Author Topic: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way  (Read 26128 times)

awake

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #15 on: April 15, 2014, 07:56:06 PM »
This short/wide concept sounds good on paper, but the game is only as wide as the field of optimal play -- which is usually quite narrow and difficult to control -- unless there's so much slack that the game is too easy. When people figure out your short/wide game, you're going to realize what you have is just a short game.

(To clarify, I'm referring here to the blog post referenced by Jo, not this particular project.)

With a lot of randomized content I'd expect the greater danger would be the game becoming too luck-based.

BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #16 on: April 16, 2014, 09:17:25 AM »
In the case of The Ground Gives Way, my own biased opinion is that it is definitely not too easy and I am not sure there is an optimal play strategy that will work for all possible games. However, as awake says, the game is definitely very luck based. I think that is fine considering the short length.


mushroom patch

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #17 on: April 16, 2014, 11:57:13 AM »
Not to be argumentative, but there are always optimal play strategies. While they may not be unique, they tend to be relatively few, unless the player wins more or less no matter what they do.

It sounds like you're saying that the player has to be so responsive to chance item acquisitions that there can be no one size fits all strategy. It's an interesting goal, but I wonder how you can be sure the player can win with what he gets in that case without essentially requiring certain "kits" to appear in each game, if indeed the items are really different/not interchangeable. (Again, I'm sort of responding to the notion from the blog post...) In other words, can you really generate items with nontrivial interactions and non-interchangeable functions randomly and independently (in other words, without biases toward certain combinations, "kits," appearing together in a given play) in such a way that each play is almost surely winnable, not frequently too easy (e.g. you can often find broken combinations of items), and there does not exist a small set of strategies that are consistently optimal or at least game winning regardless of items (in other words, a number of more or less interchangeable combinations of items exist that collectively occur with high probability and lend themselves to a small number of winning strategies)?

My feeling is that this is too much to ask. If you have so many items that you don't even see all of them in a given play (even if short), all of which are useful and have some kind of synergy with other items (this usefulness and synergy being critical to a winning play), it sounds like it's a hell of a balancing act making these things work together properly. Has anyone really done something like this?

BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #18 on: April 16, 2014, 05:37:33 PM »
Yes I agree with everything you say. If the game is consistent and fair and more or less guarantees that it is possible to win every time (as a long game should), then this would be an impossible design goal and would probably in the end lead to a game which is too easy.

In my case I have solved it like this: there are absolutely no guarantees that a given game is possible to win. Again, I justify this by the short length of the game. Think of it a bit like solitaire (where some games are impossible to win right from the start due to the order of cards). However, since you don't invest hours or days in a single game (in the case for TGGW, the typical playtime is 5-45 minutes), I think this is a reasonable trade-off for making a game interesting.

 

mushroom patch

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #19 on: April 16, 2014, 05:47:16 PM »
Ah, fair enough.

Rickton

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #20 on: April 16, 2014, 07:59:49 PM »
Interesting. How early in advance can you tell it's unwinnable? Or can you?
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BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #21 on: April 16, 2014, 09:05:16 PM »
Well, it's not really binary. Sometimes it just that the odds are stacked against you. It is possible (but not likely), for instance, to descend the first five levels (or more) without even finding a weapon. Or find a very unusual and out of depth monster without any means of escape. That kind of thing. No way to tell in advance...

I have posted a new blog post: http://www.thegroundgivesway.com/post-mortem-character/, where I met a nearly inescapable situation.

 
« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 09:08:51 PM by BtS »

LazyCat

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #22 on: April 17, 2014, 03:38:30 AM »
Just upload it for testing and then you can talk about actual specifics. Rather than based on imagination feedback based on play-testing and bug reports can only save you time.

BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #23 on: June 14, 2014, 06:00:24 PM »
I have now set a release date for the game, on 20th of June. That is, in less then one week!  :)

BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #24 on: June 22, 2014, 08:01:46 AM »
So yes, just in case someone has missed it: The game is out now and can be downloaded at www.thegroundgivesway.com. I'd appreciate any comments or feedback so I can make updates to the game as soon as possible. Thanks!

getter77

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2014, 11:25:26 AM »
What sort of general roadmap to you have in mind from here aside from fixing up anything that slipped through the cracks and/or tweaking this or that?
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BtS

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Re: A new roguelike - The Ground Gives Way
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2014, 03:24:08 PM »
What sort of general roadmap to you have in mind from here aside from fixing up anything that slipped through the cracks and/or tweaking this or that?

Well, mostly that, to make the game play experience as good as possible. But I might very well add new features and content in the future, so basically I'm interested in what players would like to see in the game.