Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => 7DRLs => Topic started by: Darren Grey on March 09, 2015, 03:57:14 PM
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The world is freezing. Glacial ice spreads across the surface, frost shards smothering the landscape.
You are the last of the fire spirits, possessed of a heart of flame and spreading a blazing trail wherever you walk. You must overcome the chilly sorcerers that are freezing the land and find the final tears of flame, whilst avoiding being surrounded by the encroaching ice. Only through the power of your fiery tail can you hope to succeed...
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Bound to lead to steamy encounters!
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I'm done, woohoo! And somehow I managed to get through the week without making any fire or ice puns... Cool, eh?
(http://gamesofgrey.com/games/firetail/firetail-icequeen.gif)
FireTail is a hex-based game where your combat abilities depend on how many adjacent fire tiles there are. You make fire wherever you walk, giving you a fire tail of sorts. As the game goes on you get a longer tail and more associated abilities, but of course there are lots of hard bosses to beat too...
Downloads for Win/Mac/Linus can be found here:
http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=484
Any feedback is very welcome :)
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Personally, as I'm not a huge fan of ASCII, I like this a lot more than DataQueen. The opening screen, the art, even the level descriptions are all very nice.
My biggest complaint is it feels very tedious as the monsters appear to spawn nonstop. It seems very difficult, but I probably just need to spend some more time with it. I died a lot on the second level and was really struggling to understand how I could possibly kill the boss when she spawns 3 monsters at a time and I can only kill one at a time. I ended up diving her and then, when surrounded, just bouncing back and forth to the same tile to maintain by length 2 (or 1?) tail.
That part marks me as somewhat strange. I can keep my tail going forever by just cycling through the same movements, but should I have to do this?
- Tile 1->Tile2->Tile1
- Attack
- Tile 2 dissipates, but monsters can't move there yet.
- Tile 1->Tile2->Tile1
- Attack
- Repeat ad infinitum
I feel like some steps could be handled automatically here.
Anyway, don't mind the criticism. This is very good. Also it's very cool how each of your games seems to build off of the core ideas in the last one.
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I have problems with my PC or... or anything, I don't know. Data Queen and FireTail loaded to 100% and stuck. :(
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I agree there are some issues with how this actually works out, jere. In particularly whilst the Firetail is short there is a limit to what one can do. Also I maybe need to tone down how frequently the Witch summons... The back-and-forth tactic is indeed the correct one for her, mind. Maybe the issue is just that she has too much HP.
Avagart, I've been told there's an issue with the game doing that when first running, but succeeding when trying to run a second time. Does that work for you or does it always fail to load?
Edit: I've decided the Witch had too much HP and have reduced her from 6 to 3. If you can get 3 life off her then you know how to beat her, essentially.
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In Data Queen always, not only in first run. I FireTail... <checking> oh, wait, FireTail works fine! Thanks :)
But I must missed information about first running problem - in this topic and in readme I cannot find this info.
edit: I tried Data Queen again. It works...
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You're the first person to report this issue with Firetail. I was hoping I had solved it :(
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I was really looking forward to getting my hands on this, but I'm afraid I have to level the same complaint against Firetail that I've had with most 7DRLs: needs instructions. At least you have a readme; that's more than most. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect I may just be a bit dense :P
I enjoyed the game, but I really had no idea how to use most of my powers. I took Aura 3rd and Dazzle 6th, and those two powers would have won me the game on their own if I hadn't fat-fingered during the Queen fight. (Here I could complain about the control scheme, but I honestly don't think there's a better way to control a hex-based RL with the keyboard.)
My full list of powers was:
- Burn: Activated by bumping into an enemy, as far as I can tell.
- Bombard: I don't know if I ever managed to use this.
- Aura: This carried me through the game.
- Explode: I don't think I ever managed to use this.
- Starfire (or whatever it's called?): I don't think I ever managed to use this.
- Dazzle: Great fun.
The game was a pretty bog-standard "bump into the enemy" roguelike before I got Aura. After that, I ran around in circles and killed enemies. The vast majority of my time with this game was spent running in circles to get Aura procs onto adjacent enemies. If the other attacks are activated by bumping into enemies with more than one adjacent fire tile, then I couldn't tell. I managed to get to the last stage on my first attempt using only Burn and Aura. I don't know if that says more about me, the game, or just Aura, but free movement that also deals damage seems a little overly powerful to me.
