Demon: A monster collection roguelike 3/31!

[Rev_Sudasana]

Great! This can only be an improvement. I don't use many mouse controls myself but just having the ability to click on a target in the map to get info on it is a lot more intuitive and quick than using a keyboard command would be.

[Ferret]

I was in a similar boat developing them: I'm not a big mouse control user either. That made it a bit of a slog to work on them... even now I don't use them very much, so I sometimes internally grumble at having spent an entire build on something that didn't do much for the game from my point of view. But, I did have some folks ask about them, so there is that... and maybe more pointedly, I wonder how many people saw the non-clickable hotkey buttons/menus and wandered off assuming the whole thing was "too early/unfinished" to bother trying out. (I don't think it is overall. But, I will admit that before this it had some glaring gaps in the "this looks like it should work with a mouse and for some reason doesn't".)

[Ferret]

The demon descriptions are coming along pretty nicely. I've got them displaying in game too, so all I have to do is finish them up and I can release a build with them. Until that's ready, here are some screenshots of the descriptions of a few of the earlier demons.

[Ferret]

7/17 build is out. The link for PC, Mac, and Linux builds is the same as always: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-sx_4eW-B5hWnhNZlRPclZLeUU&usp=drive_web

With this build, every character in the game now has a description you can view as part of their character sheets. The descriptions for the demons are heavily based on the real mythology, legends, and stories about them. I hope everyone finds them as entertaining to read as they were to write.

[Ferret]

7/23 build has been pushed up. Same link as always: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-sx_4eW-B5hWnhNZlRPclZLeUU&usp=drive_web

Nothing too special here, just some minor UI and balance polish I wanted out of the way before diving into anything big for the next major build.

[Rev_Sudasana]

Just wanted to say that I really like the breadth of mythologies that you're drawing upon for the demons. We can definitely move beyond European high fantasy into Greek, Chinese, and other strands of tradition for our inspirations.

[Ferret]

Thanks. I wish I gotten around to the descriptions sooner than I ended up doing: many players have commented before that they enjoy learning about the creatures precisely because so many of them are virtually unknown to them prior to playing Demon. European fantasy, as a %, makes up a relatively small portion of the world's body of literature, myth, and legend, but it gets used over and over again because it's what most devs and players are really familiar with.

I actually bought a rather impressive book to help me along in branching out myself. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in starting to learn more about this sort of thing:



Amazon sells copies for US$20 at the moment: if you ask me, that's a steal. I think I paid US$40 for mine back in the day. It *is* a dictionary: you don't get a ton of info on any particular topic, but even just opening up to random spots and reading entries, you'll stumble across all sorts of interesting and intriguing things. From there, Google can probably lead you to as much detail as you want or need. This is the primary method I use for researching new critters to include in Demon.

[Ferret]

Hey everyone. Working my way towards the next major build, which will introduce a new mechanic: Relics.

Well, technically speaking, there have always been relics: every summoner uses them to recruit, summon, and learn abilities from demons. But, starting with the next build, there will be several different types of relic that you can choose from at character creation.



As the help text in the screenshot stats, which relic to use is now the most important choice you make during character creation: it determines your appearance, resistances, starting stats, and what starting abilities you have to choose from. Future iterations on the mechanic will also add relic-specific gameplay changes that go outside these bounds. But, for the first pass, it is the starting ability options that are of the most interest. For example, let's take a look at the options available with the Titan's Fist, a heavy melee relic:



Only two primary choices, but the differences between them are significant: Slash provides a focus on pure damage, while Impact provides a disabling effect while still giving decent damage output.



However, there are eight secondary choices, all meaningful for a melee build even though some come from traditionally non-melee elements. Depending on what you choose here, you can augment your initial choice with area effect attacks, a charge movement to close with enemies quickly, an elemental aura that strikes attackers back with damage, turn loss, or debuffs, support spells to increase you and/or your party's damage output, or damage mitigation.

The other new relics will similarly provide a wealth of starting options for ranged, support, and other playstyles. For the first pass at relics, that's more or less the main goal, but eventually I want to branch out to relics that make significant changes to gameplay beyond just changing basic resistances/stats/etc., sort of in the flavor of races in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Plenty to do on these still, but hopefully I'll be able to announce a new build relatively soon. Cheers!

[getter77]

Excellent idea for a mechanic to flesh out.   

