Post-Apocalyptic Rogue-Like Game

[Justin_Wang123]

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for some feedback on my current (unnamed) project which is nearing completion. This is my 3rd iteration on a rogue-like and as with the previous projects, I want this game to be able to stand on its own while also acting as the base of the next project.

Link:
http://game-test-page.comoj.com/Wasteland/

Screen Shots:






Overview:
- Static overworld with towns, npcs and quests.
- 6 Randomly generated dungeons and a couple of surface locations.
- Skill based character development allowing characters to specialize or generalize in melee, stealth, ranged and psionic combat.
- Approximately 100 items, 50 monsters, and 20 spells.
- Primary focus is on careful resource management and combat tactics.

Controls:
I hope the game is mostly self explanatory (please let me know of any confusion). Most of the controls have yet to be explained in game so I'll list them here:
- Clicking with the mouse moves or interacts (including attacking)
- Clicking any item in the inventory will use it (equip, cast spell, consume potion etc.
- Clicking player (numpad 5) will wait a turn (this is important in combat for positioning)
- There is partial keyboard support with the numpad providing movement and bump to attack (it works the same as clicking adjacent tiles).
- E key will auto explore
- R key will (r)ecast the last spell
- W key will (w)ield the previously wielded weapon
- A key will allow you to target distant enemies using numpad to move the cursor and 5 to click (this works the same as clicking a distant tile).

Feedback
Any feedback is greatly appreciated with the following topics of particular interest to me:

Difficulty
I've been playing this game for so long I no longer have even the slightest clue as to what the difficulty is for other players. Obviously as a rogue-like its intended to be difficult, something that you need to play repeatedly and learn all the little tricks in order to win. With that said, I'm curious as to how the challenge level is for everyone.

Pacing and Length
Similar to the above point, I can rush through the game at a pretty rapid pace but I also find that it gets repetitive at points though this is largely due to having played it hundreds of times. How is the overall length of the game? Are the dungeons to long, to short, or just right? Is new content introduced at the right pace?

Usability
This is a big one. Is it obvious how to play the game. Does the UI give enough information or is there anything missing? How do the controls feel. Does the game give you enough direction that you can figure out where to go next.

Bugs
Obviously I'm anxious to hear about any crashes or lag spikes or unexpected behavior.

Features
Any general suggestions for new features or improvements.

Future Plans:
I'd like to wrap this project up in the next few weeks and then as previously mentioned use it as the base of a larger, more ambitious project. Roughly speaking the direction I want to go in is to create a continuously scrolling over world (getting rid of the world map) dotted with different environment biomes, ruins, highways etc. I want to add crafting, harvesting any all the standard features of a survival sand-box game.

The idea is that the player gathers up resources, equipment, and other consumables on the surface and then tackles one of the large, extremely difficult dungeons. In tackling the dungeon the player uses up most of his supplies, damages his equipment sustains lots of injuries but gains some powerful artifacts, crafting recipes or something which allow him to push out further on the surface.

Generally speaking I want a sort of two-mode game in which gameplay on the surface is survival sandbox in which you prepare to tackle the next dungeon (which roughly increase in difficulty). Upon completing the dungeon you gain something which lets you explore further, craft more, generally experience more of the game. I plan to have an actual end game and victory condition. I'm hoping to overcome the main thing I dislike about sand-boxy games such as mine craft or dwarf fortress which is that generally there is little feeling of progression after the early game has been overcome and I always end up getting board without obvious goals.

[Lord_Mork]

I found it pretty fun, but the first few dungeons could stand to have some more variety in terms of items and weaponry.

Is there currently any victory condition?

[Justin_Wang123]

Thanks for playing.

By variety do you just mean more item drops in general? The items are not restricted by level so the full variety can potentially drop in the first levels. There is currently a victory condition in the last dungeon (finding the codex) though there are some crashes that may prevent getting it in the version currently uploaded. I'm working on putting up an update that fixes some of these issues.

[Lord_Mork]

Thanks for playing.

By variety do you just mean more item drops in general? The items are not restricted by level so the full variety can potentially drop in the first levels. There is currently a victory condition in the last dungeon (finding the codex) though there are some crashes that may prevent getting it in the version currently uploaded. I'm working on putting up an update that fixes some of these issues.

How many items are there total? I suppose I meant to say in general; it just felt as if most of what I encountered was either a shroom, a mana refill, or food.

Even if the differences are only in flavor, or perhaps a small random positive/negative effect, item variety is an easy way to make a game much more interesting. The random names of scrolls and colors of potions in Nethack and Crawl work to that advantage, so do the different types of corpses and their meat.

Is the more ambitious future project (the one you mentioned in the Opening Post) also going to be post-apocalyptic?
 And will your response to feedback on this game be incorporated into a new version of this game, or directly into your next project?

[Justin_Wang123]

There are about 100 items in total, though consumables might be a little bit to common at the moment. There was a point where I was getting tons of equipment drops and just selling half of them in the shop so I might have gone overboard with the drop rates on potions and food and such.

The more ambitious future project will indeed be post-apocalyptic and is forking off of this project as we speak. I consider the game as it currently stands, (haven't actually uploaded the most current version yet) as basically complete for a sort of phase 1 iteration. I've posted it to a number of forums and got some good feedback, including your own most of which has been incorporated into the current build and I'm happy to call it a complete version 0.1 or whatever. Always a nice feeling

So in answer to your question, feedback to this game will definitely be taken into consideration for the future of the project. They really are one continuous project, I just like to keep in the habit of actually producing playable versions, even if it means I might have to throw out a little bit of the polish moving forward. I'll be trying to keep getting releases out every few months that are reasonably self contained and playable sort of bordering the lines between stand alone games, and subsequent versions of the main project.

There is going to be a pretty giant item list eventually as I want to include hunting, harvesting, and scavenging ruins on the surface as well as crafting and rudimentary construction mechanics. So there will need to be a big item list to support all of this along with all the artifacts found in the actual dungeons.

Currently I'm working on taking the world map I currently have and generating a continuous scrolling over-world from it at the same scale as the dungeons. I then want to place all of the cities, ruins, dungeon entrances etc. onto this over-world. The goal is to have the player spawn into the world and actually able to wander around it and explore without the two different scales I currently have. Each tile of the world map will be converted to something like a 32x32 tile chunk which will then have its tile generated according to the type of tile it is, what features it has, what region its in etc.

Eventually I want to support different themed biomes each with its associated dungeon. So the player may start in the wasteland dealing with raiders leading to a climax where he storms the raider vault and kills their leader and then may travel to a jungle area with some sort of botanical testing lab in the center spewing forth mutants that have to be dealt with.

As I mentioned in the first post, each new region will have new stuff to harvest, new stuff to kill and basically open up more crafting, construction and equipment options which the player will mess around with, building up their supplies before tackling the regional dungeon.

I definitely want a strong survival vibe going as well with food, water, medicine and shelter and such things being a major concern. I'm not particularly interested in any sort of super complicated simulation approach but I do want to create that feel of wandering and surviving in this strange hostile world.

I'm sort of just rambling ideas at this point so in closing, thanks a lot for your feedback so far and I'd appreciate anything you'd like to add in the future. I'll try to have the current (so called finished) build uploaded some time soon.