KlingonRL - 7DRL 2013 - VICTORY

[guest509]

Final Post Contest Playtested Release: There were some impossible situations before, fixed them (took all of 3 minutes to balance out, I just hadn't had enough play testing).

https://www.sendspace.com/file/zs7aae
[click on 'click here to download from sendspace']

  I did it. It's my best game ever. That's not to say it's the greatest, but I like playing it. It took me about 30-35 hours. I had 2 major bugs, it turns out I did not know the execution order of Gamemaker. I figured it would do the actions in the order I called them. Not so.

  Training wheels can cause problems.

TIPS:
-Bump planets for ammo, buy hull repairs at neutral bases.
-Try not to decloak near asteroids, pirates might jump out.
-Romulans are in every game, but you might not see them.
-The genesis device is the only animated object in the game. You can't miss it.

The major flaw in the game is it's hard to learn, the message system sucks. Read the help file and you'll get it quickly enough.

PROTIP: When looking at any of the games in the 7DRL competition, look at the help file first. Every time.

[guest509]

  It's going well, but it's just getting started.

  Screen shot!

 

[guest509]

  New Screenies!

[guest509]

  Hey Legend you can go fullscreen too. I know you like that. Me too. Press F4.

[Legend]

Just now looked at this thread for the first time. Thanks for thinking of me and catering to my preferences. :p  Wish I had one of those usb nes controllers now.

I'll give it a go later tonight.

[guest509]

  Tonight around 9 pm, USA West Coast, I'll be releasing the final bug fix version. That's zero hour for my competition time.

[guest509]

  Alright. The final version is up. I hope you peeps like it. Reading the help file is an absolute must. It uses just the arrows and space to wait, but it can still be complex. Your goal is to visit star systems, refuel, rearm and repair until you get to the federation system that has the genesis device. Then run home.

  You are cloaked until you bump something, then you decloak.

  Good luck.

[guest509]

I've rebalanced the Federation fleet to give you a fighting chance. There were some unwinnable maps before, now there shouldn't be.

I can now beat it half the time. Before it was more like 1/5 of the time.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/c43vbb

[Vanguard]

Once you figure out how this all works, it's actually pretty fun.  Every mechanic makes sense, and they all interact with each other in meaningful ways.

Good job!

[guest509]

Hey Thanks Vanguard. I had a ton of fun making it. Were you able to beat it? Some sectors are a bit easier than others in how they are built.

[Vanguard]

Yeah, it took a while, but I got through.

I like the cloaking system.  It's hard to tell what's going on at first, but easy to use once you understand it.  It leads to unique tactics when dealing with enemies, and losing it on the return journey means the second half of the game is very different from the first.

I like that the Enterprise is the scary unbeatable boss you have to avoid at all costs.

I like that health, ammo, and fuel are all represented as discrete units instead of a percentage or a meter.  It lets you know exactly how much of each you have, which lets you make better decisions.

The whole thing feels like it has exactly the number of rules it needs, and no more.  It's elegant design.  I like that.

[guest509]

  To be honest I sort of designed it to death. It's one of those designs that sat in my idea folder for awhile, years even, while I tinkered. I dunno why I do that, as soon as you actually start making the game things sort of take on a life of their own anyway. But I guess it's good to have at least a good outline so you can plan your programming tasks.

  My favorite part of my own game is that it is common for rare things to occur. I try to have enough content and rules that rare things can happen each game (hopefully).

  Like did you ever find the space whales? Or the Romulans? Or get one of those maps where one of the Fed systems is nearly impossible to reach? Did you find the pirate stronghold? The system where if you decloak like 10 pirates jump out? Have a science vessel stand off at a diagonal while you hide in the asteroids from battleships?

  There is an early version with black holes on the galaxy/sector screen that block navigation, so you have to make your way around them. They sorta broke the game though and I had no time to fix them, so they got cut. :-(  Other than that all my design features made it into the game, just some things ended up being fun I thought might be boring (running from the enterprise, a last minute stretch goal), and other things ended up being boring I thought might be fun (like torpedoing tankers).

[Vanguard]

I ran into space whales once, and I've seen a few Romulans uncloak and attack, but, I had no clue about the rest.

[guest509]

Sweet. The pirate stronghold is pretty rare. They are sometimes not easily noticed since they can occur in a system with few asteroids. But if you see EVERY asteroid tile producing a pirate, then you've found it. :-)

[Nekoninja]

The download link to the KlingonRL is dead as frozen kobol. Kindly casts resurrection spell, please. Is it open source as well?