Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => 7DRLs => Topic started by: jere on March 17, 2014, 03:41:42 PM
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It's my 2nd year entering and I am pretty happy.
Play online here (ideally with resolution > 1200x700 and Chrome): http://humbit.com/gkh/
And feel free to ask questions! I did my best to make the mechanics clear, but while watching playtesters I realized there are still some confusing aspects.
(http://humbit.com/gkh/screen.png)
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I wasn't expecting to have to throw a release out so fast, but I found a huge bug: the game ended if you hit a certain key. Whoops!
v1.1 (http://humbit.com/gkh/)
- Time slowed down 2X, making it easier to utilize sunlight.
- Click-tile-to-describe: Describes the tile and anything on it.
- Changed stained glass sprite from solid blue to clown vomit. I think people were assuming it was a regular window, but it behaves differently.
- Changed "tutorial" area from 3x40 area to single 1x10 hallway. Hopefully, more info conveyed in less time with fewer people thinking the game is non-randomized.
- Fixed bug that initiated end game accidentally
- Fixed bug where death took an extra turn to process
- Minor spelling mistakes fixed.
The click to describe feature is pretty nifty and should make things much clearer. Still sorting out a few key binding bugs....
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There are some interesting mechanics at work in your game, and hopefully I get a chance to spend a bit more time with it (currently trying to push through the PDJ voting). In my brief play, I wished the potions menu had descriptions/tooltips/something. The human/vampire transformation seems pretty cool, but it strikes me as odd to forget the identities of potions you previously knew. I liked the graphics and enjoyed burning enemy vampires in the sunlight.
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Yea, the way I wanted to do potions is based on an intelligence threshold on each potion, which goes down every time you quaff potion. But then vampires in this universe take a huge intelligence penalty (counter to vampire tropes), so you can often dip back below the threshold. I guess you could look at the identification more of an active process each time rather than acquired knowledge that works flawlessly.
One small hint: you start with 2 soul elixirs (the item that lets you turn back human) and on your first transformation, you can use that number to make a reasonable guess on which potion stack is your soul elixirs.
You're definitely right that the potions menu is sorely missing descriptions. That was one of bit of polish I didn't have time for and will be the next thing I add. Thanks for playing.
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I found a really fun Let'sPlay of GKH. It covers a lot of material in a short time. Might not want to watch if you're bothered by profanity. http://youtu.be/Lc_4M_fxxZ4
It's interesting what different people pick up on quickly. Still it seems no one has noticed the "?" indicator.
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This is really solid. I like how distinct the two forms are. Humans are better overall, but green men are the real master race. You let one of those sit in the sun for a few minutes and nothing can stop them.
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Thanks. :)
I'm guessing you got a nasty surprise when a Green Man hit you? They can be pretty brutal. I wanted something in the mid-game that would turn sunlight into a liability, even if you were human.
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Yeah I got nailed for like 300 damage in one round.
I like how the vampire form is initially more desirable until the lack of regeneration becomes a problem. It creates a sort of rhythm to the game where you go through periods of empowerment and vulnerability.
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Ouch. Didn't expect it to go that high. I need to put a cap on there.
I can't tell from your post, but I wonder if you've figured out you can drink from pools of blood. Combined with strategic manipulation of torches, vampires can be really good. Still, I think it's necessary to swap back and forth to maximize XP gain.
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v1.2 released (Green Man fixed!) and postmortem written: http://7drl.org/2014/04/12/golden-krone-hotel-update-and-postmortem/
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I really was going to leave this one alone but I keep seeing LPs where people complain about the game being too easy and asking for some more development. So I've made a nice sized update. If I should take this out of the 7drl forum, please let me know.
I'm still working on balancing. I'd love to hear feedback if you find this is too easy because of something I didn't think of.
http://humbit.com/gkh/ or http://jere.itch.io/golden-krone-hotel
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2DLq_nCAAIZGZL.png:large)
- "Dungeon branches" added; harder difficulty; and new monsters, spells, and potions.
- 4 single-level branches added: Library, Mausoleum, Pharmacopoeia, and Greenhouse.
- Vampires and humans now seek out dark and light areas respectively. This makes them significantly more challenging.
- 5 new enemy types and a "boss"
- Bat - surprisingly dangerous early game enemy.
- Brawler - tough, but slow vampire that can throw you back one tile.
- Hunter - a human who carries a lantern to negate your attempts at hiding in the shadows.
- Blood Golem - continuously bleeds everywhere.
- Balaur - 3 headed dragon that can only see in darkness.
- Varcolac- ??
- 3 new spells
- Glow - gives you a fleeting magical light.
- Detect - lets you temporarily detect the presence of nearby creatures.
- Fortify - buffs your stats temporarily.
- 2 new potions that create unnatural darkness/sunlight.
- Music now plays on all floors.... too much?
- Critical strikes and more variability added to attacks.
- Nobles will drink blood off the floor or take blood from Runners.
- Added various floor types, wall decorations, and destructibles (e.g. statue).
- Items are now drawn on the map!
- Grimoires stay on floor if you decline learning their spell.
