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[Trettyhan]

...but should the levels become harder directly or just have increased chance for harder stuff and better loot?

Depends on what do you wanna focus.

Is it level exploration? If it is, then I think the levels becoming harder directly is more linear, and allows for more exploration and environmental thought/attention.

If the focus is on battles, epic boss fights and such, harder stuff and better loot chance would suit better in my opinion, it gives a more open environment feel, since you don't have to worry very much with the environment as you do with foes that are becoming harder, so you can focus on beating different and increasingly harder foes for better loot.

Or you can mix both : )

Oh and I also like the first and last screens better, love those gradients and dark tones, very moody.

[Cellusious]

...but should the levels become harder directly or just have increased chance for harder stuff and better loot?

Depends on what do you wanna focus.

Is it level exploration? If it is, then I think the levels becoming harder directly is more linear, and allows for more exploration and environmental thought/attention.

If the focus is on battles, epic boss fights and such, harder stuff and better loot chance would suit better in my opinion, it gives a more open environment feel, since you don't have to worry very much with the environment as you do with foes that are becoming harder, so you can focus on beating different and increasingly harder foes for better loot.

Or you can mix both : )

Oh and I also like the first and last screens better, love those gradients and dark tones, very moody.

i want it to almost force you in a weak way to explore the levels to look for more items, more money and new weapons.

Having a bit more added randomness by randoming up the randoom modular rooms each one for themselves; generating a random item, a random ammount of crates, barrels, weapon chests, etc.

The Con to randomness is having shitty runs where you don't have the luck on your side and you're fighting the last boss with the starter pistol. :1

[jO]

ahh, finally. Really looking forward to this, I've been following your work closely in the past.

[Cellusious]

ahh, finally. Really looking forward to this, I've been following your work closely in the past.

Video of wip char saying FIREEE

[Trettyhan]

i want it to almost force you in a weak way to explore the levels to look for more items, more money and new weapons.

Having a bit more added randomness by randoming up the randoom modular rooms each one for themselves; generating a random item, a random ammount of crates, barrels, weapon chests, etc.

The Con to randomness is having shitty runs where you don't have the luck on your side and you're fighting the last boss with the starter pistol. :1

Hmmm, I see. That's cool, but also very tricky as you pointed out, the player could feel punished after struggling through the levels and having horrible luck and shi* gear to fight the boss. Could be frustrating to try everything again, with the chance of the bad luck repeating.

Achieving balance is tricky, because maybe you want to restrict the player with randomness and give the game more realism, but we have this problem mentioned. Or give too much control to the player and loose the fun of randomness. Also the save issue, save very often and near bosses, you defeat the randomness fun/purpose, make the save scarce and frustrate the player if the randomnes is not balanced.

I can think of two (maybe?) probable solutions(?):

The Massive Design/Coding way: Design a way of winning for every and each main weapon/shield/stuff available, from the shi*iest one to the star destroyer one. But if you get the shi*iest one, "the way" to win the boss was to be REALLY hard. If you get a regular one, "the way" is to be regular. If you get the star destroyer one, "the way" is be quite easy, but in every situation, killing the boss would possible, but with shi* gear it would be just more difficult and challenging. An example of this is the game Resident Evil 4. You could get a bad a** weapon, but the ammo was REALLY rare to find. In boss fights, you could go the obvious way: shoot stuf until it's dead. But also, there was always more two ways to win those bosses in that game, the second one was kinda hidden through the boss area, some explosive or dispositive that you could trigger, or shoot to explode if you had certain weapon, and deal massive damage on the boss. And the last and easy way, but very expenssive: Rocket Launcher. It was one hit, one kill. To each and every boss in the game, but cost your soul to get one.

The Grinding Way: You could grind, and upgrade your shi* pistol a bit.

Well, or you can just go with the "Dark Souls" approach, and who gives a heck if the player got a shi* pistol to fight the boss LOL. Try again fool LOL

I like to call it the "Trollface Approach".

[Cellusious]

*text*

Yup, if you only get a pistol, trough 100'reds of levels and have to fight one of the higher difficult bosses, then play better or die :D

death = start over from start

[Trettyhan]

Yup, if you only get a pistol, trough 100'reds of levels and have to fight one of the higher difficult bosses, then play better or die :D

death = start over from start

Nice : ) Looking forward to it more now. I miss a good challenge in so many games.

Cool how you *text* quoted me LOL

[Cellusious]

Working on proc modular level gen,
x Made it actually generate.
x 3x3 levels/9 individual rooms in a width>height way.
x Generates rooms from a list of presets.
x Made it create and place tiles.
  Removing tiles for doors so you're not locked into one room :3

Screenshots and more soon

[CasePortman]

The graphics are really pleasing on the eyes and I'm looking forward to seeing more! I'm also happy you brought down the brightness of them.

[Cellusious]

Ingame screeny


OH GOD NOT THE SLIMES

[IanSean]

This looks really cool!
Looking forward to seeing more.

[CNIAngel]

You're doing amazing work right now Olav. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this in the near future.

[Impmaster]

I keep on reading the title as Echo with a chinese accent. Looks good though.

[Cellusious]

This looks really cool!
Looking forward to seeing more.

Thanks!

You're doing amazing work right now Olav. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this in the near future.

Near future/a few hours from now/soon/today/in a few minutes

I keep on reading the title as Echo with a chinese accent. Looks good though.

Huh, how does that work?  

[Cellusious]

Pre Pre Alpha test, build 3, 10 hours of work, most of which used on the actual engine.

DOWNLOAD b3
arrow keys + z
known criticism!  

Known problems:
Box thing on bridge is just a placeholder, therefore looks bad,
sound is just trown in there, there sounds bad,
screenshake, makes screen tearing and problems near the corners of the level,
the enemies are trown in there but the ai is semi relevant.

WINDOWS ONLY.

DOES NOT WORK ON LINUX, BUT THAT WAS FIXED A FEW MINUTES AGO, LINUX CAN PLAY NEXT PUBLIC BUILD. DOES NOT WORK ON MAC, AND DO NOT INTEND TO FIX THAT, OR I MIGHT, BUT NOT NOW.

[TNERB]

Tight game feel, controls very smooth cell.

My only complaint would be the screen shaking effect when shooting, it felt nice with the first few shots but after firing multiple rounds trying to kill the enemies the effect became nauseating, at least to me. (maybe add the option to turn it off for super sensitive motion sickness people like me.) Other than that I'm loving what you got so far.

[IanSean]

Great controls!
Maybe add a distinct jump animation/sprite to juice it up.
I love the bullet spray. 

[Cellusious]

Tight game feel, controls very smooth cell.

My only complaint would be the screen shaking effect when shooting, it felt nice with the first few shots but after firing multiple rounds trying to kill the enemies the effect became nauseating, at least to me. (maybe add the option to turn it off for super sensitive motion sickness people like me.) Other than that I'm loving what you got so far.

yup, already noted.

Great controls!
Maybe add a distinct jump animation/sprite to juice it up.
I love the bullet spray. 

yup more animations

[Impmaster]

It needs foot sounds. I like the overall look and animations. Needs a health bar. It's a little hard to shoot the things when they get into a hole, cause it requires you to go into the hole. (Which I suppose happens to all metroidvanias.) Overall, great demo, want to play. Quite slick.

[Udderdude]

I found it difficult to see the player and enemies against the background in the test version.  You probably want to make them stand out more.

Also ditto on the screen shaking overuse.