Microgue (Updated 9/7)

[Erik Temple]

What if you took your current monster bag system and added another dimension? If you gave each monster type a numerical difficulty rating, and each floor a minimum difficulty target, you could then test to be sure that the combination of monsters is hard enough by adding up all of the numbers in the monster bag. If they aren't hard enough, you dump the bag and try again. For example, given the following ratings (pulled out of the air, obviously):

Rat	1
Snail	2
Slime	3
Eye	4
Giant Eye	5

A monster bag of {Rat, Rat, Rat, Snail} would have a difficulty of 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 5. If the minimum difficulty for the floor were 8, you'd throw the bag away and try again until you got a total of 8 or greater. Alternatively, you could pick a new monster and replace the easiest enemy in bag with it until you're above 8, or any number of other schemes for adding/swapping enemies. This system could also employ a difficulty ceiling if needed to ensure that a floor isn't too hard.

For special rooms and alternative play modes, you might want to consider just having multiple tables that could be looked at depending on the game mode and/or room type.

[jasonpickering]

That's a really good idea. I was doing something similar, but  in reverse I was trying to take a value and purchase guys to meet it. Randomizing it and giving a minimum value will probably work great. I will try getting that system in tomorrow.

[Erik Temple]

Yeah, I was trying to think of how to do something exactly what you were trying to do--purchasing monsters based on a fund of difficulty points--but this other method seems like a nice simplification of that.

Quick question: Over and over again, I see the Summoners do this awesome move where they slide into a position where they are protected by one or more of their skeleton creations. They do this so regularly that I assume they must be programmed to do that whenever the opportunity is available. Is that correct, or is it just repeated serendipity? I really like it from a gameplay perspective.

A couple of thoughts on other issues that you raised early in the thread. I'm not sure if you've moved beyond these or not, but just in case:

Hero abilities
Personally, I don't think the game needs these. The minimalism of it being purely about positioning and dealing with enemy movement is pretty appealing to me. But if you do want to do them, I would suggest that they be hail-marys, meaning that the power is only available maybe once per stage (I'm using "stage" to mean a full sequence of floors). This would make the decision to use the skill an agonizing and difficult one (Is this really the best place I can use this? Should I wait?!). It could have a salutary function in that it would enable a player to escape from the rare impossible situation that might crop up, where the random set up of the floor gives the player no possibility to win. I still feel that impossible situations are pretty rare (I've encountered only one clearly impossible situation after many, many games).

Scoring
I like the win percentage as a way of tracking overall skill (due to the randomness, it seems like averaging skill over many games is probably the best approach). However, I wonder if a skill rating based on the win percentage might make sense? For example, a rating that was calculated by multiplying the win percentage by the highest stage number completed (again, I'm using "stage" to mean a full sequence of floors), would also encapsulate how well I've done. If I have a win percentage of 15% and I've only completed the second stage, my rating would be 30. But if I've completed the seventh stage with a win rate of 15%, my rating would be 105.  There may be better ways to do this than simple multiplication, which does create much wider ranges at higher levels (the range of possible ratings  at stage 7 would be 7 to 700), but I just wanted to get the thought out there.

The old scoring systems that were based on gameplay elegance (i.e. better scores for getting through a floor with fewer moves) could also still be made to work, I think. The main thing is that they should somehow be spread out over multiple games and also take into account the overall difficulty. (Once there are fewer wide swings in difficulty per stage-floor, scoring swings will be less important anyway.) A sparkline might be a nice way to visualize the score over many games, though I'm not sure whether the resolution of the game would allow for a sparkline (which needs to be high-res) to be displayed alongside the low-res graphics.

[PerspectivDesigns]

Where can I play this? It looks fun 

[jasonpickering]

updated the build with a new version. bunch of changes such as

- New small fire enemies, that merge into large fire enemies
- New lich summon animations
- new torches
- new yeti movement
- snails are unkillable.

PerspectivDesigns: currently its at a dropbox link you can check out here, but eventually that will be going down and I will be putting it somewhere on the web (as well as iOS, Android, and jsut a straight EXE download). download).

Erik Temple:
I implemented the points check system and its working okay at the moment. Its going to take some balancing until it is better, the mechanics work perfectly, the numbers need to be fine tuned is all.

I will probably not to hero abilities, and if I did they would only be a one time per run use. and the scoring is still pretty up in the air. I might unlock a secondary mode, when the game is completed that has score, so I keep the difficulty build up out of the calculations.

