Author Topic: Ending: Adventure mode  (Read 11716 times)

st33d

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Ending: Adventure mode
« on: April 30, 2013, 10:53:12 PM »
My game here is just about finished:

http://robotacid.com/flash/ending/

3 modes: puzzle, adventure, editor.

The adventure mode is pretty much a hard 1hp roguelike. It's harder than the puzzles. I struggle to beat it, scoring 349 moves on my last run.

I'd like to know how roguelike players fare in the game's hard-mode.

Vanguard

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2013, 12:55:18 AM »
Interesting game!

I completed puzzle mode, but couldn't figure out how to actually win in adventure mode.  I assume the path to the exit has something to do with the different symbols on the doorways to new areas?

soundlust

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2013, 08:30:11 AM »
the puzzle mode was great. Really addicting little challenges, before I realized it I was on the last one, very good sign! But the adventure mode, I think maybe I didn't understand? I just went indefinitely...the puzzles get you acclimated to the tactics you need to employ thoroughly, that once you get in the adventure mode, again unless I'm doing something wrong which I probably am, I wasn't as hooked as the puzzles.

st33d

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2013, 10:24:56 AM »
I think I need to make the "advance" door even more obvious.

requerent

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2013, 07:01:36 PM »
Puzzle mode was awesome- very drod-like.

I think you should try and put pre-generated 'puzzles' in adventure mode. Patterns that if the player misses s/he'll most certain lose. These would be more like map features that have stuff arranged in a manner that has a very limited number of solutions.


Yea, you can randomly generate small areas and put them through tests to see how difficult they are (the branching factor of solutions and the depth of solutions). Right now, adventure mode is fun, but I think it's less of a challenge and more of a 'waiting for you to trip up' sort of experience.

st33d

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2013, 10:33:10 PM »
The advance doors now blink. They always spawn east or west in the starting room and I've removed the bad door. This should make the objective clear now as well as adding the opportunity to kill rooms in order to escape.

Preset puzzles would not work because the player would simply execute them by rote. I've tried this already. The challenge of getting to the final door through a random maze seems to throw up more interesting puzzles for me because I've never seen them.

requerent

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2013, 10:49:11 PM »
The advance doors now blink. They always spawn east or west in the starting room and I've removed the bad door. This should make the objective clear now as well as adding the opportunity to kill rooms in order to escape.

Preset puzzles would not work because the player would simply execute them by rote. I've tried this already. The challenge of getting to the final door through a random maze seems to throw up more interesting puzzles for me because I've never seen them.

Sorry, by pre-generated I didn't really mean previously designed.


Whenever generating a room, you can probe its difficulty. The breadth and depth of solutions, in a general sense, describes how difficult a room will be. Since your enemies are pure reflex agents and the player has only 4 available actions, searching the state space should be easy. Generally speaking, the breadth inversely describes how 'puzzling' the room is. You may not be able to divine an algorithm to create rooms with narrow solution sets, but you can generate and toss those that are too broad and shallow.

Players tend to want long and narrow decision paths to always have some solution, even if it is sub-optimal.

Obviously, in an adventure game, we don't WANT to screw somebody if their first move is a mistake, but we can analyse how much mistakes are punished by the increased length of that solution path. Creating an algorithm to generate maps with desired properties is a very tough problem, but creating an analyzer to toss bad gens isn't.


Just a thought.

st33d

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2013, 09:05:23 AM »
There isn't enough horse power in Flash to throw away rooms when it's exported for mobile. Or generate a room solver for the randomly generated rooms.

Generally you want corridors and pillars. Which is what it currently generates (I've been tweaking it more every day). Aiming for specific patterns would constrain the game to what I already know about it - and after playing it constantly for 6 months I'm still learning new things.

I find the objective fun personally, it just seems that a lot of people miss what that objective is.

zasvid

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Re: Ending: Adventure mode
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2013, 12:27:55 PM »
Great game! Enjoyed the puzzle mode quite a bit. However, I too share the observation that adventure mode objective is a bit unclear - I didn't figure out that I have to go through numbered rooms without checking out this thread again. I guess I would've eventually figure it out, but it was quite discouraging, wandering aimlessly without an idea what I'm actually trying to achieve.

I suggest a progress bar saying 0/8 and something to collect when you hit the currently numbered flashing doors (instead of the number). Once the player hits that door, icon goes from behind the door to progress bar and the objective is found.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2013, 12:30:44 PM by zasvid »