Holy crud, this game was using quite alot of cpu power when I launched it. Actually I couldn't even get it to run.

Yeah, for some reason in takes a lot of resources and time to load (30mb exe maybe). Runs fine though.

Hmm.. I guess I was being too hasty, the game actually loaded. but as Viper said, it takes quite a while to load. Hopefully he/she can optimize it a bit to use less resources .

Huge GM exe files usually do that, and it's why it's a good idea to not bundle all the graphics/sounds into the main exe if they are that large. Should have them externally within the game folder or subfolder and load them in from within the game.

Yeah, takes "ages" to load and locks up after striking the first enemy...at least on my side. Runnning it on XP with 1gb of ram, amd64 3200.

Like everyone here said, it takes a long time to load. Besides that, the controls appear to be completely unresponsive at times.

Well - while it's loading the game uses 100% of one of my cores and about 300 MB RAM...

However, once it has loaded everything seems to be fine.

I like the game - it's very stylish. I don't think the controls are unresponsive - you might get that feeling if you press "z" too late, e.g. when the "blue samurai" has already stricken you with his sword. There is a delay between you dying and the sword-striking graphic being displayed and that might give you the illusion of your keystroke not being registered.

I know what you mean, but when I say unresponsive, I really mean unresponsive. Sometimes hitting Z over and over again with it not registering.

It might just be the performance of my PC, but either way, it sure took the enjoyment out of it. A shame too, because I'm loving the art!

Hi Lucien. Could you tell me when the 'z' becomes unresponsive? Because one of the characters (brown samurai that appears first in the second stage)is blocking your attack if you strike in his opening posture (small metal clang), and disable your attack button for a short while(enough for him to kill you). Maybe that's causing a bug somewhere, so if you could be a bit more specific (if the lag occurs all the time, or if it's only an obscure feature I need some visual effect to clearly illustrate) that would help me a lot. Thanks! By the way, there are more than 8 levels, look at the loop icon on intro screens. Looping the game adds speed to all the animations (including enemies and your own slash).

I just checked the performance on my single core amd64 3200 - when game is loading the cpu maxes out, then as game starts the cpu is at around 20 to 30 %. However, as soon as I strike an opponent it maxes out again, taking up over half a gig of ram!
I would really like to play this because I seriously dig the graphics and mood...Is any one else playing on a single core pc?

Visually it's stunning, but gameplaywise it's a total loss, plus I don't see any railroads or mansions in there, I thought creating a game from the title was the idea behind the tigersauce compo.

hi Lurk,

send me an email so we can clarify the eight level thing, because I've completed the game a couple of times now and I'm sure it starts looping after the hell area.

great stuff.

Sure thing, Lurk. It's especially apparent in the screens inbetween stages. I know that there is a slight delay between pushing Z and the game actually beginning, but sometimes it just does not register the keystroke at all.

Same for the main menu where you actually get visual and auditory feedback. "Press any button" I'm pressing but nothing is happening.

I played it just now to check, but there doesn't appear to be any kind of structure to the bug. Sometimes it works just fine and then suddenly, it doesn't.

A little spec list in case that helps you out: I'm running it on an AMD64 3500+, Geforce 6800 GT, 2GB RAM, x86 Windows XP.

Hope that helps.

Lucien: Ok I have the same issue actually. You just need to press a few times rapidly(it happens whenever the program tries to 'change room' or 'restart room'). I'm trying to correct these bugs, and to make the room transit faster. Thanks for pointing it out, there was structure to the bug after all! Cheers.
Tim: Sorry I misread, you were right, there are 8 different stages, they loop after the last one. Every time you loop, it adds a 0.1 multiplier to the animations speed. It's not that noticeable on first loop though.

Dude, i'm running the game on a somewhat old ATI 2600. But still, A 2d game where there is very little animation shouldn't take nearly all your cpu power. I had a delay, but not in the input, its when I get hit, it takes around 6 seconds before I can hack n slash again. I don't know if its normal or just due to the crazy amount of memory the game "needs".

Lurk, really cool game but a bit too difficult. It's virtually impossible to dispatch more than two brown samurai at once since you have to wait for them to strike first and they both attack almost simultaneously. Then again maybe I just suck :-P Great job though.