Messages

1

Incubator / Re: Auro: A Monster-Bumping Adventure(Steam)

« on: April 13, 2016, 02:37:43 PM »

Good news - the game is now out on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com//app/459680

Let me know what you think!

2

Incubator / Auro: A Monster-Bumping Adventure(Steam)

« on: April 07, 2016, 08:12:26 PM »

I've posted about the old mobile version of Auro on here before. But now the game is coming to Steam with a massive, massive update. Almost all of the art has been replaced, there are new rules, and basically a revamped main gameplay mode. We also got rid of the annoying tutorials, but other than that, everything that got us a 91% on metacritic is still there. Would love to hear what you guys think of the game.



Some stuff to know:

- Basic premise is that the game is all about pushing monsters into the water. It gets extremely complex though, with slippery ice floes, air vortices that bounce actors, and monster abilities that all synergize with your own to create huge combos.
- The game is played on a "win/loss" basis. So it's not just "get a 'high' score" but, get exactly X points. The game dynamically adjusts the difficulty as you win/lose more games.
- Combat is 100% deterministic, there's no dicerolls involved.
- It took us 6 years (and counting) to balance and polish this game
- Extremely deep and tactical. Don't let the cutesy art fool you.

It'll be coming out on the 12th! I'll post about it here again once it's out.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHxydc4oaxM

3

Design / Re: Issues with Rogue-likes from a Rogue-like dev

« on: February 05, 2016, 04:30:10 AM »

I hadn't heard any of this biz about Black Shell before I did the podcast. They messaged me and we had a discussion via email just about game design and they seemed to be interested in the conversation, and, as Rogue-like devs, it seemed like a conversation worth having. My podcast doesn't talk at all about their business practices. My podcast is about as far from a "business" podcast as you can get. So I'm definitely not endorsing their tactics or whatever.

Anyway, thanks for listening. I also did do a follow-up episode that explains my views on the Rogue-likes as skinner boxes thing a bit more:

http://keithburgun.net/cgd-podcast-episode-17-rogue-likes-and-other-bar-games/

4

Design / Issues with Rogue-likes from a Rogue-like dev

« on: February 01, 2016, 06:57:11 PM »

Hello, all! You might have heard me on the Roguelike Radio podcast a few times and talking about some of my issues with Rogue-likes. I have a new podcast now and the last two episodes talk a lot about Rogue-like design, and I thought you guys might like to check that out.

Episode 16 - A Conversation about Rogue-likes with Black Shell Games:
http://keithburgun.net/cgd-podcast-episode-16-a-conversation-about-rogue-likes-with-black-shell-games/

Episode 17 - Rogue-likes and Other "Bar" Games:
http://keithburgun.net/cgd-podcast-episode-17-rogue-likes-and-other-bar-games/

Let me know what you think.

5

Early Dev / Auro - A Monster-Bumping Adventure

« on: June 28, 2014, 03:59:12 AM »

Hi fellas. I'm Keith Burgun. You might know me as a frequent guest on the Roguelike Radio program, or as the creator of 100 Rogues, or perhaps more recently EMPIRE: The Deck Building Strategy Game.

Anyway I've been working on this game Auro for almost 3 years now (had a modest successful kickstarter back in 2012), and we plan on releasing it in a couple of months. I'd love to get some of you guys involved in the testing now that we're in the home stretch. Website: http://www.auro-game.com

It's a really tight tactics game about using abilities to bump monsters off the level and into the water - efficiently, which usually requires some real skill and creativity.  There's really a ton to say about the game... It's really all about synergizing these abilities in an almost rube-goldberg type way. Like, you flatten a slime, a rat walks on it and bounces into the air, landing on a bat's head, the bat gets dunked into the water, and the rat lands in fire causing an explosion, sending 2 more monsters into the drink. That sort of thing. But it also has a lot of other huge innovations, like the way we're doing the single player mode, or how we distribute skills randomly, or how we de-sync animation from gameplay (I hate waiting for animations to play out before I can make another input!), or like ten other things like that.

Here's some screens from the game in progress.











If you have an Android device or an iOS device, we'd love for you to come join us. Most of our discussion currently takes place over at the dinofarm forums here (http://www.dinofarmgames.com/forum/index.php) so I would love if people could come by there to discuss it, but if you'd like to post your thoughts here, that's OK too. Either way, I need your email address and which platform you're on if you want to check the game out. You can put that info on the Dinofarm boards, put it here as a post, or PM me with it. Looking forward to having you on board.

Here's some links:

Auro Site (INCLUDES A MANUAL!) http://www.auro-game.com

Dinofarm Forums http://www.dinofarmgames.com/forum/

Follow us on Twitter at @dinofarmgames

Thanks!

