Microgue (Updated 9/7)

[jasonpickering]

So I have finally decided to go back to Microgue. I have been reworking it slowly art and design wise for the past months. I am starting from scratch though as the code for the original version is basically held together with tape. It was one of my first major games and the code is extremely poor.

So on to the actual design. I am going to try tossing out the dive in and return gameplay I think. I am going to try building the game similar to Auro where the score is based on how far the player gets. I am also thinking about doing away with the idea of stairs. instead it will be clearing an entire level to move on to the next one. I would also like to add some items or something to make the game a little more varied each playthrough.


if anyone knows how to host SWFs on a tumblr that would be great to know. I had some code but it didn't display in some browsers

[jasonpickering]

Worked on this a bit more. I currently have

1. Player Movement
2. Enemy Rat
3. Turn System
4. Randomized Enemy Placement

So I have all that in and working. I still need to add Player death, and going to the next room. Right now I am working on level design. The old version had pre-built boards which I feel work a bit better, then randomizing the level construction, but I want the floors to remain fairly open, so I might set it so it places like one or two columns around the room for the player to dance around.

[jasonpickering]

Another Update. Game contains 3 enemies currently.

1. Rats: can move in the cardinal directions
2. Skeletons: can only move Diagonals
3. Goblins: can move in all 8 directions

I will have a build up for testing this week so everyone can enjoy.

[Darren Grey]

I rather liked the stairs progression before - it's nice to not have to kill all enemies on the level.

Anyway, good to see your restart is proceeding well. But you really should set yourself a hard date and finish it. You had plenty of versions before that were sufficiently polished to call done!

[jasonpickering]

Yeah I am thinking about adding the Stairs back in. After doing a lot of testing without them. I have noticed that sometimes it is beneficial to not kill all the Monsters.

as for a hard date I am aiming for September. That gives me all of August to work on it. Largest item now is figuring out a good score system and also the art. The original was okay, but looked far to abstract at large screen sizes.

[Darren Grey]

868-HACK is toying with a score system based on back to back wins - could be interesting to do the same. In general you need some motivation for repeated plays.

[jasonpickering]

does he ramp up the difficulty each play through or is it just a base line difficult? I always felt my first version of Microgue could be a bit to easy.

[Darren Grey]

Difficulty stays the same throughout, though with the randomness there's highs and lows.

[jasonpickering]

so Game coming along much better. stairs are in.

Not sure if I want to do the in and out gameplay I might just have the player aim for 10 floors to get the treasure. I also might do it where each time the game is deeper. so if a Hero grabs the stone from floor 8, the new final floor will be 9. forcing the player to always get deeper after each successful run. I think this adds a level of difficulty.

still unsure about specials. in the current version they almost seem needed because the game is very hard, but I have not added in Traps yet, which were a great way of disposing of monsters in the original. I would just like to add a few different characters.

I want to have a build up but I am having trouble with a web build at the moment. I am hoping to sort it out this weekend so I can get tons of feedback.

[jasonpickering]

Added traps back into the game and they increase as you play. Tomorrow I will add winning when reaching the eighth floor. And restarting upon death and then I can start moving right along. Still unsure about a PC build. It would be really nice but I am looking for sites to host it as I don't want to do it myself.

I am either going to make floors increasingly harder. Like after floor 2 there are traps, or make each run harder. So second run has traps. Still up in the air. Difficulty is a hard thing to do.

I don't know about score. I was going to do floor is all that matters, but I really love the score mechanic of risk vs reward in 868-HACK.

[Darren Grey]

868-HACK has score integrated into the game very carefully - I'm not sure you can just tack that on in Microgue. Unless maybe score is number of monsters killed? There'd be an inherent risk to deliberate monster chasing when you could just run for the exit.

For PC hosting maybe speak to Aaron Steed? He's got good experience at that sort of thing, and also knows about which hosting sites are good to use.

[jasonpickering]

Yeah, Keeping track of levels will probably be enough. Replay-ability is always something I always worry about.

as promised here is a build. Check it out.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21825227/Prototypes/Microgue_Newest.swf

controls:
tap a space to move and kill Enemies
hit R to restart after dying.

[jasonpickering]

another update. added the UI in. The UI will have the floor number. space for your two spells or items. and then a Help block. the player will be able to tap that and a spell or a monster to get info on it.

[jasonpickering]

another update!.

added the first test spell. You can hit the A key to cast freeze. it will freeze all enemies for 3 turns. I have also added Mines as traps too.

[smestorp]

Difficulty stays the same throughout, though with the randomness there's highs and lows.

actually some plays are kind of "boss levels" that temporarily ramp up the difficulty, but it's not a constant increase
this turned out to be important so that "playing a million times getting 1 point each" wasn't a viable strategy for streak score, bc that's not very interesting.  as it was the randomness would probably kill you eventually, but it was pretty slow since i'd balanced the game to usually be completable - now you will get killed sooner so there's stronger pressure to score in each play-through.  (it also gives a motivation other than score to play through repeatedly - to see the cool/hard challenges.)