Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v22.1.0!).

[getter77]

Awesome!

[Legend]

Been getting a decent mount of games in. It definitely feels more balanced for the most part.

One thing I've been noticing though is that the occultists seem to be dealing way more damage with their firepower than I am. I just got blown away from full health of 15 to zero in two shots from an occultist tommy gun. At least one other time something similar occurred when the occultist was wielding a colt.

Acid is a bitch when it likes to block my way. I like it though.

Haven't tried it yet, but can potions be thrown? Seems a little too unfair to have potions like blindness that can't be somehow used to your advantage after you have identified them by drinking.

Do the wolves respwn on the first (graveyard) level? The last game I played I thought I might try to grind on them a little bit, but they didn't seem to respawn.

Is it win-able yet? How many levels are you planning on making the goal and will you have to return to the surface?

*If there is only one adjacent door, the 'close' command does not ask for direction

I think it should be the same for bashing.

[NON]

It definitely feels more balanced for the most part.

Good thing that it's moving in that direction.

can potions be thrown?

Planned. Hopefully for next release.

Do the wolves respwn on the first (graveyard) level? The last game I played I thought I might try to grind on them a little bit, but they didn't seem to respawn.

They don't respawn, and for that exact reason. :-)

Btw, next version will have an option to skip this level. It's great to just jump right into the dungeon when you're tired of the forest level.

Is it win-able yet?

No. I think this is meaningless until there is an even distribution of new monsters. This is my current focus.

How many levels are you planning on making the goal and will you have to return to the surface?

Around 30 levels. Not sure about returning to surface, but probably.

*If there is only one adjacent door, the 'close' command does not ask for direction

I think it should be the same for bashing.

Ah, yes indeed.

[Kyzrati]

You've got a great game here NON. However: I've played several times now, and *every single time* I meet Keziah, and *every single time* I get blasted by spell after spell... slowed, diseased, blinded, you name it, while her rat bites the crap out of me. Each time I use different tactics--last time I emptied an entire shotgun on her to no avail--yet each time I die all the same. WTF?!

Maybe I'm just too weak when I meet her? She's always showing up on dungeon 3.

I must admit I didn't meet her in one game, but that's because I quit on dungeon 2 since there seemed to be no exit from the level. Something tells me that's not supposed to happen, but maybe I overlooked it... The level was suspiciously small, though; only about 60% of map size and no unexplored corridors/doors.

[Skeletor]

Very, very nice game and ambientation!
Whahaha fuckin' awesome I went to an altar, read a forbidden scroll and hundreds of critters appeared around me.. then drank a potion and became blind (maybe beacuse of a spider who knows)! but then dynamite and molotov cocktails everywhere yeeeah!

I like the upper-case/lower-case thing, good idea.

I'm really liking this game, can't stop playing it.
Best score so far: 941, burned to ashes by a hellhound on level 6 IIRC.

Definitively one of the best and most promising new roguelikes around.


Some little suggestions:
- when items/corpses go in acid, they shoud instantly dissolve otherwise it's impossible to recognize acid squares anymore (and it's also nice stopping those zombies to arise a million times)
- when the healing process is interrupted by an event, the "esc" and "space" keys should work like "n" (I know I'm lazy), it's very unlikely that someone would want to stay there until 10 or 50 turns have passed if there's an enemy nearby; the default thing should be to stop the player to search/heal unless he willingly press "y"
- the disease condition is heavily negative, maybe it should be lightened a little (making it less probable to happen, or quickier to heal, or reducing hpmax by less than the actual 50%)

[Skeletor]

Btw, next version will have an option to skip this level. It's great to just jump right into the dungeon when you're tired of the forest level.

Why? Not boring at all, it's quick and already challenging, I'd say it's one of the best introduction levels I've ever seen.. and imaging a blood thirsty hungry traveller killing wolves with an hatchet in an unconsacrated cathedrals is fantastic.

Furthermore, can't say why, games with at least an "oper air" level have a quid that underground-only games don't have. Like the forest in Eye of the Beholder 2; it's basically like every other dungeon, and after you enter the temple the game is always in closed environments, but it makes things feel different. Arx Fatalis would have been a lot better if only it had some above-ground levels. I don't even know if it does, because after playing some days I just couldn't play it anymore, fuck that. It feel like you're forever trapped in a situation with no beginning and no end. I don't know if this has to do with some kind of repressed unconscious claustrophobia I have, but game with at least one open air level (possibly in the beginning) make me feel like the main character has a story, has travelled to go there and wants to go deeper because otherwise he could travel back to home.
Even the little drawing of a forest in "a quest too far" is better than nothing hahah.
Am I the only one feeling this?

