(Updated) Krabbit Online now in Beta! KO beta v1.61

[krabbo]

New name, new project, Krabbit Online Alpha v1.0 Free to Play available for download at Krabbit.com.

FAQ in progress / Facebook group / Vote for us at the PopVox Awards.

We've returned to our roots to make the game we've always wanted to, one piece at a time. Some features have changed in priority.

Some current features include:
- 3D online beat em' up arcade action
- PVP combat
- animated interactive vertical arena
- Bujinkan based ninjitsu combat katas
- deliciously animated acrobatic characters
- dynamic gravity, 6DOF (6 degrees of freedom)
- walk on walls and ceilings
- make your own lobby & arena multiplay rooms
- customize your character's colours and size
- customize your character's weapon colour
- discover the krabbit lore
- ingame mp3 player (play your favorite music)

The faq page lists some upcoming features. We'll have a significant number implemented closer to month end.
This is an alpha. More features are on the way.

We've entered Krabbit Online Alpha v1.0 into VidFest's PopVox awards. Vidfest is an international digital festival held in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
We entered into two categories: Homegrown and Game.
To vote, register and login.

Feedback on the alpha is welcome. We'll have a new web site and forum up sometime in the next week or two.

[dejai]

Wow! Congratulations I am downloading it now!

[MasterGod]

First of all, amazing job. Nicely done.

Sound: 10/10.
Gameplay: 5/10.
Technical Issues: 9/10.

Let me explain a bit.
The sound is awesome, very well composed. It gets you in the mood and its just a wonderful music to hear.

About technical issues, when I was walking in the lobby I got to the place where I can review the story but I couldn't close it. When I pressed the 'X' nothing happened and I had to Alt+F4.

About the Gameplay: I'm sure you know all of this but I'll say it anyways. The movement are fine but needs to be more fast. What I mean is that if I hold the right mouse button all the time instead of having the mouse controlling the movement direction (as it most of the time does) sometimes when I move I need to "unclick" then wait till the camera resets itself then click again and rotate the character to where I want. The fighting system is a bit hard to control but with few more practices it gets easier. Except that there are few more things I don't remember (small issues) but the loneliness is Killing. Without the awesome music it would be boring after 10 minutes of jumping around. There's nothing to do .

I'm just stating the obvious so don't rush on me.

Except that its a wonderful game and I'm thrilled to see where it gets in the future.
Good luck & Good Work!

[krabbo]

First of all, amazing job. Nicely done.

Thank you.

Sound: 10/10.
Gameplay: 5/10.
Technical Issues: 9/10.

Fair enough, since this is alpha.

Here are some upcoming features, some as listed on the faq page:
- More tutorial elements
- More story revealed as you play
- More graphical GUI elements
- Co-op Play
- Single Player questing & hack & slash
- Bots/pets to assist your character
- More characters
- Character building
- More levels
- Patcher
- In-game feedback
- Registration
- Network enhancements
- Premium content catalogue
- Modding

...

About technical issues, when I was walking in the lobby I got to the place where I can review the story but I couldn't close it. When I pressed the 'X' nothing happened and I had to Alt+F4.

We haven't run into this issue. Could you have closed it, and accidentally hit the trigger again while turning around? We'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks.

About the Gameplay: I'm sure you know all of this but I'll say it anyways. The movement are fine but needs to be more fast. What I mean is that if I hold the right mouse button all the time instead of having the mouse controlling the movement direction (as it most of the time does) sometimes when I move I need to "unclick" then wait till the camera resets itself then click again and rotate the character to where I want. The fighting system is a bit hard to control but with few more practices it gets easier.

W,A,S and D can also be used for direction. Or you can assign keys under the Options tab. Our beat em' up combat style allows for more player control. As you say, it does get easier with practise. We will also be adding some more info to the tutorial to make it easier to understand.

Except that there are few more things I don't remember (small issues) but the loneliness is Killing. Without the awesome music it would be boring after 10 minutes of jumping around. There's nothing to do .

I'm just stating the obvious so don't rush on me.

Except that its a wonderful game and I'm thrilled to see where it gets in the future.
Good luck & Good Work!

Thanks for posting, MG.
I'm certain you will find more to do in the next release.

[MasterGod]

I'd would be glad to report again .

P.S
I just remembered another thing, some of the tutorial text from the beginning disappeared too fast before I was able to read it all - Maybe add some '>' icon to go to the next tutorial or switch text or something..

[Ion Dune]

Pretty much exactly what MasterGod said, specifically about the tutorial text. I had one glitch with falling through the seam in the first tutorial after jumping, but it fixed itself right away. Other than that, great game. Awesome alpha, huge potential.

