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

[NON]

Hello!

Version 3 of my horror/Lovecraft roguelike "Infra Arcana" is finished. I am very pleased with the recent changes, and it feels like an actual game now.

Game site
https://sites.google.com/site/infraarcana/home


Changelog for Release 3

New features:
*More monsters
*Pump-action shotgun
*Monsters spawn while you are on the level
*Hit points are restored only when climbing the stairs (except for rare methods such as scrolls and potions)
*Melee weapons are classed as light, medium and heavy. When attacking there is a chance for a bonus depending on class. With light you get a free turn, heavy do maximum damage. Medium weapons get no bonus
*Varying damage (pluses) on spawned melee weapons
*When looking at melee weapons on the floor, their +damage is seen (if they have it)
*Firearms have effective range limits (half damage beyond it), the line drawn while aiming is green inside the limit and yellow beyond it
*When holding lit dynamite, the messages tells how many turns are left on the fuse
*Explosions leave smoke
*More pre-defined rooms

Fixes:
*Much balancing of weapons and monsters
*Changed the names of some weapons
*Fixed a bug with machine gun weapons (killing a monster caused the following bullets to hit the floor where he stood. Now machine guns are more effective against rows of monsters)
*Shotgun shells spawned on the floor can be more than one shell
*Fixed a graphical bug with gas traps
*Fixed a graphical bug with smoke
*Teleport traps are added to the "remembered" map when you are moved
*Reduced spam from Cultist anger phrases
*Death occurs on 0hp instead of -1
*Confusion is less random
*Some small improvements to the interface

[getter77]

Nice to see such good pace of progress.

Though, why do only medium weapons not have a chance for a class special?   I would have guessed they might have a a 50/50 chance of triggering free actions/heavy damage but to a lesser degree than the light/heavy.   It would seem like as it stands people would only go for light/heavy weapons to take advantage of the specials.   Or are the medium's the best source for consistent damage to strike the balance then?

[NON]

Though, why do only medium weapons not have a chance for a class special?   I would have guessed they might have a a 50/50 chance of triggering free actions/heavy damage but to a lesser degree than the light/heavy.   It would seem like as it stands people would only go for light/heavy weapons to take advantage of the specials.   Or are the medium's the best source for consistent damage to strike the balance then?

Exactly. My intention was this:
*Light weapons have weak damage, but great hit chance and a chance for a free turn to compensate.
*Medium weapons have decent damage and hit chance.
*Heavy weapons have bad hit chance, but great damage and do maximum damage more often to compensate.

So light and heavy are more "wild" weapons, while medium is more reliable.

I thought about the 50/50 chance for medium weapons too, but this is what I ended up with. Might do it differently in the future though.

[corremn]

Cool, I have been enjoying Release 2 last week, has quite a good feel to the game and actually feels quite complete. I will have to give R3 a try. I quite liked the healing of R2, I am surprised you changed it.  I assumed there was a balance between food and resting too much.

Good to see more Lovecraftian games.

[NON]

Cool, I have been enjoying Release 2 last week, has quite a good feel to the game and actually feels quite complete.

I'm glad to hear.

I quite liked the healing of R2, I am surprised you changed it.  I assumed there was a balance between food and resting too much.

What I like about heal-when-using-stairs is that it creates interesting choices (risk exploring more at low HP, or play it safe and descend, but miss out on loot and experience?).

But so far I've only had positive feedback on the press-'h'-to-heal method. I may change it back. It sure was GREAT from a balance perspective, since I could assume that the player started every encounter at full health.

[corremn]

What I like about heal-when-using-stairs is that it creates interesting choices (risk exploring more at low HP, or play it safe and descend, but miss out on loot and experience?).

Well hell, I use the same method in SewerJacks so you have precedence, I dont know if it works but no ones complained about it

I find I have a few early deaths because I pushed the envelope too far. Oh well I just have to adjust my play style. I found Release 2 more challenging, the reanimated types were a real pain! In the good sense, but I do like to see they turn in to chunks more often now, which is actually satifying. 

Also I would like to see less traditional fantasy flavour gone and replace it with more lovecraftian ones.  E.g replace plate mail with iron-shod jacket and scrolls with tattered notes, or whatever.  I also liked the cultist spam in R2 as it gave me warning, I dont get any warning now. But their guns seem a little weak so that is ok. 

