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[Toeofdoom]

The Key

Description LINKS HAVE BEEN DELINKED DUE TO SOME BOTNET USING THEM TO DOWNLOAD 40 GB BLOODY HELL WHAT? The Key is a totally new RPG with a unique graphical style, somewhat balanced combat system, physically simulated ragdoll equivalents, over 900 words of dialogue, a bunch of secret items to find and the lack of any save/load system followed by the fortunate relatively short completion time. The finished game should be available for PC and Mac within 24 hours! Any feedback would be great, particularly if something is confusing. Even the navigation - it may seem intentional, with the entire world being black, but I'm actually hoping people can get around fairly easily. Well, except finding secrets, that's not meant to be too easy. Click to play!		Inspired by

Google Translate tells me the original description says:
"THE KEY"
Notice and the boy are not guilty in the darkness. I can not remember exactly how or why here. The door can not go out as they locked out. In order to escape, but only relying on the hunt for the key light enters through the keyhole, or toe hit the corner of a desk, hooked to the trap ... or struggle. Interesting community spirit and you light it, a little eccentric action will escort the boy to a RPG game. Gradually revived memories of the boy by the door is opened it will also have solved the mystery.
Download
Play online at http:// + toeofdoom.com/thekey/
Windows download at http:// + toeofdoom.com/thekey/TheKey1_0-nospam-Win32.zip (Unlinked because 75000 bots clicked this link and downloaded 10GB. Weird. Add the 2 sections together manually. EDIT: They then discovered the OSX link and grabbed another 30 friggin GB, wtf?)
OSX download at http:// + toeofdoom.com/thekey/TheKey1_0-OSX.zip (Not guaranteed to work, haven't released unity stuff for OSX before.)
How to play
Controls: W, A, S, D, Space to jump. The mouse controls camera. Approach enemies to enter combat. Click buttons to perform actions while in combat. Click to perform actions outside combat, when the cursor lights up.
Click on the game while not in combat to lock the mouse - press escape to unlock it.

[Inanimate]

One of the better case! I cam curious as to your interpretation.

[Spross]

This is my favorite case.  I think it has the potential for a very interesting art style.  Look forward to seeing more.

[Toeofdoom]

Yeah, I have some ideas for the art style (though I focus on coding) but it's hard to work out what to add that fits - for example, it's meant to be an RPG, but makes no mention of enemies - but also what fits in the 2 weeks or so I have to make it.

Here's a little test of that background grid, in 3D.


Also I'm suddenly tempted to make it a dwarf fortress story, though I most likely won't - someone locked in a room with no light and (alcohol induced) amnesia? Sounds like there might be a tragic accident ahead...

[Inanimate]

RPG's don't necessarily need enemies; they just need you to play a role.

And, if your definition is extended to include 'levelling up + stats', those stats can be non-combat based.

[Toeofdoom]

Yeah, I'm considering making puzzles a decent part of it, probably something to do with that grid. Anyway, work on this is moving kinda slowly as I have 2 other games I'm working on too, but I think I'll be able to put something out as one of the other projects will be done soon anyway.

[Toeofdoom]

Well, after a significant delay, I've started work. Enjoy the first in-engine screenshot

As you can see, the visual style is starting straight from the cart, but hopefully the game will go in interesting directions. No promises about the art either way. The font is apparently free, though closer matches to the one on the cart were not.

[Toeofdoom]

Update: There is now a (very) short demo of the combat system! Click here: http://toeofdoom.com/thekey

Controls are further down the page or in the first post.

EDIT: Any feedback is welcome, I'm not exactly going to have time to do much gameplay testing. Unless people think changes are needed, the basic mechanics aren't likely to change, I'm working on the content and story at the moment.

[Toeofdoom]

Well, the demo has been updated again and I've brought along some screenshots.



I think it's looking good, although I'm not really sure about the gameplay. It kinda needs more variety?

And a day later, editing... I've uploaded yet another new version, but with reception has been absolutely non-existent I really am finding it hard to figure out what's wrong.

My best guess is that no-one really feels like commenting because it seems like I haven't put any effort into it, with the simplistic graphics style mainly consisting of fonts I didn't create and an uninteresting combat system. But I honestly can't tell, help me out here.