- The game should now be fully playable on keyboard (excluding examining tiles/potions). Quaffing and stat upgrades can be done with keys.
- Enemies can now walk on stairs and will follow you up them.
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I've wanted to do this for a while, but the update was a good excuse: http://youtu.be/Mc7wxNPSXi8
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Seems like the best strategy for this version is to invest in dexterity and stay in vampire form as much as possible. Human form suffers a lot from how rare equipment is, and maybe it's just me, but the human form feels weaker in general.
I killed the Varcolac and it seemed like something was supposed to happen when it died, but I never figured out what it was.
The balaurs are my favorite addition. They're scary and you can't deal with them the same way you deal with any other enemy.
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Oh cool, thanks. The Varcolac is a sort of lock on the last staircase to prevent you from sneaking straight up. I'm thinking about adding a separate boss to each branch because it's still too easy to take out that one boss and run for the top.
I want to keep equipment rare, since it's a flat bonus without tradeoffs. The mausoleum is a good place to find more. You're probably right though. I suppose I'll buff humans spells and make enemy humans tougher. And perhaps higher dexterity should only marginally improve your action speed....
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Seems like the best strategy for this version is to invest in dexterity and stay in vampire form as much as possible. Human form suffers a lot from how rare equipment is, and maybe it's just me, but the human form feels weaker in general.
The vampire form was always vastly more powerful. I found when I played the 7DRL version that the game was pretty easy once you became a vampire, as long as you stayed that way. Hoovering up blood from slain enemies mostly made survival a non-issue.
This version does seem more challenging but I haven't played it extensively yet. Still, it's a very pleasant surprise to see that more work has been done on it!
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Human form suffers a lot from how rare equipment is, and maybe it's just me, but the human form feels weaker in general.
I found when I played the 7DRL version that the game was pretty easy once you became a vampire, as long as you stayed that way. Hoovering up blood from slain enemies mostly made survival a non-issue.
Ah! I was curious about that! If vampires are the no-brainer choice, that's anathema to my vision of the game. It doesn't work thematically and I don't think it's as fun as having both be balanced.
Thus, here is one last major update to try to fix that. It also adds a boss to each branch. http://humbit.com/gkh/
- Each dungeon branch now has its own boss; you must beat all 4 to reach Fane. Lots of balance tweaks with the primary goal of making human mode as good as vampire mode.
- There are now 4 mandatory bosses, one in each branch: a werewolf, a trickster faery, a vampire necromancer, and a human princess.
- The effect of dexterity has been condensed. There is less marginal utility in a dex upgrade (it was previously way too powerful) and the speed difference between the fastest and slowest creatures has been reduced signficantly.
- Enemy humans are a lot tougher.
- Removed the blood golem and added 4 new enemies: Ice Golem, Sunstone Golem, Field Viper, and Sand Viper
- Added a "poisoned" status, which prevents most forms of HP recovery. Vipers and Rat Assassins cause poisoning and several potions have been added that deal with this concept.
- Added a "delusion" status. You can become afflicted through a certain potion or through one other route...
- Added a potion that reveals a floor layout.
- The order of potions was previously deterministic, but they are now shuffled at the start of a game.
- Fixed a bug with the light icon not displaying correctly.
- The Varcolac now acts like a normal human during the day (instead of always fighting you)
I'm happy with the current complexity and length. There are now:
-20 monsters
-5 bosses
-9 spells
-20 potions
So I'll probably only stick to balance updates from now on. I've been playing all day and haven't beat this version yet. It's really bloody difficult!
Or maybe I'm just bad at roguelikes. I've been playing DCSS for years and have only beat it once.
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A great game! I think it is too hard now, though.
I think the map should be improved. Torches, their states, and broken windows should be shown. Maybe even show the light from the broken windows? It would be more precise than the current light icon, make the mechanics clearer for the new players, and help with the strategy for the experts.
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Thank you very much!
Every time I revisit it, I tend to add more information to the map. Showing windows is a really good idea; I'll probably do that. I'm not so sure about the torches though because they're pretty abundant and the time you most desperately need to find one is in an area you haven't yet visited and thus wouldn't be on the map. The challenge with the map is that I'm running out of distinct colors and I don't have another way to distinguish elements. If I add too many things, I also worry that it will be way too confusing.
Now I really have to ask for more detail about the difficulty (because this is some of the only feedback I've gotten since the bump). What are you having trouble with? How far are you getting and what is typically killing you? To me, it seems no more difficult that some of the standard big RLs, but I also know exactly how everything works. Are you resting, using stealth, lighting torches, etc.?
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Well, I have a feeling of hardness that I do not usually have when playing roguelikes. Hard to tell how much of this is unfair, and how much it is due to my inexperience with the innovative features. Most monsters are threats, and meeting two at once is often deadly. In most big roguelikes, threats occur rather rarely, and you get some escape routes (teleport, healing, powerful wands, etc.). I seem not to get enough of them here (of course, a roguelike is won once you play so good that you get more healing potions and other escape routes than you use, maybe I am simply not yet on this level).
Currently I get to around floor 4 in my better games.
Sometimes I get killed by unintentional starvation (I am suddenly dead). An audio hint and some other hint would be helpful here.
