Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle (Alpha v1.1.4 $)

[getter77]

http://claustrophobiagame.tumblr.com/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92940102  Hopeful Steam Greenlight bid

http://www.desura.com/games/claustrophobia-the-downward-struggle  $4.99 on Desura Alpha fund currently available

Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle is an indie RPG roguelike, with a retro graphic style and a terrible sense of humour. The game takes place in a series of ever descending randomly generated dungeon floors, packed full of monsters to slaughter and loot to pillage. The game plays like a traditional roguelike, but with a clean UI, a slick, action orientated combat system, and a massive range of enemy types, skills, gear and room designs. With features like crafting, skill trees, multiple characters, multiple difficulties and quests, Claustrophobia is a love letter to traditional RPG rougelikes.

Features:
*Expansive Random Dungeon Generation
*Clean Integrated Interface
*Hundreds of gear, enemies, and skills
*Visual Equipment System
*Massive amounts of Customization
*Slick Combat System
*Multiple difficulties
*Massive Replay Value

Controls

    Left Click: Move
    Right Click: Interact / Attack
    Tab: Skill Tree
    Q,W,E,R,T,Y: Skill Keys (Press in Skill Tree to assign)
    Shift + Right Click: Sell (In Shop)
    Shift + Right Click: Pick up (From Floor)
    Esc: Pause Menu

The alpha includes (despite what I said in the last update):

    -Fully randomly generated content for the whole first level
    -10 enemy types
    -Randomly generated gear and gear progression
    -Visual Equipment
    -Full Strength and Agility Skill Trees
    -No Level Cap

From this point on, all game content will be added in the form of (hopefully) monthly Major Patches, and smaller, more regular Minor Patches, until all the planned content is added. This includes:

    -50+ Enemy types
    -5 Dungeon levels
    -10 bosses
    -Intelligence Skill Tree
    -Visual Character Customization
    -Difficulty and Spawning Controls

Latest v1.0.2 patch:

FEATURES

    -Added Blacksmithing

ITEMS

    -Added Leather
    -Added Cloth
    -Added Crystals
    -Added String

UI

    -Graphical Overhaul of entire UI
    -Menu layout redesigned
    -Score now displayed on Game Over screen
    -Continue Game now grayed out if no save found
    -Added Credits Page

CLIENT

    -Default Resolution shifted to 1024x768

GAMEPLAY

    -Selling Price of all gear reduced by half
    -Graphic for Gold changed
    -XP gained from Bronies decreased by a power of ten
    -Mana cost of skills tweaked, most reduced
    -Reduced armour rating on all medium armour
    -Damage multipliers reduced by half
    -A wider range of leveled enemies will now spawn at higher player levels
    -Enemy damage and health rescaled
    -Vampire lifesteal increased from 20% to 40% of damage dealt

BUGFIXES

    -Fixed a bug where the Skill Tree would be visible on the Game Over screen
    -Score will now correctly carry over to saved games, and return to zero on death
    -Items can now be picked up while occupying the same cell as them
    -Fixed bug where items could be picked up once inventory was full
    -Increased maximum buff number, and fixed going over the buff cap bug
    -Item Tooltip now appears for items in doorways
    -Ranged damage now correctly scales with agility, rather than strength
    -Saved Games are hopefully now properly deleted on character death

Looks to be a quality project shaping up in Alpha---if the monthly or so pace for major gains can hold then this should indeed wind up something fairly substantial!   

[getter77]

Since last time up to v1.0.5

GAMEPLAY

    -Rescaled all item stats and enemy damage and armour, gameplay should be much harder past level 6, and increase in difficulty
    -Damage on all bows reduced by 25%
    -Damage on all staves reduced by 25%
    -Common items can now only have a maximum of 2 stats
    -Price of Uncommon and higher items increased by 20%

BUGFIXES

    -Continue Game will now correctly show in white if save file found
    -Save files should (hopefully) delete on death

GAMEPLAY

    -Added Alchemy
    -Added Mushrooms
    -Added Rat
    -Added Ratman
    -Added randomly spawning Traps
    -Added new graphics for items
    -Added four new items
    -Reduced duration and healing amount of high level Strength skills

