Paolo: Really glad you listened to us because those improvements sound that they will be really useful. Don't forget about making escape bring up in-game menu instead of F1. I also recommend you use C for Crouch and R for Reload like numerous FPS games.
Basically you want your demo to be easy to play (easy controls) and not difficult puzzle so the player can explore more than 2 rooms and a cooridor before giving up. They need to feel "rewarded" so I'd make it REALLY easy for at least 30 minutes then start getting a bit harder but not tooo hard. After all you want people to buy the game and they WON'T if they get stuck in the demo, they must be able to FINISH it, and not many of us could. Hope this helps.
Another thing, the Activate item key was a bit awkward too, are there many such items as googles? If no, could they just not have a key like N for Night vision and F for Flashlight (again common keys).
I noticed you have space for cycle weapons, will the number keys along the top be used to select a specific weapon (doom style), they should be. You could even put Nightvision on a number like 0, and have in the item display (press 0 to active).
In fact where you say press the Activate Key or the Blah key, you don't actully say what it is (I know the player may have redefined them), so why not display the actually key? eg. Press the activate key <Q> . Then there's no going "what the hell key is activate?" why I, and I'm sure many others did.
Also it would be good if the item menu was ALSO accessible from the Escape (f1) Menu because if you haven't read the instructions you won't know what the item key is (Alt is obscure, I for Inventory may be better), so being able to access it from the Escape menu would be very useful for those people. You could even show the shortcut key (<I> or <Alt>) next to it so they know there is a shortcut next time.
OR add a tutorial which describes which key to press (more than once so it drums it in). You had something like this I think but it didn't show the ACTUAL keys if I recall.
Hope all this helps, it REALLY will improve the game useability. Waht's the point in spending so long on an amazing game if people never really get to see more than a couple of rooms?
Basically you want your demo to be easy to play (easy controls) and not difficult puzzle so the player can explore more than 2 rooms and a cooridor before giving up. They need to feel "rewarded" so I'd make it REALLY easy for at least 30 minutes then start getting a bit harder but not tooo hard. After all you want people to buy the game and they WON'T if they get stuck in the demo, they must be able to FINISH it, and not many of us could. Hope this helps.
Another thing, the Activate item key was a bit awkward too, are there many such items as googles? If no, could they just not have a key like N for Night vision and F for Flashlight (again common keys).
I noticed you have space for cycle weapons, will the number keys along the top be used to select a specific weapon (doom style), they should be. You could even put Nightvision on a number like 0, and have in the item display (press 0 to active).
In fact where you say press the Activate Key or the Blah key, you don't actully say what it is (I know the player may have redefined them), so why not display the actually key? eg. Press the activate key <Q> . Then there's no going "what the hell key is activate?" why I, and I'm sure many others did.
Also it would be good if the item menu was ALSO accessible from the Escape (f1) Menu because if you haven't read the instructions you won't know what the item key is (Alt is obscure, I for Inventory may be better), so being able to access it from the Escape menu would be very useful for those people. You could even show the shortcut key (<I> or <Alt>) next to it so they know there is a shortcut next time.
OR add a tutorial which describes which key to press (more than once so it drums it in). You had something like this I think but it didn't show the ACTUAL keys if I recall.
Hope all this helps, it REALLY will improve the game useability. Waht's the point in spending so long on an amazing game if people never really get to see more than a couple of rooms?