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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingSecret of Qwerty (v1.3)
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Author Topic: Secret of Qwerty (v1.3)  (Read 7447 times)
Gryphon
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« on: June 11, 2011, 11:41:59 AM »

Version 1.3 has been released! I spent a lot of time balancing and polishing the game. There aren't any major content updates. If you've checked out the game already, consider giving it a whirl again and letting me know what you think. Is the game lacking in any areas? It is a very simplistic game by design, but I hope it isn't so simple that it becomes tiresome. And if you haven't checked out the game by now, this is a perfect opportunity to do so!

Secret of Qwerty is a typing game inspired by The Typing of the Dead and Dragon Warrior. I worked on it with the help of another forum-goer, Cheesus.



Play with the arrow keys, Z and X, and use the full keyboard during battles. Q or ESC quits. Enjoy!

Installer

Download .zip version instead

IndieDB page

New and improved version: http://gryphon.itch.io/secret-of-qwerty
« Last Edit: January 04, 2015, 03:12:22 PM by Gryphon » Logged

Cheesus
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« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2011, 02:18:36 PM »

That was great. Good to finally see it done - I really enjoyed it. Let's talk sometime, it's been awhile haha.
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BlueStainedRoses
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« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2011, 02:55:23 PM »

played it for around 20 minutes and the first 10 I couldn't figure out what was happening as whatever I typed didn't work. Then I noticed caps lock was on, it was pretty awkward at the beginning but very fun after i noticed what i what i was doing wrong. I think you should look into the caps lock thing as i don't know if you did it intentionally or not.


For the time i was playing it was partially annoying and partially solid.
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Gryphon
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« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2011, 02:59:03 PM »

played it for around 20 minutes and the first 10 I couldn't figure out what was happening as whatever I typed didn't work. Then I noticed caps lock was on, it was pretty awkward at the beginning but very fun after i noticed what i what i was doing wrong. I think you should look into the caps lock thing as i don't know if you did it intentionally or not.


For the time i was playing it was partially annoying and partially solid.

Huh. Maybe I should add a "Caps Lock" alert? I allowed for Caps Lock to begin with because I know people who still haven't learned to type with the Shift keys and still rely on Caps Lock, so I enabled it as a secondary option. Thanks for pointing that out, though.
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BlueStainedRoses
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« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2011, 03:04:20 PM »

played it for around 20 minutes and the first 10 I couldn't figure out what was happening as whatever I typed didn't work. Then I noticed caps lock was on, it was pretty awkward at the beginning but very fun after i noticed what i what i was doing wrong. I think you should look into the caps lock thing as i don't know if you did it intentionally or not.


For the time i was playing it was partially annoying and partially solid.

Huh. Maybe I should add a "Caps Lock" alert? I allowed for Caps Lock to begin with because I know people who still haven't learned to type with the Shift keys and still rely on Caps Lock, so I enabled it as a secondary option. Thanks for pointing that out, though.

I accidentally clicked caps lock before playing the game I think. so that's the problem most likely. It was pretty fun after that, loved the dojo until i had to fight three ghosts and got my ass handed to me.


But yeah, that would be a wise thing to do, I guess.
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Ichigo Jam
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« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2011, 07:30:17 AM »

I enjoyed it overall, and completed it in 1 hour 5 minutes. Probably 20min of that was retrying the end boss - he's pretty mean! (Dojo battle 10 seems very hard too, but there wasn't much incentive to keep retrying that.)

I'd suggest trying dragon warrior style movement - i.e. the character walks a full square when you press a direction. It just felt slightly fiddly going through one square wide gaps with the current controls, and there's no use to being positioned halfway across a square. And given the style of the game it would fit in perfectly!

I also suffered from caps-lock; I knocked it in the middle of battle without noticing and died before I figured out what had happened :-(

Oh, and I liked the graphics!
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Gryphon
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« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2011, 09:20:33 AM »

I enjoyed it overall, and completed it in 1 hour 5 minutes. Probably 20min of that was retrying the end boss - he's pretty mean! (Dojo battle 10 seems very hard too, but there wasn't much incentive to keep retrying that.)

Keep at it!  Wink

Quote
I'd suggest trying dragon warrior style movement - i.e. the character walks a full square when you press a direction. It just felt slightly fiddly going through one square wide gaps with the current controls, and there's no use to being positioned halfway across a square. And given the style of the game it would fit in perfectly!

Good idea... I, too, have gotten stuck in a doorway many a time.

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I also suffered from caps-lock; I knocked it in the middle of battle without noticing and died before I figured out what had happened :-(

Yep, I'm adding an alert at the top of the screen that flashes if you have caps lock on. I'd rather do that than disable it entirely; beginner typists often use it until they are proficient with the Shift keys.

Quote
Oh, and I liked the graphics!

Yes, they are cool! Cheesus made the tileset, I made the menus, and I used Oryx's graphics for most of the items and monsters. I actually animated his colored graphics by referring to his 1-bit anims.

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Painting
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« Reply #7 on: July 03, 2011, 02:08:31 AM »

I like it very much! I'd have to agree most about the movement thing. Unquantized movement is the bane of my life.

As a side note, this topic is the 20,000th on the forum. You should be proud. Tongue
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kidchameleon
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« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2011, 09:14:04 AM »

Ha ha, very nice little game. I think my daughter will like this one!
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Gryphon
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« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2011, 01:12:25 PM »

Thanks everyone  Smiley

I'm working on the next version which should have proper movement, if all goes well. Stay tuned!
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Gun6
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« Reply #10 on: July 03, 2011, 08:02:20 PM »

I love this game! The graphics, the mechanics, the music, the keyboard-related puns. Great work! I'm glad you're addressing the movement system since that was a bit clumsy at times. Smiley

Oh, and 28 minutes, 20 seconds the first time around. :x
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Gryphon
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« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2011, 08:14:58 PM »

Version 1.2 is out and awaiting your feedback  Smiley

(In other news, 666 Views...)
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ithamore
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« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2011, 12:50:11 AM »

How many mutations does the end boss go through?
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Please help TimW, a longtime promoter of indie gaming everywhere and an old friend of TIGSource, to write about indie games full-time.
Gryphon
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« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2011, 10:37:48 AM »

Just one.
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Shiny
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« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2011, 03:40:28 PM »

That was quite fun, good work.