[dejai]

Trying to play your own music in the character selection area displays an error.

[sp00n]

Oh, good work, i like it:)
Some issues:
1) when you landing after long jump it seems like character's legs drawn into the floor by 1 ms
2) collisions with small height levels doesn't work properly - i mean when character runs onto complicate objects it stops and cann't jump from or walk back, only forward or side moving helps

Is it fight tutorial last at a current moment?
About fighting - it would been better IMHO if the beat sounds will be some different like screams or something else, or graphic FX will be something like blood's particles or anything similar:) It's only IMHO

Thanks for sharing it for us, and you're doing a great job:)
p.s. i like it gameplay, want for more combo)))
p.p.s. in my 8600gt at 1440x900 res, high textures and aliasing i have a realy playable FPS (~30-40). it's great, wonderful!
last p.s. may be we can disscuss about PvP times for testing it, who wants:) i think it better disscuss on Krabbit forums.

Good luck!

[Lonesome Ducky]

Nice work . This definitely isn't a game for people who suffer from motion sickness. The only complaint I have is that it should tell you you've beaten the tutorial when you kill the enemy. Other than that, I'd have to say this is pretty good so far.

[krabbo]

I'd would be glad to report again .

P.S
I just remembered another thing, some of the tutorial text from the beginning disappeared too fast before I was able to read it all - Maybe add some '>' icon to go to the next tutorial or switch text or something..

Yes, I agree. The arrow icon is a good idea.

Pretty much exactly what MasterGod said, specifically about the tutorial text. I had one glitch with falling through the seam in the first tutorial after jumping, but it fixed itself right away. Other than that, great game. Awesome alpha, huge potential.

Strange.. there are no seams in that area. Perhaps it was the gravity orientation at the top of the walkway? Or the transparency implementation of nearby objects?

Thanks!

Trying to play your own music in the character selection area displays an error.

Varmint has had that happen when there is something wrong with the mp3. Fmod will report a 'format unsupported' error. Try it with another mp3?

Oh, good work, i like it:)
Some issues:
1) when you landing after long jump it seems like character's legs drawn into the floor by 1 ms
2) collisions with small height levels doesn't work properly - i mean when character runs onto complicate objects it stops and cann't jump from or walk back, only forward or side moving helps

Is it fight tutorial last at a current moment?
About fighting - it would been better IMHO if the beat sounds will be some different like screams or something else, or graphic FX will be something like blood's particles or anything similar:) It's only IMHO

Thanks for sharing it for us, and you're doing a great job:)
p.s. i like it gameplay, want for more combo)))
p.p.s. in my 8600gt at 1440x900 res, high textures and aliasing i have a realy playable FPS (~30-40). it's great, wonderful!
last p.s. may be we can disscuss about PvP times for testing it, who wants:) i think it better disscuss on Krabbit forums.

Good luck!

1) a minor graphic anomaly
2) there's always pressing 'P' to respawn or right mouse click select 'stuck' if a little movement one way or the other doesn't work, though it most often does.

Yes, the fight tutorial is the latest currently. More is coming.

Voice acting is a little ways off in the future.

No blood or real world weapons or gender exploitation in krabbity games. Krabbit games are family oriented, action fun. That's our style.

Awesome feedback. Thanks for the FPS data. We've worked hard on optimization.

And that's a great idea about setting up some PVP times. Varmint and I have tested together. He's killed me. But I was busy taking screenshots. You can see your opponent's name above their heads and many players are supported in one room.

Some PVP testing would provide great feedback and would be very much appreciated.

Thanks again!

Nice work . This definitely isn't a game for people who suffer from motion sickness. The only complaint I have is that it should tell you you've beaten the tutorial when you kill the enemy. Other than that, I'd have to say this is pretty good so far.

Haha! Yes, I know.. when I was feeling a little under the weather.. testing was too uncomfortable. The vertigo.. lol

Yes, true.. when we update the tutorial we will let you know when it is complete.

Thanks!

[rogerborg]

Very stylish, very slick. But you already knew that.

A few issues:

1) It feels very strange to have to click to look or turn. I'd expect mouse movements to automatically yaw the avatar/view direction, and to pitch the view direction. It gets even weirder when the controls change while in combat mode.

2) The combat seems vague and uninvolving. I don't get any sense that I'm actually hitting or blocking, or even really participating. Holding down the right button seems to work just fine. Since it's the core of the game, I'd really like to see more visual and audio cues, plus interruptible animations, so that I can see the effects and effectiveness of what I'm doing.

But then I expect you know that too. This definitely looks like it's on the success track, and I really look forward to seeing it progress.

