Tales of the Adventuring Company (7DRL 2014, Success)

[slothwerks]

Now live for Windows Phone!
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=c08a2b27-5e34-4828-9c0c-a5deb8e4a1be

Got my 7DRL entry in, Tales of the Adventuring Company, with just hours to spare!
http://7drl.org/2014/03/17/tales-of-the-adventuring-company-done/

You can play my 7DRLC entry, Tales of the Adventuring Company, on Game Jolt  in your browser (Linux users, I have you covered — there’s a Linux download on Game Jolt as well):
http://gamejolt.com/games/rpg/tales-of-the-adventuring-company/23973/

The basic of the game is the same — explore the dungeon by tapping tiles and defeat the boss at the end.  I’ve streamlined a lot of features from the original (for better or worse, depending on your perspective), and took out the parts I thought were confusing.  Since I only had a week on this remake, I feel that it’s not as featureful, but overall, more polished.

I plan to keep working on this after the contest, so please follow me on twitter @slothwerks if you’re interested in hearing about new releases.  iOS/Android releases are my top priority after cleaning up the mechanics.  Long-term, I want to add some progression/unlockables (roguelike blasphemy, I know) to help complete the feedback loop.

If you try it, let me know what you think!



Post-contest screenshot:




Original screenshots:

[Adam Perry]

I really like this! The graphics are great, and the concept and mechanics are novel.

Several bugs:

• The rogue's power either does nothing or is unclear. If I only have one enemy revealed, he should have +2 attack, right?
• Enemies reduced to 0 HP from the wizard's power remain on the map and still have to be attacked. Somehow, in this process, I also made a group of enemies unclickable, which might have rendered the game unplayable, but the other group had the key.
• The battle pane suggests that I can click on an enemy to see its special abilities, but I haven't found any enemies for which that actually works.
• Health doesn't update when you kick a hero out of your party.
• The knight's power can cause the lich's attack to go negative, making him heal you.
• The victory text doesn't fit on the screen.

Final score: 10725.

[slothwerks]

I really like this! The graphics are great, and the concept and mechanics are novel.

Several bugs:

• The rogue's power either does nothing or is unclear. If I only have one enemy revealed, he should have +2 attack, right?
• Enemies reduced to 0 HP from the wizard's power remain on the map and still have to be attacked. Somehow, in this process, I also made a group of enemies unclickable, which might have rendered the game unplayable, but the other group had the key.
• The battle pane suggests that I can click on an enemy to see its special abilities, but I haven't found any enemies for which that actually works.
• Health doesn't update when you kick a hero out of your party.
• The knight's power can cause the lich's attack to go negative, making him heal you.
• The victory text doesn't fit on the screen.

Final score: 10725.

Thanks so much for the feedback / bug report!  Sadly yes -- there were definitely some issues (some of which I was aware with) but I'm hoping to fix these in a 'real' release.  I intend to have several episodes (with different themes/enemies) and some unlockable content.  For instance, if you save 50 Knights, the Knight will begin to spawn in other dungeons as well -- stuff like that.

The rogue's power either does nothing or is unclear. If I only have one enemy revealed, he should have +2 attack, right?
That's right, that's how it's supposed to work.  It did at one point, and I think I broke it towards the end of development

Enemies reduced to 0 HP from the wizard's power remain on the map and still have to be attacked. Somehow, in this process, I also made a group of enemies unclickable, which might have rendered the game unplayable, but the other group had the key.
I thought I'd fixed this, but I guess not.  I'll take a look.

The battle pane suggests that I can click on an enemy to see its special abilities, but I haven't found any enemies for which that actually works.
Yeah -- sadly, this got cut, because I was exhausted by the end and needed a break.  I do intend for every enemy to have some type of power.

Health doesn't update when you kick a hero out of your party.
Yep, need to fix this.

The knight's power can cause the lich's attack to go negative, making him heal you.
Ah good catch!  Hadn't really considered that the knight might cause that to happen.  I was thinking that perhaps it should cap at one actually; reducing to 0 seems too good.  I forgot too that on longer fights, that ability might be a bit TOO good.

The victory text doesn't fit on the screen.
On the bright side, I'm happy you made it to the end

Thanks again for taking the time to try it!  Given the large number of entries, it means a lot to me when someone takes the time to try my game

[slothwerks]

I've been continuing work on this, and hope to have a new version up after the contest.  Among other things, there will be bug fixes and a lot of new content.  I'd intended to add unlockable dungeons/heroes to the original, but ran out of time.  The new version will have a much better 'loop' to help keep things exciting beyond a single playthrough.

Right now, I'm focused on the tutorial to help introduce all the mechanics.  I've always done tutorials last in the past, but am making an effort to get it done sooner, and to do it right. 

