Topics

1

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Rogue Fable III

« on: November 26, 2018, 11:18:16 PM »

Hello everyone! I've been working on Rogue Fable III for about 4 months now, preparing to bring it onto Steam through early access where development will then continue. Since I'm very nearly ready to make the transition I've released the game in its current form to the web which you can check out at the link below. Its doing pretty well with the general audience on Kong but I'm always curious what more experienced rogue-like players think. All feedback, suggestions, complaints etc is welcome and appreciated.

Justin

https://www.kongregate.com/games/Justin_wang123/rogue-fable-iii

2

Early Dev / Rogue Fable II (Browser Based Rogue-Like)

« on: February 28, 2017, 02:26:31 AM »

Hi Everyone!

This is my third iteration on a browser based rogue-like. Its getting pretty close to completion and I'm looking for some feedback.

https://justin-wang123.itch.io/rogue-fable-ii

The main objective for this project was to create a game that is playable in a single hour while containing enough content and variety to make repeated playthroughs novel and enjoyable. I'm pretty heavily inspired by Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and I consider this an attempt to capture the spirit of that game for times when I don't have 8+ hours to do a full DCSS run.

Features, design decisions and some rambling:

Themed Zones:
The game contains a total of 7 different themed zones each with its own unique monsters, traps, environmental hazards and level generators. For each playthrough the first few dungeon levels are always the same basic zone but then in later levels 3 of these themed zones are chosen randomly. The idea here is to give the player different combinations of themed zones with each playthrough. I think that just random placement of rooms, corridors and monsters is not enough to really make each run feel different so this is my attempted solution to that problem.

Character Classes:
There are 6 classes which I've tried to differentiate as much as possible. With rogue-likes, classes are kind of a tricky problem in my opinion. With random loot, its possible that many of the items that you find may be useless if your abilities are really solidly defined by your class. So to try to overcome this I've borrowed some ideas from DCSS and given each class a starting book from which they learn their class specific abilities. Later in the dungeon you will find the books of other classes allowing you to multiclass to some extent if you choose. There are some inherent statistical differences between the classes but most of it is defined by their starting equipment and their starting book. In this way I'm trying to have the classes be most differentiated at the start of the game but then the way in which you develop your character is dependent on what you find later in the dungeon.

Damage Model:
I've continued with a fairly deterministic damage model though with the addition of random critical hits and misses thrown in a very small percent of the time. I find that random damage is just sort of noise when I play games and just makes it difficult to judge tactics while not really adding that much unpredictability. I cant really call the difference between 5,6 and 7 damage 'random'. So my solution to this was some small percent of the time there's a critical hit (x2 damage) and some small percent of the time there's a miss (0 damage). My thinking here is that this reduces noise, increases the players ability to play tactically and when the dice do fall a certain way a big effect is produced.

I've thought a lot during this project about this sort of 'meaningful randomness'. The themed zones could be seen as a form of tackling this issue. I've also generally moved away from say generating 3-6 gold per level and instead just made it a constant 4 but with a 10% chance to spawn a treasure room on a level full of piles of gold. I feel like players are unlikely to notice these small fluctuations in gold per level but a room full of treasure is sure to get their attention. This sort of design is carried through a lot of the project and is something I'll likely continue thinking about in the future.

Feedback:
All feedback is greatly appreciated. The game is pretty close to what I'd consider 'complete' there's just some graphics missing in a few places and maybe a few balance issues here and there. I haven't really gotten to adding a lot of help text yet so one thing I'm particularly interested in is any confusion that crops up during play, anything that doesn't make sense. Obviously balance and challenge is a pretty big deal as well. I'd like at least with the easier classes for players not to just get slaughtered in the first few minutes, so I'd appreciated your experience in this. Last but not least, crashes, bugs, weird behavior, all that stuff that I'm sure keeps us all up at night. A copy paste of the browser console after a crash would be extremely helpful.

3

Early Dev / Post-Apocalyptic Rogue-Like Game

« on: June 03, 2016, 07:07:31 PM »

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for some feedback on my current (unnamed) project which is nearing completion. This is my 3rd iteration on a rogue-like and as with the previous projects, I want this game to be able to stand on its own while also acting as the base of the next project.

Link:
http://game-test-page.comoj.com/Wasteland/

Screen Shots:






Overview:
- Static overworld with towns, npcs and quests.
- 6 Randomly generated dungeons and a couple of surface locations.
- Skill based character development allowing characters to specialize or generalize in melee, stealth, ranged and psionic combat.
- Approximately 100 items, 50 monsters, and 20 spells.
- Primary focus is on careful resource management and combat tactics.

Controls:
I hope the game is mostly self explanatory (please let me know of any confusion). Most of the controls have yet to be explained in game so I'll list them here:
- Clicking with the mouse moves or interacts (including attacking)
- Clicking any item in the inventory will use it (equip, cast spell, consume potion etc.
- Clicking player (numpad 5) will wait a turn (this is important in combat for positioning)
- There is partial keyboard support with the numpad providing movement and bump to attack (it works the same as clicking adjacent tiles).
- E key will auto explore
- R key will (r)ecast the last spell
- W key will (w)ield the previously wielded weapon
- A key will allow you to target distant enemies using numpad to move the cursor and 5 to click (this works the same as clicking a distant tile).

Feedback
Any feedback is greatly appreciated with the following topics of particular interest to me:

Difficulty
I've been playing this game for so long I no longer have even the slightest clue as to what the difficulty is for other players. Obviously as a rogue-like its intended to be difficult, something that you need to play repeatedly and learn all the little tricks in order to win. With that said, I'm curious as to how the challenge level is for everyone.

