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[Udderdude]

URL : http://rydia.net/udder/!crap/questTest/

I've been working on this on and off for the past week.  It's a new mode for Strat Tech with some changes to make it more like a team-based dungeon crawler.  You make a team of 7 units, and then go through several levels with the same group of units.  If one dies, it's permanently dead!  The only goal is to get to the exit tiles on each level.  However, there's treasure you can grab to increase your score on each level.

There are currently 24 different enemy types, although I could easily add more.  The enemies are broken down into several groups - weak, medium, strong and killer.  Weak enemies are about 1/4 as strong as your units, medium about 1/2, and killer enemies are about twice as strong!

There's also 18 different items you can pick up and use through your inventory.  You can hold up to 9 different items in your inventory.  I may add more items, but not too sure on that yet.

In terms of upgrading your characters, there are upgrade stations that let you permanently increase the max energy of one of your units.  They are pretty rare and hard to get at, though.

Right now the enemy and item art is placeholder art.  I hope to get something better in the future!  There's also only 4 levels so far.

Please note that the game is meant to be an extension of Strat Tech and therefore does not hold your hand nearly as much.  If you play it and find yourself dazed and confused, please play the Strat Tech demo here : http://rydia.net/udder/prog/strat/

Some useful feedback to leave would be :

What classes you went with
How difficult you found it to play
What items/classes were useful/not so useful
Which enemies gave you a hard time
How you would improve it compared to other dungeon crawlers
Your experience with dungeon crawlers/roguelikes in general
Any other issues you encountered

[Udderdude]

Bumping this because I've updated it with a new level, two new enemies, and some artwork for the enemies/items from the RLTiles artwork set.

[Moczan]

Before I get more time to playtest it more, I just want to say that you should really try and team-up with an artist. Your game ideas are great, but the graphics and horrible interface are really off putting

[Udderdude]

Before I get more time to playtest it more, I just want to say that you should really try and team-up with an artist. Your game ideas are great, but the graphics and horrible interface are really off putting

I already did have artists help out with this, and I did ask other artists for help.  If you have any specific issues with the art and interface, point them out instead of dropping flamebait.

[Moczan]

Hey, no offence, I wanted to compliment the game as both original Strat Tech and Quest Mode are great. My main concern are with the GUIs and fonts used in the game, the readability could be better, maybe use some more icons (like those next to life and energy). The description box for the skills (which for me is very very important) could use some work too. GUI just looks like a programmer's art, gray boxes, default font, that's all.

[Udderdude]

Still planning to finish this.  I'm also updating Strat Tech with a new skill mode called Special.  In this skill mode, the enemy attacks you on your first turn, before you have a chance to do anything.  This makes things quite a bit more difficult.  However, the enemy stats are the same as yours, so it's a different kind of difficulty than Hard skill.  Also, the turn timer is reduced by 15%, so you have to think and react faster!

[Quicksand-S]

I didn't really mind the interface. Yes, the boxes and font don't really look amazing but as long as they actually blend in fairly well and don't look hideous, I don't mind them.

The mini-map seems a bit useless, because it's only showing what I can already see clearly. It might be a little better if it was somehow clearer than the main map (ex. by using symbols instead of the normal sprites). Not sure if it's a bug or not, but the items on the mini-map are cycling through a bunch of different sprites.

The first level seems pointless. It's a whole level just for learning about movement, right? Learning that only takes looking at the commands, and the rest of the level is just tedium. Consider adding a couple of enemies, so the player can learn other things in that level too.

Speaking of movement, it irritated me a bit that the "Move" command wasn't on by default. I would've liked to just click a unit and then click a spot for them to move, without always having that intermediate "Click Move command" step.

Graphics do the job, although there are some enemies that don't really stand out on the background. I kinda like the layout of the interface, and the music is pretty decent.

[Udderdude]

The mini-map seems a bit useless, because it's only showing what I can already see clearly.

Yeah, it's not too useful on levels with no scrolling.  Maybe the button to show the minimap should be hidden on single-screen levels.

Not sure if it's a bug or not, but the items on the mini-map are cycling through a bunch of different sprites.

Bug, gotta fix that!  Oops.

The first level seems pointless. It's a whole level just for learning about movement, right? Learning that only takes looking at the commands, and the rest of the level is just tedium. Consider adding a couple of enemies, so the player can learn other things in that level too.

The first level is there to let you summon your party and test stuff out.  Doesn't nessecarily need enemies, but possibly I could add the training dummy from the first level of the original Strat Tech, so you have something to beat up if you want to.

Speaking of movement, it irritated me a bit that the "Move" command wasn't on by default. I would've liked to just click a unit and then click a spot for them to move, without always having that intermediate "Click Move command" step.

Will consider adding this, or an option to do this.

Speaking of Graphics do the job, although there are some enemies that don't really stand out on the background.

The enemy art still needs some polishing, as I basically took them from that Roguelike art set with minimal editing.  I'll have to go through them on a case-by-case basis.