Messages

31

Player's Plaza / Re: skill-based RL?

« on: April 11, 2014, 05:09:07 PM »

Potion-identifying is like the classic case of an actually fair "unfair" death. Most games provide a safer way to figure out what something is, or at least narrow it down to whether or not it's safe. Paranoia is a virtue. If you do stuff that's "mostly safe" in a RL the dice will get you sooner or later.

I'm not that big on the standard fantasy settings myself but having the option to play as a flesh-eating ghoul or a samurai or something usually makes up for it (see: Dungeon Crawl and Nethack respectively). Infra Arcana is a horror/Lovecraft RL set in the 20s that gets nothing but praise and seems stable but I haven't tried it myself.

32

Player's Plaza / Re: Party-based dungeon crawlers

« on: April 11, 2014, 04:47:59 PM »

Looks like the developers of an indie crawler called Legend of Grimrock considered this idea but ultimately discarded it

http://www.grimrock.net/2013/03/21/scrapped-game-designs/

Everybody loves a good roguelike, right? Antti and I are big fans of roguelike games here at the office, so it was only natural that this idea, the amalgamation of a roguelike game with Grimrock, has popped up every now and then in our discussions. After all, the tile-based nature of Grimrock seems to be a perfect match with roguelike game design.

With this design levels would be procedurally generated, with some custom made levels here and there. Turn-based combat would probably work better than pure realtime. We even made a quick prototype entitled Grimrogue with turn-based combat and a minimap in one corner of the screen.

One problem we quickly realized was that the player would be focused on the minimap when exploring the randomly generated dungeon and all the gorgeous 3D graphics would be almost like a gimmick. We also had our doubts about turn-based combat. Turn based combat works really well from a topdown perspective where you can see all the units and can think about the best tactics. In first person view where you can only see in one direction, turn-based combat takes away tactical movement and reduces combat to a locked in place affair.

In the end, we felt that with this design we would lose lots of the appeal of Grimrock, the puzzles and the chaotic nature of realtime combat, so the design was scrapped. It would certainly be possible to make this sort of game but it wouldn’t have been Grimrock.

33

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

« on: April 10, 2014, 05:55:10 PM »

It's stupid that you can "die" in an RPG in the first place. You could spare players the tedium of having to reload from a save if the game just allowed the character's HP to decrease to negative numbers with no averse gameplay consequences. Of course if you're a "Hardcore Gamer"(tm) you can just go to the menu and choose quit when your HP drops below 1, but it's unjustifiable to force that on the player.

34

Player's Plaza / Party-based dungeon crawlers

« on: April 10, 2014, 03:31:50 PM »

Are there any roguelikes where you control a party of adventurers, or are there any party-based crawlers with a lot of roguelike characteristics?

(Also: you could do me a solid by reccomending a good and properly challenging party-based crawler suitable for a spoiled modern gamer. I don't think I can run Might & Magic X on this bucket of chips)

35

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: April 04, 2014, 10:59:08 PM »

Perma guy and Scum guy start playing the same roguelike at the same time.

First month Perma guy keeps playing first 20% of the game, Scum guy completed the game 3 times.

Second month Perma guy reaches 50% of the game a few times, Scum guy completed the game 10 times.

Third month Perma guy regularly gets to 50% of the game, Scum guy completed the game without save-scumming.


Who is having more fun? And how many Perma guys give up before ever completing the game?

It doesn't matter because scum guy is forever banished from our community. If I wanted to have fun I'd play a game with graphics.

36

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: April 04, 2014, 10:56:22 PM »

I think prohibiting save scumming is more important than permadeath. But permadeath is great for a game that makes it work.

Permadeath is just a consequence of the inability to save scum.

Not if you can't be permanently killed.

37

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: April 04, 2014, 02:50:38 PM »

I don't think permadeath is appropriate for every game.  To me, it depends on the variety provided in each playthrough.  If starting over means that you are faced with no new choices, no new powers, no new monsters, no new levels, etc, then permadeath probably isn't a good choice for that game.  Redoing everything that you've already done simply isn't fun.

That's why randomness is such a key part of roguelikes.  While the player may be a bit frustrated at dying, there should also be excitement to see what the next run will have in store.  And while randomness necessitates some degree of luck, luck can also contribute to this feeling, this idea that anything can happen, that the same game can surprise you each time you play.

While some may enjoy permadeath for just the added thrill factor from the risk it provides, I don't personally feel that is enough.  I've never understood permadeath in MMO's, where you must spend hours grinding to get back to where you were, nor even in games like Diablo, which has random dungeons, but static gameplay and choices.

So it is usually my goal to make repeated playthroughs as interesting as possible.  For me, that's the draw of a roguelike, this sort of unspoken promise that each time I play will be a brand new experience.

I agree with this very much. Most of the simple roguelikes I've tried on smartphone feel similar in every playthrough (given the same class choice) and there's not much to figure out (identifying scrolls and whatnot) so permadeath is just a way to repeatedly kick the player in the nuts. It also seems hard to make a roguelike that's simple AND tough AND fair: you get two of those at most.

I think prohibiting save scumming is more important than permadeath. But permadeath is great for a game that makes it work.

38

Design / Re: Zelda roguelike

« on: March 28, 2014, 03:31:14 PM »

Bomberman. Could Bomberman work as a roguelike? I submit that it would make more sense than Zelda.

I mean OP's question is just... good lord, are you people really willing to have a multi-paragraph, quote-and-response debate about this?

39

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Quest of Dungeons (now at v1.01) $

« on: March 28, 2014, 03:19:02 PM »

40

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn-based) / Re: Cardinal Quest 2

« on: March 27, 2014, 06:49:31 PM »

You can lame it up pretty bad with hit/run/recharge tactics as a mage, it can get a little ridiculous against enemies with magic resistance that have no hope of catching you. I think time may affect your score (?). Actually I would like to know how the scoring works.

I was breezing through Act II on Suicide difficulty thinking I had the game figured out until I got to the boss.

41

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn-based) / Re: Cardinal Quest 2

« on: March 26, 2014, 06:34:38 PM »

I was having a nice time until I realized there was no food clock. The fact that you don't regenerate health is probably supposed to make up for this but it looks tentatively game-breaking anyway provided you don't mind running up the in-game time.

Otherwise I agree with OP. The in-game purchases are luckily done in an acceptable way.

42

Design / Re: My two cents about Permadeath

« on: March 20, 2014, 07:52:17 PM »

I wouldn't savescumm in a roguelike any more than I'd delete my save file after dying in Fallout or whatever. I don't see the appeal in either one. You could glue some half-assed permadeath "hardcore" mode onto just about any game I guess, but it seems pointless if its just an afterthought.

43

Programming / Re: Where to start?

« on: March 16, 2014, 04:04:31 AM »

You need to find an excuse to write a real program (something at least several thousand lines long that performs a commensurately nontrivial task), maybe something for school or whatever.

How about a roguelike!

I get the impression that a decent chunk of the major roguelikes were started by people who didn't know what they were doing and did it all wrong. And yet, here we are.