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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: April 03, 2014, 04:00:00 AM »

What else is there to say: the game's not really ready enough to be a roguelike, or much of a game at all. It definitely fits the term of "tech demo".

That's what you think!  Someone has given it a 3 for roguelike and 3 for innovation.....

I guess it's my opinion, but I couldn't make the game do anything other than that one map, and what's there isn't much of anything with regards to an interesting challenge. If there IS more to the game, I don't mind replaying.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: April 03, 2014, 03:54:05 AM »

Succession, by Adam Perry

Overall Thoughts:
This game has a odd, contemporary charm about it that really grabs me. I don't know how else to describe it, unfortunately! It's just built together lightly but has a much deeper rhythm once you get going, I dunno.

Also, the difficulties here are actually something I think I'd like to see in more roguelikes, or at least along these fundamental lines. It's easy to make difficulties occur as the rebalancing of stats, but this game has very set and very obvious considerations for each difficulty: always starting from scratch, starting from exactly what killed you, starting with a bonus, and accumulating that bonus (from hardest to easiest, respectively). Players choose something and adjusts themselves based on how well they're doing, then can return for a harder challenge later on if they find it easier after learning how to play. Lots of games try to make difficulty level but Succession is one of the few that does it right. (And yes, that means there's no how-to on correctly creating difficulty rungs: it has to be fit to the game.)

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: April 02, 2014, 04:27:48 AM »

Sand Dune Monster, by henson

Overall Thoughts:
What else is there to say: the game's not really ready enough to be a roguelike, or much of a game at all. It definitely fits the term of "tech demo". What I mention in the video and its comments says enough. I do hope more work is done on it, however, because the base for graphics and the overall mapping/background is really nice.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: April 02, 2014, 04:25:49 AM »

Goldfish, by ondras

Overall Thoughts:
It plays great, it's simple enough to do without having additional information, and it provides great atmosphere. On the other hand, once you know what to do, it's probably a ten-minute game (at least that's assuming the fisherman are limited). You could possibly have more in it with very few changes, like gaining extra goldfish as part of some kind of automated group, which would also be equippable. It might be going too far but I can see something along those lines playing out without affecting the pace of the game too much. What's there now is fine, I suppose I'm just yearning for more. It's always great to see creative themes in these games, and Goldfish is certainly something you won't sea often!

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 31, 2014, 04:48:02 AM »

Hey Hunter what kind of shoes did you get? I'm a bit of a New Balance guy, had problems with my feet wearing Nikes.

If you're curious, I have another YouTube channel where I post some of my better runs. I also stream at twitch.tv which is sometimes kind of interesting (i.e., not really, but I don't mind talking while I run).

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 31, 2014, 04:45:17 AM »

DataQueen, by Darren Grey

Overall Thoughts:
It's actually kind of interesting to note that I haven't seen a lot of "complex" roguelikes yet: ones that attempt simple gameplay and combine it with complex situations do rather well in the 7DRL, and DataQueen is no exception there. So much that can be tried, so many types of patterns to be figured out, it's amusingly overwhelming when you consider how little there is in the way of content! It might be "too hard", but only in the sense that upgrades might be more frequent before handling bosses. At the very least, it would appear that your choice of weapon is extremely important for the second boss, and having a couple extra would be nice to go along for the ride. It's definitely the kind of game to pick up and play on occasion, slowly gathering experience, until you get to the next level and start learning everything all over again. Accumulating knowledge rather than stats: that's what I like most about the roguelike experience.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 28, 2014, 06:18:01 AM »

Fida'i, by Pat Wilson

Overall Thoughts:
I hate to keep saying it but I really really do wish Shift+Direction was turn-without-move: it throws off the balance of the game. And I really want to be able to thoroughly enjoy this game! Stealth roguelikes don't often stay interesting, but this one is semi-arcadey and keeps the player on their toes, trying to use resources carefully because they never know what they'll find on the next level. Combined with the obvious factor that your character is relatively awful at combat (though you can handle some non-combat opponents), it's challenging but greatly rewards an excellent usage of tools. In a genre filled to the brim with games that have you slaughter tons of enemies without much of a care, it's a breath of fresh air. Technically Pat's other games also instill this, but Fida'i pulls it off best thus far, I think.

PS: Sorry for sucking at keeping a regular schedule. Speedrunning is starting to become a rather intense hobby! I hope to make a lot of videos on the weekend so it's not too dry in the coming weeks.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 28, 2014, 06:12:54 AM »

Hellspace, by Numeron

Overall Thoughts:
For the scope of the 7DRL, this is a very good creation. Granted I do see a lot of similarities between it an Rogue City Scavenger on the engine side (and even the 7DRL 2012 game that I think crashed when I tried to play it but that's off-topic), but there's also enough additions to appreciate the development side. Then you have the gameplay, which has been expanded upon using creative and innovative surprises. There isn't a lot here, but for seven days it's plenty. It also paces well: the various abilities in enemies are spread throughout the game, culminating in that last encounter that tests your limits like no other in the game. And yeah, it could be harder (though final boss was just right) but the challenge would end up coming from even more abilities and such, which would have taken more time. So I like where this fits into 7DRL: not incredibly small, holds its own with a number of specialties, and wraps up in a way that makes you feel like you earned your victory. Well done!

