Legend of Siegfried

[Xan]

I finally got version 0.2.6 out... unfortunately Windows only, due to a bug in Mono.  We'll see what I can do about that in time.

Wiki page and announcement thread.

What is the Legend of Siegfried?

A fantasy adventure roguelike inspired mostly by ADoM, ToME, and Incursion.  I'm not sure I can say at this point what's distinctive about it in the sense of having something no other roguelike does, but I am focusing mostly on world detail, which means I have a very specific vision for the kind of world I want TLoS to be set in.  This is something necessary for the plot to really work (of which there isn't really much implemented right now), but it will also allow me to write various other short games set in the same world, allowing players to get various perspectives on things.

Goals

Right now, my primary development focus is adding more content (creatures, places, dungeon and town features, etc), and improving the interface.  I'm interested in feedback especially with respect to interface, but I enjoy hearing thoughts about anything.  I'm also interested in knowing what people think about more technical things, like the game balance so far (although of course that will be changing a lot).

If anyone's interested in getting my feedback, just update your incubator thread.  I don't have a lot of time right now, but I'll try them when I get the chance.

[kraflab]

I want to play this but I'm not sure I have the time to give it a serious look right now.  You'll hear from me eventually

[kraflab]

Here is a first pass look at the game.

I would say it is in the "in desperate need of a better interface" stage of development

The mouse is there, but various actions it should have do not appear to exist, such as opening the inventory, picking up items directly from the list of things on the ground, etc.

There should be simple one-line descriptions of all the things in character creation right on the screen for me to see.  Why do I need to open a help document just to know that this thing affects stats x,y,z?

The inventory uses the terrible, tedious design of the old days where it takes 3 steps to find out that the mace I found is useless and shouldn't have even been picked up in the first place.

Escape should open a menu with various submenus, such as the inventory, help, and options (at least when there is nothing to "cancel" as it currently is used).

Why is there a confirmation on equip?  I had to press i -> d -> e to equip it and now I have to also press y?

The game is missing any kind of explanation as to what it is.  Who am I?  Where am I?  Is there a goal, or do I just wander?  Is the cave I found a self-contained game or is it just a random piece of the pie?

In the cave I found, the first floor had windshield enemies, but the second was more dangerous, with absolute hoards of enemies that could attack from farther than I could see.  It seemed to have everything I would expect in a classic roguelike in terms of the loot and the foes, so that's good if that's what you are emulating Personally, I found the inventory very tedious so I didn't feel particularly compelled to continue onward (I also don't have the time currently).

Anyway, I think the game is fun, but the interface needs work!

There was a bug on the title screen: on returning from the help menu the top line of the help menu was partially covering the title background.

A side note, the game takes a while before graphics actually appear (win7-64bit).  If this is due to loading you should initialize graphics before doing anything else, then display a loading screen.  I was going for the ctrl-alt-del end-process when the window finally popped open.

[Xan]

Heh, yes, very true about the interface.  In part, that's because I originally intended the game to be ASCII only, and the addition of graphics is quite recent; in fact, the same UI code handles both the ASCII and graphical modes.

With respect to gameplay, I would say ADoM and ToME are the primary influences, and (again, originally) the game was meant to mostly appeal to people who liked ADoM, so the UI wasn't a big concern.

The delay before starting looks like it's caused by checking for updates to the game (probably the process wasn't allowed internet access, so it had to wait for a timeout, so I should really set the timeout to something pretty short).  It also looks like there's a bug that causes it to not show the fact that it is checking for updates.

Part of the problem is that I'm just not sure about how I should proceed with regard to the interface.  Maybe it's just because I don't want to rewrite most of the UI code.

This is exactly the kind of feedback I've been looking for, though.  From what you say, I can see three things that really need to be done:

1) information in generally needs to be as readily available as possible:  descriptions of choices when highlighted, as your example, the comparison of items with what you currently have (should be available just by mousing over the item list on the right)
2) more information concerning the intrinsic nature of the game: give at least a brief explanation of what the current situation is and what you should be trying to do
3) use normal fonts for all text except symbols in ASCII mode: pixelated monospaced fonts simply take up too much screen space, and I'm pretty sure that's part of why I'm feeling limited in what I can do with the UI

I should be able to fix the minor issues soon, and will upload an update when I do.

[mrrstark]

2) more information concerning the intrinsic nature of the game: give at least a brief explanation of what the current situation is and what you should be trying to do

Agree here. I fired it up and ran a round a bit, but without any real explanation what the point is, what the classes are (they seem to just be bundles of stats?), and what my initial goal is... it's very hard to get engaged. Even to know whether I'm expected to go to the cave first or town,  do i need to pick stuff up in the Town to have a shot at things?

Does gameplay have a direction like quests or?

I know Adom started like this but... maybe you could add like a 5 line dialog?

I went to the town on my first toon, and talked to someone who asked me a couple quick 1 liner questions and then launched into a novella of world history . Skimming that, I didn't get what I was supposed to, and couldn't get him to repeat himself, so was lost.

Also, wasn't clear which NPCs were worth talking to. Maybe signs or something out front of the important buidlings, or a different material to call them out? lights?

I'd also echo the complaint about picking stuff up, I couldn't easily tell from the UI what stuff was merely on the ground in line of sight, and actually underneath me without going into the GET menu.

On the graphics overall though, I do quite like the look. Think it looks quite nice

[Z]

My first impressions:

Interface seems to be the roguelike standard, OK with me (but I have not done much more than walking).

The town is huge and boring. And I did not know where to go then. My character has almost starved while exploring the wilderness, and was immediately killed after entering a (gnoll) dungeon.