Also I would love to have some sort of death summary and mortem file.

Good job.

[NON]

I found Release 2 more challenging, the reanimated types were a real pain! In the good sense

They have lost some edge! I will bring them up to earlier dungeon levels again (and maybe toughen them up)! It was much better when they were terrifying

Also I would like to see less traditional fantasy flavour gone and replace it with more lovecraftian ones.  E.g replace plate mail with iron-shod jacket

The "Steel plate armor" is actually not supposed to be a medieval plate mail armor, but rather like a 19th century ballistic suit (see Ned Kelly's Ploughboard Ballistic Suit). But "Iron-shod jacket" would be less open to misinterpretation so maybe I'll go with that.

and scrolls with tattered notes, or whatever.

Hm, not sure what they would be called in the inventory
"Read what (a-a)?
[a] Note of teleportation"
 

Maybe like this-
Unidentified: "A note titled X" (were X is random gibberish)
Identified: "Incantation of teleportation"

I also liked the cultist spam in R2 as it gave me warning, I dont get any warning now.

Hm, all I did was to set a certain chance of not shouting a phrase. In R2 it was 100% chance so it was like you shoot, hear shouting, shoot, hear shouting, shoot, shouting...

But their guns seem a little weak so that is ok.

The machine gun seems especially weak, because it's (I think) 1d4 dmg times 5 bullets. If you have any protection at all it will take away a minimum of 1 damage. So it's like 0-2 dmg each, and usually only 1-3 bullets hit. I need to do something about this, maybe 5x(1d2+2)dmg instead of 5x(1d4).

Also I would love to have some sort of death summary and mortem file.

Alright. Maybe it's time to also get to name the character.  

[NON]

Ok so I've made some of the changes mentioned above, and switched back to heal-by-spending-turns. I've also increased the monster spawn rate and made hunger a bigger threat.

This is definitely more awesome/brutal

I think I'll do a small unannounced release tomorrow.

[corremn]

Cool sounds like you are doing a great job.

I will hold any more comments until the next version...  Dont rush it though, your releases are quite stable so thats something to keep doing.

Also remember to not sweat the small stuff.  With each release make sure you have a plan, dont get caught up with too much detail.  Its important to always feel that you are moving forward.  (Not that I see any problems in your work

P.s The only reason why I like your game so much is that finally someone is writing a game that is on my list of games I will never get around to do.  Not counting my failed Lovecraftian game "The Night the Rogue Maid went down".  The first and last roguelike to take place on a off shore oil rig.

[NON]

There, R4 uploaded.

Get it here:
http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/Downloads

It's a quick update, but I think the changes to the map alone is worth it. 


The changelog:

New features:
*One unique monster

Fixes:
*Much better map (no dead end corridors)
*Changed healing back so you spend a number of turns to apply first aid (instead of healing at stairs)
*+2HP at level up instead of +1
*Better dodge chance from Agility
*Monsters spawn faster, prepare to get overrun if you dwell on the level :-)
*All monsters of the "Reanimated" variety spawn a level earlier.
*Raised the damage of the Tommy Gun (when cultists fired it, it often barely hurt you)
*Cultists fire their weapons more often
*All monsters have slightly higher hit chance
*Fixed a bug that caused enemies to spawn inside your field of view
*Fixed a minor problem with the field of view (too many wall cells were revealed in some circumstances)
*Cultist anger phrases were too infrequent in the previous version
*Reading scrolls now causes your turn to end

[Legend]

This is really cool. I love the theme and gameplay mechanics.

One small feature request. It would be very cool if it was possible to use the arrow keys and the enter or space key to navigate and make selections in the menu screens. Like the intro screen, picking stats/traits, inventory, equipping, using items, etc.

I bet this game would also be great with sound fx and music. Maybe a very creepy horror ambient music and sounds? It would add to the atmosphere and would be nice bonus to see after the main parts of the game are polished/done. The Quake and Hellraiser soundtracks go nicely with it.

Would also be nice to name the character and have a mortem and high score screen.

Maybe a little flavour from the original Quake too? It was somewhat inspired by Lovecraft. Maybe some of the enemies like the Vore/Shalrath, Scrag, Fiend, Shambler, or the Polyp/Spawn that always gets forgotten? The nail gun weapons would be fun to see in a roguelike too. Don't know if it would fit the setting exactly, but it might. The ring of Shadows might make a cool item. Just throwing it out there.

