Messages

31

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 18, 2013, 03:52:39 PM »

yeah I am pretty happy with the skeleton summon anim. I am going to be trying to do stuff like that on all the effect anims.

- I have some things with the monster placement Orange Eyes should not be placed next to each other, and skeletons should not be placed in corners. but I haven figured out a good way to program something to check that.

- The slime is a bug, but I have no idea what causes it so I need to figure that out.

- The main problem with the trap door now is I want something that blocks sights of the eye. which is why I think I need something that is up into the Air. the biggest problem now is creating a down position for it. I have been testing a bunch of different stuff. see when its down it needs to take up most of the square, but when up it can only take up about half the square, because I need to show front and side. so its a balancing act.

- the CR system is a little broken because it doesn't take the floor difficulty into account. I need add that in.

32

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 17, 2013, 02:48:27 AM »

updated the build with a new version. bunch of changes such as

- New small fire enemies, that merge into large fire enemies
- New lich summon animations
- new torches
- new yeti movement
- snails are unkillable.

PerspectivDesigns: currently its at a dropbox link you can check out here, but eventually that will be going down and I will be putting it somewhere on the web (as well as iOS, Android, and jsut a straight EXE download). download).

Erik Temple:
I implemented the points check system and its working okay at the moment. Its going to take some balancing until it is better, the mechanics work perfectly, the numbers need to be fine tuned is all.

I will probably not to hero abilities, and if I did they would only be a one time per run use. and the scoring is still pretty up in the air. I might unlock a secondary mode, when the game is completed that has score, so I keep the difficulty build up out of the calculations.

33

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 13, 2013, 03:11:34 AM »

That's a really good idea. I was doing something similar, but  in reverse I was trying to take a value and purchase guys to meet it. Randomizing it and giving a minimum value will probably work great. I will try getting that system in tomorrow.

34

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 12, 2013, 12:46:23 PM »

So I have been reading through a bunch of Tabletop RPG books about their Random Encounter tables (Their logic works well for me). they have a good idea of basically having a table from 1 to 100 of monsters so 1 - 20 might be rats, 20 - 30 might be skeletons. and then ifwant tougher encounters you jsut add a modifier to what you roll. so I might be able to do something like that.  as I fill my monster bag its filled in order of easy to difficult. I can then just add modifiers to push the selection towards the end of the array as opposed to the beginning. It will take some testing, but might work.

35

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 12, 2013, 01:35:08 AM »

yeah, Monster generation is super basic and pretty random. Let me explain how I do it.

Monster Generation.

As the game goes on the list of available monsters grows. So at the beginning the monster looks like this:

["Rat", "Skeleton" Eye"]

so then it looks at each one and then checks the rarity value for each floor. so for the rat the 8 floors look like this:

[ 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]

so the game takes the current floor and then sees how many are listed for the rat. So for the Rat the first floor get 3 into the monster bag. so by the time its done the monster bag looks like this.

["Rat", "Rat", "Rat", "Skeleton", "Skeleton", "Eye"]

then the game just randomly pulls 4 monsters out of the bag.

Its not the most elegant solution but its effective. The one problem is that it can be pretty unpredictable. I am open to suggestions on what might be a better way to do this as I am going to be adding the special floors which would be better weighted to certain enemies.

Also some people have asked for an endless mode, which my current system does not support because of the floor rarity.

36

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 11, 2013, 02:43:49 AM »

No update as it's pretty broken at the moment.

Working on making the game a bit grader. Trying to make level one feel like level three.

I added a new starter enemy. It's a small flame guy called a cynder. They move like the rats, but with two differences. They are immune to the yetis freeze attack and if a cynder is next to another cynder they will combine into a new monster called an infernus. The infernus will move like the old goblins did. Going two spots at a time in the cardinal directions. Later levels will also have infernus on them. I may make it possible for infernus to become a bigger enemy not sure yet. If I do they will basically be like rooks.

Yetis now move in all 8 directions. It's much better.