But generally, meeting something too strong. For example, in my last game: I walk around on Floor 4 in the human form, and I meet a green man. Sunlight makes it stronger, and it is faster. I see no way to prevent death in this situation.
I also once almost starved (found no food -- actually I did not starve, I went to the next floor looking for food and got killed by a powerful lapis golem, but anyway). There was no food on the first two floors, or something.
Showing torches on the map surely would be helpful -- I go as a vampire, extinguish all the torches to kill humans, then I return as a human to kill the vampires, and I want to know where these torches were.
Maybe you could use this style for the map: http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/33/32467/dungeon2.png -- basically, a tiny ASCII screen. Then you could easily mark everything clearly.
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Ok, thanks for the feedback. I see your point about the torches.
Here are some of my initial responses (please know I'm taking your report seriously though).
There are a few escape items. If you're fighting against a human/vampire, switching to the other form is a pretty reliable escape. Soul elixirs and blood are the two common potions, so you usually have this option available. Retreating into darkness can work often because most things can't see in low light; doing it as a human is really dangerous though. There are a few other rare escapes: health potions, celestial essence (kills all vampires), unholy essence (turns everything dark).
Hunger might be too much of a problem, but you do start with an Ale in case you don't find food early on. There should be a pretty noticeable starvation warning that says EAT SOMETHING!!! An audio cue would be good.
Golems are really strong, but you can run away from them easily. Sunlit Green Men are meant to be huge threats. Your best bet is probably to run into a dark area.
You shouldn't have much trouble getting to floor 4. But as I give these tips, I realize they're not immediately clear. Also, keep in mind that there are only 9 main floors compared to 27 or more for a lot of RLs, so floor 4 is nearing the mid-game.
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Yes, I know about switching the form as an escape route. Does not work against green men or groups which include both humans and vampires, though. In my case of the green man, there was no darkness nearby either.
When exploring, I look at the main screen, not at the message log, so I don't notice "EAT SOMETHING!". Also when fighting, I see what happens from the main screen, so I don't look at the message log.
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I'm working on some of these changes. In the middle of this, I wanted to post two options for how the map could look.
(http://i.imgur.com/28DD3UL.png?1)
Option 1 on the left: lit torches are yellow; unlit torches are brown.
Option 2 on the right: no torches are shown, but the lighting is displayed.
I'm heavily leaning towards the second option because a) it looks pretty damn cool, b) it's a lot less cluttered, and c) it still lets you easily figure out which areas are lit.
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Option 2 looks great, but walls (and unknown places) should use a different color, and broken windows should be marked. Would the sunlight be shown?
It does not solve the problem I mentioned above (where are the torches in the dark areas?). Why not just put a single pixel in the middle of the square which represents a torch?
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Unexplored is always black. Walls will now be grayish blue.
These are at night, but if sun is coming in through a window it appears yellow. I don't think it's worthwhile to distinguish broken windows in other cases. You know you can break them right?
I must have misread your comment above. I thought you just wanted to find lit torches as a vampire. I'll have to think about this because a single pixel is going to be really hard to see.
[edit: here is the final result]
(http://i.imgur.com/OnYDpUq.png?1)
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I really should be working on my school work right now......
v1.5 (http://humbit.com/gkh/gkh-v1.5/index.html) :P
- Improvements to the map. Tons of balance tweaks.
- The map now shows lighting (including sunlight), windows, and unlit torches.
- Audio cue added when near starvation.
- Wait key (.) now works on numpad.
- Green Man has moved up a floor to prevent early deaths to sunlit Green Men
- Lapis Golem has been moved down a floor (swapped with Green Man) and weakened.
- Tweaks: slightly less XP required to level, hunger issues reduced a bit, balaurs slowed somewhat, and a few early monsters are easier.
Thanks for the feedback, Z! They were great ideas. I believe this addresses most of it. Lighted areas let you know where light sources are coming, so that should mostly cover lit torches. And unlit torches are now displayed.
As for the difficulty, I've made a few small changes. Green Men should usually appear on Floor 5 and the earliest you could possibly see them is Floor 3. I am still not convinced the game is overall too hard, but I'll certainly listen to someone who disagrees.
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Looks great, but is it intentional that Hunters (or whatever the guys with torches are called) are visible on the map?
I think that SWD and SHD should show up for vampires, but grayed out (just like spells).
I have reached Floor 6, but I have used up my soul elixirs, and hunters guarding the stairways seemed too strong for some reason :( In my last game of v1.4 I have reached Floor 6, but Rat Assassins proved too strong, but now they don't feel as strong, not sure whether this is because of higher XP, or of better equipment found.
Regarding hardness: if you can win the game (with strategy, not with luck), then it is not too hard. :)
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Heh. I was wondering if someone would catch that. ;D That just falls out naturally from the way the lighting on the mini-map is drawn. It's kind of odd because the map shoudn't normally show enemies, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I'm too lazy to maintain some sort of "last seen lightness" value. Plus I'd have to remove the sunlight drawing, which is surprisingly awesome.
I'll say that how many soul elixirs/blood you can conserve correlates with skill. Sort of what you were saying earlier. Because when I make a lot of dumb decisions (and I do), I waste them quickly trying to save myself.
