Messages

16

Design / Re: Class restrictions

« on: April 30, 2014, 10:32:16 PM »

I believe DCSS did away with equipment with racial bonuses because the racial bonuses were minor but led players to believe there was no point in using the stuff if you were the wrong race. It was misleading.

The thing with class penalties is you are either giving players the opportunity to make awful decisions or else leading them to believe some options are bad when they're actually okay-ish, and unless they crunch the numbers they may not really know which one. Or so it seems to me.

17

Design / Re: Wound system

« on: April 30, 2014, 10:25:32 PM »

My best character went insane ~12th floor because I didn't understand how the insanometer worked and I was basically mostly ignoring it, durrr... Not even mad, not even mad.

Having one number would at least be more intuitive for players who are a little slower in the head.

18

Design / Re: Wound system

« on: April 29, 2014, 07:22:06 PM »

One thing I've wanted to try for a while is a long-term injury system where every 10 points of damage you take causes your max health to go down by 1.

Really?  That sounds insane!  The only way I can see that working is if there was no actual goal in the game other than to survive as long as possible.

That's pretty much how Infra Arcana's sanity system works...

19

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v16.0).

« on: April 29, 2014, 06:57:31 PM »

Not really clamoring for more D&D-style content myself, but you can't go wrong with ritual daggers. Did you know that the first chainsaws were invented in the mid-20s?

20

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v16.0).

« on: April 21, 2014, 12:24:15 AM »

Really digging this -- I played a little tiny bit on the last version but I've already put more time into this one. I don't think I've felt more consistently threatened in a roguelike, which is great, I hate it when you're only in danger 5% of the time.

Is there a technical reason that there's no Mac build, or is it just something you can't be bothered with?

21

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 19, 2014, 03:07:15 PM »

I blame the rest of you for this, it's obvious LazyCat can't help it.

22

Design / Re: Permanent consequences for failure that aren't death

« on: April 16, 2014, 04:33:36 PM »

Resident Evil-style limited saves encourage self-torture (to me), replaying segments until you get the run through a section and then saving.

23

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Crawl tourney

« on: April 15, 2014, 07:58:44 PM »

I like all the weird class and race choices in DCSS or Nethack for that matter. Playing as a cat or a vampire beats having five different races of elves, coherence be damned.

24

Other Announcements / Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way

« on: April 15, 2014, 07:56:06 PM »

This short/wide concept sounds good on paper, but the game is only as wide as the field of optimal play -- which is usually quite narrow and difficult to control -- unless there's so much slack that the game is too easy. When people figure out your short/wide game, you're going to realize what you have is just a short game.

(To clarify, I'm referring here to the blog post referenced by Jo, not this particular project.)

With a lot of randomized content I'd expect the greater danger would be the game becoming too luck-based.

25

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Crawl tourney

« on: April 15, 2014, 12:36:48 AM »

Here's a bunch of self-professed roguelike fans/developers saying they don't have the patience for one of the standard bearers of the genre.

...and for once they're not talking about Nethack!

26

Other Announcements / Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way

« on: April 14, 2014, 05:59:30 PM »

Thank you Jo! Interesting read, and also interesting thread on Reddit. I had not seen it so thank you! Yes, it really seems Andrews description fits my game pretty well. I have a new post describing this concept further: http://www.thegroundgivesway.com/design-goal-variation/

That makes so much more sense than what e.g. ToMe is trying to be imho, best of luck to you.

27

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Crawl tourney

« on: April 14, 2014, 05:33:08 PM »

I'm new to this game and was worried it was just me... seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time luring solitary enemies up the stairs but I still haven't gotten very far (~12th floor now) so I was hoping the game would click. I haven't played on a server but I don't see how y'all could be worse than I am.

28

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: April 13, 2014, 06:29:04 PM »

Discussion saving-progress features in a roguelike forum is the same as discussing the human evolution at a creationism forum.

Or, ahem, vice versa

29

Player's Plaza / Re: Easy diagonals on existing roguelikes! (partial solution)

« on: April 13, 2014, 01:30:26 AM »

In Izuna (a Nintendo DS game) you could only move in cardinal directions unless you held down the R button, in which case you could only move in diagonal directions. This took about 0.5 seconds to learn and afterwards you never hesitated before making a move. Infra Arcana's solution is more efficient in terms of # of keystrokes but you still have to "get used to it".

30

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: April 11, 2014, 05:49:02 PM »

Not if you can't be permanently killed.

You people are so pedantic.

You started it...

I actually do think permadeath vs anti-save scumming is a significant distinction and the latter is much more important. If in say Nethack your character could respawn after dying, it would make the game easier and less frustrating but the overall design of the game still works. OTOH, if you can save and reload, even if there are limitations on where/how often you can save, the item identification aspect is rendered totally pointless (for starters).

Even lightweight commercial roguelikes that have minor consequences for dying or allow you to resurrect at a cost don't normally have a "load save state" option because it would pretty much ruin them unless the player decides not to use it out of the goodness of their heart.

OTOH I can see how getting your progress wiped out in an 80 hour game might piss some folks off. My solution is just to not play ADOM because it sounds completely insane on paper, frankly I sympathize with anyone scumming their way through that.