For people that have played Tales of the Adventuring Company: were there any areas of the game that were particularly confusing or that you didn't understand at first?  Feedback I've gotten suggested that players didn't quite understand the 'formation' mechanic (eg: that enemies and heroes spawn in a particular formation in the grid) so I've made sure to cover that.  Anything else?  If anyone has interesting ideas for hero/monster abilities and/or new class ideas, I'd love to hear those too!

[slothwerks]

Been working a lot on this since the contest and can't wait to share the new version with you guys!  It will probably be a couple weeks (waiting for the contest to be over to upload a new version, plus I need a little more time anyway).  All the enemies (including 3 new ones) now have abilities, which makes things interesting.  I've added a lot of polish throughout, and in the coming weeks, will be adding additional dungeons to conquer, as well as some unlockable content in the form of new heroes/abilities.

Here's a screenshot showing one of the new enemies (the skeleton king) and various other UI tweaks

[Adam Perry]

They were skeletons all along? I thought I'd been slaying oxen!

I'm delighted to see more updates to this game. Here are some hero/monster suggestions -- take 'em or leave 'em:

• Enemy who deals 1 damage to a random hero when revealed (like the archer hero in reverse)
• Enemy or hero with first strike: always goes first in combat, and doesn't take damage if opponent is killed
• Assassin hero who always deals fatal damage if you've uncovered all the tiles surrounding the monster
• Berserker monster who gains 1 attack each time it's damaged (including via archer, etc)
• Scout hero who reveals a random additional tile on the board if you explore with him leading the party
• Monster who flees to an adjacent tile if it survives combat
• Monster who blocks exploration of adjacent tiles until defeated when revealed

[slothwerks]

@Adam Thanks for the wonderful suggestions!  And yes, they were skeletons   It's hard to  capture in so few pixels, but I probably need to revisit it.  The hats do make them look like oxen!  I have a list of various ability ideas I've had (some of which overlap with yours) but I particularly liked the 'scout' ability and the 'assassin' one.  I'll have to keep those in mind! 

[slothwerks]

Was pretty busy this week, but spent Saturday morning touching up some of the graphics and doing yet another polish pass to make sure things are looking good.  I like how the sprites are going overall, vs. the competition version.  Also did the boring (but necessary work) of cleaning up the title screen, adding credits, etc...

Main thing left now is to further tweak the balance and additional polish.  Once I'm satisfied with the new version, I'll upload it, and begin work on the next couple episodes.

[slothwerks]

If anyone is curious to try the latest version that I've been working on the past month or so since the competition ended, I've updated the web version on Game Jolt:

http://gamejolt.com/games/rpg/tales-of-the-adventuring-company/23973

(The original 7drl version is archived and available as a standalone download on Game Jolt for judging purposes/historical reasons)

[Adam Perry]

Ep 1 score: 10185

After the knight attacked an enemy, every subsequent hit (from any hero) reduced the target's damage. I didn't get this against the lich, so now I'm doubting myself, but I'm pretty sure I saw it happen.

Also, there seems to be a bad interaction between ghosts and rogues. Rogues have the full 6 attack against a single ghost.

There's just the one episode now, right? I couldn't see a way to access any other.

[slothwerks]

Thanks for trying it again! 

"After the knight attacked an enemy, every subsequent hit (from any hero) reduced the target's damage. I didn't get this against the lich, so now I'm doubting myself, but I'm pretty sure I saw it happen."
This is pretty unlikely the way the code is structured, but I'll keep an eye on it.

"Also, there seems to be a bad interaction between ghosts and rogues. Rogues have the full 6 attack against a single ghost."
Will take a look at this.

"There's just the one episode now, right? I couldn't see a way to access any other."
Yeah, just one right now (even though it shows the episode unlocked dialog when you beat it.  In the future, the choose episode screen will have arrows and you'll be able to switch between episodes.  Each episode will have a different look feel, monsters, heroes to unlock, etc...

My inclination is that the game is probably too easy right now, although I'd be curious to hear what you think.

[Adam Perry]

It's definitely on the easy side, but I think that's just right for an Episode 1. This gives you room to increase the difficulty.

I'm pretty sure this is intentional, but ghost formations aren't supposed to show up on the status bar, right?

[malignatius]

I like it! Thumbs up!

[slothwerks]

@Adam: Ghost formations should show up, so that's weird.  I'll keep an eye out for that.  I've definitely seen the ghost formation show up in the past.

@malignatius: Thanks for trying it out!

[slothwerks]

Not sure if anyone still reads this space, but I've updated the latest version to Game Jolt.  Adds more sprites/polish/etc... and two new episodes:

http://gamejolt.com/games/rpg/tales-of-the-adventure-company/23973/