Dungeoneer (Temp Name)

[jasonpickering]

hey guys, so I threw this together to test out an idea I had. basically I wanted to try out a system for spells similar to the Energy system used in the board game King of Tokyo.

Try It!

Overview:
by opening the inventory in the top corner. You are given three spells. each spell has an associated cost. you can also clear the spells for 3. Your money is kills. so killing enemies allows you to buy spells. There are only 4 spells at the moment, but I would hope to have a full deck of them (Like maybe 20 different ones) and also have them in different amounts like several potion spells, but only one heal spell.

controls:
- Arrows,WASD, Numpad to move.
- Use 123 for the Spells
- R to Restart

Remember this was just a test for the skill system. if this actually worked out I would probably expand the idea out and add a lot more Spells, and Monsters. I have also been thinking about code to build Randomized stories, similar to a D&D quest. (Hence the different environments)

[st33d]

I didn't read (lol) and it took me a while to translate kills into spell costs - because there's nothing in the spell menu that shows skulls for spells.

Seems to work okay, but the surround attack has one obvious design flaw in that you can chain it by killing all the things next to you. Ripping of the spells in that 82342342134234 by brog might help (push is a super-useful spell).

[jasonpickering]

yeah, I think I might make is so only physical attacks give you money. The Warp was actually taken from Zaga-33. I have been looking at that, but i need to double check "High Number Game", that might have some good ideas. the thing I like is I have card frequency and price to balance with.

[guest509]

  I did the surround with fire attack and got nothing. :-(

  Vista + Firefox.

  I do like what you are doing and have always liked your style.

[jasonpickering]

it doesn't have an effect in game, but it should kill anything around you. its an attack and not a shield.

thanks. I feel like I am finally starting to find my pixel style. and its helped my regular 2D work. I still need to hook up with a programmer someday and do some collaborations. I really want more graphical RLs on iOS and android.

[jasonpickering]

small update. Completely redoing the turn system so the monsters all move at the same time. I am slowly building out my own RL engine for Flash so this is turning into a pretty good test. even if the game is boring. The code will be really useful.

additions:
- Goblin = Does 2 hearts worth of Damage to the Player
- Skip Turn Spell.

still on the fence as to whether or not to continue this. I am still trying to fix the one major problem and that is sometimes you just coast through a level because the enemies all line up perfectly so that by killing enemies you are always offsetting what the next enemy is doing so you can just plow through enemies. I am trying to do a ranged enemy next.

so what do you guys think of the spell system? does it have merit? is it to random and does it allow for some strategy?

Edit: Also physical attacks only earn Kills to spend. So the Fire Spell wont earn you any kills.

[guest509]

  Seems strategic and fun to me.

  Adding a monster that moves 2, or can fly over/jump over others might be a fix for all the baddies lining up. I wouldn't call that a fatal flaw in our game though. Hey, sometimes the level is easy, hurray. Next time you die!

[jasonpickering]

I had an idea for a character that moves two (Wolf very fast) but I have not figured out a good way to do it in code yet.

[guest509]

Maybe warping would be better? Or a guy that moves diagonal once in awhile? I had Fed Scouts move diagonal in KlingonRL but ended up cutting them for time reasons.

[jasonpickering]

I was mad cause I drew a ninja and got all set to make it so they only appear when you are in line with them. But then realized that is directly lifted from Michael's new game.

[guest509]

Psshhh. No one will notice.

[AgingMinotaur]

I like it. It's nice to see you revisit some of your older ideas, from projects like MicRogue – eg. floating eyes. I like the system with "spell cards", I really believe it has potential¹, and I think using kills/skulls as a currency is a great idea. It forces the player to keep moving, and to make the best of whichever hand of actions s/he has available at any time. It's certainly a system that could be embellished, like allowing the player to build a repertoire of spells, similar to how you'd build a deck of cards in games like Dominion, Magic, etc.

As always,
Minotauros

¹ I've even been experimenting with a similar idea myself. There is an old prototype available here, but it needs Python and pygame to run.

[AgingMinotaur]

Nitpick: Continuous movement when you hold down an arrow key would be nice (and pretty standard, if you're building a RL engine). Also a keyboard interface to access the inventory, IMHO. Something simple, like pressing "I", followed by "1", "2", or "3", should suffice.

As always,
Minotauros

[jasonpickering]

So the biggest problem I face right now is thinking of spells. I like the idea that spells are not directional and are used as soon as they activate, but I think I might need to change it because I have come up with a lot of good spells but they are all directional in nature. So that might be my next move. Adding some directional spells.

Charge - attack then move into that spot
Fireball - shoot a fireball
Slash - attack in a direction plus the two spaces diagonal from that.
Stun - stun a character next to you making them immobile for 3 turns.
Ice block - create wall on space for 5 turns

Freeze - freeze all characters for 2 turns.
Shield - take no damage next 2 turns.


The game will probably not benefit from a player finding spells as it means they may pickup spells and never get to use them. I also thought about creating different heroes and giving them mini decks of spells for each character, giving physical spells to the fighter, and magic to the wizard. They would probably get like 10 spells each

An idea that I might try for this is from a design dock I have called "Custom RL". Basically the idea is the player starts and they are given a screen with a bunch of options. So maybe they want a short easy adventure in the forest. Well now they are generated a game of about 8 floors in a forest, and all monsters are forest themed, and there are not a lot of them, so it's much easier.

But then I think that really doesn't convey the spell deck idea. And it seems like two different ideas. So I might save that for a future project and just keep building on it. Since limiting the monsters to settings might unbalance the game. Also in difficulty it would have a Darren setting.

Edit: Continuous movement was in a past build. I had to drop it for the current build as a bandage for a strange positioning bug. where a player could get stuck half way between two squares. I will think about designing some keyboard stuff fr the shop.

[jasonpickering]

Another small update. worked on some under the hood map stuff. Added another enemy. The Zombie. It moves slow, so only moves every other turn. I also drew up a Lich, which will summon Zombies. I might switch that though. I might add Skeletons which do not give kills. and have the Lich summon them. I am afraid it will be easy to farm the Lich.