[Erik Temple]

I like the new timer indicators (demon's arms, slug's eyes, etc.)--they are subtle, but very helpful. They make it much harder to die in a way that feels unfair. The animation for summoning a skeleton is also really sweet, and the treasure pages add a new, fun dimension to things.

I think that you said that the issue with the current trap door is that it should work on the flying eye as well, and therefore a floor that slams up to the ceiling would make more sense. But this is very difficult to draw in a way that reads well, especially at this resolution. So here's an alternative idea: What about a trap door that opens onto a swirling vortex beneath that could suck down even a flying creature? The flag that the trap is about to spring could be the door opening a crack to reveal a tiny bit of the vortex beneath (it could have a bright color, like green or purple, so it's obvious even with a small crack that there is something nasty below).

I agree that score makes more sense with an endless mode. Most simply, the score could just be the number of floors you complete before dying. An interesting thing that I'm noticing about difficulty in Microgue is that, as things get harder, you have to become more aggressive to survive--going after enemies rather than avoiding them becomes the only way to complete a floor. Not that you have to kill all of them, but it often makes sense to take out maybe 80-90%.

I've reached something like my (current) ideal stage of difficulty now, I think, and the game is quite fun. I'd better reset the game, though, to see how the new point-check system is working...

[Erik Temple]

Weird bug: Went up the stairs, and the level reset, but my hero didn't move back to the left. He stayed where the stairs had been and was immediately killed by a monster (they moved before I did).

EDIT: Also, I've been seeing quite a few skeletons trapped in a corner, i.e. they were initially placed in a corner tile where the only available diagonal move is blocked by a wall. It might be worth testing each monster placement to be sure that 1) the monster has a move, and 2) the player can't kill it immediately on the first move. The second one may not be as important, but it kind of sucks for the level when you can kill a ninja on your first move w/o consequences.

One more thing that may be a bug: When you kill a frozen slime, it doesn't prevent you from moving two squares, but it does show you trapped in slime.

[jasonpickering]

yeah I am pretty happy with the skeleton summon anim. I am going to be trying to do stuff like that on all the effect anims.

- I have some things with the monster placement Orange Eyes should not be placed next to each other, and skeletons should not be placed in corners. but I haven figured out a good way to program something to check that.

- The slime is a bug, but I have no idea what causes it so I need to figure that out.

- The main problem with the trap door now is I want something that blocks sights of the eye. which is why I think I need something that is up into the Air. the biggest problem now is creating a down position for it. I have been testing a bunch of different stuff. see when its down it needs to take up most of the square, but when up it can only take up about half the square, because I need to show front and side. so its a balancing act.

- the CR system is a little broken because it doesn't take the floor difficulty into account. I need add that in.

[jasonpickering]

so i figured out a way to do the walls. I remembered the zelda game for the gameboy (Links Awakening) had a great mechanic of blocks going up and down. so I tried doing sprites similar to that and it works great. the only problem at the minute is trying to figure out a way to show that the wall is about to change. i was thinking maybe putting a run on it or something that lights up. any ideas?

[guest509]

Sound cue? blinking? A little shudder before it starts was very common in old games. A regular pattern might be enough really.

[Erik Temple]

I'm not sure exactly what you came up with for the moving wall, but could you do the warning by showing the floor panel moved up by maybe 1 or 2 pixels, i.e. that the floor has just begun to move? Another idea might be to have a sigil of some sort on the tile that would change color.

I've been playing the new version from the beginning. It does feel like it's more consistent in terms of difficulty, but the early levels still seem pretty easy. I'm going to start over again and keep track of my responses floor-by-floor to see if I can give better feedback.

Regarding testing whether an enemy can move based on its initial placement: I'm not sure how your code is organized, of course, but if each enemy type has a method for testing whether it can move, could you just call that method for each enemy after the initial placement to  see if it needs to be re-placed?
   

[Erik Temple]

OK, I ran through and recorded all of the enemies that I encountered, as well as how I did. It's below (each death is shown with a phrase wrapped in **). Primary takeaway: the game still feels like it develops too slowly in difficulty; as you can see, it doesn't really start to get hard for me until stage 9 or 10. It might be good to get some novices to keep track of their deaths this way.