The only "problem" I had was that it was unclear if a save feature existed, so risk-taking was kept to a minimum until learning that it has only a light penalty; this could be considered a feature, however.

... and sometimes the words in battles seemed to form semi-coherent stories (beautiful poetry such as "Not paper would cow cut milk"), though it's just my imagination... right?

(Finished in 1 hour and 24 seconds (includes breaks), died twice.)
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Gryphon
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« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2011, 11:51:37 AM »

New version released. I'm interested in hearing what you think about it!
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Devenger
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Pardon me, is this where the fun is?


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« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2011, 03:58:42 PM »

Played through the entire game, from start to end to... well.

This is far too addictive. You should probably eradicate it from the internet before it consumes humanity or something. Combining instant-cast spells and implicit target selection with the frantic typing action works wonders for making this not just any old typing game.  Battles against enemies of different threat levels provided some interesting tactical opportunities. The short spell list was good and obvious, though I feel the F4 spell was too mana-costly for what it actually did.

** Beyond here SPOILERS are mentioned. **

The game seemed pretty easy on my first playthrough, with only the occasional slip of the finger betraying me to death (and even that only really got me killed against the boss that could almost invariably kill in a single hit). Having the Skull item start a wiped-character New Game Plus with increased difficulty was a pleasant surprise, and the standard encounters with two or three enemies really came into their own when all enemies were using the harder vocabulary list. (Though I guess a worse typist would just be floored by them, and a better typist would still find them trivial, but hey.)

It did make the 4 minor bosses in the various southern dungeons less difficult than the random encounters in the same area, though - perhaps those bosses ought to bring friends, or have a faster attack speed, when faced in Skull playthroughs. I discovered you can acquire and use a Skull without defeating the standard final boss (though the final boss item certainly makes it easier) - I don't know whether this is intentional. I've only played a short distance into a 'Skull-2' playthrough, but the enemies don't seem any more threatening (maybe they have more health and I'm not realising).

The item choice thing was interesting, but didn't always seem very balanced - as far as I could tell, MP seemed a lot more useful than HP (since a highly deadly Hurt interrupt is such an effective counter to being on the verge of being hit), and MP regeneration on hits was vastly more useful no matter what else you picked (since the Heal spell always restores you to maximum, and the deadliest boss in the game seems to make a mockery of your maximum health no matter what it is). But I suppose the choices were good in a 'no menagerie of complicated attributes with derived values' sense.

Quibbles aside, this is a great game, thank you for giving me an evening of typing fun.
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Krux
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« Reply #17 on: October 02, 2011, 10:50:34 AM »

Is it playable with a different keyboard layout?
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Benjamus_Prime
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« Reply #18 on: October 02, 2011, 02:31:45 PM »

So far I'm liking this game! I haven't beaten the castle boss, but I have beaten the other four bosses and the Dojo level 10. I love the incredible satisfaction that comes with plowing through battles with simpler enemies- *Kapow! Bam! Pow! Smack! Crunch! You win!* I really like the whole deal with choosing the item you get from completing boss battles, I thought that was an innovative thing to include. It would, of course, be more effective if more bosses existed (I'm following the assumption that the boss in the castle is the final boss). Also, the word choice in the NPC dialogue is pretty weird in some places, especially the shop. At first I thought it was due to a lack of fluency in English, but your English in this thread appears to be just fine. Was this intentional?

Also worth noting: The music is top-notch. I really like the battle music.  Hand Metal Left Cheesy Hand Metal Right

EDIT: about 20 minutes later, I just beat the final boss on my 3rd try. I'm now level 16. Cool game! By the way, is there anything you can get from the timeless challenge in the Dojo?
« Last Edit: October 02, 2011, 02:56:00 PM by iMoose » Logged
Gryphon
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« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2011, 06:35:26 PM »

Needless to say, many spoilers ahead... shield your eyes!

@Devenger, Thank you for the wonderful feedback. I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I, too, have found the Quake spell to be somewhat underwhelming. For me, it only comes in handy in one place (the Timeless Challenge). I'm not sure what to do with it at this point.

Very good point about the bosses being comparatively easy on a Skull play-through. I'll look into re-tuning those fights for harder difficulties. As for the enemies, their health does increase with every subsequent Skull level, but I guess it's not really a noticeable change at first. Additionally, their attack speed increases!

Item balancing is definitely an issue. The Star Ring, as you pointed out, is monumentally superior to its cousin, the Blood Ring. In retrospect, I would have liked to spend more time crafting balanced loot tables. Alas.

@Krux, No, it is currently not playable with any layouts other than QWERTY. If I can figure out how to do it, I will try to release an AZERTY and DVORAK patch...I don't want to alienate any budding typists based on keyboard preference, after all.

@iMoose, Yes, if only more bosses existed Smiley Maybe one day. As for the NPC dialogue, yes, it is all intentional! Look up "Engrish" if you want to learn more about it. Basically, I was trying to convey the sense that one was playing a poorly translated JRPG. Perhaps it didn't work out quite as planned.

The wonderful music is all the property of Cheesus. Blame him!

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is there anything you can get from the timeless challenge in the Dojo?
Nothing but bragging rights! 2:13
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