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[BouncingYeti]

RogueTroid 0.3.7.5 (Placeholder title)

NEW BUILD!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/29279751/RogueTroid_0.3.8.1.exe

This build is HARD.  A lot of the badguys need tweaking and timer adjustments.  It is definitely doable, but we wanted to warn you that it is going to be a rough ride.

New Bad Guys!
Soldiers (4 types)
Bats
New Wall Crawlers
A few interesting ceiling enemies.  DEATH FROM ABOVE!

The "Grenade guys" (you'll know them when you see them) are pretty disappointing right now.  They'll be smarter next build.

New Boss!
Unfortunately the new boss did not make the cut.  Every time I tested him I hated him a little bit more.  The process devolved into "a couple tweaks needed maybe" to taking him out entirely.

The boss will likely be retuned and added, but at this point he likely wont be the second boss.

General UI upgrade
Improved Map Screen readability.
Powerups now tell you what they do when you pick them up.
The Map Screen also shows your player statistics
Map Screen now reads "Press [button] to teleport to LZ"
Critical hits use yellow numbers and now stand out better.




Controls
It is recommended that you use a controller if you have one.  We haven't refined our keyboard layout quite yet and are open to suggestions and feedback on the subject.

Controller
Left Stick -  Move Hero
A - Jump or Double Jump (if unlocked)
X - Travel Power (if unlocked) or back to starting zone from the Map Screen
Y - Screen Shot (will save screen shot in the same folder as game)
Right Trigger -  Shoot (up, down, left, right in direction of Left Stick)
Left Trigger - Fire Missile (if unlocked, 4 directions same as normal shot)
Back - Toggle Map Screen

Keyboard
arrows -  Move Hero
Z - Jump
X - Shoot (4 directional)
C - Fire Missile (4 directional)
V - Travel Power (if unlocked)
F9 - Screen Shot
M - Map Screen
F4 - Toggle Full Screen




Future Features
- 100 zillion more badguys (or 20, whichever comes first)
- badguys that do stuff
- more bosses
- assortment of deadly weapons
- mini boss treasure rooms
- ambush locations
- environmental hazards
- quirky crew to belittle you when you can't jump so good
- and, you know, graphics and sounds and stuff


Current partnership between Zack Bell and Sarge (Ryan Swarner).

Imagine Isaac and Metroid had a baby, this baby was then raised by people who think Spelunky is too hard.

We have been working on this project for 6 weeks, and planned it for two months before that.

Typical Metroidvania fare, but procedurally generated.  The game currently only has a small amount of enemies which aren't very exciting and one boss which you fight four times (each progressively harder than the last).


Known Issues (0.3.8.1)
- changeSphere collision problem when up against walls
- "wall-crawler" collision problem Should be fixed!
- map not revealing adjacent rooms in some instances


Current build

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/29279751/RogueTroid_0.3.8.1.exe

Old builds

7/12/2012 Updated link to RogueTroid build 0.3.7.6
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/29279751/RogueTroid_0.3.7.6.exe


Follow development here or at https://twitter.com/TheBouncingYeti

[Sarge]

We left the FPS counter in the bottom right.  It is normal to experience a dip when generating a new room, on our computers this dip is unnoticeable.  Please let us know if you experience any severe FPS or performance issues.

If you snag a bug and can get a screen shot, we'd love to see it.

Thanks for your time.

[Interrupt]

Any chance for an OSX build?

[fraxcell]

Played through it, and it looks pretty cool so far. Not much feedback since it seems relatively early in development, and I'm sure you're already working on a lot of the stuff that seems missing. My biggest complaint is simply that enemy's aren't very interesting, and there isn't any reason not to simply run past them 90% of the time.

My FPS seemed to stay at a pretty constant 30fps, on my somewhat mediocre desktop.

Keep up the good work!

[Eigen]

All in all pretty sweet little game you got there.

Where do I get rockets and can I blast trough walls with these? Because I got stuck when it said 'narrow passage ahead' or something and told me to find a way around. A way around in the same level or by going back into the previous level? If you mean finding a way in the same level, then I was screwed

My biggest complaint is simply that enemy's aren't very interesting, and there isn't any reason not to simply run past them 90% of the time.

I agree with that. The jumping enemies were slightly more challenging but not really.

Oh, and that landing sound is pretty bad, sounds like a wet cloth being tossed onto the floor Make it a little quieter, maybe?

[fraxcell]

Where do I get rockets...

You get items/powerups by killing the boss dude, who is behind certain doors. In my playthrough I had to backtrack quite a bit, but it's easy to keep track of where you've been using the map. Also keep in mind some doors are in the floor or ceiling.

Question: Do those powerups you pick up from statues do anything at this point? If they did, I didn't notice it.

[Zack Bell]

Hey guys,  thanks for playing!

@Interrupt - Right now we are focussing our attention on the Windows version. However, I see no reason why we couldn't put in on OSX if we start to get a decent following. We will keep that in mind!

@ Eigen - The text prompts are triggered when you approach an obstacle without the needed item. The items are located in boss rooms. If the map wasn't enough to help you locate the bosses, then perhaps you experienced the known map bug. Sometimes the segment marked "LZ" doe not display that there is a room to its left.

@fraxcell Yeah, the enemies are extremely bland at this point. That is something that we'll certainly be changing soon. Also, the statue powerups slightly modify your charater's stats. For example, the orange star increases critical hit chance and the blue square reduces reload time. Visually displaying these stats is on our to-do list for today.