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 25, 2014, 04:39:34 AM »

VARIABLO, by Rat King

Overall Thoughts:
The idea of the game is amazing and I wish I would see it more. However, I'm tempted to call this game a prototype, because it's barely stepping outside of its comfortable zone after introducing basic concepts. To be fair, it's really more of a prototype 2.0: there's progression and the game ends with victory/loss, which is better than games I would usually call prototypes, but it doesn't address "the struggle" of getting far and spending effort to reach said progression or victory. Now there's two ways to go with it: focus on the puzzle part and customize difficulty with some extra scatterings of enemies and powerups, or focus on the roguelike part and give the players additional abilities to manipulate the maps over time (like storing a square, or allowing them to move farther than adjacent, or merging pieces that then move together). Either way I'd find the game a ton more capable of hours of enjoyment, but as it is now I think it's limited to an hour or two.

Don't get me wrong, this is definitely fun in its current form. It is, however, missing some variation to keep the idea interesting past its novelty.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 25, 2014, 04:19:49 AM »

Beware of Strange Warp Points, by Ed Kolis

Overall Thoughts:
I made the completely amateur mistake of trying to judge a game without playing it, and for that I sincerely apologize. Trying to figure out a game on the merit of its manual and display is not a sound way to understand the goals and objectives of its aesthetics. I really don't know why I decided to try that in this video, but I really hope I don't manage to do it again.

Ironically enough, however, in my premature judging I do think I nailed this game's major downside: complexity without depth. You can throw the player a lot of stats and tell them they must satisfy certain conditions, but if you do that too much without providing the player enough gameplay (in this case moving on the map and searching/fighting) then ultimately the game's focus becomes the condition-satisfying instead of what might be intended. I mention in the video that removing extraneous details from each component's listing would help parse the information: this would go a very long way in helping the player along the stat game and getting back to the action. I'd try to figure out what details of components have little or nothing to do with the primary activities of the game and just strip them, or simplify them enough so that it's easy to recognize ship deficiencies. I'm sure I didn't spend quite enough time internalizing the mass/crew/speed, but even if I did I think it'd be too much.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 21, 2014, 05:10:15 PM »

I was a little concerned that I didn't hear any music/sounds. I don't know if that was a bug or if you just had the audio off.

Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing music the first time I started up the game. Trying things to figure out the best resolution meant going into the game a bit so I naturally refreshed the page: I suppose that could have caused a problem? I usually use Firefox for these games, so it could be browser-specific if you test with others.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 21, 2014, 05:47:39 AM »

Golden Krone Hotel, by jere

Overall Thoughts:
Yeah, the intro to Golden Krone Hotel is awesome. Especially because it only takes ten or so moves to do! This game should be used as an example of great tutorial design.

As for the rest, I think there are more than enough elements to occupy the player for a while, and the situations can get complex very fast, leading either to tense and exciting gameplay or extra preparedness in future crawls. Having to balance the brawler and mage classes in the same character at different times changes the normal "pick a class and stay with it" perspective, and I expect that the pace of this game makes that work without feeling too forced on the player. Additionally, dual-class flipping means you won't get tired of doing the same actions, because you'll have to switch over at some point to stay alive! Some great execution in design, here.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 20, 2014, 03:53:39 PM »

You're aware those last two are unlisted, right?

Sure am! I've found that viewership is generally better on YouTube if I space out the recordings. You'll get to watch 'em here slightly earlier, and I imagine if you're checking this thread then you're interested in these videos specifically, not just whatever videos are available in some giant list of subscriptions.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 20, 2014, 05:51:25 AM »

The Littlest Princess, by Joseph Bradshaw

Overall Thoughts:
It's less ambitious than KlingonRL, but it's far more polished and aims for completely different objectives as a game, which I don't mind at all.  The ghost is the real challenge of the game but everything else can and will get in the way, so there's a lot to think about. At the same time, the game board is small and the number of pieces are few, so it's easy to learn the patterns required to handle things. After that, you just gotta watch the next board and see what has to be done! I think it can work well as a roguelike for less experienced players (not that I show any indication of being good in the video) so fun may not be there for long depending on experience. I want to see more "board game" roguelikes, though, and this is a gem for that list.

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7DRLs / Re: 7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

« on: March 20, 2014, 05:34:58 AM »

Rogue Station, by Pål Trefall & Kenneth Gangstø

Overall Thoughts:
Completely different approach this time around, and I think it paid off handsomely. While there could be some bits and pieces added, making a really nice 15-30min game overall, Rogue Station performs the various tasks of building a roguelike admirably, and it plays well to boot! Ultimately the gameplay is pretty simple, but you have to be constantly aware of your semi-invisible surroundings and approach each area with caution and restraint. The "countdown timer" seems awfully long, though, especially given what's available to throw things off after it begins, but it's a good idea with the right combination of additional obstacles. I hope to see this fleshed out over time!