A couple of other notes:
- Eyes should maybe be classified as just as powerful as giant eyes (or very close), and should continue to appear alongside giant eyes, not be immediately replaced by them. This is because their lack of movement creates a fixed point that the player has to contend with. He has to approach an eye in a certain way to be able to deal with it.
- When they have a choice of moving left or right of the player, skeletons (and other enemies) tend to move to the left. It would be better if they tended to move right (i.e., between the player and the goal). When they move to the left, they are too easy to outrun.
- Flames really aren't dangerous unless they get to form infernus. Maybe they should get the same difficulty number as rats (assuming they don't already).
- Consider whether yetis should grant freeze power if the player doesn't kill them. I.e., if a yeti dies in a trap, maybe it doesn't freeze anything?
- Slimes are probably overrated in difficulty (not sure what its actual rating is). They become tougher when combined with statues and yetis (other things too, but especially those). Maybe they don't need their own stage? Just add them in as part of stage 8? There is not really much of a difficulty increase at all from level 6 to level 8.

Bug: If the hero is teleported while he is slimed, the graphic of the slime patch remains on the tile he teleported from.

1.0   Game Begins
1.1   rat, rat, flame, skeleton
1.2   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton
1.3   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, eye
1.4   rat, rat, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, eye (trapped skeleton)

2.0   Spikes
2.1   rat, rat, skeleton, flame
2.2   rat, flame, flame, skeleton (infernus)
2.3   rat, rat, flame, flame, skeleton
**Stupid death!**
2.1   rat, rat, rat, skeleton
2.2   rat, rat, flame, eye
2.3   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, eye
2.4   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, eye

3.0   Giant Snails
3.1   rat, rat, rat, flame
3.2   rat, skeleton, snail, snail
3.3   rat, rat, rat, flame, snail
3.4   rat, flame, skeleton, snail

4.0   Climb Higher
4.1   rat, flame, eye, snail
**Got trapped, own fault**
4.1   rat, rat, eye, snail
4.2   rat, flame, skeleton, eye
4.3   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, snail
**Got trapped, own fault**
4.1   rat, rat, skeleton, snail
4.2   rat, flame, skeleton, eye
4.3   rat, flame, skeleton, snail
4.4   flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, snail (trapped skeleton)
4.5   rat, skeleton, skeleton, eye, eye, snail (trapped skeleton)

5.0   Giant Eyes
5.1   rat, flame, flame, snail (infernus)
5.2   rat, skeleton, snail, giant eye
5.3   rat, skeleton, skeleton, snail, snail
5.4   rat, skeleton, skeleton, snail, giant eye
5.5   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, giant eye

6.0   Moving Walls
6.1   flame, skeleton, snail, giant eye
6.2   rat, flame, snail, snail
6.3   rat, rat, flame, snail, snail
6.4   flame, skeleton, snail, snail, giant eye
6.5   rat, flame, flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail (infernus) (aggression necessary!)

7.0   Yetis
7.1   rat, flame, skeleton, yeti
7.2   rat, flame, giant eye, yeti
7.3   rat, flame, skeleton, snail, snail
7.4   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, yeti
**didn't think carefully about how to handle double skeletons**
7.1   rat, skeleton, giant eye, yeti (skeleton = free kill)
7.2   rat, skeleton, snail, yeti
7.3   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, giant eye
7.4   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, yeti
7.5   rat, flame, flame, flame, skeleton, giant eye, yeti (infernus) (aggression necessary!)

8.0   Climb Higher
8.1   rat, rat, giant eye, snail, yeti
**eye-swapping + yeti late turn-order**
8.1   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, yeti
8.2   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, snail (infernus)
8.3   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, snail, giant eye (exploited eye)
8.4   rat, rat, flame, flame, snail, giant eye, yeti (infernus)
8.5   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, giant eye, giant eye (exploited eye)
8.6   rat, flame, flame, flame, skeleton, snail, giant eye, giant eye, yeti

9.0   Slimes
9.1   rat, flame, skeleton, snail, slime
9.2   rat, rat, flame, snail, slime
9.3   flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, snail, slime
9.4   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, snail, giant eye
9.5   rat, rat, flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, giant eye, yeti
**killed by infernus due to its being unaffected by yeti**
9.1   ?, rat, flame, giant eye (didn't record well)
9.2   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, slime
9.3   skeleton, snail, snail, giant eye, slime, slime
**stupidly killed by eye-swap + snail**
9.1   rat, giant eye, snail, slime, slime
**stupidly killed eye-swap + slime**
9.1   rat, rat, snail, giant eye, slime
9.2   flame, flame, skeleton, slime, slime (infernus, skeleton trapped)
9.3   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, yeti, slime
9.4   flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, snail, giant eye, slime
**killed by eye-swap + skeleton**
9.1   rat, rat, snail, giant eye, slime
9.2   rat, rat, giant eye, yeti, slime
9.3   rat, rat, flame, giant eye, yeti, slime
9.4   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, yeti, slime
9.5   rat, flame, flame, skeleton, skeleton, giant eye, yeti, slime
9.6   rat, flame, flame, flame, skeleton, snail, giant eye, giant eye, yeti, slime (trapped skeleton)

