amber vessel
So im probably not going to get to play much more before the beta ends, so il throw my groups thoughts up.
Amazing aesthetic, great design and great ambient audio. we enjoyed the experience of testing what was available, we bet it as a 3 man and we where so close to beating it as a 2 man. Both my teammates don't generally like deck building or turn-based games however they loved this. That being said there where a few issues we faced, all of which minor in the grand scheme of it
Softlocks
1- Every other time we loaded in as a 3 man there was no option to play a card, it happened to infrequently to attempt to replicate it so i didn't bring it up, but it happened enough to not bring it up. (possibly the characters that where chosen or the game on the host side not recognizing the intro was skipped)
2- not actually a soft lock but the potential to be. I was wounded and charecter model overlapped with the background wall (the bookcase in the library). When i was revived, i stood up in the hallway behind the hidden door meaning i had to use a move, not a game breaking issue, but if it had clipped my character out anywhere else it would have been an issue.
Gui issues
Sometimes the cards would fail to come up when hovered over. They where however, they always visible and playable in this instances. Sometimes this would be resolved by ending turn, but others not.
Gameplay issues
Both issues have been mentioned several times, but movement and fighting.
1- movement was hit and miss, a combination of keyboard and mouse feel like it worked very well. wasd didn't always work right after clicking and would sometimes take multiple key touches to get your character moving, and while using wasd, you would come to a full stop rather than moving in the same direction. (this might be intentional, I'm not sure.)
2- Fight was also hit and miss. While I enjoyed it, and felt I could use the movement against the enemies to give teammates time to prepare in turns, and visa versa. It was irritating that the turn-based elements went out the window (turn based may have been my misconception)
Finally my issues, and this is a silly one and i apologies, the map.
1- I wish the map was torn or something where the play area for the beta ends, I about 10 minutes trying to find ways into different areas.
2- interactables. Maybe I missed something completely, however the desk and the pressure pads disappoint didn't lead to anything, maybe you need a full team to find the answer but in a team of 2 there wasn't anything to gain from these.
Sugestions
1- non static seal locations. This was probably due to it being the beta and wanting us to get a good experience of everything, but I don't think the exact same items should be available in the exact same location every round. The only place I feel static locations should be a thing is in the ruins, I also think there should be an seal available for every party member the loads in , ie a 2 player group has 1 each available to them, 5 loads in have 5 seals available ect
2- I know I mentioned this already but a back to main menu option or even booting you back into the lobby you had creaded prior. This was the only irritating part of the beta for me. Dying and having to launch the game again rather than just loading into a new lobby or having to make a new one.
Overall we really enjoyed it, were really looking forward to the launch, and if there's any more potential closed betas coming up we would love to help out 🙂
brave stream