UI

    -Added map markers for Altars and Crafting Stations
    -Various tooltip changes

BUGFIXES

    -Fixed a bug where the option screen sometimes didn’t close properly
    -You now restore health while moving with the arrow keys
    -Fixed Elitist Health and Mana Potions
    -Starting a new game now correctly starts you with 1 talent point
    -Items acquired before a patch will now carry over to a new patch correctly

[getter77]

v1.0.6/1.0.7

GAMEPLAY

    Added Potion
    Added Unidentified Gunge
    Static objects in the world (crates, bookshelves, etc) now block player and enemy vision
    Pressing R will now skip a turn
    Skipping a turn now regenerates a little health and mana
    Enemy units now update in turns, rather than all at once
    Wait time between actions while other units present increased to 6 frames
    Spawned traps are now only visible from 1 tile away
    Altars of Squish now restores both health and mana
    Shops will now sell higher level and rarer loot
    Items with better stats are now far more common early level
    Increased the duration of Poison and Burning

GRAPHICS

    Improved the look of the FOW and general lighting effects
    Added a load of new gear graphics for all class types
    Changed the stone floor tile to fit better with the colour scheme and to tile nicer

UI

    Added UI buttons for Skill, Option, and Pause Menus
    The Skill tree can now be exited by pressing Escape
    Added Continue option on pause screen

 BUGFIXES

    Changed the order of gear drawing on the character (head items now draw over chest items)
    It is now no longer possible to attempt to move to a non-visible tile
    Items under enemies no longer have a chance of being accidentally picked up during combat
    Items on door tiles no longer shut the door when collected
    Dead enemies no longer trigger traps
    Enemies can now trigger traps even when not visible
    Coin Pouches no longer spawn in shops
    Save files now correctly reload random ground variations

GAMEPLAY

    Added Goblin Cutpurse
    Added Unidentified Items
    Added Golden Chests and Golden Keys
    Added Scroll of Identification and Enchantment
    Added Wooden Arrow
    Multiple weapons can now be equipped. Press Q to cycle between them
    Ranged Weapons now require ammunition to fire
    All movement now works via A* pathfinding. Clicking a cell will navigate you to it
    You can now name and customize the appearance of your character on starting a new game
    Enemies now have a chance of spawning asleep, and will be woken by the player passing
    Rescaled all healing items to percentages for higher level use
    Disarmed duration reduced by 5 turns
    Gear prices reworked to better match the quality of the item
    Shops now have a much wider range of higher level items from level 1 onwards
    Chests now drop a much wider range of higher level items
    Reduced the spawning of Boss Lairs

GRAPHICS

    Added character hair styles and skins
    Added more new graphics for gear

UI

    Reworked the Skill Tree to be easier to use and to be more aesthetically pleasing
    The scrolling text window will now display repeats of the same action on the same line
    Added button to toggle showing of Head items

BUGFIX

    Fixed a bug which prevented WASD movement when the mouse was over FOW
    All Rings and Necklaces now have stats based on their rarity
    Healing buffs will no longer cancel when a debuff in front of them runs out
    Text Window now correctly refreshes on starting a new game
    Fixed a bug which caused some enemies to reset on loading a saved game
    Thorn Mail now correctly returns a percentage of damage dealt to the attacker
    Continue Game no longer refreshes the title screen when no save file found
    Fixed a rare bug wich gave a chance that an enemy spawned with stats 10 levels too high

Definitely gaining in all areas at a good clip.   

[getter77]

v1.0.8

Hello there! I am currently (and have been for the last week) working on the design and implementation of Claustrophobia’s skill engine, so that there is actual progression within the classes, and you have a choice in your play style. Of course, this is a massive job. Each class has 6 skills, which all have custom animations, sounds, and functionality, and there are 15 classes designed. In the amount of time I have spent on it so far, two classes are complete; The Juggernaut, and the Necromancer. They will not be included in this patch, as they do not balance out well with the other temporary classes. I will be posting gameplay examples of the classes over the next few weeks as I complete them.