[getter77]

Nope, variety is good.  Besides, outdoor doings were a huge part of Blood.

[Kyzrati]

I love the way the way forest looks. Almost wish there was more of it in the game--perhaps expand on the size of some of the underground forest rooms? I guess you don't want any given room to be too large, but having an entire underground forest level would be nice.

The above-ground area doesn't usually take more than a few seconds to run through if you're in a hurry.

[NON]

Thank you so much for all the praise guys.

I've played several times now, and *every single time* I meet Keziah, and *every single time* I get blasted by spell after spell... slowed, diseased, blinded, you name it, while her rat bites the crap out of me. Each time I use different tactics--last time I emptied an entire shotgun on her to no avail--yet each time I die all the same. WTF?

Unique monsters spawn until you kill them. Her earliest dungeon level is 3, so from there on she will keep showing up until you deal with her. For example, she can spawn on lvl3, but you miss her and go to lvl 4, she spawns there again and you miss her again, go to lvl 5, this time she doesn't spawn, but on lvl 6 she spawns again and you kill her, thus getting rid of her permanently.

This is because there are so few unique monsters so far, so I wanted to make sure the player encountered them. I'm currently adding more though, so I may change it so they can only spawn once.

However there is one thing I like about the current method; Revenge. You can flee, and attack later when you're stronger.

Concerning difficulty; Sometimes she seems trivial to me. I usually kill her and the rat quickly with dynamite. She can also be beat by reading certain scrolls, especially blind and paralyze. Of course this requires some luck in finding those. Potions of agility (or whatever I call them, they give you perfect dodge) are also handy. Maybe she should spawn a level later to give more chances to collect these things.

Whahaha fuckin' awesome I went to an altar, read a forbidden scroll and hundreds of critters appeared around me.. then drank a potion and became blind! but then dynamite and molotov cocktails everywhere yeeeah!

Awesome story .

when items/corpses go in acid, they shoud instantly dissolve otherwise it's impossible to recognize acid squares anymore

Good idea.

stopping those zombies to arise a million times

They can only rise once. I've even made them always blow up when they're killed the second time.

when the healing process is interrupted by an event, the "esc" key should like "n" (I know I'm lazy)

Not lazy. Good idea . Space should also cancel it

the disease condition is heavily negative, maybe it should be lightened a little (making it less probable to happen, or quickier to heal) (just a bit)

What I like about the disease is that you gain a certain respect for rats .
I will definetly keep the long duration, because it makes sense, and it also becomes important to find a potion that heals it. I may change it to 2/3hp instead of 1/2hp though, since it's very punishing now.

Btw, next version will have an option to skip this level. It's great to just jump right into the dungeon when you're tired of the forest level.

Why?

Well I got sick of it when I play-tested. Feels like the real game only begins after it.

With that said, I'm very satisfied with the look and feel of the forest, as an introductory and theme-setting level. So I'll keep it, and let the default option be to not skip it. The option is just there if you want to jump in faster.

Interesting point about how even a single outdoor area can enhance the feel of a dungeon crawling game. I probably knew this subconsciously when I made the level .

but having an entire underground forest level would be nice.

Oooh. Very cool idea. There could also be forests of gigantic mushrooms (or "cyclopean" to use a Lovecraftian term) deep under ground, where the cave levels start.

[Kyzrati]

So I have a bad habit of hoarding any items that seem powerful, then end up never using them before I die because I didn't use them; so now that I've gotten over that, disposing of Keziah ended up being a bit easier with a stick of dynamite and a clip of Colt ammo.

Things were looking up: Found about 20 Colts and raised firing skill 3 levels, blasted my way through the dungeon levels, and then made through most of 6 before Major Clapham Lee appeared, called forth his Tomb-Legions, and the game went into an infinite loop.

Now tell me: How am I supposed to defend against an infinite loop

[NON]

That really sucks:  
It has happened to me as well a few times lately (in other places). I'll see if I can fix it.

Edit: Thanks to the power of Valgrind, I stomped out a few bugs in the code. One of them may have caused the infinite loop.

I played for about an hour now - No freezes or crashes encountered.

[NON]

Well, I made a bot that plays the game by simulating keyboard presses.

