Dead Man Walking 1.2b

[roocey]

Hi,

Dead Man Walking started off as a successful 7DRL earlier this year. I've spent the past few weeks working on an improved version that is intended to take the original idea and expand upon it greatly.

The game can only be played by Windows users at this time. Sorry for any inconvenience. If that doesn't stop you:

You can read the update post at my blog: http://www.caffeineoverdose.me/2013/04/dead-man-walking-11-download-changelog.html

Or you can download the game directly from my dropbox: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/86990308/Dead%20Man%20Walking.zip

The primary goal of the new version is to take the 7DRL edition and add in substantial replability and polish without increasing the length of any given session. Games should still be winnable within 10 to 15 minutes, if not slightly less.

I'm always open for game feedback and will keep an eye on this thread, my blog, and my twitter feed. Beyond that, please let me know if you experience any game breaking issues.

Thanks for reading. Peace!

[guest509]

Hey I really like this game. I didn't get all of the aspects down, but what I did do was gear up with a lightning sword and walk right up to the necromancer and bash his lilly white face in.

That was my first play through. Was it supposed to be harder? I'm generally a weak player. I did find an electric sword (5) or some such right at the start. And a card that made the walls bleed. I ran from the some of the big slow guys, but definitely windshielded all skelies and zombies.

[roocey]

Hey I really like this game. I didn't get all of the aspects down, but what I did do was gear up with a lightning sword and walk right up to the necromancer and bash his lilly white face in.

That was my first play through. Was it supposed to be harder? I'm generally a weak player. I did find an electric sword (5) or some such right at the start. And a card that made the walls bleed. I ran from the some of the big slow guys, but definitely windshielded all skelies and zombies.

Hey Jo, thanks for checking it out (again).

The big slow guys were probably bosses. Currently the game does a poor job of rewarding boss kills, so it's fairly easy to windshield through the game barring strange circumstances. Two things I'd like to do in the next version are up the "presence" of bosses and make them drop some interesting loot. It's probably too difficult to tell if an enemy even is a boss, let alone that killing it is a good idea.

Individual enemies that aren't bosses are generally meant to be cut down in a turn or two. Sometimes they'll get a few good hits on me if I play poorly and get surrounded, but in general the game could probably use a difficulty tune-up.

Beyond that, I will say that an electric saber is arguably the best weapon in the game. Probably a balance issue, but definitely a good early find in 1.1. I'll be playing a lot with balance in 1.2 as I feel like the core of the game is quite solid now.

[guest509]

Yes yes great core. And if you did it right (I never do) you can expand and tweak to perfection.

Perhaps some visual cues for the bosses? Blinking or pausing the game and playing colored text of them yapping at you.

"SO HERO, YOU'VE COME FOR MY MACGUFFIN? YOU'LL NEVER DEFEAT ME!"

[guest509]

If the Skelies and Zombies are meant to just be speed bumps that's fine, as it gives the player a strategic decision.

I find that straight roguelikes give a strategic decision each level
1. Explore and fight to find loot and/or level up. Risk resources (HP, potions, wand charges, etc...)
2. Run and flee to save resources, dive at the first opportunity. Risk the unknown loots and xp you'd have gained by exploration.

A risk reward decision. Some people go for complete exploration, I go for the low hanging fruit and dive as soon as possible. Generally.

The original rogue, and brogue, tend to start off with lots of speed bump enemies. So you spend the first handful of levels exploring and leveling up. Later the decision is less obvious, still later you are running like a madman unless you know a tactical trick for defeating the immediate threat. But then it's back to running again.

Anyway I'm just yammering on right now. Not trying to lecture just sharing thoughts. Have you checked out Rodney yet? It's another straight roguelike that's still trying to balance out. I'm playing that one too.

[roocey]

Yes yes great core. And if you did it right (I never do) you can expand and tweak to perfection.

Perhaps some visual cues for the bosses? Blinking or pausing the game and playing colored text of them yapping at you.

"SO HERO, YOU'VE COME FOR MY MACGUFFIN? YOU'LL NEVER DEFEAT ME!"

That's not a bad idea, hehe.

And I haven't given Rodney a look yet, though I've been tempted. I'm working on some new floors and secret floors now that turn the traditional speed bump enemies on their head and should make things a bit more interesting while still allowing me to balance out the earlier floors separately.

Thanks for all the feedback thus far. Yammering is always welcomed!

[Vanguard]

I don't know how anything works in this game, but got to the end anyway.  I like how everything is vague and mysterious and how the game manages to have a personality despite being fairly minimalistic.  There aren't many boring or generic items.

Is there a way to resize the window?

[roocey]

I don't know how anything works in this game, but got to the end anyway.  I like how everything is vague and mysterious and how the game manages to have a personality despite being fairly minimalistic.  There aren't many boring or generic items.