I've been modifying the combat system (You start with 1 attack and gain a couple of new ones when you beat certain enemies. Each attack has significant differences, although working them out would require trial and error so I think tooltips will be important to explain just what they do. For now, I'll tell you:

Confusion hits every letter with moderate damage.
Anger hits everything lightly and one letter quite strongly.
and Fear is most effective against large (5+) groups of letters, but very weak against small groups.

Oh, and the key is actually in the game now, various bugs have been fixed, there are 3 secret items to find, a proper respawning system and a way to regain health.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working under the assumption everyone is sleeping or at bigjam or whatever and hope it's not a waste of time (due to no eventual players/game sucking).

[Toeofdoom]

And for the quintuple post , the game has been updated yet again. Tooltips have been implemented all over the place, the story continues slightly further, flee and item buttons actually do something now and the arbitrary version numbering continues to version 0.3.0

As always, feedback would be much appreciated. I know from my webserver stats that a few people have played it, at least.

[Toeofdoom]

The game is finished! Check the first post for links and instructions.

EDIT: Known issues
The mouse seems to drag in the browser plugin.
Text does not always respond to clicking. Click harder.
An attack which strengthens the enemy actually increases the effectiveness of your next attack IF you finish the enemy off with it.
I may have forgotten to program a "quit" button for standalone versions. Alt+F4 for windows and Command+Q or whatever you Mac people use for you.

[Melly]

I just played it, Sorry that I didn't catch this earlier, there are a LOT of games.

It's very atmospheric, and I really like the feeling and unusual ways to converse with other characters. I really like how you incorporated the cart elements into the game. Very creative.

combat was a little on the repetitive side. Later on my strategy was essentially to spam Strongest Attack -> Hope -> Strongest Attack -> Hope -> etc ad nauseum and I got through all the enemies just fine.

It could REALLY have used some sound effects and atmospheric music. Maybe you can add those eventually?

Either way, a very nice effort that I think can be expanded upon a little more.

[Toeofdoom]

Thanks for the feedback

I think if I continue this I may need to replace the combat system entirely to fit the game better. Sound is obviously important, I really want to get a pipeline for that set up at some point instead of just using stuff from the internet. :/ I'm starting my final semester of uni now, though, so I may not have much time.

[miconazole]

Well I think this project should have received way more attention than it did! I think the long delay followed by a primitive demo made people (me included) assume it was going to be vapourware that'd never get done. I rather like the atmosphere, and you tell an interesting story. Only thing is... I made it to the tower, then got disoriented and fell off the edge into some kind of inescapable pit. That was REALLY lame.

[Toeofdoom]

Wow, I must've missed an area for the invisible blocking volumes I've uploaded a fix for that to the web version, the downloads might take a little longer. Fair enough to think that it wouldn't get done, though, in some ways I'm surprised I actually got this far since I've certainly never pumped out that much content in such a short time before.

In case you're wondering, getting to the tower really just rolls the credits. Hopefully that's not too disappointing, anyway.

Thanks for the feedback though! Good to hear people liked it, when it wasn't buggy.

[Soulliard]

It seems like this game really wants to be a first-person exploration game. Because it's actually pretty good at that. The dialogue and graphics are both very moody, although it really needs sound.

The RPG parts of the game seem a bit out of place, and there's no a whole lot to them, anyways. At least for a large portion of the game, there's no better strategy than spamming confusion, and using Hope or a medkit when your health is low.

[Toeofdoom]

Hmmm, it's possible, though I find first person exploration a strange sort of game. I could easily make a new "side-build" removing all the enemies and see what people think, though. So do you think it's the specific combat system or just the RPG doesn't really fit at all?

Sorry for not responding very fast, I've been at freeplay all weekend

[Noyb]

Interesting aesthetics. I really liked how the conversations were portrayed.

Combat got a bit more interesting when you acquired new attacks. I didn't like being told to replace an old attack without knowing what the new one did, although I usually had at least one attack I wasn't using when I got to those points.

Minor graphical bug: on 640x480 resolution, your side of the conversation is clipped off. And on lower graphics qualities it became hard to see what each word-enemy spelled, especially when they were far away or in an ornate font like "HOPE."

[Toeofdoom]

Hmmm, fair enough. I think I tested down to 800x600 which I set the web player to, but I suppose netbooks etc. could run better with an even lower res. As for the attack replacement thing, I guess that should be fixed although I seem to remember being in a similar situation playing pokemon at some point (which is sorta where this combat system came from.)

EDIT: I actually got a vote in best visuals? Cool...
I swear it wasn't me!