Glad to hear you reached Floor 6! You get branches on floors 6-9.
Rat Assassins proved too strong, but now they don't feel as strong
Not sure when exactly you played, but at some point I nerfed several OP monsters. Rat Assassins were one.
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Yes, it looks like a bug, but might actually improve the gameplay experience. GHK is a bit atypical from other roguelikes, because I often have to leave enemies for later (humans met while in human form, vampires met while in vampire form), and I would like to remember where they are. You could even think about displaying all the previously seen enemies on the map, not only hunters (thematically, Arobase should have some "exalted huntress" instincts and thus be great at tracking enemies, and the hunter thing would no longer seem a bug).
Another thing a bit suspicious: #######
.......
...@...
.......
#######
I am walking in the southern corridor, which is of width 3, and dark. I prefer to go in the middle, to see all the three rows. I don't see the southern windows on the main map, but I do see them on the mini-map, so when vampires come, I could blast them, even if I didn't see them on the main map. I also see the unlit torches on the mini-map before seeing them on the main map.
A pity that I cannot break windows as a vampire ;)
Usually I have around 8 soul elixirs after Floor 2, but sometimes I have just 2.
It might be also a good idea to display more information about spells. Is the Blast spell only for breaking windows/walls, or can it be also used to attack enemies? Can other spells break windows? What's the range? Does Silver work only against vampires, or also against werewolves and ghosts? How powerful it is compared to Shock and Ice? Are some monsters resistant to specific spells?
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So I've thought about that a lot. Tracking down enemies is indeed tedious. However, there's a problem with always showing previously seen enemies: it really reduces the risk of walking through dark areas as a human. You should get punished for walking around in the dark OR putting yourself in a bad tactical position as a vampire (stuck in long lit hallway). There is a spell called DETECT that basically does what you're asking for.
You've found more bugs. Sharp! I knew about that one, but left it in because it makes a lot easier for the player (as opposed to you having to do TWO walks down that hallway). But I'm also contradicting the previous paragraph, so I'm not sure.
Spell descriptions can be seen if you ID a grimoire before reading it. Which I know is lame, but I had all the descriptions in the Help before. People either didn't read it or (and I watched this in an LP) would read all of it word by word and then proceed to totally forget it 10 seconds later. WHAT DOES BLAST DO? Maybe I should put an info button on the magic buttons themselves.
Assuming you actually wanted answers: blast is the only way to destroy windows. It also damages obstacles, hurts Golems, and opens doors. Silver works only against vampires and the Varcolac and it does percent damage, so it's excellent as a first or second shot. Ice and shock are equivalent damage, but ice slows and shock goes through anything but walls (you can use this knowledge when fighting humans). Firestorm does a bit more since it is close range. Firestorm, shock, and glow all provide some form of light. I think the only monster with a specific weakness is the Ice Golem (want to guess?).
I beat the game by the way. AND I killed Fane, which I can almost never do. So If i can do that in only a few tries, the only thing I worry about is how reliant I am on spoilers. Is a tips page or small wiki in order?
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Yes, I did not think about that when posting. But the idea is to track enemies which are currently far away, and only them (contrary to the Detect spell, which only shows the close enemies AFAIK). I am currently using torches to mark the enemies, but it does not work very well. :)
10:43 Select a direction for SILVER.
10:43 You hit the Brawler with SILVER.
10:54 Select a direction for SILVER.
10:54 You hit the Brawler with SILVER.
10:57 You die of starvation.
Apparently SILVER2 starves me even if I am still above the warning level. (Are the higher level spells more starving anyway?)
What about showing when the transformation will happen? Transforming just after a tough battle (no HP) or in the middle of a group of humans is a loss of Soul Elixir, at least. I see that my first transformation is always the same time (about 3:20 pm on the second day), I am not sure about the next transformations, but it also seems to take about 30 hours from the last Soul Elixir (I always forget to take notes, so i am not sure here).
Thanks for explaining the spells! I thought that SILVER was useless, but apparently I simply always tested it on the nearly dead vampires.
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Hmmmm. Detect shows you all enemies on the explored areas of the map in addition to a separate icon on main display for nearby enemies. One tip is that vampires will stick to the darkest areas and humans will gather around brightly lit areas. If you were to take away all the torches, both groups would wander around aimlessly. In that way, you can actually use torches to push mobs around. Still think this needs a better solution, but it'll require some thought. Maybe the best thing is show the last place you saw a monster, but the way I would implement it might still show you monsters that are no longer living because they moved from that spot you saw them at that time around.
Higher levels spells definitely have higher hunger costs, since that's the only downside associated with spells. I am totally shocked that a level 2 spell would take you all the way past the warnings though. You hit the Starving status (in bright red) well before that, but the warning level should probably be higher.
I've considered showing a warning about transformations, but I in fact like the dangerous situations that arise out of an unexpected switch. The Human status does gradually fade though and you can preemptively take a soul elixir if you want to stave off vampirism for longer.
Oh yea, silver is one of the best spells. Since it's only useful against a subset of monsters, I had to make it pretty powerful to seem worthwhile. Similarly, blast is one of the best spells and most people think it is useless.
