7DRL 2014 Massive Videos Thread

[jere]

Sweet! Thanks, Game Hunter.  You asked about the version. I updated the website with release notes. Mainly bug fixes and small tweaks. I was a little concerned that I didn't hear any music/sounds. I don't know if that was a bug or if you just had the audio off.

I'm glad you like the tutorial area, but I'm still on the fence there. It conveys information, but not as much as I'd like. Blast is still a big source of confusion; I realized that through playtesting and even added an in game joke about it (which you only barely missed). The way daylight works still seemed to unclear at the end of the video too; that's two years in a row that I have made confusing sunlight mechcanics!

[Game Hunter]

I was a little concerned that I didn't hear any music/sounds. I don't know if that was a bug or if you just had the audio off.

Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing music the first time I started up the game. Trying things to figure out the best resolution meant going into the game a bit so I naturally refreshed the page: I suppose that could have caused a problem? I usually use Firefox for these games, so it could be browser-specific if you test with others.

[Game Hunter]

Beware of Strange Warp Points, by Ed Kolis

Overall Thoughts:
I made the completely amateur mistake of trying to judge a game without playing it, and for that I sincerely apologize. Trying to figure out a game on the merit of its manual and display is not a sound way to understand the goals and objectives of its aesthetics. I really don't know why I decided to try that in this video, but I really hope I don't manage to do it again.

Ironically enough, however, in my premature judging I do think I nailed this game's major downside: complexity without depth. You can throw the player a lot of stats and tell them they must satisfy certain conditions, but if you do that too much without providing the player enough gameplay (in this case moving on the map and searching/fighting) then ultimately the game's focus becomes the condition-satisfying instead of what might be intended. I mention in the video that removing extraneous details from each component's listing would help parse the information: this would go a very long way in helping the player along the stat game and getting back to the action. I'd try to figure out what details of components have little or nothing to do with the primary activities of the game and just strip them, or simplify them enough so that it's easy to recognize ship deficiencies. I'm sure I didn't spend quite enough time internalizing the mass/crew/speed, but even if I did I think it'd be too much.

[Game Hunter]

VARIABLO, by Rat King

Overall Thoughts:
The idea of the game is amazing and I wish I would see it more. However, I'm tempted to call this game a prototype, because it's barely stepping outside of its comfortable zone after introducing basic concepts. To be fair, it's really more of a prototype 2.0: there's progression and the game ends with victory/loss, which is better than games I would usually call prototypes, but it doesn't address "the struggle" of getting far and spending effort to reach said progression or victory. Now there's two ways to go with it: focus on the puzzle part and customize difficulty with some extra scatterings of enemies and powerups, or focus on the roguelike part and give the players additional abilities to manipulate the maps over time (like storing a square, or allowing them to move farther than adjacent, or merging pieces that then move together). Either way I'd find the game a ton more capable of hours of enjoyment, but as it is now I think it's limited to an hour or two.

Don't get me wrong, this is definitely fun in its current form. It is, however, missing some variation to keep the idea interesting past its novelty.

[PTrefall]

Thanks a lot for your blind run of Rogue Station, Game Hunter. It was very rewarding to watch! The video just passed 1K views!!! Learned a lot from watching you play that we can hopefully fit into the first patch release. And so fun to see you figure out more and more with each death, and hear you trail off as you try to finish up, then play a little bit more... Awesome job you're doing with these LPs!

[Game Hunter]

Hellspace, by Numeron

Overall Thoughts:
For the scope of the 7DRL, this is a very good creation. Granted I do see a lot of similarities between it an Rogue City Scavenger on the engine side (and even the 7DRL 2012 game that I think crashed when I tried to play it but that's off-topic), but there's also enough additions to appreciate the development side. Then you have the gameplay, which has been expanded upon using creative and innovative surprises. There isn't a lot here, but for seven days it's plenty. It also paces well: the various abilities in enemies are spread throughout the game, culminating in that last encounter that tests your limits like no other in the game. And yeah, it could be harder (though final boss was just right) but the challenge would end up coming from even more abilities and such, which would have taken more time. So I like where this fits into 7DRL: not incredibly small, holds its own with a number of specialties, and wraps up in a way that makes you feel like you earned your victory. Well done!

[Game Hunter]

Fida'i, by Pat Wilson

Overall Thoughts:
I hate to keep saying it but I really really do wish Shift+Direction was turn-without-move: it throws off the balance of the game. And I really want to be able to thoroughly enjoy this game! Stealth roguelikes don't often stay interesting, but this one is semi-arcadey and keeps the player on their toes, trying to use resources carefully because they never know what they'll find on the next level. Combined with the obvious factor that your character is relatively awful at combat (though you can handle some non-combat opponents), it's challenging but greatly rewards an excellent usage of tools. In a genre filled to the brim with games that have you slaughter tons of enemies without much of a care, it's a breath of fresh air. Technically Pat's other games also instill this, but Fida'i pulls it off best thus far, I think.

