Iron Fist

[Samildanach]

Recently a little 24 hour roguelike project called Iron Fist was released. It feels surprisingly well done for such a short period, with a few different abilities and such.

The things is, I can't figure out how to leave the tiny area in the top left of the map. Yes, I know I can enter individual squares on the map using > but then when I exhaust each of those and exit it, I return to the map and I'm still confined to that corner. I'm stumped. Anyone played it and managed to progress?

[roocey]

Hey, I'm the developer of Iron Fist. Sorry for the delayed response!

If you could attach a screenshot, I might be able to help and figure out if its a bug or not. There was a handful of weird things that got through since I had very little time to test.

[Samildanach]

I'm probably missing something, I just can't see any way to progress beyond this corner. I've used > to go in and explore every space I can reach.

[roocey]

The game has a very basic progression gating system that I didn't communicate particularly well. If you complete the red forest tile (clubs) that is in the lowest left corner, you should get a boat that allows you to enter the water tiles (the ~s). If you don't, there's probably some weird bug in play.

[Samildanach]

Wow, that is spectacularly unclear in-game. Thanks for answering though.

(Post edited for clarity of meaning, ironically.)

[chooseusername]

Wow, that is spectacularly unclear. Thanks for answering.

It seemed to me he gave you the answer.  If you completed the lower left club tile, then you would have got whatever.  If not, then you didn't or bug.  Which is it?

[Samildanach]

He did give me the answer. What I mean is it's not clear that there's anything going on with that space, and after you complete it it's not clear that anything has changed. It's very, very opaque. Still, can't moan too hard about a game made in 1 day!

[roocey]

It is definitely opaque. I actually made a last minute adjustment to help clarify it. The "quest" tiles all shift colors. But no clue is given to the significance of this and the color shifting isn't always obvious.

[Samildanach]

It is definitely opaque. I actually made a last minute adjustment to help clarify it. The "quest" tiles all shift colors. But no clue is given to the significance of this and the color shifting isn't always obvious.

Well, again, it's overall impressive work for such a short space of time. Now you've clarified what's going on, I intend to keep playing it.

[akeley]

I played it for a bit and was able to walk through all the walls and "solid" spaces in one dungeon (but not the others).

[roocey]

Sounds like a bug or you entered one of the red club tiles and not the others. It's meant to be a forest, the special property being that you can traverse traditional wall spaces, but still not see over them.

If it's the latter, it's just another thing I could have communicated better and most likely would have given more time. A legend on the world map would have been useful, apparently!

[Samildanach]

If it's the latter, it's just another thing I could have communicated better and most likely would have given more time. A legend on the world map would have been useful, apparently!

I actually had no trouble with realising they were trees and trying to walk through them.

[akeley]

Ah, a forest. Of course :)

There`s nothing wrong with communication minimalism, which I`m actually a fan of and was one of the things that I liked about your game.  Suppose I was playing too much TomE recently, where everything is a tooltip, so this went over my head and I thought of a bug. On the other hand, - if the boat you mention is invisible (i.e nothing changes on the worldmap when you came up from the forest) then that would be reminiscent of true 8-bit style, where you had to backtrack over and over again hoping to register some new development caused by your actions - step too far perhaps.

Doesn`t matter of course since it`s a 1DRL - impressive feat anyway since it`s a great little game (especially love the robotic theme)

[Samildanach]

There`s nothing wrong with communication minimalism, which I`m actually a fan of and was one of the things that I liked about your game.

Agreed. I really enjoy the streamlined, uncluttered information structure of this game. No fiddly inventory management, no novel-length help text.

[roocey]

Cheers for the kind words!

My games have taken a slow spiral towards minimalism over the past couple years. I'd like to add a bit more depth to my projects going forward, but ideally without sacrificing too much of the mystery.

I've passed on the inclusion of a world map for this current 7DRL, though I'd like to return to it someday with a more grandiose game than Iron Fist.