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So I have won! And killed Fane, too.
The Solomonars feel extremely unsatisfying. I think they are one of the few creatures which are neither threats nor interesting at the time when they appear (the rat soldier is boring but OK, you could also think about making Moroi more interesting).
There is something wrong with the Princess. Apparently she casts her Heal spell when there is a wounded man nearby, but she heals herself. And you say she is clever? ;) I have turned off all the lights in the Library, then used is as a free blood donor station (whenever the vampire got dangerously wounded, she went to the library to get some blood safely, trying not to kill anyone), and was surprised that her spells seemed so weak. Then, I had to finally kill the Princess, and was surprised that I am unable to kill her due to her healing. But she stopped spellcasting once the nearby guy healed naturally.
The fairy was one of the first monsters I met in the pharmacy. I did not know it was her. :)
I have read the formulae for spellcasting (after winning), apparently the hunger cost is 1+2*level, and the effectivity of the most spells is proportional to 1+level. So higher level spells are less effective per hunger cost. I think this is not right.
After turning off the lights in the Library, I have been using the human form only for the vampire bosses. Sometimes there is not enough food (or not enough soul elixirs) anyway to use the human form much.
I have been investing in Dexterity only. It is of universal use (better defense, attack faster, cast spells faster, run away from the powerful enemies, drink blood before it disappears, remain in the human form longer, creatures have less time to regenerate), while strength is good only for attacking, and intelligence is useful for humans only (maybe you could consider allowing the fourth spell for highly intelligent characters?). I think it is better to outrun Brawlers (and finally even Nobles) as a human than to risk fights.
Thanks again for the very nice game!
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No, thank you Z! Your detailed feedback here is invaluable.
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One last update before this year's 7drl.
v1.6 (http://humbit.com/gkh/) or should I say.... v1.Z? ;)
I found a bug where humans wouldn't cast one of their main spells, Firestorm, in the dark even though the game treats adjacent monsters as if they can see you. I've also given Solomnari the ability to use GLOW, which is even more terrifying than the Hunters. You can't outrun it; the glow sticks to you! I think Solomnari should be sufficiently difficult/interesting with these changes.
I think I've fixed all the Princess bugs. I was a bit disturbed by your use of the Library as a blood bank. Very clever, but breaks the game a bit. I changed it so the torches always relight when you enter the Library and the Princess should be a little tougher.
Finally, there is the issue of stats. I don't think I'll ever fix this completely, but here goes. The defense bonus has been taken away from DEX and given to STR, so now STR should be really appealing: you get both offense and defense. Spell hunger has been increased, especially at higher levels, but you can use high INT to counteract it.
Because people get attached to one particular stat, I figured why not take advantage of it? So I added a class system. All it really is is an option to limit which stat you'll increase. You get a little starting item/spell, but it's not too important. Hopefully this increases the replayability.
A few things I didn't change... the Moroi aren't really hard, but the darkness they produce has some interesting emergent effects. You can use it to hide from other monsters. Conversely, it will attract Balaurs to you. Sometimes monsters will hide from you next the Moroi. As for the Rat Soldier, yea there's nothing special about it, but aren't I allowed one simple monster (seems like DCSS has few dozen)? Plus it's a great source of blood for vampires.
Thanks again for the feedback.
The game has changed so much since the last LP. I hope someone stumbles upon it again.
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The game has changed so much since the last LP. I hope someone stumbles upon it again.
I did a video review of an earlier version. I might do a 'return to Golden Krone Hotel' now it's been altered so much.
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Yes, I recall. That would be really awesome if you did another!!!! :)
It should be a lot harder this time around. I've made an effort to make the game mechanics more transparent, but if you do happen to play it please let me know if you have questions. The only person that I know that has played it lately is Z and I don't know anyone who has played it since this last balancing update.
By the way, I just now fixed a couple more bugs. One of them was quite annoying; if a vampire had 2 moves, it could sometimes dodge beams of sunlight. No more.
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Real talk, people. I read Darren's post today about Steam and it has made me wonder....
Would anyone here actually buy GKH if it were on Steam for, say, $1-$3? Or I'll hedge a little bit and say: would you buy the game if you had never played it but knew what it contained?
Is there something the game fundamentally lacks or bothers you so much it'd be a dealbreaker? In many ways, the design is intentionally very simple (e.g. autopickup, single number for your sword). I know it lacks the complexity of other RLs, but I figure some people might prefer the simplicity. On the hand, I think the mechanics and aesthetics are pretty solid. And there's enough content for many hours of gameplay: it takes me about 1.5 hours to beat and there are 20 monsters, 14 floors, 9 spells, etc. Of course, I'd probably expand the game with new monsters, spells, and areas, especially something that allowed an extended, optional endgame.
Honest feedback is appreciated.
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I`ll go in blind and buy nearly any old thing up to 5$ as long as it`s turn based, calls itself a roguelike and isn`t just a sketch. Above that level I actually start doing some research and ponder if it`s "worth it" (whatever that means) and if I might actually enjoy it.