Laying the groundwork for special rooms. I might also do rooms with just themes. Like a bunch of yetis, or fire guys. I also want to make a demon room with sigils just popping out demons.

I am working on the right side emptiness problem. Trying to think of some different solutions.

Not sure about adding multiple enemies at once. It shouldn't be to different if the guy is just like hey now I got witches and slimes though.

I might also add some enemies that cause problems on death. Like an enemy that shoots out fire around it. Or explodes so you have to be careful when it's on traps. I am also thinking about adding a trap in that shoots fire in cardinal directions and it rotates. ( some enemies will be fireproof, immune to fire traps and freezing)

37

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 9/7)

« on: September 08, 2013, 01:04:57 AM »

Its a separate link but its using Stage3D, and the graphics are extremely broken.

so as you go up the tower the floors have different A. Monster Counts, and B. Monster rarities. So I just need to take the 4th floor and set that as the starting difficulty. That should be easy to do. I am also thinking of doing a tutorial dungeon to just teach the basic mechanics.

the stepping away from a mobile game is an excellent point, that i had not even taken into account. I am going to have the snails eyes closed when it wont move, but i am trying to figure out some thing for the demons. thought about changing the eye color, but not sure if that would work.

as for the treating difficulty, that all seems beyond my feeble scope. and I automatically thought of a dude in like 50s era nasa suit getting a a stack of read outs from a computer bank.

-so I always wanted to make the snails stronger. they are extremely slow, what if because of their shells I make them unkillable by moving into them, same as a dragon. that might increase their difficulty a bit.
- I am also thinking that the yeti needs to be tougher, especially because they are so big, I could have them do the original goblin thing of moving two spaces in a direction, but I wonder if that might be better for a more abundant monster.
- the wolves can turn corners. (although they are really broken at the moment, Need to completely redo their AI)
- I am also thinking of possibly doing "Special floors" a couple examples are:
     1. Dragon Floor. I would really beef up the dragon. It would stay unkillable, and would probably move in all 8 directions. but basically the dragon would be asleep. each turn a countdown would go off above his head, so the player would get like 8 turns to get to the end before the dragon awakes.
     2. Locked room. The stairs would be hidden with a large skull symbol where they should be. the skull would have a number on it and each time a monster is killed that number would tick down. meaning the player would need to kill like 2/3rds of the floor to move on.

38

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: September 07, 2013, 05:35:26 PM »

So its been a long time since I updated that original build. (Testing in Stage3D which doesn't work as a regular swf and needs a HTML wrapper.) I just updated it to the newest build. Take a look at it because some of the changes you mentioned are already in. but I will go through your comments.

Difficulty: the comment of "to easy" has been brought up a bit ( I am at the point where I dont know if its easy becasue its easy or because I made it). I have done a full mix up of the enemy unlocks with some of the beta testers so the difficulty seems a bit better now. I suggest clearing your data by hitting 1 on the keyboard and starting over to see the new unlock order. what do you think could be done to make 1-7 all interesting?

Gauging difficulty: I don't really know how I would increase the combination of enemies and use that as a difficulty setting. I mean I understand that some enemies work well together sometimes, but I don't know how I would translate that into a difficulty curve as it seems very dependent on level and placement. I think its a really good idea, I just don't know how to go about that whole thingy, open to suggestions. I do need to redo some of the levels to give them a more open layout.

Unfair difficulty: I always thought of the game being about memorizing, but it is more about interrupting the rules laid out by all the enemies. the idea of a small note for the player could be a good idea. Similar to how st33d did Turnament. but It would need to be something that the player can notice, but isn't like a large neon sign. I just added in the small tip on the spikes to show they will strike next.

Should the game have an ending? I am thinking about some type of ending, but then perhaps unlocking some sort of other mode. maybe just a really hard like 20 level dungeon. I also think that you can do something similar to people playing Spelunky, where players will play to get their "Win percentage" higher.