Wiki

As some of you may or may not notice, Claustrophobia now has a (if rather blank) Wiki! If you want to add anything to it, feel free, it would really help out a lot in filling out the content. I don’t have time right now to keep updating it, but it will get done at some point.

Patch

Since it has now been two weeks since an update, I will be releasing Alpha 1.0.8 now as a minor content and bugfix patch now so that there is at least some new content coming out before the big 1.1.0 Skill update. But anyway, that fills you in on what it currently taking up all of my time. Below is the changelog for the patch.

Enjoy.

~TheIndieForge

Patch Alpha 1.0.8 Changelog

GAMEPLAY

    Rescaled health and damage of all units
    Changes and additions to dungeon generation
    Lots more room varieties
    Removed Blacksmithing level
    Crates and Barrels no longer block your vision
    Added 3 new active items
    Enemies have a chance of dropping arrows if killed by a ranged weapon

UI

    Items can now be directly placed in their corresponding equipment slot
    Minimap improvements and additions
    Passive Skills are no longer displayed as Buffs
    Scrollwheel now zooms in and out on the mini map

BUGFIXES

    Massive amounts of map & object optimisation
    Portals can now teleport much greater distances
    Fixed the spawning of arrows in shops
    Items in shops no longer reset on loading
    Enemies will now lose interest in the player after a certain amount of steps
    Enchanted items no longer enchant all instances of that item
    Crafted items can no longer be unidentified
    Fixed an eating bug which caused both a cooldown refresh and a new buff
    Fixed a crash caused by enemies standing on the player in a portal

[getter77]

v1.0.9

GAMEPLAY

    Added 3 Skill classes to each Skill Tree!
    Added Stairs!
    Added 2 new Music tracks
    Floors now continue to spawn as you travel deeper
    Floor size reduced from 200x200 to 100x100
    Pressing the Middle Mouse button over the inventory now organises it

ENEMIES

    Added Featherbrains
    Added Eggs
    Added Possessed Armour

UI

    Added a floor indicator to the minimap

GRAPHICS

    Items on the floor now sparkle
    Added a load of new item graphics

BUGFIXES

    Cut down on update processes to reduce memory usage
    A number of typos fixed
    Lowered Vampierre’s attack damage
    Mana will now naturally regen to full capacity, incuding intelligence gained mana
    Shop plinths now remain impassable after reloading a saved game

[getter77]

v1.1.1

Terrain Generation Redesign

Over the last few patches, terrain generation has come on a long way from the original array of square rooms that made up the dungeon floors. However, while the last version of the terrain generation was one of the most advanced so far, it was lacking in design. Dead ends, corridors that looped back on themselves, rooms disconnected from the main dungeon, and illogically placed rooms made exploring increasingly difficult. Adding to that the massive size of the floors meant an awful lot of backtracking, and that is not what Claustrophobia should be about. Below, you can see a floor generated with the old system, compared to a floor generated with the new system. Both use the same parameters to generate. Black tiles are walls, white tiles rooms, pink tiles doors, and green tiles corridors.

Item and Gear Changes

A lot of gear balancing and changes has taken place, based on player feedback, and my own experiments. First of all, all gear now has a minimum item level which the player will have to be in order to equip and use that item. This prevents the player using gear that is way above his level, and also gives you an idea about what unidentified items you might want to identify, based on your current level.

Gold is now much more frequent to find, but the amount you get at a time has been reduced. Item rarities have been massive increased, and rarity stats fixed so that rarer items will always be better than their common level equivalent. Shops will now spawn a much more general range of gear, and far less rare, epic, and legendary items. Rings and necklaces have also been fixed so that they will always provide stats.

Scroll spawning has been changed. Scrolls will now only spawn in libraries, or when crafted with paper and enchanted ink. On top of that, Scrolls of Enchantment have been nerfed so that a single item can only be enchanted once. I know far too many people were simply spamming enchants on their main weapon to the point where it was about 10 levels too powerful. Sorry guys, but not going to happen any more!