6

Development Process & non-technical / Re: Why I hate the term "Permadeath"

« on: May 10, 2013, 07:47:45 AM »

I do agree that there's some practical application for it, in the way you've mentioned.  But, it still bothers me because it's more of a REQUIREMENT than it is some "freak property", which is how it's generally talked about.

I prefer the expression "you can lose in this game."

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Development Process & non-technical / Why I hate the term "Permadeath"

« on: May 10, 2013, 03:25:07 AM »

This is bound to get some interesting responses from my fellow roguelike developers... but, I hate this term, "permadeath".  I explain it fully here, and I'd love to hear some of your responses.

http://keithburgun.net/why-i-hate-the-term-permadeath/

8

Early Dev / Re: AURO Gameplay footage (alpha)

« on: August 12, 2012, 05:15:13 AM »

Thanks!  It's worth noting that the game has a lot of UnRogueLike qualities, such as:

No randomness in gameplay - there's no D&D style To-Hit% type things.

No items (other than scrolls which are just one-shot use abilities)

No equipment

No "exploration" really, or fog of war, or minimap

No complicated D&Dish stats systems


The game is very much a non-random strategy game, that's randomly generated and score based.  More like Tetris in a lot of ways than ROGUE.

9

Early Dev / AURO Gameplay footage (alpha)

« on: August 11, 2012, 07:28:33 AM »

Hey guys!  I just posted a video of some early AURO alpha footage.  What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nHeE7Ye-wo

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: AURO Kickstarter

« on: May 31, 2012, 10:44:47 PM »

Thanks guys.  Also, some may know me from Roguelike Radio, where I'm frequently on.

11

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / AURO Kickstarter

« on: May 30, 2012, 10:47:48 PM »

Auro is not a roguelike, but it evolved out of roguelikes from the creator of 100 Rogues.  It still is pretty roguelike-ish, and I certainly think roguelike players will find it interesting at the very least.

Further, this one, UNLIKE 100 Rogues, isn't trapped on iDevices.  It's available for Linux, Windows, OSX, Android and iOS (and maybe more).  Check it out!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinofarmgames/auro

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: "Auro: The Golden Prince" (Kickstarter went up today)

« on: December 10, 2011, 09:53:11 AM »

Hey all.  HUGE update today, revamped how Auro looks and the presentation video is completely different (I think 1000 times better, I'm actually embarrassed at how bad the old one was).  Please check it out!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinofarmgames/auro-the-golden-prince

Also to clarify, the game will be on Android, iOS, Windows, OSX, and Linux.  Pretty much everyone will have access to this game.  And it will not be puzzley - it will be totally a game, with many many correct answers to problems.  Lots of room for creative play, while being very challenging.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: "Auro: The Golden Prince" (Kickstarter went up today)

« on: November 20, 2011, 06:16:10 PM »

>>so about how long will a normal dungeon take?

Very short.  The game is "condensed", so there's not a lot of running down a long corridor or anything like that.  It's pretty much constant, teeth gritting strategy the whole way though.  So in terms of TIME - it depends on how long you take with each move, but if you play normally you can probably beat a level in like a minute, give or take.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / "Auro: The Golden Prince" (Kickstarter went up today)

« on: November 19, 2011, 01:30:59 AM »

Hey guys.  Firstly, Auro won't qualify, I think, as a roguelike by most of you.  However, I sort of see it as like the "future roguelike".  Here's the kickstarter page with a video and stuff:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinofarmgames/auro-the-golden-prince

I designed 100 Rogues (http://www.100rogues.com), and it definitely is a roguelike (albeit, a graphical one).  For this game, here's what's radically different:

- No experience points.  you simply take a new skill each dungeon level

- No health scaling or any of that.  Monster encounters get harder because you fight more monsters, and more different TYPES of monsters, mostly.

- No equipment system.  This is all expressed in the skills system.  If you want "armor" you invest in a defensive ability, etc.

- No "items".  Well, there are some, but not how you think.  There are two item types:  potions (which heal you immediately when you pick them up), and scrolls (which are skills, which are one-time use unlike the ones you know)

- You have 10 HP, deal 1 damage.  Monsters have (usually) 1 or 2 HP, and deal 1 damage.

- The game is hex-based, rather than squares.  This is for a few reasons, not the least of which is that it's a really happy medium for touch-screens.

The game is designed primarily for Android and IOS but it's also coming out on desktop computers so ALL OF YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PLAY!   And it'll be cheap.

Hope you guys like it.

-Keith Burgun, Lead Designer @ Dinofarm Games.
http://www.dinofarmgames.com

15

Early Dev / An article about dropping "skip turn" from roguelikes

« on: October 23, 2011, 05:21:44 PM »

It definitely is NOT an idea for the normal roguelike like Crawl or Nethack, but some more experimental roguelikes may want to try dropping the "skip turn" ability altogether.  Here's an article about it:  http://www.dinofarmgames.com/?p=399