I realize that is probably a deeply flawed approach and sometimes I wonder if buying weak RLs isn`t actually hurting the cause - but here I am just answering your question.
I (and few other people I suppose) also buy only DRM-Free games. This can be done through Humble, Desura, itch.io, direct form your website and a few other methods, so please consider this avenue if you decide on selling.
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Thanks for your input. According to Darren:
You can opt out of DRM on Steam (many indie games I play do just that), and you can still just have a link on your desktop. Some people like to demonise Steam, but from a developer perspective it's only as evil as you want it to be.
Anyway, if you want to play it right now for free, it's out there in a complete form.
Getting a game on Steam would be a pretty cool personal achievement (even if that means less than it used to) and the idea of bringing lots of new players and feedback is very enticing. Itch.io is a great platform, but I don't know how well it works for discovery. I put an early version of GKH on there last year and it's gotten fewer than 150 views in that time.
I guess I'll probably bite the bullet and end up doing this. It's only $100 and that goes to charity. There's just a lot of insecurity I've got to deal with here.
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My opinion is that Golden Krone Hotel is a real solid 7drl but isn't good enough to justify a commercial release. More monsters and items are nice but GKH's real problem is that it's too shallow. If you can fix that then go for it.
I wonder if buying weak RLs isn`t actually hurting the cause
It is. Indie developers are cranking out tons of shovelware roguelikes and pseudo-roguelikes these days because it's easy money. It tarnishes the public perception of what a roguelike is and, more importantly, it makes it more difficult for quality developers to stand out.
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If you plan to release, besides extra depth you also need more polish. And definitely some tutorial or overlay hints or something. If I want to check a game out to see if I like it for 1 hour, I don't want to be learning the rules and game UI quirks the hard way for 45'.
Re polish, an example: I tried to play the game a few days ago on a browser. I start the game and saw my character, in a 3x3 visible grid, and a vertical visible corridor. In my big, big screen, I did not notice the minimap. Pressing 'up' and 'down' had no effect besides some tiles changing and some monster appearing. You can call me dumb, but with the way I've been used to 'fog of war' which this game lacks, I *did not* realize that I was moving, and it confused me a *lot*.
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I start the game and saw my character, in a 3x3 visible grid, and a vertical visible corridor. In my big, big screen, I did not notice the minimap. Pressing 'up' and 'down' had no effect besides some tiles changing and some monster appearing. You can call me dumb, but with the way I've been used to 'fog of war' which this game lacks, I *did not* realize that I was moving, and it confused me a *lot*.
Ah yes, that. Even now, after having played the game multiple times, that throws me if I haven't played it for a while. More than once I've thought the game had frozen because you almost can't discern any movement in that first corridor. I consider that a minor niggle more than a game-ruining issue, but I imagine if I was coming to it for the first time with a view to spending money on it, "has this frozen on the first screen of the first play?" wouldn't be a great first impression.
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If you plan to release, besides extra depth you also need more polish. And definitely some tutorial or overlay hints or something. If I want to check a game out to see if I like it for 1 hour, I don't want to be learning the rules and game UI quirks the hard way for 45'.
Re polish, an example: I tried to play the game a few days ago on a browser. I start the game and saw my character, in a 3x3 visible grid, and a vertical visible corridor. In my big, big screen, I did not notice the minimap. Pressing 'up' and 'down' had no effect besides some tiles changing and some monster appearing. You can call me dumb, but with the way I've been used to 'fog of war' which this game lacks, I *did not* realize that I was moving, and it confused me a *lot*.
I agree. I have a whole list of things. The fog of war is one of those things I did for aesthetic reasons (that tile is pitch black and you can't see it), but I think everyone here has disliked it and this is the first time I've had someone say it made the game look like it was frozen. I'm going to reevaluate. Some other big things:
- Get FOV working correctly. It's currently very hacky and you should be able to see more tiles than you can (especially in a narrow hallway).
- Improve level generation so there are fewer floating hallways and dead endds.
- Make it fully playable with mouse or keyboard. It's close on keyboard, but not mouse.
- Maybe: expand the FOV to something like 7 tiles in each direction instead of 5. Currently, it's usually too late to run away once you've seen an enemy
My opinion is that Golden Krone Hotel is a real solid 7drl but isn't good enough to justify a commercial release. More monsters and items are nice but GKH's real problem is that it's too shallow.
Thank you Vanguard. This is the the thing I was looking for. I personally have those doubts, but it's hard to know if I'm judging things objectively.
I struggle with the shallow/complex thing. I made the thing simple on purpose. There's no endless item, inventory, skill management. Is that needed for a game to succeed? I don't know. Not to compare my game to it, but consider something like 868-HACK. 868-HACK is a brilliantly designed game, absolutely brilliant, but on paper the game sounds really simple: move through 8 levels of 6x6 grid, collect powers, and try to get a high score. It that too shallow? For a few bucks?
I don't have plans to add a lot layers of complexity to the game. At most, I've been considering adding some collectible abilities to the vampire side, so you can do more than just walk around (it would fit in nicely by replacing magic). I think some emergent complexity can be wringed out with new spells, potions, and monsters (that are actually interesting), but nothing that would try to reach at the depth of a big traditional RL. If that's the dealbreaker, I'll move onto other things. No biggie. This is just a thought experiment.