10.0   Statues
10.1   rat, skeleton, giant eye, slime (statue)
**killed by moving wall (no timer indicator yet)**
10.1   rat, flame, skeleton, slime, slime
10.2   skeleton, skeleton, snail, slime, slime
10.3   (failed to record)
10.4   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, giant eye, slime, slime
10.5   rat, rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, snail, giant eye, slime (skeleton trapped)
10.6   rat, flame, flame, flame, snail, giant eye, giant eye, yeti, slime (infernus)
**killed by infernus + yeti rundown**
10.1   rat, rat, rat, giant eye, slime
10.2   rat, rat, snail, giant eye, yeti (statue)
10.3   rat, flame, skeleton, snail, giant eye, slime
10.4   rat, flame, skeleton, snail, snail, giant eye (statue x2)
10.5   rat, flame, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, giant eye, slime, slime
**killed by moving wall (no timer indicator yet)**
10.1   rat, rat, flame, giant eye, slime (statue x2)
**killed by slime + statue**

[Erik Temple]

I thought I should expand on the difficulty question, since just posting that log might just introduce detail fatigue. I understand that one of your goals in introducing content gradually is to make the game longer, and that's definitely cool. As it currently stands, though, stages 1-5 or so are pretty easy to breeze through, and real difficulty doesn't go up that much through those stages (it does increase, but slowly). For me, the game is most interesting when I have to think about things constantly--i.e., when it's challenging. So, it might be best if the "flat" period (the period when difficulty increases only slowly) were the stage 5-7/8 difficulty rather than the stage 1-4 difficulty.

I should probably clarify that not everything on the levels where I just breezed through was uninteresting, but many levels were less interesting. My ideal would be that I'm dying quite a few times per stage before I get through it. Not all stages need to have this level of difficulty, of course, since players will obviously improve at different rates.

There is also a big leap in difficulty between floors 1-4 and floors 5-6 in the harder stages (I'm primarily thinking of stage 9 and 10). In my playthroughs, I almost never died on 1-4--except for simple stupid moves--even on these stages. So there might be a lesson to be learned there too. This issue may sort of solve itself once you introduce special rooms.

[jasonpickering]

Man, Erik That is a lot of info to parse. anyways here is the new stuff

- Eyes do appear along side giant eyes now, but in a limited capacity
- Skeletons moving left was a bug, which I think I squashed.
- bug in the last version. Infernus can also be spawned into the game now, no need to have to small fire guys.
- Freeze now kills small fire guys, and converts large fire guys into small fire guys.
- Snail is now unkillable every other turn when not moving they hide in their shells
- Since the spike warning is in, Spikes can now actually go at different times
- increased monster count and monster CR level requirements.

started working on special rooms, The code to select special rooms is in and working (Special rooms are a 1 in 100 chance now because they are somewhat broken). Next up is setting it so monsters are weighted to be more abundant in special rooms. the first special room will be the fire room. a large fireball trap is in the center of the room, and the room will be weighted to have more fire enemies. they will be immune and smaller fires will become large ones when hit.

still thinking about the unlocks. I like the idea of adding one enemy at each unlock, but like you said for example when the slimes are added there is no real difference.

[jasonpickering]

hey guys. So moving on to the next big thing I wanted to add and that's special death messages. these are usually just some flavor text for the player. Couple examples are


Rat - "You are not match for my overly large rodents"
Fire - "To hot for ya"
Eye - "I bet you did not see that coming"
Yeti - "Getting cold. better grab some mittens"
Slime - "Indescribable, Indestructible, Nothing can stop it"
Statue - "You fell for the old magic statue trick. Classic!"

if you an thing of any others feel free to drop them here. I need stuff for:

Spikes, Walls, Statues, Rats, Skeletons, Fire, Eyes, Slimes, Snails, Yetis, Liches, Witches, Demons, Dragons, and Ninjas.