7DRL2014: DataQueen success - destroy AIs, repair servers, protect the data...

[Darren Grey]

It's an idea I've had for a good while. I wanted to have interesting tactics without lots of keybindings - direction-based attacks seemed obvious, and making them spin each turn adds more interesting decisions. What's really made it work in this game though is the free movement on certain grids - that came out much better than I'd hoped

I also put some effort into designing abilities that worked together in interesting ways and that required mutli-turn set-ups. I really liked 868-HACK's abilities, but was disappointed by how disjoint most of them were - there wasn't much in the way of creating interesting combos. I think I could do more on this, but again I'm pretty damned happy with how well it's turned out.

What I *don't* have is an interesting score system like 868-HACK. I need to think through that a bit more...

[Samildanach]

If it makes you feel better about the absence of interesting scoring, I like this a lot more than 868-Hack.

[Darren Grey]

I've made a blog post about some of the design ideas behind the game:

http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=461

It also includes more screenshots for those interested I'll be doing a Let's Play video myself at some point to talk about the design of the game in more depth.

[Vanguard]

I killed the queen and then the game gave an error message and I was stuck in the final level with infinitely spawning enemies.

[Darren Grey]

Wow! Well, firstly, we'll done :-D Killing the Queen is hard work!

Do you have the error log file from the main game directory? Please send it to me and I'll sort out the issue.

[Vanguard]

What's the name of the file I'm looking for?  I clicked "don't send" at the error prompt, so I assume it never made a report.

[Vanguard]

Here

[Darren Grey]

Right, fixed that bug! Was a really stupid lua mistake, sorry about that :-/

Working on adding graphics to the game. Here's a little preview:



Will add icons for the hexes too.

Several people have asked for a mobile version. I have no idea how to do that :-/ Any tips on where to start are very welcome! Unity looks like a possibility, but it doesn't look like there's a lot of code I can nick.

[Vanguard]

The upgrade that increases the time limit before you die is insanely overpowered.  If you max that and get at least one point in firewall then it's almost hard to get killed.

[Darren Grey]

The upgrade that increases the time limit before you die is insanely overpowered.  If you max that and get at least one point in firewall then it's almost hard to get killed.

Yeah, I think maybe Firewall should just be removed... Or perhaps it should only push enemies back. It makes Butterflies too trivial.

I've fixed the boss-killing bug in the public download of DataQueen (Windows, OSX, Linux 32-bit, Linux 64-bit). I also noticed that the last version I uploaded started the player off with the wrong skills - you're meant to start much weaker :-/ Updated the downloads to fix that.

[Vanguard]

Yeah, I think maybe Firewall should just be removed... Or perhaps it should only push enemies back. It makes Butterflies too trivial.

The annoying:dangerous ratio for butterflies is out of control and firewall is the only thing that makes it better.  It's the defense upgrade that trivializes the whole game.

[koiwai]

Oh, I played that version with the wrong skills, probably )

Anyway, I think, you found a very good balance of the original game mechanics, depth, and style. Optimally balanced for a 7DRL, in the sense that you really did the right things, and did not waste time. It really feels like a complete game.

GH just have reviewed the game, so I had some time to think more about it. Maybe I should give it another try, considering that I did not play with the right initial hexes.

 

[Darren Grey]

The annoying:dangerous ratio for butterflies is out of control and firewall is the only thing that makes it better.  It's the defense upgrade that trivializes the whole game.

Freeze and Sabotage on adjacents already work fine for butterflies.

I think I need some harder enemies to untrivialise the defence upgrade. I have a few in mind...

[Zireael]

The tiles look spiffy!

[Kyzrati]

I like the shot of the new tiles a lot. I wonder if you could rework the UI so that that the elements are integrated a bit better rather than having them overlap/touching the map like they do, especially the abilities wheel.