Specific enemies:
- the arctic wolf is currently in the game. It takes two turns for each players one, although it is fairly broken and needs a full code rewrite
- Slimes are added in now. they should appear after about 7 wins. I am also going to add a Spider. which will put down webs, that are basically like unmoving slimes. limiting the player if they walk into them. They will last for about 3 turns.
- the dragon may just not have any other moves, and that's why he is moving away.
- yeti freeze has been dropped from 3 turns to 2
- that is extremely easy to do. I didn't want the dragon to be all powerful, but I can add it in to a build for later.
- the opening pit traps are going to be replaced by the moving walls, the trap doors looked cool, but they raised many problems like why eyes couldn't see through them, which was one of their main designs I liked. the main problem on the moving walls, is some good art. that reads well. also some people asked why the raising walls killed the enemies so I will need a "Idea" to show that.
- Also not sure if this was mentioned yet, but clicking and holding on an enemy will bring up a description.

39

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: September 07, 2013, 12:12:21 PM »

Was that really obvious? Because I kept trying to think of an idea on logic sorting and my wife suggested the same thing I don't know how I missed it. I am going to implement that today. Also if anyone would like to test the game out I have a brand new build with a lot more stuff. I just need the ending system. On the fence between treasures or boss battles to end the game.

40

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: September 06, 2013, 10:47:14 PM »

Hey guys. I was just wondering. How important do you think it is to know the actual turn order. Or at least be able to have a good idea of the turn order in Microgue. I need some input.

41

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: September 03, 2013, 07:46:06 PM »

yeah there will be a three big buttons on the bottom, Treasure, Options, and Adventure.

working on the after win now currently there is a treasure chest. I was thinking of doing artifacts for each level, but that would require me to draw like 20 different artifacts, but it would be cool because I could show how many heroes died to get this treasure. SO the player will know that they died 20 times between this treasure and this treasure

So that got me thinking about maybe doing just treasure. Open up the treasure chest and BLAM!!! money. So when the player clicks treasure it will just show them a gold pile that will get increasingly larger as they go. They wont know how many heroes died on eich unlock tier though. I could also make the money be an actual value. Like as a player goes through maybe the faster they do the more money they will get, but I think that is going more towards score and I dont know if fastest way through is the best way to do score.

I was also given the idea of instead of treasures doing "evil lords" their portraits would be easier to draw. and the player kills a new one each time, which explains them strengthening their defenses.

42

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: August 28, 2013, 01:21:52 AM »

working on the title page



the clouds may be animated.

43

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: August 27, 2013, 04:15:24 PM »

Found the bug about the invisible trap. Its something to do with the engine and not my code. The fix is suppose to be in this week, so we will see.

I swapped the Evil lord sprite for a actual face portrait. So that should be in now. drawing out artifacts now. I am thinking about writing a small story for each artifact. describing what it is, because why not.

44

Early Dev / Re: Microgue (Updated 8/26)

« on: August 26, 2013, 05:25:18 PM »

So big update to the game. A started doing the unlocks. if you want you can hit clear to erase all data and then refresh to start from the beginning. Each time you retrieve the Artifact a small change is made. Now I can start working on the difficulty curve and also the whole presentation. I will also be keeping track of how many hero it takes to retrieve an artifact. So you will be able to see how many times you dies trying to get to the next level of unlocks. if someone wants me to post the full list of unlocks in order let me know. I am moving them all around trying to get a nice gradual curve.

There are a lot of bugs still. and a few enemies that still need to be added because they dont really work at the moment. and sometimes traps are invisible. I think that's an engine thing, but I am looking into it.

45

Early Dev / Re: Microgue

« on: August 24, 2013, 03:21:28 AM »

Redid the level creation system. I hope to have a new build up this weekend. And then getting some testers to really try it out. I really need to flesh out the difficulty curve.

Added slimes in. The player can only move one square after killing them. And here is an enemy and trap list

Traps:
Spikes
Walls
Statues

Monsters:
Rats
Skeletons
Eyes
Demons
Yetis
Ninjas
Giant eyes
Wolves
Dragons
Liches
Snails
Slimes
Golems.