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Just to ramble a little bit more:
The game could certainly use more meaningful decisions. What I don't want to do is something that keeps you stuck in a menu. Like, I could add complex weapons, weapon types, branding. A lot of that stuff can be filler though (multiple types behaving identically) and I don't want the player to be overwhelmed with managing a huge inventory, carrying around dozens of swords because each one has a small advantage in various situations, etc.
What I would like is to have more tactical choices at any given moment and add a little more choice to the progression. So maybe you pick up books and they offer to teach you your choice of 1 out of 3 spells. And I kick your spell slots up to 4 or 5. If there were dozens of useful spells, I think the game would be a lot more interesting. I'd probably do something similar for adding vampire abilities. These things would give you one-time progression choices and constant tactical choice. I'm also thinking about getting rid of the potion identification, so you actually spend more time deciding which potions to use.
But when you use the words "shallow" and "depth", I have a feeling you mean there are no skills, no races, no mutations/religion, etc.
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Different people will have varying opinions of what's good enough to get on Steam. I've certainly changed my mind after seeing the like of HyperRogue and 868-Hack thrive on there. I never thought they would be on Steam without a slew of negative comments.
A key point is pricing. $1 on Steam means something totally different to $1 on mobile. $1 is ridiculous in fact and is probably way too low for any game.
There's a lot of crap on Steam these days, but the biggest problem is buggy, unpolished and unfinished games, not small games. And the idea that small games can detract from big games is ludicrous. Only bad games are bad, the size is irrelevant.
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The incomplete shit on Steam is irksome. Even games they say are done are just not in any way complete.
I've not played this game since the 7DRL but I'd say it's a good candidate for Steam. The $2.99 price point for me is the sweet spot, having spend the year engaged in Indie book publishing that's the magic spot where people start complaining. Could be different with games, but there will be a sweet spot.
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Thanks guys. There are some strong opinions on this forum and I fully expect a good portion of people not to like the idea.
But if I'm going to get it pushed through greenlight, I'd like to at least have some sort of "fanbase" here. The comments help. And like I said, if there are specific features that are dealbreakers, that is something that I am definitely going to tackle.
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I would suggest giving the game to someone that doesn't play roguelikes and see how they got on with it. Ask them to play whilst you watch without giving any instructions. You might learn some surprising things.
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But when you use the words "shallow" and "depth", I have a feeling you mean there are no skills, no races, no mutations/religion, etc.
Not at all. Complexity and depth are different things. Go, for example, is a profoundly simple game that can be taught to a child in an hour, but it's got enough depth that one could study it their entire life and still have room for improvement. It's good that you can distinguish between the two.
Anyway, as far as improving GKH goes, one of the easiest ways to make bump combat interesting and tactical is to ask the player to deal with squads of enemies that stay together. It makes location more important (open spaces mean you get swarmed, but hallways can lead to becoming trapped on both sides), it brings in the concept of target prioritization, and makes hit and run tactics more viable.
The two biggest problems that stand out to me in GKH are its food clock and the way it handles player speed.
A proper time limit gives meaning to even the most basic decisions. Like in Brogue, the enemies are dangerous, so I wanna stop and heal between every fight, but the food clock is really strict and if I do that I will starve to death. The simple choice of how much time to spend resting between fights can really differentiate between strong and weak players.
Golden Krone Hotel has a really minor time limit that doesn't need to be taken into account very often. iirc vampires never starve so you're free to wait around as long as you like until an ideal situation presents itself. A real food clock of some kind could make a big difference. It doesn't even have to be about food. If powerful but unrewarding enemies begin to generate the longer you spend in one stage then you should do your best to move on quickly.
The speed system, especially the fact that dexterity increases your movement speed leads to a bunch of problems. Any enemy who is slower than you and who cannot harm you from range can be beaten 100% of the time in absolute safety as long as you're willing to put up with the tedium. On the other hand, if an enemy is faster than you, running away is suddenly not much of an option. You won't escape and you'll take damage without giving any in return. Do enemies in GKH follow you through stairs? I don't remember. If they do then it's not as bad. Anyway, it's one case where the game could be improved through becoming even more simple. Give human form a set speed and vampire form a set speed, and don't include any easy ways to alter them.
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Sure, I get the difference (I'm an "amateur" Go player myself, though I haven't played in a while). The rules of Go are simple, but one could describe the strategy as complex, so I really had to guess at what you meant here. Thank you for elaborating.
You've got some good ideas, though I think several of your concerns have been addressed in recent patches:
- There is no squad AI and in general the AI is very weak. There is lots of room for improvement here. However, the humans/vampires now flock to light/dark areas. Which means they tend to group naturally.
- It used to be possible to kite slower enemies like golems with complete impunity, but I added a big variance to all moves. So even if you are very fast, the golem can occasionally get a hit in and it's going to hurt.
- Enemies used to not follow you up stairs, but they do now.
- The marginal utility of dexterity has been decreased, so you don't get such huge speed increases by putting a couple points into it.
