Snial Trial [7DRL 2016 - Success!]

[Maurog]

Update 8:
http://www.filedropper.com/snialtrial_5

* Basic Snial generation is in
* Snial movement and stacking is in

Note that combat is not in yet, so all you can do is muck around the arena as unending hordes of Snials try to surround you and climb on you.
Tomorrow is gonna be the last day, oh my!

[AgingMinotaur]

Woohoo! Good luck.

As always,
Minotauros

[Maurog]

Update 9:
http://www.filedropper.com/snialtrial

* Attacking is in, on both sides
* Defeating Snials is in

At this point the knight is completely impervious to attacks though.
Some notes: You can attack an enemy near you, but only if it's on your level, or one above or one below. If it's two or more levels above or below it's outside your reach. If it's exactly two levels below, you move and drop on them instead of attacking. This is totally allowed, try it.

[Maurog]

Update 10 and final:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/khw3j85mq07eyyo/Snial%20Trial.rar?dl=1
http://i.imgur.com/GWSip0Z.gif

* Added armor which serves as hp (sort of)
* Fix armor with space/Num5
* Added win condition (actually lose condition, but the Snials win, amirite)
* Can see armor status with mouseover
* Can scroll combat log with mousewheel

Well what can I say, it doesn't have a lot of the features I planned, but it's totally playable.
Some less than obvious features:
- You can climb 1 step up, but never more than 1.
- You can climb 2 steps down but never more than 2.
- You can attack 1 up or 1 down, but not more than that.
- You can jump on top of a Snial if it's exactly 2 down.
- Snials can climb on other Snials whenever they want.
- They can drop on your head from above too.
- Being attacked from above or below affects what armor parts can be hit.
- Snials move slowly but attack just fine

I marked the game as finished. Have fun, and I hope it's not too boring.
Features that didn't make it to the current version.
* There was supposed to be clear progression of waves.
* Snials were supposed to evolve new abilities the more of them you defeat.
* You were supposed to level and get new skills too.
* There were supposed to be different weapons and some sort of inventory.
* Music and sound could be nice, eh.

[akeley]

Unsurprisingly, quite brilliant. And that`s just simple-but-deep gameplay, however the real highlight for me is the game`s vibe and humour - qualities so rare to find these days in an unforced state or propped up by pop-referencing. I`d like to think Mr Cervantes would love it too ;)

And this is just genius:


You should, like, make a big game. Or something. Got a feeling it would be fun (loads of).

[Maurog]

The title page and the concept of the game are actually a pop reference, but so ancient that nobody is sure exactly what it is about at this point:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html

Just in case you were wondering where the inspiration comes from (and the images, I used actual medieval ones).

[akeley]

Mind, blown. These images...and "Knight v Snail V:  Revenge of the Snail"...oh-my-word. Made my Saturday ;)

Not sure if this counts as "pop" culture...well, at least not as trite as we know it. But it`s always good to be reminded/enlightened that the medieval folk had peculiar sense of humour too and didn`t take the world too seriously. The conventional wisdom of super serious knights and times needs this injection for sure.

[Avagart]

Great entry! But I'm affraid I have question. So, every time after some turns I'm unable to move. Game doesn't freeze, player character just doesn't move and/or repair armor. It's about mechanics? Or it is bug? I think that first option is more probably, but I didn't see information of my death / unabling to move / whatever in log But screen doesn't fit to my laptopot (so, 768px height is too small) and maybe this message is outside of my screen.

[Maurog]

Ow, I assumed everyone have over 820 pixels height now. My mistake.

When you die, the game revokes all your options except q/esc but allows you to look around, so it's probably this. Look at your armor, if you see any part as "exposed" (also bright red in the bar), chances are they got you.

[Avagart]

Yup, this. Thanks for clarification.

[AgingMinotaur]

Well done! I just gave it a go, and see how this can be quite fun, actually. You should definitely consider continuing development a bit, adding some of those features you mentioned. For instance, there surely must be some free-to-use cheesy lute music lying about? I might come back with more (actual) comments once I played it a bit more.

As always,
Minotauros

PS.Many thanks, also, for the "Knight v. Snail" article. I especially enjoyed the fact that one of the first to research the field was called "Comte de Bastard" And this pic, the epitome of overkill, poor snail, but then again, it's posing so defiantly that I get the impression it may actually be about to win the fight:

[Maurog]

I'm not completely sure it's really fun, to be honest, because there were no extra features and combat is almost deterministic, so I cranked the difficulty way up. Since every two turns a new Snial drops in, you're under a constraint to kill one every two turns which is inherently impossible. You can defeat about 100 of them, but with the timer ticking and the need to repair armor and the obstacles mounting, you have no chance to keep it up.

Maybe I can make a version which drops one every three turns, which will also make them all move at once instead of of having different phases. That will probably make it too easy. Or drop once every three turns, but deliberately mix their phases. Or keep it the way it is but at least somehow signal to the player when each is about to move.

[Maurog]

Update 11 - Beyond 7drl:

* Added music, courtesy of the patron saint of indie game music, Kevin MacLeod
* Better indication of stacked Snials
* Snial drop rate reduced slightly to lull the player into false sense of insecurity
* Fixing armor has a small chance to critically fail

There you go, AgingMinotaur, there's that lute music you ordered. Also everything should be easier now, but I doubt anyone can defeat 1000 Snials (if you defeat 1000 Snials in one go, totally take a screenshot and post it here).

Next up:

* Self-resizing for smaller screens

[Maurog]

Update 12:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkfl8krhi4wnu03/Snial%20Trial%20-%2012.zip?dl=1

* Small Screen Mode

The game will now automatically downsize itself to support smaller screens if needed (into a 854x492 window).

[Avagart]

Great, thank you so much!