[NON]

This is really cool. I love the theme and gameplay mechanics.

Always great to hear. 

One small feature request. It would be very cool if it was possible to use the arrow keys and the enter or space key to navigate and make selections in the menu screens. Like the intro screen, picking stats/traits, inventory, equipping, using items, etc.

That... is not a small feature request. 

I'll write it down as a to-do for the future. Not for next version but maybe sometime.

I bet this game would also be great with sound fx...

I just recently discovered that there is an abundance of free, high quality sounds out there. So I'm looking into including that.

... and music. Maybe a very creepy horror ambient music and sounds? It would add to the atmosphere and would be nice bonus to see after the main parts of the game are polished/done. The Quake and Hellraiser soundtracks go nicely with it.

I think sounds would be fine to add from a data base. But music on the other hand should be original I think. I agree that it could add much to the game, but I'd need to find someone to compose a bunch of tracks. Now I have actually been messing around a lot with composing midi tracks in Guitar Pro over the last 5-6 years. So there is a tiny chance I could do it myself. It would probably be some non-melodic ambient stuff though (simplest to do + doesn't get as repetitive).

Would also be nice to name the character and have a mortem and high score screen.

As suggested by Corremn above. I've been avoiding it because the balance and content still changes a lot. I mean I think the strongest enemy so far is only level 9, so it doesn't get much more difficult if you survive the first third or so of the dungeon. But name/mortem needs to be added anyway so I should probably get to it.

Maybe a little flavour from the original Quake too? It was somewhat inspired by Lovecraft. Maybe some of the enemies like the Vore/Shalrath, Scrag, Fiend, Shambler, or the Polyp/Spawn that always gets forgotten? The nail gun weapons would be fun to see in a roguelike too. Don't know if it would fit the setting exactly, but it might. The ring of Shadows might make a cool item. Just throwing it out there.

I have already planned Dimensional Shambler, Flying Polyp, and lots of other things. I don't know about Quake original monsters... maybe if I run out of other ideas.

[Legend]

This is really cool. I love the theme and gameplay mechanics.

Always great to hear. 

One small feature request. It would be very cool if it was possible to use the arrow keys and the enter or space key to navigate and make selections in the menu screens. Like the intro screen, picking stats/traits, inventory, equipping, using items, etc.

That... is not a small feature request. 

I'll write it down as a to-do for the future. Not for next version but maybe sometime.

... and music. Maybe a very creepy horror ambient music and sounds? It would add to the atmosphere and would be nice bonus to see after the main parts of the game are polished/done. The Quake and Hellraiser soundtracks go nicely with it.

I think sounds would be fine to add from a data base. But music on the other hand should be original I think. I agree that it could add much to the game, but I'd need to find someone to compose a bunch of tracks. Now I have actually been messing around a lot with composing midi tracks in Guitar Pro over the last 5-6 years. So there is a tiny chance I could do it myself. It would probably be some non-melodic ambient stuff though (simplest to do + doesn't get as repetitive).

Didn't mean to imply that I thought the menu interface request would be easy to implement.

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying that you use the Quake and Hellraiser soundtracks to include with the game. I agree that they would have to be original tracks and be interesting enough to listen to frequently. I also write music myself and do so in Midi. I have a couple short tracks I'm not using, but not sure if they would fit. Two of the tracks I think would because they are more subtle, but one is longer and more interesting, but not so horror-themed.

[NON]

http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/Downloads

New features:
*Monster spell casting
*New monsters
*Throwing weapons
*Postmortem information
*A command to print the postmortem info to a memorial file
*Player can name the character
*New status effects: Diseased, Slowed
*Some rats and clawing zombies are diseased (attack causes disease). Ghouls always cause disease
*Some Cultist Acolytes can cast a few spells (very rare). Some Mi-Go (Fungi) can cast spells (somewhat rare)

Fixes:
*Fixed a bug that caused unique monsters to sometimes spawn more than once
*The minimum value for any skill roll was 5%, causing hidden things to be found much too easily even without "Alertness". This value is now 1%
*Monsters give less xp (to compensate for spawning)
*The "Melee" and "Firearms" skills now only gives better chance to hit
*Safeguard against accidental quitting

[jocke the beast]

I think this game has very good potential. I like it.
Nice work mister!