I am happy to announce a success for my 7DRL Unlichtwesen! It was a good time and my second 7DRL was a lot of fun to make. Last minute I decided to add the most complicated feature, but it seems to work.
First things first, you find it here on itch.io and via roguebasin:
https://jan-rl.itch.io/unlichtwesenhttp://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=UnlichtwesenNews about it on twitter
https://twitter.com/Nicol_Bolasand props to libtcod and bearlibterminal that I used to make this happen.
The game is released as 0.9 to be "the nearly complete 7DRL version".
The game is named Unlichtwesen and the true heros should be the procedurally generated demons that you fight in 1on1 turn-based battles. It is basically only boss battles without any dungeon-crawling or puzzle solving before. These demons own their unique moveset and feature compositions, names and bodyparts and you hardly find two similar enemies.
Interlude 1: The list of bodyparts, features and movesets in the game could be infinite, the more the better. For the challenge I was happy with the number of attacks, patters and descriptions, but I will definitely extend this after the challenge and further work on this game.
The player can choose from two out of four different weapons and take one in each hand to face the opponent. The traditional-roguelike-staple "bump to attack" is replaced by directional swings, swipes and bashes, that affect certain quares when you attack. Every weapon has to independent attacks and you can use these with a respective cooldown. So timing in movement, attack pattern and evasion of enemy attacks is akey element.
Interlude 2: The weapon choice and additional items and options leave still a lot of design space open. I see the addition of a shield, two-handed weapons and many other movesets possible and when I find time I'll add on.
There is limited progression in the game, as every battle stands for its own. However, in the beginning 10 demons are created and saved. You can choose, which you want to fight and nothing happens, when you are defeated. You can fight as often as you want, and when you defeat the enemy, it will stay defeated. Deafeat all 10 and you have basically won.
A meta-feature of the game is, that the unique procedurally generated demons, are stored as separate files and will remain even after their defeat. Share them with friends and brag about you victory, or show impossible fights around, whether someone can do it!
This last feature was important for me, I liked the creatures that I summonend and was sad to see them dissapear everytime the game gets closed.
Enjoy the game!
