Rogue Rage

[Darren Grey]

This thread is for development progress and discussion of Rogue Rage.  At the moment it is still in the alpha stage.  Latest build:

http://www.gruesomegames.com/games/roguerage-alpha1.zip
(Windows version.  You can extract the module for transfer to the T-Engine on another system.  I'll have dedicated OSX/Linux packages in future.)

1. What is Rogue Rage?

A melee-focussed roguelike that I failed to finish as a 7DRL, likely because the scope is too big.  It emphasises making bump to attack "interesting", with bumping triggering special effects depending on stance and whether or not you are "raging".  Meanwhile regular attacks are performed simply by being next to an enemy at the end of your turn - these are referred to as passive attacks.  It is developed in Lua for the T-Engine.

Included in the download is my design doc, which includes many of my aims and objectives for the game, and key features I wanted in.

2. Goals for Rogue Rage

Content:
 - End boss
 - Story
 - Sounds and music
(otherwise the vast majority of the content is in)

Polish:
 - Gameplay balance; both enemies and player
 - Various interface tweaks (see "to do" page of design doc spreadsheet)
 - Lots of little graphical polish bits

Right now I need feedback on whether or not the game is fun.  I think it is, but maybe I'm just weird.  Balance between stances is somewhat important too.  If you download the game check out the Readme for some running instructions and cheat commands if you want to have a play around.

[Alex E]

I just tried out the game, and I thought it was fun! All 4 locations are rather difficult, especially the "The Heavens" area to the north. Will you make it so that you can only enter The Heavens once you're beaten the other 3 locations, or will it remain open at all times? Since it's probably the hardest area in my opinion, or am I imagining that?

Anyway, it's a very enjoyable hack n' slash game . But I can imagine it getting repetitive after a while in it's current state.

[Darren Grey]

Glad you found it fun    Heavens will be locked in future till all other areas are complete.  But it might be that it is too hard at present.  Pro-tip: Shadow stance helps a lot with those pesky Angels.

Not sure what I can do about it getting repetitive.  There's nothing I really want to add to the existing game.  I'm open to suggestions though.

[Alex E]

Not sure what I can do about it getting repetitive.  There's nothing I really want to add to the existing game.  I'm open to suggestions though.

There's probably nothing you can do to change that a great deal, unless you were to change the whole idea and gameplay of the game, which I wouldn't recommend at this stage.

But maybe you could make the levels be a bit more varied. You could add barrels in your path that can be broken, or something of the such. Not very interesting, but they could make the levels feel more different from each other. The combat isn't going to change, but it's fun anyway, so it doesn't matter really. As a melee based roguelike, I think you've succeeded.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some other peoples' feedback, and see they think .

[mariodonick]

Will download and playtest it this weekend.

[kraflab]

Hmm.  I wouldn't call it "fun" per se.  It is pretty cool when you go into rage mode and start teleporting all over the place, but the time in between those periods felt really boring to me and I kind of stopped paying attention to what I was doing.  It would be nice to have an in-game explanation of the stances and controls, since it seems like that wouldn't be a difficult addition.  Maybe it was there and I missed it.  I tried looking at your design doc but the formatting was wacko in openoffice.

Passive attacks only happened in rogue stance for me.  Perhaps that's intended but since I didn't know what the stances did I was initially confused

It seems pretty fine in terms of gameplay for a 7drl, but I personally don't see the combat as entertaining enough to make me want to play for a long time because, in the end, it is still just bump to attack

One suggestion when there is an enemy to the side of you is to default the right key to attack the monster.  I.E. the 6 key would attack a monster right and up if there was a space right and down.  I realize you could also press 9, but it feels more natural to me to just keep holding 6 and blast through any monsters that come into your path.

[Darren Grey]

Hmm, any suggestions on how to spice up combat? Maybe I should just remove bump to attack from non-rage mode entirely. Or increase its rage penalty. The idea is you're not meant to use it much.

All game mechanics are viewable from tooltipping over the status bar at the bottom. There's no need to look at the design doc - I just included that for the curious.

[kraflab]

Hmm, any suggestions on how to spice up combat?

Idk.  It feels to me like anything you do to spice up combat will lessen the importance/fun of rage mode, which you probably don't want.  Certainly in one limit if the game is fully playable and interesting in normal combat, rage mode because unnecessary and makes the game too easy.  I'm just not sure how far you can go, from a design standpoint, with an ability that instakills all the monsters on the screen.  That's hard to balance!

[Ancient]

Tried running it on my Linux box but no luck. Tome dies with invalid instruction. It turns out it has nothing to do with me inserting the module incorrectly. Tome has just to be recompiled. Unfortunately unlike DCSS it does not provide download with dependencies forcing me to resolve everything by hand. Which means finding and installing dependencies of dependencies of dependencies ... Tomorrow I should be ready to try Rogue Rage.

[Darren Grey]

Er, okay, well that's not good.  I shall have to see about getting a better packaged T-Engine.

kraflab: I deliberately made the rage attacks unbalanced because it's easier and more fun that way    And since the rage is temporary it's okay to go over the top.  Plus the rage attacks are very much needed for the bosses.  The game is meant to play with slow, careful build-up (which should feel tense, but maybe the game is too easy at present) followed by a reckless release of short-lived power.

[kraflab]

kraflab: I deliberately made the rage attacks unbalanced because it's easier and more fun that way    And since the rage is temporary it's okay to go over the top.  Plus the rage attacks are very much needed for the bosses.  The game is meant to play with slow, careful build-up (which should feel tense, but maybe the game is too easy at present) followed by a reckless release of short-lived power.

When I played it seemed like I was in rage mode much more often than not, but maybe I just got lucky.  At any rate, "slow, careful build-up" is not at all the feeling I got from the downtime

[Darren Grey]

Hmm, interesting...  You able to take a little video of gameplay?  Might give me a better idea of how you're playing.

[guest509]

Hmm, interesting...  You able to take a little video of gameplay?  Might give me a better idea of how you're playing.

It'd be funny if he's better at your game than you are. That happens to me like 95% of the time. I lose every card game I make and am always criticized for how easy things are. :-)

EDIT: You are a pretty good player too, right?

[Darren Grey]

Usually considered so, yes.  But it could just be that I am being more careful to optimise things in my gameplay, whilst he storms through and beats things anyway.  Or maybe there are exploits I'm unaware of    Or maybe it's only certain dungeons.

[kraflab]

Hmm, interesting...  You able to take a little video of gameplay?  Might give me a better idea of how you're playing.

I pretty much just blindly bump attack all the easy enemies until rage and then burn through everything, repeat.  I didn't play beyond whatever dungeon I tried out, the one to the right.  Most of the enemies I've seen seem to have special attacks that don't impact me at all.  The F says he paralyzes, but I just wait for him and everyone else to walk up next to me and then kill them.

Another complaint I have found is that I often take most of my damage when rage mode teleports me from a low population area into the middle of a group, which leads me to experience the feeling that things go well until I get rage mode at times.

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but the T's knock me back when i'm not adjacent to them, and also in a direction that is not "away from" where they are.

  .
T 2
  .
T 1
 T

The formatting here is terrible, but it is a hexagon with the tiles adjacent to the central '.': When moving into the '2' from the '1' I get knocked back downward, not even up or to the right.  Since the 2 isn't adjacent to any of the T's I'm not sure what is happening, unless they can pull you from a distance.

Edit: You know, maybe the complaint I have is that rage mode motion seems out of my control, which makes the game seem less strategic, and I carry this attitude into non-rage mode, for better or worse.  But maybe I do have control over what happens when I attack in rage mode and I just don't understand the mechanic