Is there a way to resize the window?

Thanks for checking it out! One of my major goals with the game was to make it easy to hop into with no prior knowledge and so far it sounds like that's been reasonably successful.

You can see if fullscreen is more your style (Alt+Enter) but beyond that there's no other way to change the window size yet.

[Vanguard]

You can see if fullscreen is more your style (Alt+Enter) but beyond that there's no other way to change the window size yet.

Thanks, that's much better!

So I played through a few more rounds of DMW and understand it better now.

I still like how the game doesn't explain anything about itself.  It lends itself to an experimental kind of play.  It's more interesting than learning about your inventory through scrolls of identification.  In a larger game, I might find it tedious, but here the scope is small enough for a player to understand most or even all items in less than an hour, and the duration is short enough that a fatal misunderstanding only sets the player back a few minutes.

Most normal enemies are nonentities, even in large numbers.  Bosses are the real threat.  They all seem to be unique in some way, and they're dangerous without being unbeatable.  Unfortunately, the game doesn't offer a huge number of tactical options, so most of the time the best strategy seems to be to attack for a little while, then duck behind a corner to quickly heal.

The final boss is more tedious than challenging because of his reliance on minions.  Any bloody-type piece of equipment will make victory a foregone conclusion, but the fight ends up taking a long time because he keeps summoning zombies on top of himself so I can't hit him.

I really like your secondary, permanent health bar.  It combining the permanence we all love in roguelikes with a little bit of mercy.  It allows for Pyrrhic victories and makes it worthwhile to play cautiously even in encounters that aren't life threatening.  Your healing potions are almost exactly the same as Dark Souls's estus flasks, and they work great.  I wish more games used them.

Your trinkets are clever.  The first time I saw them they seemed like some kind of crazy enigma, but the game gives enough clues that they're actually not too hard to figure out.  Their names do a good job of hinting at the item's function without giving it away completely.

Overall, I'm a fan of your game mechanics.  They're simple and effective without being generic or traditional.  If you make anything else in the future, I'll definitely play it.

[roocey]

You can see if fullscreen is more your style (Alt+Enter) but beyond that there's no other way to change the window size yet.

Thanks, that's much better!

So I played through a few more rounds of DMW and understand it better now.

First off, thanks for the compliments and feedback. I tried to make the game fairly minimalist and removed traditional stats and the like that I didn't feel were essential for gameplay to function. Learning by experimenting is something I enjoy doing as a player, so it seemed like a solid idea to make a game that features that to an extent. 1.2 will be expanding on the experimentation factor a great deal.

The ability to run away from boss fights is an ability that I like having, but it does lead to boss fights that are easy to cheese. In an ideal world, I'd like to try and push the game towards a better balance - escaping a boss should be possible, but not necessarily easy. Beyond that, I'd like to tune down incentives to cheese instead of punishing it too severely. Making a single mistake on some of the bosses can be deadly if you don't run away and heal up, so tuning down some of those elements is a definite possibility.

The second phase of the Necromancer is intended to be visually cool while not being too difficult. While I do think he's greatly superior to the 7DRL version, he still needs work. I'll probably make him summon zombies less frequently and/or reduce the hit points of the zombies for 1.2. Phase 2 is meant to be relatively short and not too tedious, which isn't really the case at the moment.

I like Willpower quite a bit as well. I try to use it as a score system as you may have noticed. The long term goal is to get the balance into such a place that a good player with a little bit of luck can consistently beat the game with max Willpower. The flask mechanic is an idea I had for @Star Wars but never got around to putting it in. It is based off the Dark Souls flasks, if only because I think that game did a truly great thing as far as consumable health goes.

I'm glad the trinkets have worked out so far. I'm planning to add in some slightly odder ones in the next version. All the trinkets in 1.1 are fairly straightforward once you play with them, but I'd like to put in one or two that take a bit more time to fully understand and present more interesting risk/reward scenarios.

Thanks again for all the feedback! Eventually I'd like to get back to @Star Wars, but with some of the things I've learned in Dead Man Walking in mind. My current focus is still on Dead Man Walking, as I'm not quite satisfied with the balance and there's a few ideas I have for alternative levels & bosses I'd like to exhaust.

[roocey]

Hey folks,

I've been quietly (unless you follow me on twitter) working on Dead Man Walking 1.2. I've finally decided to release it. I'll probably make a few balance changes over the next couple days, but this is the first official release of 1.2.

You can check out the changelog and download it here: http://www.caffeineoverdose.me/2013/05/dead-man-walking-12b-ascension-release.html

As always, feedback is welcome. There's a lot of major changes in 1.2 and I'd love to hear any and all thoughts on those.

Released 1.2b. Has a couple polish changes and the new Horn-type items.