Let's Ascend - Cardinal Quest

[guest509]

  I'm playing the shit out of this game right now. I think I can beat it.

  Anyone beat it? Any ascensions to report? Tips?

  I'm playing the Wizard.

Tips:
-Keep your fireball up, wait between battles to recharge it.
-Clear the lower levels and stack up on consumables, gear, etc...
-Shoot. Run. Shoot.

I've gotten to level 7, how many levels are there? 12?

[guest509]

 VICTORY!!!!!  Man I got to the Minotaur level and bashed the crap out of the first one. I thought I'd won but then I had to kill a bunch more. Great experience. Not too hard, beatable even with my feeble skills.

  I got 2 fire ball spells, so that helped. Here's what I did.

  Fireball, Fireball, Charm, Fear, Wait....repeat. On the hardish guys I'd open with a polymorph.

  Dig it.

  Now to beat it with the other classes.

  Nice moves IDO.
-Jo

EDIT: Other than this game, the only Rogue style game I've beaten is Spelunky. Sad but true. Let us rejoice.

[guest509]

  I'm finding the Fighter much more difficult?

  Anyone have any tips? I'll not rest until I ascend all three classes. I just had a run where most of my spells were speed enhancers. Died on level 4-5. Spiders....

  Why do the spiders have skulls on their asses? Scary but a strange art choice.

  Help me win. TIPS! I NEED TIPS!

-Jo

[guest509]

  I have 2 lives? Bah! If I can't win in one I ain't counting it. One must have standards.

[ido]

And the good thing about being a bit behind the curve - once you're done with CQ you can play the CQ2 beta

It's already bigger than CQ1 even in it's unfinished state. Free demo (of the first 4 levels) here. You can preorder in the same spot and get to play the beta now.

-Ido.

[ido]

Oh and as for tips: don't linger around too much or try to game the cooldown system. The game counts how many turns since the last time you uncovered a new map tile or saw a monster and if it's too long it spawn a 0-xp monster near you.

[guest509]

  Yeah I noticed, it's a balance really between resetting cooldowns and having more guys to kill.

  I've been playing the demo for CQII. I need to pony up for the beta.

[jasonpickering]

I have still not beat this, but this has inspired me to try again.

[ido]

Don't forget to make sure you got an up-to-date version (1.3), since versions below 1.2 did not report updates being available.

[Game Hunter]

I recall that a particular class's greatest strength came when you managed to get the duplicate of your starting skill. For warriors and rogues it means near-infinite usage (or doubling up in the case of Berserk), while wizards picked up ridiculous damage.

Though I haven't played the game much, I was able to beat the rogue and wizard on a single try, dying twice instead with the fighter. Most of his problem is the narrow-minded approach to fighting: everything has to be done in the open and in melee. Rogues can at least make themselves invisible, and wizards have the distinct advantage of their trusty fireball. To be honest, you just gotta remember to use your consumables wisely and try not to pull groups bigger than you can handle.

[ido]

There is a huge variance in player-skill: people who come from punishing roguelikes like DCSS and nethack know that every step might spell their doom and can beat the game fairly easily because it's much easier than these games & you basically just have to play carefully.

On the other hand there are people coming from diablo and action games who get slaughtered even in the early levels and can barely make any progress (there are a lot of them), because they are used to being able to just mash the buttons and kill everything they meet with little resistance.

The game is balanced for people like me who are in the middle - played roguelikes like doomrl, tome & larn but haven't beaten a lot of them yet. It's also not meant to be a long game because I don't like spending years playing the same game. Basically if you're like Jo and lucky enough to more or less be in the same category of players as I am you'll enjoy the game most. But it was never meant to be a nethack/dcss type experience.

With that said I think CQ2 is heading a bit more in that direction (it's more complex & got more character customization because of the skill tree) so I'd still suggest checking out the demo and seeing if it's more to your liking.

[guest509]

  CQ2 is awesome so far, I'll be donating 25 bucks soon to play the beta. These games are exactly at my level. Not super hard, not super long. Perfect for me. I really don't have the patience to do what it takes to take on any of the epic games like Nethack, Crawl, etc...Aliens? DoomRL? CQ1&2? Brogue even? Those are more my speed. Even ToME seemed a bit heavy.

  How do I update my game? I clicked on the 'update to 1.3' link and downloaded the .exe, but when I run it I get an error that says the installer isn't configured incorrectly. I'm running 1.2.1 right now. Air is updated.

  I'm also running vista (hurray!)

-Jo

Edit: I just got to the 2nd to last level with a fighter. I'll beat it! I swear!

[ido]

Arg, stupid air bug. Uninstall old version first.

[st33d]

Played it a bit and eventually rolled thief and got two sneak skills early on. I then slaughtered everything by chaining sneaks and buffs with an aim to never receive strikes.

Didn't get far with the fighter as it's easy early game and few options late game. The wizard I thought I'd save when I feel like trying to beat it again.

[guest509]

  As I am well known to be a poor RL player, it will surprise no one that after countless games I have been unable to beat Cardinal Quest with the Fighter. Lame. It's hilarious really. I'm pretty good at strategy games in general, am hardly unintelligent, yet somehow in my favorite gaming genre I am rated as poor.

  Sometimes I think half the reason I make RL-ish games from time to time is so that I can beat them. Lol.

-Jo

PS: I'm about 2 seconds from nerfing Brogue so that if you die you restart on the same level. I freakin' swear!