The animation on your blog makes me wish I had tried Erupt -- it looks much more effective than Dazzle.
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Yeah, Aura's rather powerful - even morseso if you stick it on level 6. But I'd rather give enemies ways to counter it than just straight nerf it. Certainly the Queen does not succumb to it so easily.
Sorry if the instructions weren't clear, though you've done much better than others I've seen try the game. Aura, Dazzle, Blaze and Hide all activate when surrounded by x number of tails. The others are all attack, and activate when attacking an enemy with the right surroundings. Generally the attack ones don't work well with high tail numbers (4 and above) as it's hard to get enemies adjacent. Some of them work phenomenally well against bosses, though!
How did you find the boss fights?
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Ah, I tried to activate Bombard that way, but it wasn't clear that it had actually bombarded, so I never really tried it again. If this weren't a 7DRL, this is where I would be chiding you on not providing more visual feedback, but it's understandable given time constraints.
The pre-Aura boss fights were good. I'm glad you took Witch down to 3 HP, since the difficulty in that fight is entirely in approaching her. After I got Aura, literally every potentially difficult encounter was dealt with by running in a circle. Of course, this didn't work on the queen, although if Erupt does what it looks like it does, then I could have gotten away with it there, too.
If you were planning any updates to the game, I'd recommend more Aura-resilient enemies. Some examples:
- A 1 HP enemy that can move when you move on the firetail. This breaks a fundamental rule of the game, so I can understand how you might be reluctant to add something like this.
- An enemy that is invincible to conventional attacks that can only be defeated by being surrounded by X fire tiles -- perhaps 3?
- An enemy that actively seeks out your fire tiles to extinguish them. Aura would still deal with this guy like anything else if you have your tiles already set up, though.
- An enemy that retreats 1 tile on taking damage.
You say that Aura is more powerful on level 6. I would contend that it is no more powerful on level 6, and in fact is most powerful on level 3. Consider the following layout:
.1 2
3 4 5
.6 7
If I have tiles 1, 2, 3, and 4 lit up, I can kill every enemy adjacent to any of those hexes by running in a circle on those tiles, regardless of health. I can then move to tile 5 or 6 and repeat the process, chaining Aura indefinitely as I snake through the stage in diamond formations. Taking Aura sixth not only delays how early you can get it going (only on the last level!), but it also makes it harder to start up. Since Aura 3 deals effectively infinite damage to everything except the Queen, there's no benefit in making it more powerful.
Another more global change that you could make is to make enemies more willing to step on the firetail. This makes it harder to create an Aura loop, although it probably makes it easier to execute the other attacks.
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Some nice ideas there! I might make Aura minimum level 4 so it can't be so easily repeated. On level 6 it's rather nice combined with Blaze level 3 - you end up turning all the surrounding tiles to fire, and you can keep going back between 3 and 6 whilst advancing in a wave of fire across the level.
One other option is to not give free movement on Fire terrain, and make it something like 4x faster instead. I rather like the free movement though :P
Enemies burn to death if they're on fire tiles (with the exception of elementals), so having them walk into your trail is deliberately impossible for them. I could make more flying enemies though. Originally I planned for the sorcerers to cast ice at tiles around the player, but with the time constraints I just made them do a ball around themselves. Some other trail-extinguishing powers could help.
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Hey Darren, huzzah on another game down!
- I hit a 1st run issue as well, where the game seemed stuck on a title screen that was way bigger than my screen resolution, but with none of the usual tome menu on the left. I have saved the log file if you are interested.
- The game is quite nice too look at, so now it needs nice sounds to go with.
- Tried to kill the witch but the constant spawn of ice cubes is a bit obnoxious. Clearly I have some learning to do.
- My best "run" was just using dazzle and diving as fast as possible. Its a neat ability.
- I had some confusion in identifying when an ability was active. It seems they are active when the text is red, which is opposite day from what I'm used to.
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- I hit a 1st run issue as well, where the game seemed stuck on a title screen that was way bigger than my screen resolution, but with none of the usual tome menu on the left. I have saved the log file if you are interested.
Ooh, yes please! Let me know what graphics card you have as well.
- The game is quite nice too look at, so now it needs nice sounds to go with.
Yeah, didn't have time for that in the week :-/ I think sounds would help show what actions are taking effect better.
- I had some confusion in identifying when an ability was active. It seems they are active when the text is red, which is opposite day from what I'm used to.
