Rionon: The Search for the Stone Statue - Disintegration Games

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What should you do when being a hero is the worst choice you could ever make?


https://vimeo.com/104680990



Stuck in poverty at the edge of the Southern Desert, young Joshua dreams of a life that doesn't involve dry bread in his stomach and dirt in his hair. From the closed gates of his home village of Corinth he can see the the glistening city of Urusalim, capital of Rionon on the horizon. If only those gates were opened...

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But a young man's fortunes can change on a whim.

Long revered by the nation as a symbol of strength and prosperity, (at least, for those who know prosperity) the Stone Statue is an important relic that sits in the front of Priesas Turtas, the fabled home of the High Priest of Rionon. Until, one night it simply vanished. All signs point to a mysterious cult named Pax Christi who constantly talk about a dead man named Jesus, Whom they insist is alive. But now, they've gone strangely silent, and have disappeared.

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While the nation grieves the loss of their beloved icon, you, young Joshua, see an opportunity: with the priests and public desperate to bring the Statue home, they're willing to pay any price to see it put back in Urusalim. Will you be the one to find it, and bring the cult to justice? What if you learn along the way that in life, there are some things simply not worth being a hero for?


Rionon's huge open world, brought to your OUYA

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Explore miles of desert, forest, mountains and tundra in your quest to locate the cult, who always seem one step ahead of you. Delve into foreboding caverns and sprawling dungeons in your effort to wrest the Statue from their grasp in this epic first person adventure inspired by the Biblical book of Acts. Try to survive as you face danger in the form of wild beasts, powerful mages, and evil spectres all trying to send you to an early grave. But in all of this, will you make the right decisions, to know when to fight, and when to put down your sword? Because in Rionon, not everyone who seems your enemy is out to get you...

Ok, like I promised I tried the game and while it feels great to have such an open world title on the OUYA there are some things that should be fixed / improved upon before one can actually enjoy this game.
This is all an honest opinion and meant as constructive criticism.

Mainly three things bother me:
1. Framerate
2. Interface
3. Controls / Movement

1. For the fps I think I had something between a stable 5 - 8 frames, which is just not enough to go unnoticed. 30 would probably be optimal for a game like this, but even 20 can be forgiving.
Are you rendering the game in 1080p? You should try going down to 720p, it's less then half the pixels and should speed up the game noticably. If it already is 720p, consider loewering it a bit more. I don't think texture size is a problem. Maybe adjust the view distance a little more. I know this is difficult cause you want to show your vast world, but framerate right now is more important.

2. While the font size is usually fine, and I think the main HUD has good size, I don't think the blue font color is working out cause it's hard to read. I'd rather have white with dark dropshadow or a black border.
Readability is more important than visuals. At some places I feel the font sizes vary too much. Try to keep them about the same, at least on one screen, other screens may vary.
Sometimes there are these Android Alert windows, "The wind is too strong to continue on this path" (or something) has teeny tiny font which is very hard to read. Either increase the font size or make an own alert type window.

I have a really hard time reading the maps and other screens with text on them. The text ist sometimes cut off. There's the issue of either overscan or the images not being displayed correctly. I tried different settings on my TV screen but don't know if that works that way with overscan.
Also it's hard to read the names of buildings on the map. If the map is black and white, the text canNOT be black as well, unless it has enough contrast with the background. (Like a rather wide blurred white dropshadow) or a border. Readability over visuals is the key here.
Maybe you could disable the main HUD when you switch to the maps (and inventory?), you don't really need them there and they obscure the map making it harder to read.

I haven't played far enough in the game, but is the current equipped armor more important than the current weapon? I'd expect switching between say sword and bow is more important than armor, but there might be something I haven't found out yet. Just display both.

3. The control layout is actually fine, but most of the times the character does not jump when I press the jump button. This seems to only be triggering on the displayed frames and not inbetween? This wouldn't be that bad, if I needn't have to jump up most of the stairs. I can't walk up most stairs and not being able to jump right makes it really frustrating. Also some slopes make me really slow going up.
It would be great to somehow know where you're going. Either display your position on the world map somehow, it doesn't have to be pin perfect, or at least display a compass in the main HUD, so I know which direction I'm going.
Also, I'm not sure how old the main character is, but I feel the camera could use a small lift, I feel like I'm scraping the ground with my lower back.


I think if you could improve on these points it would increase the enjoyability of the entire game.

Hope I could help.

Rhellik, thank you for the incredibly detailed and helpful suggestions. Being new to Unity when I started this project, it didn't even occur to me to render lower than 1080P. We were pulling our hair out over here with render distance, lower poly count models, textures, shaders, etc. Didn't even dawn on us to lower the screen resolution. Worked up an options menu to set screen resolution, and that really has boosted framerate.

Also fixed the text you mentioned. Looking out for other instances of the same thing.

The jumping issue is an interesting one, and it was brought up one other time. What we learned is that the jump button actually does work at all times, but if the player is tilted even slightly with their head facing toward the ground, they won't jump. Not sure (yet) how to address this - maybe with a text that says something like "you can't jump right now" or something. Am open to suggestions.

Am hoping to send an update to OUYA tonight. Thanks again!

I'm really interested in the game and might consider buying it even without a demo (although I would much prefer to play the first ten minutes or so just to make sure I can deal with the controls without a keyboard and mouse) if you can get the framerate fixed. 720p at 25+ FPS would probably be adequate for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bucckets81

I'm really interested in the game and might consider buying it even without a demo (although I would much prefer to play the first ten minutes or so just to make sure I can deal with the controls without a keyboard and mouse) if you can get the framerate fixed. 720p at 25+ FPS would probably be adequate for me.

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Hi Bucckets!

Thanks for the interest. We're experiencing really good performance boosts with the resolution change, and are now trying to figure out how to scale the text elements on the screen accordingly.

On the demo front, we tried really hard to get the demo up and running, but could never quite figure out how to make the purchase system play nice with the demo. In other words, what was happening was in our gametests, we couldn't get the game to send to main game even after a purchase had been made. We absolutely wanted (and still want) to include a demo. Worst case scenario, we might just release the demo separately.

Tim graupmann should be able to help you there. If you can get on skype with him he'll take the time and figure something out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How's the weekend going, DG friends? We're putting the finishing touches on an update to Rionon: The Search for the Stone Statue that should be ready early next week, Good Lord willing. Among the changes:

* Improved framerate
* Live map with real time view
* Improvements to the dialogue system, both cosmetically and in how it's initiated.

We'll be glad to post once the update is approved. God bless.

Hey friends!

Update is still on the way. In the meantime, for anyone who needs it, here's the link to the instruction manual:

http://adf.ly/s99Co

Great to see you still keeping at it!

Thanks Kaimega! Yep, been trying to help my baby grow to maturity here. Couple of other improvements that have been added to the update:

*Fixed issue with having to jump based on going up / down stairs
*There is now a demo which serves as a prologue to the game and includes a brand new quest

The update was resubmitted to OUYA early this morning, and we're hopeful that it's approved today, God willing.