A Hint of a Tint - story-driven roguelike

[flowerthief]

A Hint of a Tint is a roguelike with a strong narrative, visual interface, and joystick-friendly controls, designed to be accessible to people who don't often play roguelikes. Those familiar with the Mystery Dungeon series may find that it bears some resemblance in game system (but not story). It features two modes of play:

Story Mode tells the tale of a girl named Mandy who finds herself in a world where everyone insists she was created by a device known as the "Spawn Symbol" and nobody seems to believe her when she tells them that she has memories. Story scenes alternate with dungeon-crawling sequences, and frequent help screens teach how to play the game.

Survival Mode is designed to appeal to hardcore players and, unlike Story Mode, features permanent death. Choose from one of the characters appearing in Story Mode to play as and delve into the dungeon to attain the highest score you can. Staying alive will depend on smart use of the items you collect.


The game is freeware, for Windows only.
The most recent version can be downloaded at the project's website.

Feedback is welcome. I'm sure there are unaddressed bugs and issues (I'm aware of the occasional musical glitches). Please report problems or any suggestions you have, especially pertaining to game balance.

Hope you enjoy the game!

[Nachtfischer]

Strange, none of my unzipping programs is able to unzip the package. They all say something like "wrong format". 

[getter77]

Congrats on making release on this, the premise and screens indicate this is pretty far along.   

Beyond fixes and balance tweaks, what else lies on the roadmap of hopefuls for the game in the long haul?

[flowerthief]

@Nachtfischer
It's not just you. Looks like something happens to the file when I upload to that host. I've re-uploaded it to a different host so it ought to work now. Thanks for telling me.

@getter77
Thanks. It depends on how much interest in the project there is. If there's not too much interest I'll leave it as is; it's basically complete now. But as far as enhancements, the game could probably use more in the way of equipment and upgrades. I wanted to avoid tropes like swords, shields, and armor, and the game's equipment system is consequently quite light. Maybe some kind of crafting system to complement jewelry. More playable characters is also a possibility. Mouse support is a possibility. And if I get more ambitious, I have some ideas for online features to add, though putting online features into a game would be new ground for me.

[Nachtfischer]

Alright, it works now. First impression: Fun game, reminds me of Shiren (yes! . Tiny resolution though for a 1920x1080 monitor and I didn't find a way to change something about that. :/

[flowerthief]

Yeah, the resolution is small. You can do ALT + ENTER to switch to full-screen if it helps, but that's it.

[Nachtfischer]

Yeah, the resolution is small. You can do ALT + ENTER to switch to full-screen if it helps, but that's it.

Oh, that definitely helps! Should have known myself actually.

[Irinka]

I've played this game a bit. And I have to say that while I didn't like the story mode (but this is because I don't like jRPGs, so my opinion here should not count , I think that survival mode is quite good. I think it may be a good way to introduce children to roguelikes - the gameplay is easy, but fun. I did not see any glitches or bugs - clearly you have put a lot of effort into that game. That's quite impressive.

Have you tried promoting your game among jRPG fans? I think that you may get more feedback from them (not to mention there is more of jRPG fans than roguelike fans...)

[flowerthief]

Thanks for the feedback. I have tried somewhat to promote the game in the Rpg Maker community but they have not shown much interest in it. Do you know of any specific communities I should promote the game at?

[Irinka]

Sorry, but no. JRPGs are not my thing, so I don't know... I wish you luck, though 

[jim]

I did like story mode. Despite the fact that it sort of forecasts itself as a furry harem fantasy, there were more than enough sobering elements in play to keep me interested. Dying of thirst in particular seems to me to be an awful way to go, and the strange emphasis on that really drew me in. I assumed at the getgo that this was going to be an immature game, and I was very wrong. The pacing is actually very good.

The game's areas are not really clearly defined. I would like to know when I am going between rooms in a given area versus traveling to new areas entirely.

The gameplay itself was not enough for me to imagine that I will keep coming back to AHoaT again and again, but it felt fleshed out and complete. More coalesced than the majority of game projects, that's for sure!

[Legend]

A few questions and comments.

Do playable characters in in survival mode have to be unlocked somehow in story mode in order to use them in survival mode?

It would be very nice if the game started out on a main menu screen so you could pick which mode to play and maybe options instead of going right into the intro and story mode.

I like being able to use the gamepad. Which one did you base it off? Don't know any current ones that have a "c" button.

The experience system is interesting.

The theme really isn't my cup of tea but I'll still give if a more thorough try soon.

The art style is a bit cutesy for my taste, but very well done. Haven't played very far into it, but does it ever get out of the mansion-like setting?

[flowerthief]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, I had wondered whether I should mention the furry themes up front in the project description but decided it wasn't necessary to since there's more to the story than that.  I suppose it might keep it from being a good game for children, huh?

You should be able to tell that you're about to enter a different area when your huds begin to slide off the screen. It won't, however, tell you if it's an area you've been to before or not. I realize there is somewhat of a need to be able to locate areas you have previously discovered more easily, but I haven't come up with a good idea yet. The obvious one that comes to mind would be to implement some sort of "world map", but I'm kinda reluctant to go that route due to the complications that would arise from the variable size of rooms and the way I connect areas.

There are two playable characters that are unlocked in Story Mode and two playable characters that are unlocked in Survival Mode. If you wanna unlock them all right away, the readme tells how.

I used the default button naming conventions for Rpg Maker games. Button config is something I have fretted a lot about; more than once during development I changed my mind completely about what button should do what. I think I'm pleased with the current arrangement tho.

It gets out of the mansion setting at least enough for you to get a bit of a change in scenery and a change in music.