Hmm, really? Maybe I need to make the other colour greyer, or add some extra indicator...
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I've updated the game with a little balance tweak - Dazalee and Aura have slightly reduced power, but more importantly they require you to skip a turn to activate. Same with Hide and Blaze. This stops the player from pulling off crazy combos without any turns passing.
I've also put the game on itch.io, which is a pretty awesome platform for games distribution:
http://darrengrey.itch.io/firetail
The latest versions are on there :)
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I'm new to the forum but let me tell you it was quite a journey to try to give feedback on Fire Tail. I made accounts with wordpress.org and .com to try to comment on Darren's games of grey blog but it didn't work. Then I wrote a review on the 7DRL page but apparently I need a juror password. So here is my feedback here (phrases copy and pasted from the review page):
I played Fire Tail for about 3 hours now and found it delightfully simple, smooth, and deep. The game looks great, using limited colours so that it is easy to decipher what is going on visually. It is very fun, while difficult. I haven't beaten the titan king yet but I can tell there are a number of skills I want to experiment with. I am able to enjoy the permanent death aspect because of the simplicity of restarting the game and the frequent number of choice points that occur (which skill to pick).
I had given a 3 on everything.
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Sorry you had such trouble leaving feedback. The whole review system on the site is for a privately appointed panel (the results of which will be available soon).
Thanks for the positive comments :) I'm really happy with how it's turned out. If you have suggestions for improvements please let me know!
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This is just nuts http://i.imgur.com/zl3oC7z.png I did manage to beat the Titan King once, but wasn't able to escape his massive army of titans afterwards.
I got Dazzle at my first chance and it didn't seem to be doing anything. I guess it stuns for F/2 and a 1 turn stun without any pushing means I haven't done anything except let everyone else move? I guess choosing skills wisely is part of the game, but that was an easy trap to walk into. Oh I see I'm an idiot.
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Hmm, okay, I guess I should nerf the Titan King a little :-/ That Titan army is terrifying!
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Hmmm. Maybe someone else can come in and comment about their experience. Honestly I'm somewhat bad at the game and pretty impatient and I wouldn't want you to nerf all the bosses because of me (as I might have contribute to the first boss getting nerfed)! ;) Anyway, my experience with the Titan King is pretty much always like that.
I've beaten him a couple times, but it seems to be a bit lucked based whether or not I can swing around the pack of titans and get him to come to the front a few times.
Really good game btw. It's definitely grown on me.
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Thanks!
I'm planning to make a few changes over time, in particular to add more level types (the titans will get a proper fortress) and add a bit more enemy variety early game. If you have any ideas, especially in how to spice up the early game, please let me know.
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Heh. Weren't you against continued work on 7DRLs at one point, Darren? Not that I care. I think it's produced some really good stuff recently.
I could brainstorm some ideas but can't say if any would materially improve the game. One thing you could tackle is making the levels feel different beyond just the flavor text. I'm not sure what you're thinking with the titan fortress but it makes me think of having different tiles types beyond ice. Perhaps rock, which is indestructible (and constitutes an actual fortress), and "dead forest" which burns and in doing so provides free fire tiles. Different levels could have different amounts of each. Or you could simply make the level shape and/or color different. One other idea: an ability that doesn't hurt monsters but only melts large amounts of ice. Again, just brainstorming here.
Don't be too upset by the "a lot of patience" comment in my review. It says more about me than it does about the game. Plus it looks certain by this point that you'll place in the top 10 (next to me, since we appear to have tied :) ).
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I'm against continuous work in principal ;) In practise I can't help myself! Though I am a bit disappointed that the game didn't end up as complete as I wanted within the 7 days. I blame post-operation lack of energy and my computer blowing up one of the days :-/
I've been thinking of different terrain types, yes, as well as different structures for levels and a few more enemy types. I might also remove the ordered nature of the zones, letting the player choose which order to complete them in. I've no idea how balanced that would be though ;)
For melting ice there is Blaze, which does a rather terrific job when combined with Explode or Breath. I might have toned down its power too much in the last update though.
I take absolutely no offence at the "patience comment - indeed, I am rather proud of it. Damn right my games require patience! This ain't no simplistic shooter. I could do with making the game less grindy though, especially early on.
I'm pretty sure the Titan King is quite beatable at present, mind. Try Bombard 2 and Dazzle level 3.