PS: Sorry for sucking at keeping a regular schedule. Speedrunning is starting to become a rather intense hobby! I hope to make a lot of videos on the weekend so it's not too dry in the coming weeks.

[guest509]

Hey Hunter what kind of shoes did you get? I'm a bit of a New Balance guy, had problems with my feet wearing Nikes.

[pat]

Fida'i, by Pat Wilson

Overall Thoughts:
I hate to keep saying it but I really really do wish Shift+Direction was turn-without-move: it throws off the balance of the game. And I really want to be able to thoroughly enjoy this game! Stealth roguelikes don't often stay interesting, but this one is semi-arcadey and keeps the player on their toes, trying to use resources carefully because they never know what they'll find on the next level. Combined with the obvious factor that your character is relatively awful at combat (though you can handle some non-combat opponents), it's challenging but greatly rewards an excellent usage of tools. In a genre filled to the brim with games that have you slaughter tons of enemies without much of a care, it's a breath of fresh air. Technically Pat's other games also instill this, but Fida'i pulls it off best thus far, I think.

PS: Sorry for sucking at keeping a regular schedule. Speedrunning is starting to become a rather intense hobby! I hope to make a lot of videos on the weekend so it's not too dry in the coming weeks.

Awesome, thanks for the video! I'll have to look at the turn without moving problem because it's supposed to be in there and it worked for me when I used the numpad for testing so I probably stuffed something up. I actually changed the movement due to feedback last year on rasatala where people hated that it took two key presses to turn and then move. It does make for less extraneous commands to move around but if you can't turn without moving then yeah that's a huge problem!

[Game Hunter]

DataQueen, by Darren Grey

Overall Thoughts:
It's actually kind of interesting to note that I haven't seen a lot of "complex" roguelikes yet: ones that attempt simple gameplay and combine it with complex situations do rather well in the 7DRL, and DataQueen is no exception there. So much that can be tried, so many types of patterns to be figured out, it's amusingly overwhelming when you consider how little there is in the way of content! It might be "too hard", but only in the sense that upgrades might be more frequent before handling bosses. At the very least, it would appear that your choice of weapon is extremely important for the second boss, and having a couple extra would be nice to go along for the ride. It's definitely the kind of game to pick up and play on occasion, slowly gathering experience, until you get to the next level and start learning everything all over again. Accumulating knowledge rather than stats: that's what I like most about the roguelike experience.

[Game Hunter]

Hey Hunter what kind of shoes did you get? I'm a bit of a New Balance guy, had problems with my feet wearing Nikes.

If you're curious, I have another YouTube channel where I post some of my better runs. I also stream at twitch.tv which is sometimes kind of interesting (i.e., not really, but I don't mind talking while I run).

[Kyzrati]

DataQueen, by Darren Grey

Overall Thoughts:
It might be "too hard", but only in the sense that upgrades might be more frequent before handling bosses. At the very least, it would appear that your choice of weapon is extremely important for the second boss, and having a couple extra would be nice to go along for the ride. It's definitely the kind of game to pick up and play on occasion, slowly gathering experience, until you get to the next level and start learning everything all over again. Accumulating knowledge rather than stats: that's what I like most about the roguelike experience.

It's interesting you say that, because while I agree that it's a great game and worth playing, I thought the balance was off and beat it on the first playthrough, feeling pretty much unstoppable the entire way. I also even just picked the passive abilities and never had to use them. The freeze->hit combo is pretty much all you need to win. I'm not boasting here--I actually suck at a majority of roguelikes--but I didn't see much in the way of knowledge to accumulate, or much of a reason to play a second time (although I did just to make sure I didn't miss anything, because it came up on my review list...).

[Darren Grey]

It's interesting you say that, because while I agree that it's a great game and worth playing, I thought the balance was off and beat it on the first playthrough, feeling pretty much unstoppable the entire way. I also even just picked the passive abilities and never had to use them. The freeze->hit combo is pretty much all you need to win. I'm not boasting here--I actually suck at a majority of roguelikes--but I didn't see much in the way of knowledge to accumulate, or much of a reason to play a second time (although I did just to make sure I didn't miss anything, because it came up on my review list...).

Did you start the game with Freeze++? Cause you're not meant to... When releasing a post-7DRL version I accidentally left in my debug initial character set-up, which means starting with more powerful abilities. In the proper version (now fixed on the download) you start with just Spike and GridPush, and choosing what upgrades to take is a bit more painful. If you look at GameHunter's video you can see the abilities he starts with in comparison (he either had the initial 7DRL version or the very latest version).

Alas for rushed fix releases (can't even remember what I fixed - I think it was mostly adding some extra instruction text)

I'd really like to know what you thought of the final boss, but perhaps in spoiler tags or private discussion

[guest509]

Data Queen kicked my ass.

[guest509]

Hey Hunter what kind of shoes did you get? I'm a bit of a New Balance guy, had problems with my feet wearing Nikes.

If you're curious, I have another YouTube channel where I post some of my better runs. I also stream at twitch.tv which is sometimes kind of interesting (i.e., not really, but I don't mind talking while I run).

Commander Keen Speedruns! I love it.