[Sarge]

Do those powerups you pick up from statues do anything at this point? If they did, I didn't notice it.

They sure do!  We currently don't have a way of tracking what you've already picked up, it is planned to take up some of the dead space on the Map Screen sometime in the next couple of builds.  I'll list what each one does as best as I can.

Red Square - Flat % damage increase

Red Star - +1 Damage slapped on the end
(the idea being that each of these stars will benefit different weapons differently.  Fast weapons benefit more from stars and slow weapons more from squares.  Of course there is only one weapon so far and it is calibrated so each affects the weapon equally as a sort of "baseline")

Blue Square - Increases your refire rate.

Teal and White "Shield" - Increases damage reduction by a fixed amount.

Orange and Red "Star" - Critical Hit Chance increased.  Soon the crit numbers will be yellow and this will be easier to notice.

... and some of the statues are empty by design.  Eventually the empty statues will look weathered, broken, or otherwise defunct so it looks less like a glitch.

My biggest complaint is simply that enemy's aren't very interesting, and there isn't any reason not to simply run past them 90% of the time.

I agree with that. The jumping enemies were slightly more challenging but not really.

Yeah, this really bums me out but we were pretty excited to get a build online so we put it up as is.

The Jumping enemies are pretty close to a baseline for "weak enemy" and we'd like to get everything else better from that foundation.

As far as motivation for killing the enemies... that is something we're struggling with.  In our proof of concept build they dropped health and other goodies like that, but it lead to a feeling of obligation to "grind" the enemies for full health before killing the boss and advancing.  This ran counter to our thoughts of a short fulfilling Metroidvania, as well as our principals of building a Roguelike where things should be a bit more dangerous.

Our only real plan to make killing the enemies fun is having a good variety of them and tracking overall kills throughout playthroughs in a statistics tracker.  By killing a particular enemy X amount of times you would "gold star" that enemy which would contribute to your overall "completion" of the game.

If you have any input towards making the badguys more "fun" to kill, we'd love to hear suggestions.

Oh, and that landing sound is pretty bad, sounds like a wet cloth being tossed onto the floor  Make it a little quieter, maybe?

Yeah it is way too "thick" of a sound to match the aesthetic of the game.  Neither of us know the first thing about sound engineering however so we're sort of stuck.

All of the game's sound is "placeholder" at this point.  We threw it in to ensure it wouldn't impact performance, but none of it really fits.


Thanks for the feedback guys.  I hope everyone enjoyed it.

For anyone who completed a playthrough or two:  I was wondering how you felt about the length of a standard run?

[Miko Galvez]

I would rather have something like CTRL for the missile use rather than V.

Anyway, the hero should stop when you are going to the right then hold left along with right. Otherwise, it plays no animation but moves to the right in some odd fashion.

Anyway do you think we can up this from 8x8 to 16x16 easily?

[Zack Bell]

We are planning on implementing a "customize controls" menu, so that will be noo big deal. Thanks for pointing out that bug though!

And yes, the generation method is set up relative to a TILE_SIZE variable. It is a quick and easy change once we have enough 16x art to support the switch!

[Angelbait]

Sweet looking project!  Will play around with it when I get home!  Glad to see you're keeping Mr.Bell busy!  :D

[Toysoldier]

Anyway do you think we can up this from 8x8 to 16x16 easily?

They plan to.

[Toysoldier]

Played through the game and loved it. The core concepts really remind me of why I love video games. Any complaints I had are things that will be addressed in future builds.

[Miko Galvez]

Got stuck. Fell in this ditch after getting the rocket. Don't have the double jump or the smallball so I'm pretty much fucked up.

Also, might I suggest adding some widescreen options? 16:9

[Sarge]

That is 100% my fault.  Oops?

I'll look into it and have it fixed in the next build.  Sorry guys, watch out for this one.

EDIT:  Got in and fiddled with the generation scripts.  Easy fix, I'm mostly astonished we didn't catch it before it went up here.  Forwarded the changes to Zack who will integrate with his build and have an update up ASAP.

Nice catch Medevenex

[BouncingYeti]

Hey, guys. Zack, here. I'm updating the link to a new build due to the game breaking bug that was pointed out. I also stopped enemies from spawning within the first room in the game due to players mentioning spawning on top of and/or within enemies.

The new link is in the OP!

[DustyDrake]

It's not very fun at the moment.
I mean I looked at this and thought it would be amazing, but then I played it and felt confused and that it wasn't working.

It's not clear where you get items, or what the powerups do (You explained both, but those sorts of things need to be in-game and not in-thread)

There needs to be a way to regain health, or at least some invulnerability frames

just my few cents.

[Miko Galvez]

Found a bug



Floating space guy after I entered the room that must have the rocket lawn chair

[Zack Bell]

@DustyDrake -

Concerning fun-factor, do you have any suggestions that would make the game more enjoyable for you? We did mention that the enemies are bland and that we will be implementing more a more interesting variety (I'm working on them in another window at the moment).

Concerning your comments about lack of direction and explanation, this is a very alpha build. We are definitely going to add more text after "the crew" comes to life and we will be adding a tutorial stage similar to that of Spelunky (meaning optional, but always available).

Also, there are 12 vulnerability frames after getting hurt. I will definitely consider tweaking these timers though and we appreciate that you took the time to play.

EDIT: Damn, flying spaceman. Guess I could give him gravity or something, huh?

[Miko Galvez]

He was flipping left and right out of control but was in place. I killed him. haha

EDIT: When you fall off a ledge, you should still be able to use the Double Jump. but you can't