Epilogue MacOS Port

[kraflab]

Epilogue is now available on Mac!

Epilogue is graphical roguelike with an easy-to-use interface that was designed completely irrespective of genre norms.  Rather than having to remember which key brings up which interface element, nearly all information is on screen all the time.  Rather than having to slog through 5 floors of the same rats and orcs that all the other games have, every floor has a unique set of enemies and loot.  Each level is short, and the difficulty ramps up quite quickly.  Rather than grinding for the lucky rare weapon, every enemy is equipped like the player and leaves their equipment behind upon death.  In the end, the only way to survive is via strategic use of items and abilities, which come in short supply.  Are you up for the challenge?

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[Hi]

I just tried this game, you might want to know that the interface is not easy to use enough.  I got that clicking tiles makes me go towards them and clicking critters makes me attack them.  Mouse-over is also nice although because the critters are more important then the terrain, the mouse-over text for a tile should mention them first.  But it fails the beginner's test.  Why do you show numbers when all I want to know about a creature is whether I should attack or run away (brogue shows how many hits you can kill it in and how many it can kill you in).  I can't tell how well I"m doing against a creature at a glance (little health bars over each critter's head is the traditional fix for this).   And I got a vague impression that that strangely colored splat mark when a critter dies might contain items.  Before I actually start playing a the game I have to choose between lots of options that I don't care about. Give each set of options a clear, preselected default that would be good for a beginner.

I haven't tried any alchemy yet but from your description it sounds interesting.

[kraflab]

I completely disagree with all of your complaints.  You can tell how well you are doing by the fact that the enemy is taking damage.  I think health bars are entirely superfluous, and you never know how much hp the enemy has.  This type of information is only important when you are nearly dead or otherwise in need of careful play.  The same applies to hit percentages.  You can tell when you are not hitting because...you aren't hitting.  Besides this, you need to decide if you should run away.  Things are much more situational than representable by a numerical quantity in Epilogue.  This also isn't like the roguelikes where you are suddenly going to bump into a monster that kills you in one hit, so I think perhaps you are trying to apply the needs of the past onto the current game.

I also want the player to decide their character rather than dump them into a default.  There is no default.  I'm not sure how you can like roguelikes but not care about dramatic character options like magic or melee, spacetime nomad or berserker...

So I am afraid that maybe the interface fails your test, but most people tell me the game is rather easy to get into, and I'm not inclined to throw out some of the design to meet your needs :|

[Hi]

I would love to get to the situational tactics in epilogue. You spoke with pride of how you'd thrown out the difficult interfaces of the past so I though that you might be interested impressions from the "what the hell is going on" phase of learning a new game.

[kraflab]

I always welcome feedback, it's just that it's a bit late in the game.  The feed has already come back as it were.  Did you feel the tutorial information was unhelpful in getting you into the game?  The things you mentioned aren't things that I would consider important in the interface, as opposed to the controls and the appearance of the inventory, etc.  Ease of use was my priority.  If you think I have failed in this regard, I would be interested in knowing where, or which elements you are most confused about.