It walks towards the stairs and travels down, killing monsters in its way (the player is immortal when the bot plays). It can bash stuck doors, and if "Terrified" it will wait until the condition is cured.

I ran 5 of those simultaneously, and they each got to dungeon level 999 without any freezes or crashes.

So in total, five thousand dungeon levels traveled through without problems. I would say the game is pretty stable after all.

Maybe I'll run a 9 hour stress test while I'm at work some day after the weekend.

Edit: Turns out the bot did a good job at finding another bug. It had stopped generating keyboard events (letting me take over instead). When I explored the level at which it had stopped, I saw that the stairs were placed on a little unreachable island in a chasm. Now I can prevent this from happening.

One thing I can also use it for, is to make it refuse to step on the stairs if the rendered symbol is not ">".  Should be great for debugging cases where dungeon features and landscape are generated over the stairs.

[Kyzrati]

Bots're great for debugging, also quite useful for balancing. I like to send them through again and again, and have them output reconfigurable html charts showing how many of each kind of enemy was met, strengths of items found. The charts can average the values from thousands of runs to be even more helpful.

got to dungeon level 999

There're 999 levels?!
 
And I thought my hour of play yesterday was getting me pretty far at D13!

Finally had enough time to play more seriously. Started up my Diablo 2 soundtracks for ambience--very appropriate, highly recommended.

The setting became a bit repetitive and boring by d8~9, and finally changed to slimy green walls by 12, though the new walls were pretty much the only improvement, so the novelty will wear off quickly, I'm sure. As I mentioned before, I'd like to see more completely different environments, like underground forests, and anything else you can think up.

The swamp/acid/water rooms don't really add much flavor, and seem like they're there just to be there. They look cool and all (at least the acid), but don't really mean much for gameplay (at least not that I've discovered yet).

That said, my character's still not dead yet, so maybe I'll find more interesting environments later (hopefully before level 999 ). He seems pretty much unstoppable right now with a pack full of Tesla cannons, maxed firearms, maxed toughness (30 HP), and maxed fortitude. I just run through blasting away with Tesla cannons.

I read a scroll at an altar and it said "a powerful creature appears somewhere," but after a thorough search of the level, I didn't come across anything except a ghoul, which by then was old news. And I was walking around with 2 fully loaded Tesla cannons on fast swap expecting to meet some deadly demon! Aw...

Unfortunately my character is named "WTF", which came to be after the previous two properly named characters *both* died to a long succession of dogs before even entering the cathedral! 

I noticed some potions don't self-identify. Had 2 green potions -> drank one -> is potion of toughness -> other one still called "green potion" -> drink it and it's a potion of toughness, too, of course.

[NON]

There're 999 levels?!

I just set it up so they could go infinitely deep. Ran two again yesterday that got to somewhere like 4000 levels each.

And I thought my hour of play yesterday was getting me pretty far at D13!

That is good!

The setting became a bit repetitive and boring by d8~9, and finally changed to slimy green walls by 12, though the new walls were pretty much the only improvement, so the novelty will wear off quickly, I'm sure. As I mentioned before, I'd like to see more completely different environments, like underground forests, and anything else you can think up.

There are cave levels after the slimy-wall levels.
I'm definitely gonna add the giant underground forest levels at some point!

The swamp/acid/water rooms don't really add much flavor, and seem like they're there just to be there. They look cool and all (at least the acid), but don't really mean much for gameplay (at least not that I've discovered yet).

Well the water is slower to wade through, and the mud much more so. Also, certain monsters have native rooms that populate the room if the dungeon level is deep enough for the monster level. In your version, nothing is native to the water/mud rooms, but in next version they will be home for certain fish-like creatures.

I noticed some potions don't self-identify. Had 2 green potions -> drank one -> is potion of toughness -> other one still called "green potion" -> drink it and it's a potion of toughness, too, of course.

Weird. I have not encountered this myself. Looking it up.

[Kyzrati]

Well the water is slower to wade through, and the mud much more so. Also, certain monsters have native rooms that populate the room if the dungeon level is deep enough for the monster level. In your version, nothing is native to the water/mud rooms, but in next version they will be home for certain fish-like creatures.

Yeah, I figured there was more to come with those, but their current effects are pretty meaningless since 1) You can almost always circumvent them, and 2) You pretty much never encounter enemies in those rooms at all. I suppose the latter is because they're not populated by these creatures of which you speak.