[Lonesome Ducky]

I'm running the game at 1280x1024 with high texture and 4x times antialiasing with ~80 fps.

System Specs:
Pentium D processor 2.8ghz
2 gigs of DDR2 633 ram
ATI Radeon x1650 pro
Windows Vista

When going to the lower resolutions, like 640 x 480, some of the images are off of the screen and others seem too large. Maybe you should scale them down a little bit with lower resolutions.

Examples:
640x480:








1280x1240:




Did you happen to use any physics engine in this game?

[krabbo]

Very stylish, very slick. But you already knew that.

A few issues:

1) It feels very strange to have to click to look or turn. I'd expect mouse movements to automatically yaw the avatar/view direction, and to pitch the view direction. It gets even weirder when the controls change while in combat mode.

2) The combat seems vague and uninvolving. I don't get any sense that I'm actually hitting or blocking, or even really participating. Holding down the right button seems to work just fine. Since it's the core of the game, I'd really like to see more visual and audio cues, plus interruptible animations, so that I can see the effects and effectiveness of what I'm doing.

But then I expect you know that too. This definitely looks like it's on the success track, and I really look forward to seeing it progress.

First, thanks!

1) In this type of game it's key to be able to turn the camera separate from the character at any time. We've designed the controls based on games in which we have been engaged in multiple styles of gameplay in the same game, including: solo play, co-op, and specifically pvp. Games like City of Heroes, WoW, Guild Wars, etc... The controls are based on our preference and are quite easy to adapt to.

2) The combat style actually gives the player more control. When we've made the tutorial stronger it will become more clear. The animations are interruptable. Blocking and hitting are real. You actually do interrupt the other player's animations when you hit or block them.

The entire character system is animation driven including the combat. There is a great deal of animation mixing and interruption goin

Knowing that you can control which strike you are doing by the length of time you hold down the mouse button might help. For example if you just tap the mouse, you just do the first strike. If you hold it down a bit longer, you get the next strike in addition to the first and so on. More visual and audio cues will likely come with content additions based on priority.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll look at it again.

I'm running the game at 1280x1024 with high texture and 4x times antialiasing with ~80 fps.

System Specs:
Pentium D processor 2.8ghz
2 gigs of DDR2 633 ram
ATI Radeon x1650 pro
Windows Vista

When going to the lower resolutions, like 640 x 480, some of the images are off of the screen and others seem too large. Maybe you should scale them down a little bit with lower resolutions.

Did you happen to use any physics engine in this game?

Good FPS report! ty.

We made a decision to not support resolutions below 800x600. Hopefully too many will not be disappointed.

No, no physics engine. Not needed.

[dejai]

rogerborg
PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject:
Very stylish, very slick. But you already knew that. Wink

A few issues:

1) It feels very strange to have to click to look or turn. I'd expect mouse movements to automatically yaw the avatar/view direction, and to pitch the view direction. It gets even weirder when the controls change while in combat mode.

2) The combat seems vague and uninvolving. I don't get any sense that I'm actually hitting or blocking, or even really participating. Holding down the right button seems to work just fine. Since it's the core of the game, I'd really like to see more visual and audio cues, plus interruptible animations, so that I can see the effects and effectiveness of what I'm doing.

But then I expect you know that too. This definitely looks like it's on the success track, and I really look forward to seeing it progress.

If it was me I would feel more involved with un-interruptible special moves.. After call you can't stop a sword that size in mid air!! Look at wow for example you can't just stop special attacks.. Just some thoughts from playing mmorpgs. Also the battle music should be less pronounced.

[CuteAlien]

Very good work. Great music, daring graphic style, a very nice font for that tutorial book and I like the general idea.

Technically I found no problems, which is rather impressive for the first alpha :-). Most stuff I noticed otherwise was already mentioned by other people. I had for example the same problem as MasterGod and didn't finish reading one of the tutorials, as I was too busy trying out stuff. So I actually missed how to walk on walls like I did see that in your movie - need to play again to find out how that works.

In this type of game it's key to be able to turn the camera separate from the character at any time. We've designed the controls based on games in which we have been engaged in multiple styles of gameplay in the same game, including: solo play, co-op, and specifically pvp. Games like City of Heroes, WoW, Guild Wars, etc... The controls are based on our preference and are quite easy to adapt to.

Yeah, I supposed so - it was rather familiar to me as Guild of Wars player. But still rogerborg has made a good point - in combat this gets irritating. And after thinking a little about it I wonder if you really need the right click to turn. In games like Guild Wars it's necessary because you must be able to control a mouse cursor additionally. But I think you have that already mostly separated and you could probably avoid all situations where a player needs to turn + use a mouse cursor at the same time.