Final Comments

As well as all this, and everything mentioned in the previous post, there’s also a whole heap of bugfixes, item balancing, UI changes, enemy additions, crafting changes, and loads more. Now that a lot of these changes are in place, and the core mechanics are nearing where I want them to be, I can begin to focus on adding content. More on that next week!

Potions and Scrolls

The next change/addition is to how potions and scrolls work. Sticking true to the original Rogue formula, all potions and scrolls now start out both randomized and unidentified, leaving the player to identify its use. This can be done either by using a Scroll of Identification (which initially, it is unlikely you will have a huge supply of) or by biting the bullet and using them. This can of course be very risky, as there are an equal number of good and bad effects, but once identified, you will know what that specific scroll or potion does for the rest of your current game. Once you die, all potion and scroll effects will be randomized again.

I will be adding to the number of potions and scrolls steadily each patch, and certain ones will be rarer than others. Health potions and Scrolls of Identification are more likely to be identified since they are more useful. You never know though. Since you will be needing scrolls and potions a lot more post 1.1.0, scrolls can now be crafted by using a bottle of Enchanted Ink on a sheet of Paper, and Empty Potion Bottles remain after the contents have been drunk. Alchemy remains the same, just with mushrooms corresponding to potion colour, as seen above.

Graphics Update

A lot of Claustrophobia’s graphics were made almost a year and a half ago now. The walls, for example, have had the same graphic since the very first PreAlpha version back at the start of 2012 (at that point the game had 1 item and a character that 9 times out of 10 went in the opposite direction when you clicked a cell).  So I decided it was time to revisit a lot of the main tiles and give them a bit of a retexture. I’ve tried not to stray too far from the original graphics, while still giving them a much needed facelift.

Enemy and Item Rescaling

One of the largest problems in Claustrophobia currently is the way that enemies and items scale. For anyone who has reached level 20 and higher, it becomes apparently quite quickly that you are fighting a losing battle. Although you could say that in a roguelike that is kind of the point, the balance for high (and low really) level just wasn’t there. Enemies would level up as soon as you did, which made leveling more a punishment than an achievement. The exponential increase in needed XP also meant that at high level it was impossible to get to the level needed to take on enemies.

Therefore enemies are now leveled based on the floor which you find them on, and reward XP based on the amount of experience needed to reach the next level, and the amount of enemies on that floor to dish that XP out. This makes leveling a much smoother experience, especially at high level.

The second change in terms of scaling is to do with both the gear you find, and how frequently you find it. Gear has been rescaled for a third time. The rarity of an item is now dictated by the amount of different stats on it, and the item level dictated by the amount of points in each stat. Shops will now sell much higher quality items, and have a preferance toward gear. Gear drops less frequently, with a higher chance to drop potions, scrolls, and crafting materials. Scrolls have a greater chance of dropping in libraries.

New UI and Resolution Options

[getter77]

v1.1.2

GAMEPLAY

Completed Assassin!
Completed Shortbowman!
Added Trap Disarming!
Added Poison traps!
Bookcases can now be searched for items
All new characters now start with a sword, bow, and staff
Increased the spawning of stairs between floors

ITEMS

Added Tome of Experience!
All bow damage increased by 50%
Potions now have a 50% chance that the bottle will be destroyed after drinking

ENEMY

Added Featherbrain!
Added Featherbrain Egg!
Added Possessed Armour!

UI

Buff and Skill cooldowns now outlined for easier reading
Text added for swapping equipped weapons
Searched chests no longer appear on the map

GRAPHICS

Added a load of new gear graphics
Tidied up a lot of the older skill and buff graphics

SYSTEM

Changed how interactive objects are stored and loaded, which should cause improvements to load times, and overall game speed, and corrects bugs relating to doors and breakable objects appearing in the wrong state after loading a save file. Also makes adding new objects to the game engine much easier. Please note that due to this system change, some aspects of games saved before this patch (1.1.2) may behave slighty oddly, but will remain playable. Any issues will be corrected on starting a new game, or entering a new floor.
Save files now keep track of the game’s version number when saving, which should make converting incompatible save files across patches easier.