Pacing and Length
Similar to the above point, I can rush through the game at a pretty rapid pace but I also find that it gets repetitive at points though this is largely due to having played it hundreds of times. How is the overall length of the game? Are the dungeons to long, to short, or just right? Is new content introduced at the right pace?

Usability
This is a big one. Is it obvious how to play the game. Does the UI give enough information or is there anything missing? How do the controls feel. Does the game give you enough direction that you can figure out where to go next.

Bugs
Obviously I'm anxious to hear about any crashes or lag spikes or unexpected behavior.

Features
Any general suggestions for new features or improvements.

Future Plans:
I'd like to wrap this project up in the next few weeks and then as previously mentioned use it as the base of a larger, more ambitious project. Roughly speaking the direction I want to go in is to create a continuously scrolling over world (getting rid of the world map) dotted with different environment biomes, ruins, highways etc. I want to add crafting, harvesting any all the standard features of a survival sand-box game.

The idea is that the player gathers up resources, equipment, and other consumables on the surface and then tackles one of the large, extremely difficult dungeons. In tackling the dungeon the player uses up most of his supplies, damages his equipment sustains lots of injuries but gains some powerful artifacts, crafting recipes or something which allow him to push out further on the surface.

Generally speaking I want a sort of two-mode game in which gameplay on the surface is survival sandbox in which you prepare to tackle the next dungeon (which roughly increase in difficulty). Upon completing the dungeon you gain something which lets you explore further, craft more, generally experience more of the game. I plan to have an actual end game and victory condition. I'm hoping to overcome the main thing I dislike about sand-boxy games such as mine craft or dwarf fortress which is that generally there is little feeling of progression after the early game has been overcome and I always end up getting board without obvious goals.

4

Early Dev / The Rogues Fable [Released]

« on: January 14, 2016, 08:38:24 AM »

Web Link: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Justin_wang123/the-rogue-fable

Hi everyone, I'm getting pretty close to finishing my second attempt at a rogue-like and I'm looking for some feedback from fellow developers. There are no in game instructions yet but I hope its intuitive enough that experienced rogue-like players like yourself can figure most of it out. The game is entirely mouse driven. Clicking your character will wait a turn. Clicking any item in your inventory will either use it (potions, food, scrolls etc.) or equip it. Spell casting is a little different in that each scroll has a mana cost, if you have sufficient mana, the scroll is not consumed. Clicking the character portrait in the bottom right of the screen lets you select skills each time you level up.

Features:

• 16 main dungeon levels.
• 2 themed branches with 4 levels each (not required to win game).
• Melee weapons, ranged weapons, armor, amulets, potions and scrolls.
• Spell casting system based on scrolls.
• Classless, skill based advancement.
• Shops to spend gold.

Some of my thoughts that went into designing this:

Deterministic
The game is almost completely deterministic. Weapons always hit, all damage is constant (though mitigated by armor and resistances), healing recovers a set amount of hit points etc. I placed both the remaining hit points and damage directly on enemy sprites as I want players to know exactly what will happen in the next turn. In general I've tried to make the game as tactical as possible with the player given perfect information regarding the state of the game and the results of his actions.

No Health or Mana Regeneration
The player either needs to consume items in his inventory or consume resources in the level to regenerate mana and health.

Character Development
I've tried to strike a balance between allowing the player to define his character build and allowing the RNG to define it for him. The items in you find are the major way in which your character build is defined with skills playing a lesser role. Furthermore I included shops so that the player has some control over which items he carries. I intentionally made the inventory small in order to force players to drop items.

No Useless Items
Even though players will generally be specializing in some variation of melee, ranged, caster or stealth build, I wanted all items to always be useful. For example when a scroll is used, if the player has sufficient mana, then only mana is consumed, otherwise the scroll is consumed. In this way I hope that non caster characters will still feel it useful to carry around scrolls for emergencies.

Multiple Effects
I tried to make most items and spells have multiple effects. Healing potions can be drunk at full hp to increase maximum hit points, food also restores health, fire spells can ignite vines, ice spells also freeze enemies in place. There is generally no best weapon type: swords hit multiple enemies, pole arms have increased range, daggers can back stab unaware enemies. Heavier armor reduces maximum mana.

Feedback
Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I'm particularly interested in the difficulty level as I'm afraid to admit I haven't beaten the game yet (my friend has though so its definitely possible).

5

Early Dev / JRogue - my first roguelike

« on: August 07, 2015, 09:36:35 PM »

Hi everyone!

I just finished my first attempt at making a small roguelike game and would love some feedback to help guide future development.

For JRogue my goal was to focus on unique content and avoid many instances of similar items/enemies differing only by stats. I also tried to put the focus as much as possible on items and kept the players power curve from leveling quite shallow. I even toyed with the idea during development of simply removing all leveling but my love of watching a little experience bar grow proved to strong. The combat mechanics are also almost entirely deterministic as I wanted to emphasis tactics and avoid as many random deaths as possible. I tried to keep the scope small while still delivering what I believe is the core roguelike experience. There's a lot more I'd like to add in the future but I'm eager to hear from you guys while the game is still small and 'malleable'.

I'm particularly curious about to the difficulty level for other players as I find myself dying about one in two attempts (a complete run through only takes about 20 minutes).

For those interested the game was developed with Javascript and the Phaser framework and should work on all modern browsers.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Justin_wang123/jrogue

Justin