[Ferret]

Thanks getter. I'm hoping it will both provide a wider array of viable-out-of-the-gate strategies as well as serve as a good introduction to just how diverse a set of abilities Demon has hiding in it these days. Closing in on something like 300 now. :O

I'm still plugging away on the relics: I've actually got the other 5 all set up now, so no reason not to preview them.

Since this is a lot of screenshots, not embedding them directly in the post this time. Click the "Primary" and "Secondary" links to see the screenshots showing the abilities offered by each relic.


Crown of Glory: Primary | Secondary
A relic that provides abilities suited to leading from the front: strong defenses combined with melee attacks that provide extra benefits: healing, buffs, debuffs, crowd control, you name it, there's probably a melee attack that adds it on.

Eye of the Dragon: Primary | Secondary
Not surprisingly, the Eye of the Dragon's major claim to fame is breath attacks: no matter which build options you pick, you'll have one. All do decent damage to a wide area, along with various secondary effects such as additional damage over time, stunning, or stat debuffs. The other abilities offered by this relic reinforce its focus on taking on groups of enemies with life-stealing attacks, passive abilities that harm attackers, defense increases, and area effect debuffs.

Faithful Heart: Primary | Secondary
Specializes in powerful, reliable, direct-to-target magic. Its primary elements provide you with powerful abilities limited by cooldowns and/or conditions that must be met on use, while its secondary elements give you a Plan B to use when these more restricted abilities cannot be utilized.

Orb of Power: Primary | Secondary
A relic that provides strong magic abilities. Many of its build options offer powerful ranged area effect spells: those that don't offer early access to the no less impressive Haste and Slow spells instead.

Vodun Mask: Primary | Secondary
A relic that provides a very diverse selection of debuffs to hurl at enemies: damage over time, turn delay, stat reduction, crowd control, and more. These debuffs can optionally be backed up with some moderate damage dealing, or you can just dive fully into the "death by a hundred curses" strategy.


Still have some other work to do before the build is ready, but I'm moving as quickly as possible. I hope to announce a new build soon. Cheers!

[Ferret]

8/22 build is out! You can grab PC, Mac, and Linux downloadables from here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-sx_4eW-B5hWnhNZlRPclZLeUU&usp=drive_web

As previously discussed, the big change in this build is the addition of relics: a new option during character creation that determines what elements and abilities you have to choose your starting package from. Also included is a total revamp of ability descriptions: it is now much easier to tell what an ability does, and to compare abilities to each other.

Also, because I do things like this sometimes, I was actually keeping a seventh relic secret: The Hand of the Dead, an "undead" themed relic. I'd preview it, but you can just go see for yourself now.



I also reset the scoreboard, since this is a fairly significant gameplay change. Good luck, and as always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

[getter77]

Congrats!     Onward this goes getting better and better with each meaty update.

[Rev_Sudasana]

I had a lot of fun with this! It's very easy to get started playing too, which is important. Lots of visual clues as to when I should be doing things like recalling demons or healing. Keep it up!

[Ferret]

Cool. I'm glad you're having fun with it, and that the new player help bits are working. There were kind of a pain to get designed/coded semi-properly, but they've been worth the trouble I think.

[Ferret]

8/30 build is out! PC, Mac, and Linux downloadables are available from here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-sx_4eW-B5hWnhNZlRPclZLeUU&usp=drive_web

The main new feature this time around: nicknames for Demons!



Pretty self-explanatory for the most: you can rename any demon in your party while viewing its character sheet simply by pressing Shift+n and giving it a new name. If you ever decide you want to go back, just rename it again and enter an empty string.

However, the 8/30 build also adds one other significant adjustment: unique modifiers! Unique demons now offer unique modifiers when sacrificed to Silver or Gold Matrices to power up other demons. For example, here is a Gandayah previewing Vihkor's "Whirling" modifier:



Yep, +20% Speed! Unique modifiers can do ... well, unique.... things. Here's another preview, this time of the "Brewmaster" modifier Ninkasi passes to demons:



Two resistances! Unique modifiers tend to be good, either in the direct benefits they provide, or in the ability list they draw from for the 2 bonus abilities granted by modification. Still, they are balanced: after all, if you sacrifice a unique demon to a Matrix, by definition you are forgoing sacrificing something to power up that unique demon instead.

Besides these two features, the 8/30 build also offers the usual small assortment of UI improvements and minor bugfixes. Enjoy, and good luck.