Char - ASCII 3D roguelike

[The_Phantasm]

My goal has been to focus on nice particle effects and monster AI.  The game works in either 2D mode, or the default, 3D mode. 

I would love feedback on the 3D style and gameplay (and obviously any bugs if some are found). 

I have it up on Steam Greenlight here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=168517224
Screenshots and some older videos are on the Greenlight page. 

Direct download links are:
Char - with music (100 meg)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49629397/char_1.0.1.31.zip

Char - without music (10 meg)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49629397/char_1.0.1.31.NO.MUSIC.zip

Thanks!

[Endorya]

Man it looks pretty awesome! Fantastic work! I really like the fact you made the game in a way having characters' death justified and not based on unfortunate events you don't have any control over whatsoever - unlucky based deaths simply sucks, specially when we are dealing with permadeath.

Going to try it!

[getter77]

Excellent progress.

[The_Phantasm]

Thanks!  I'm currently testing out making the map fully 3d and having proper heights.  I currently have floor tiles that represent different heights (trenches for lower, water vs deep water, bushes/rubble that are half-height, and columns that are double-height walls), but the core data structure believes that the map is flat.  I'm not sure what I would do to have that apply in 2D mode though.  I would like to keep the game fully playable in both modes, but full 3d height will definitely complicate any projectiles that are traveling.  Do fireballs track the floor height, etc. 

And then there is still the list of interesting AI's that I haven't finished implementing.

[JeTSpice]

Monster AI is great.  Also "never dying capriciously."  Cool!

[The_Phantasm]

I just posted a poll.  Now that I have full 3d in on the map, I'm working on the core lighting model.

I currently favor the 1st option, though I think 2 and 3 have some potential.  In particular, I like the look of the grid showing known tiles, but I think the fade to complete black is a little much (though I found that I was always squinting to try and see what things were in the case of darkening tiles too much)

Thoughts/opinions?

Also, a different looking set of comparisons (harder to parse visually)  is https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49629397/char_properlighting_comparison.png

[The_Phantasm]

Whew.  It took a good 2 weeks of scripting, hacking, and slashing, but I managed to port the game from XNA over to Unity.  I just got a basic Android build functioning. 

I need to shove big chunks back into the game, but I'd be interested to know if anyone would be willing to test the game on their devices?  I can produce builds now for Android, IOS, and WinPhone.

[Zireael]

What would be the minimum Android version required?

Also, will be taking it for a spin sometime this week.

[Samildanach]

Whew.  It took a good 2 weeks of scripting, hacking, and slashing, but I managed to port the game from XNA over to Unity.  I just got a basic Android build functioning. 

I need to shove big chunks back into the game, but I'd be interested to know if anyone would be willing to test the game on their devices?  I can produce builds now for Android, IOS, and WinPhone.

I have Android tablet and WinPhone, I'd be interested in trying it out in either form.

[The_Phantasm]

Awesome, thanks!  I was going to target KitKat - since all my devices run that so far.  I can certainly create a build targetting something older. 

Zireael, what version of Android would you need me to target?

[Zireael]

Mine's terribly old, 1.6, so I'm not sure it's worth for you to target

[The_Phantasm]

I jumped the gun on being ready to test on phone/tablet.

While I had 2D working, 3D mode is more interesting - and I've hit a lot of snags getting that working.  So far, I've got 3d working on my Nexus 7, but I'm averaging < 30 fps, which just isn't good enough.  I need to do some perf tuning before bothering anyone else.
But I'm making forward progress at least.

[Paul Jeffries]

Looking at the preview images - do you actually need the gridlines at all?  It looks like it should be fairly easy to tell the tiles apart without them and it might look a bit cleaner, so maybe you could only show them for things like targeting a ranged weapon/spell, when more precision would be needed.

[The_Phantasm]

For awhile, I thought that the grid lines made things look a lot more interesting.  At this point, I'm considering re-adding them as a mechanism for helping ground where on the grid the player is.

I have an initial Android build available, but it's really really an alpha - definitely easy to get stuck, only 4 spells are even ported (magic missile, fireball, push, push radial)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49629397/Char.apk

[The_Phantasm]

The Unity port is much further along now - most importantly, the nasty perf degradation from moving is gone.  As expected, I'm pushing 300 fps on my PC and easily hitting 60 fps on all my android devices.
Latest version is updated on the dropbox share - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49629397/Char.apk