Re: the clock, the actual hunger system doesn't work so much as a clock. The real clock is actually your health as a vampire. Since your base form is vampire and eventually you're going to run out of Soul Elixirs, you end up in a situation where your health constantly runs out (just by waiting around) until you're down to 0 HP. This health drop does need to be kicked up a bit and made into a percentage instead of a flat amount.
I will have to consider the monster generation (with no XP) idea. Currently cleared floors pose no problem.
Anyway, it's one case where the game could be improved through becoming even more simple. Give human form a set speed and vampire form a set speed, and don't include any easy ways to alter them.
It sounds like what you're saying is this gives me the precision to design enemies who can just barely be outrun or ones that can just barely not be outrun. That might be worthwhile.
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You can opt out of DRM on Steam (many indie games I play do just that), and you can still just have a link on your desktop. Some people like to demonise Steam, but from a developer perspective it's only as evil as you want it to be.
Please note I was just answering your question which was "would you buy GKH if it was on Steam". It was not my aim to start another pro/contra argument - these are pointless in 2015. Neither it was an attempt at dissuading you from putting your game on this platform - merely asking to keep other options open as well (especially seeing as you already have it on itch.io, and Desura has much broader audience and I think your game would fit there pretty well).
As for the larger picture - I don`t think it is even possible to make a case against releasing roguelikes DRM-Free and can not imagine why would anybody try to make one. And surely it can not be such a great hassle to send a few emails to assorted other storefronts and make an upload or two.
Indie developers are cranking out tons of shovelware roguelikes and pseudo-roguelikes these days because it's easy money.
I don`t know about Steam but regarding other platforms this would be much exaggerated and unfair. It`s true, I can only think of two high-level RLs started as $ projects (Dungeonmans & Approaching Infinity) that are on par with the depth and complexity of old classics and newer offerings often mentioned on this forum. But it doesn`t mean that all the others are junk - most definitely worth a few bucks I spent and some with a potential to become even more advanced (e.g Claustrophobia, 1Quest, Farland)
I also don`t think that RLs necessarily need to be super polished, full of content and "finished" (what?) when presented for sale - this genre is rather notorious for long dev cycles and late blossoms. There`s risk that some will go Pixel Piracy`s way but some, like Claustropobia, will turn a pleasant surprise (2 years of updates and massive progress)
Anyway, my main concern re: "should I keep on buying" is not with shovelware and such but with the New and Old way of releasing roguelikes. There`s no avoiding the fact that monetization is how it`s gonna be from now on - more and more people will abandon the old way of donation/share/postcard (ahhh :) or simply free-ware and switch straight to sales. While I of course do not deny anybody the right to profit from releasing these games (again, prolific buyer here), I can not help but wonder if in the long run it won`t affect the quality and originality of roguelikes themselves. Because like I said in the beginning of this paragraph, not many of the RLs that started as commercial projects can compare to the old style ones. And that might (or might not - I keep an open mind) have to do with pressures and pitfalls of designing a commercial project for general public.
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Woops, didn't meant to start an argument or anything. Sorry. ;)
Quick post here. I've been playing around with showing previously explored tiles instead of leaving them black. The first thing I noticed is it makes the game a lot easier to play without focusing on the minimap (which most people apparently don't do). I feel like an idiot for not doing this sooner.
But like I said, there is an aesthetic issue here. Most games can make unexplored tiles black and previously explored tiles greyed out. But I can't do that with the dynamic lighting system. I need to be able to represent several different things here: unexplored tiles, explored tiles out of sight, dimly lit tiles, and completely dark tiles. That's why I was using black for two of those cases.
I can make the previously explored tiles bluish and that seems to work fine. But then if I want to keep the dark tiles black, I have to use a different color for unexplored, which I find kind of ugly:
Option 1 (https://i.imgur.com/UreX9uS.png)
Or I can make the dark tiles a darker blue and keep unexplored black, but then it seems kind of weird to me when enemies suddenly pop out of the dark blue tiles:
Option 2 (https://i.imgur.com/syAZSP6.png)
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I need to be able to represent several different things here: unexplored tiles, explored tiles out of sight, dimly lit tiles, and completely dark tiles. That's why I was using black for two of those cases.
Can't you assign lightness for unexplored: 0%, out-of-sight 12% and use the range from 35% to 100% for dynamic lighting? Obviously playing around for better effect. The idea is that you can distinguish between the 3 different groups: completely unexplored, out-of-sight and somehow-lit, while allowing enough range for the lit. For the case of unexplored looking the same as completely dark, I'd use a seamless texture for unexplored tiles which looks mostly black of course.
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A dark grey cloudy texture would look better than flat black for unexplored, I think.
Also for enemies emerging from dark areas one thing I've seen work nicely in some games is having enemies vaguely visible when they're in the edge of a dark area. Have a shadowy sprite to show there's something there, but not reveal what. So you have the gradation of knowing something's lurking in the darkness to see it come fully into vision.
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(http://i.imgur.com/KpvG2p1.png)
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Just wanted to leave this note about Greenlight in this thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=428549630
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You should probably start a new thread under 'Other Roguelikes' or 'Early Dev'. GKK is no longer a 7DRL!