BUGFIX

Fixed tooltip and equipping of headgear in Inventory
Fixed skill animations bugging in fog of war
Fixed Active and Passive tooltips displaying in red
Player passability now correctly updates on using a Scroll of Teleportation
Tooltips will now display the information for the highest priority object on a tile
Fixed a rare hang on starting a new game caused by only 1 portal spawning on a floor

[getter77]

v1.1.3

UI

    Added coloured border to Tooltip window which reflects the highlighted object’s rarity
    Added smoother text wrapping and border scaling to the Tooltip window
    Added Sort button to Inventory Panel
    Improved Inventory sort order (Consumables, Crafting, Active, Misc, Gear)
    Inventory Sort now prioritizes item level over rarity
    Inventory Sort now properly groups stackable items together
    Added Action Text for failing to equip or sell Unidentified Items
    Added Action Text for selling Items
    Added Action Text for failed crafting results
    Added number of items on a stacked tile to Tooltip

GRAPHICS

    Updated Buttons/Tick boxes appearance
    Updated Stairs appearance
    Updated Gobbling appearance
    Updated Dirt appearance

SYSTEM

    Added a temporary workaround to those users with audio driver issues. Go to Documents\SavedGames\Claustrophobia\Setting Data\Player1, open SettingData with notepad or similar, then add the line “<noAudio>true</noAudio>” (without quotation marks) on a new line just above “<_musicVolume>”. Don’t change any other values, save and close the file, and run Claustrophobia as normal.

BUGFIX

    Fixed Health Sap’s tooltip and ingame text
    Fixed Longbowman’s Knockback causing the targeted enemy’s tile to remain impassable
    Fixed being unable to pick up items dropped on door tiles
    Fixed mana or health going over maximum values when unequipping gear with stat bonuses
    Fixed being unable to use both a Cauldron and an Anvil if both were in range
    Fixed being able to place items on shop plinths after loading a game
    Fixed an occasion where a price would appear for selling Unidentified Items
    Fixed a loading bug which caused floors to be stored in arrays 3 times too large
    Fixed a loading bug which caused the minimap to centre on the player even if they were on the outskirts of the map
    Fixed Tooltip flickering when picking up items
    Fixed Tooltip priority for items in doors and chests
    Fixed a level appearing on Scroll Tooltips
    Fixed starting item’s weapon type
    Fixed an inventory sorting bug which caused miscellaneous and crafting items to sort alphabetically, rather than by their individual types

v1.1.4

GAMEPLAY

    All stat functions reworked
    Combat calculations rewritten. Damage is now also based on hit chance, dodge rating,
    and level difference of combatants
    All stats scaled up so as to allow more variation in gear dependacy
    Vital Stats will no longer regenerate while enemies are nearby
    Added the ability to toggle Permadeath on starting a new game
    Goblin Cutpurse’s “Short Changed” no longer applies on skipped turns
    Removed Lairs from dungeon generation, Boss Floors coming soon
    Reduced spawning of Mushroom Farms and Gold Rooms
    Rebalanced many skill and passive effects

ITEMS

    Added new Scrolls!
    Added new Potions!
    Removed Strength, Agility, and Intelligence Potions
    Removed “Wand” from Staff naming

ENEMY

    Enemies will now attempt to break down doors which block their paths
    Renamed some enemy types
    Rescaled Enemy spawn level per floor

INTERFACE

    Added Custom Key Binding and Controls Menu
    Added item stats to Tooltips
    Added the option to toggle the position of the Tooltip window (Tab)
    Improved Tooltip placement to ensure it never goes off screen
    Scrolls can now be used on equipped items

GRAPHICS

    Updated stat icon graphics

SYSTEM

    Removed loads of redundant files and code

BUGFIX

    Fixed lack of continuous scrolling on dropdown menus
    Fixed the position of the Game Over return button
    Fixed a bug where one scroll would not highlight when using a Scroll of Identification
    Fixed a crash caused by attempting to unlock missing roles
    Fixed the scrolling text window priority when other windows are displayed over it

The major overhauling of the various things continues as it does---always good to see progress!