Dungeonmans!

[dungeonmans]

Hello there! Alpha 3 of Dungeonmans is available to play. Just today I created a page for it on Roguebasin, and there's also lots of information on the site (where you can download the game)

http://www.dungeonmans.com

Dungeonmans is a graphical roguelike with a focus on action and tactical positioning. Two classes to pick from, weapon masteries, and lots of monsters to crush and treasure to loot. Each game played can send feedback to the site server, allowing Team Dungeonmans to see how people are playing and where the game needs to be balanced.

So far, it seems like Alpha 3 is a bit easier than anticipated, so if you want to crush some monsters now is a great time.

[getter77]

Welcome to Rogue Temple dungeonmans!   

The game looks great, chock full of potential.  Keep at it dev team!

[Skeletor]

Oh man.. it's quite a hassle to run this game.
I have WinXp, after downloading it it required me to install lots of random Windows stuff and then restart my computer.. after that, I tried to run the game and I received an error (direct 3d graphic card not compatibility or something like that.. pixel shader vector shader what the hell).
Too bad it's so restrictive because it looks like a cool game.

[dungeonmans]

Skeletor: Pixel vector shader? lol that's awful. Well, the game is built via XNA, so while the installation of extra windows crap is to be expected, I'm disappointed in XNA for giving Windows XP users such a hard time. As for graphics card compatibility... the game pushes sprites around, this shouldn't be such an issue.

I'll try to fix these things up. Thanks for your patience.

[getter77]

Might be a good idea to mention about it being built with XNA and such on the Roguebasin page there dungeonmans.   Afterall, you'd be one of the few thus far to wrestle with it!   

[dungeonmans]

Afterall, you'd be one of the few thus far to wrestle with it!   

Huh, hadn't thought of it like that. Well you have a good point, I think I'll do that today

[getter77]

Afterall, you'd be one of the few thus far to wrestle with it!   

Huh, hadn't thought of it like that. Well you have a good point, I think I'll do that today

Rockin'.

[Ex]

Wasn't dungeonmans the name of a game in the Homestarrunner series?

[mariodonick]

I've not tried the game, 'cause I don't want to install XNA, but screenshots and video look good (Finally another roguelike with a trailer, although it's music is a bit overdone. Together with the graphics, it looks like a parody )

The claim "Crush Monsters, Get Loot" should also appeal to mainstream players with a Diablo/WoW socialisation.

[Krice]

As for graphics card compatibility... the game pushes sprites around, this shouldn't be such an issue.

I think everything in XNA is 3D/DirectX. What was the reason for XNA? I've heard it makes developing easy, but still..

[Etinarg]

Forums are full of posts from people who cannot run XNA based games on their machines. So even if it appears to make game development easy at first sight, you just buy a lot of complaints from users who then cannot play your game ... I'm not sure if this is worth it.

Some of the inital troubles seem to have been improved with recent XNA releases. The need for pixel shaders killed XNA games on many peoples computers though, as I read.

As a developer, I'd not touch XNA. It's another lockdown to the windows platform, and even a very restrictive one.

[getter77]

Aye, the XNA'ish/.NET stuff can be rough depending on how it is done, you'd think SURELY a game like Labyrinthica http://www.pompipompi.net/  would run at a glance on an XP machine, but it was totally beyond my old one.

[dungeonmans]

As a developer, I'd not touch XNA. It's another lockdown to the windows platform, and even a very restrictive one.

Well, you can look at it as a lockdown to the windows platform, or you can look at it as the ability to put the game on the Xbox. I understand the limitations, that's fine. The group of people who say "I will not touch your game, it requires dirty windows code" is much smaller than the group of people who say "I can't play your game because it's just ascii and too hard."

I think a lot of people are missing out on how fun Roguelikes can be. ADOM, for example, is completely awesome. But I've seen a lot of friends play the game and say "well I don't understand it, I couldn't tell what was going on, and I died in my first fight, this isn't fun." I've seen even experienced roguelike players think they were blinded for life when really they just needed to use a special command to wipe the mud from their eyes. That's great, but it's pretty hardcore.

I think I kinda knew I'd get shit from people here because Dungeonmans isn't an ascii game that runs on some obscure build of Kujubu Linux, but that's fine.

[dungeonmans]

To answer some questions,

What was the reason for XNA? I've heard it makes developing easy, but still..

XNA allows the game to be run on the 360 with relative ease. What if Roguelikes could appeal to console gamers? Sure, it would have to be "consoled down" at first, but if more people could explore and enjoy the genre then everyone is better off.

Also, XNA doesn't make developing "easy," thank you very much My original decision to run with XNA was also based on a desire to learn C#.

Forums are full of posts from people who cannot run XNA based games on their machines. So even if it appears to make game development easy at first sight, you just buy a lot of complaints from users who then cannot play your game ... I'm not sure if this is worth it

What it buys complaints from is people who don't run Windows or don't want to install the XNA runtimes. Also, the game can run on the 360, which is much larger audience than you think.

(Finally another roguelike with a trailer, although it's music is a bit overdone. Together with the graphics, it looks like a parody )

Hahah well that's kind of the point. It is a bit of a parody. The gameplay is serious, the game world is not.

As a developer, I'd not touch XNA.

Heh, well, as a developer who has been in the industry since 2004 and shipped multiple AAA titles, I think I'm ok with XNA.

[Krice]

I think I kinda knew I'd get shit from people here because Dungeonmans isn't an ascii game that runs on some obscure build of Kujubu Linux, but that's fine.

Ascii is not required these days, but it's good to have easy install and light hardware requirements. In the best case you don't need to install anything, just load and run the game.