakout game that uses both 2D and 3D tables, so this would add something really different.
  
• ... Add more power ups and allow the player to be able to configure the game to use specific power ups. This would enable much more replayability as you could play each level over and over but use different combinations of power ups.
  
• ... I nclude secret levels that can only be accessed with certain combinations of power ups and brick combinations.
  
• ... If you did include an editor, also incude the ability to design own brick shapes
  
• ... Include more varieties of brick shapes

I'm really looking forwards to seeing this game develop. We don;t see many breakouts released these days. They have always been one of my favorite arcade genres.

[Itchy]

Hey guys! First off, we'd like to thank you once again for taking the time to send us your feedback. Your dedication is very motivational, and we hope to stay worthy of your support.

Now, I'd like to share some information on what we have been doing since NANOS entered the Early Access stage, and comment on some of the feedback we've received.

One of the main things we've been working on is taking care of the bugs we (and you) have encountered during gameplay. Things like physics, balls going out of bounds, and the seemingly random slowdowns/speedups after the ball hits a wall.
Aside from that, we've added some more visual effects to make the effects of power-ups/downs/tricks visible on the player's craft.
We are currently working towards creating a test build. Once we're done, we will make the update available to the community.

We're looking into reducing the amount of time it takes for a ball to return to the players, as the amount of time the ball simply bounces back and forth between boundaries is evidently too long.
To do this we want to make alternative versions of the playing field, which the player will be able to choose from when setting up a custom party-mode game. This is currently still in the concept phase, but we will ask for your feedback once we have something to show you.

Because of your feedback we will also make adjustments to the main menu, to improve the layout and screenflow. This will be an on-going process and we hope to receive more feedback on this.

I hope this post gives some insight into what we've been working on and what we are planning to do in the near future.
Of course, this is not all we have in store for you, so keep an eye out for any new info as we progress through the Early Access stage of development.

[Kwama57]

My first glaring issue...

400 to 1000 FPS...

GPU usage, heating at 60+ degrees because NO V-SYNC...

It can NOT be forced in the NVIDIA control panel, it does not apply on this game executable for some unknown reason.

I could only limit the frames to 58-60 using the NVIDIA Inspector program, but still my GPU (970) is overheating for this game at 50+ degrees, even after this setting.

Aside from this technical issue, I find the game very generic, but the price is right, and it is in early access, fair enough for now.

Thank you, good luck and best work on completing the game's development.

[Kenshiro]

Thank you for your feedback and my apologies for the late reply. I will inform the team and we need to fix this issue for everyone!

[rosgar]

I'd like to echo the comments above regarding the excessive heat issues that this game creates, despite having a well cooled system this hits higher temperatures than any other game I own (and there's a lot of them).
For now sadly this will go on the sidelines until this issue is fixed, as my computer is worth far more to me than one, albeit very interesting looking, game. Sorry!

[G.I.Bill]

Originally posted by Whiterabbit-uk:

Another problem is if you position the bat directly beneath the greatest concentration of bricks you can release the ball and it will bounce back vertically and in the case of the first level, you don't even need to move the bat becasue the ball continues to move up and down vertically untill all of the balls are destroyed. of course moving the bat slightly will casue the ball to veer off; however, in virtually every breakout/arkanoid game I've ever played (I have well over two hundred commercial breakouts and at least the same number of freeware and adandonware titles in my collection), the ball always veers off at an angle, even from the mid point of the bat.

Hmm, I don't know about this, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. In all the Breakout clones I've played, including early ones like the original arcade version of Breakout, and the Atari 2600 version, the angle that the ball bounces off the paddle is a direct function of the angle it was already moving and the spot it hits on the paddle. Generally, the closer to the center it hits, the straighter it goes, so you do have control over the direction it bounces off by where you choose to hit it.

In other words, there shouldn't be any significant randomness involved, unless you are suggesting just a very small amount so it won't be exactly 100% straight, in which case I'd agree. You shouldn't be able to just position the paddle and have it bounce perfectly back and forth, but you still should have a great degree of control by where you choose to have the ball hit the paddle.

This is all probably a moot point, since I there don't appear to have been any updates for this game for quite a while.

[al-X]

@G.I.Bill: I think he just means when you launch the ball, not every bounce.

@Devs: Now, I'm guessing the focus of this game is multiplayer, and it could well be enjoyable then. Unfortunately, I don't have people to play with,so I'm trying to play single player, and I gave up after 10 minutes due to tedium.

As has previously been said, the ball often ends up bouncing around on it's own with little input from the player. This is due to the playfield having angles that can bounce the ball away from the player. The main ways to fix this would be: Change the playfield, have the ball speed up with each non-paddle bounce or give the player multiple paddles. I've seen other mechanics, but they fundamentally alter the game.

Another annoying bug is that even when you push the paddle all the way to one side, there is still enough room for the ball to pass between the paddle and the barrier. This happened twice in my 10 minutes of playing.

[Karoll]

Originally posted by Kenshiro:

Thank you for your feedback and my apologies for the late reply. I will inform the team and we need to fix this issue for everyone!

hey, sorry for a very late reply. but I'm unable to leave comments on your profile. I have question about Nanos. I hope you don't mind.