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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsRealm of the Ghost King - quick-play roguelike
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mike_w
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« on: July 25, 2014, 12:27:52 AM »





Hey everyone! I'm (finally) updating this thread after three years because I remembered that it exists and I'm excited about releasing my game! It was previously called "Ghost Realm" but it's now "Realm of the Ghost King" because I guess longer game names are better. Probably. It's also undergone a bunch of revisions since the updates made here (though not too many), so I'm just going to wipe out most of this post and add in some newer stuff.

Here's the description I've been using on the website and stuff:

Realm of the Ghost King is a quick-play roguelike where you must battle your way through eight randomly generated dungeons to defeat the Ghost King and become the new king of the realm.

Some Media

I made an announcement trailer!





And here's a quick gameplay gif:



Let me know what you think! The game will be on PC and Mac and will be released on both Steam and itch.io.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 05:42:24 PM by mike_w » Logged

mike_w
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« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2014, 12:01:08 PM »

Playing with the idea of making the game's aspect ratio be 4:3 instead of 16:9. Currently it can only be rendered at 1280x720 but it doesn't get a huge benefit from the extra screen space, and most of the time there's just huge swaths of blank nothing off on one side:



Did a mockup of the game at 960x720, seems a little less full of empty space, though the HUD is a little more crowded.



Not sure what to do. I guess I could support both aspect ratios (though that would require the most effort) but I don't know, doesn't seem like widescreen is super useful for this game.
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atmos
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« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2014, 12:27:22 PM »

Solid start!

I like the way the game looks and from what I saw it seems, it is also fun to play. On which platforms are you planing to release it?

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MADSOFT
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« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2014, 01:16:03 PM »

The 4:3 ratio seems alright but, as you stated, it feels as though the UI is taking up a lot of space.

Is there any particular reason why it has to be so large? Are you building this for mobile devices? If not, shrinking the UI shouldn't really be an issue and it will resolve your problem.

Looks like it could be a lot of fun though! I'll keep an eye on this.
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mike_w
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« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2014, 06:09:25 PM »

Thanks, duders!

The 4:3 ratio seems alright but, as you stated, it feels as though the UI is taking up a lot of space.

Is there any particular reason why it has to be so large? Are you building this for mobile devices? If not, shrinking the UI shouldn't really be an issue and it will resolve your problem.

Looks like it could be a lot of fun though! I'll keep an eye on this.

Only really planning a desktop version at the moment. The reason the UI is kind of huge is because I was keeping the pixels the same size as the rest of the game (if that even makes sense). The sprites are all 16x16 and then scaled up to 64x64 and the same is true for the UI. I could only scale it up 3x or 2x and have it be less extreme though. I'll have to see what that looks like! Thanks for the input!
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mike_w
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« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2014, 09:49:31 PM »

Yay, I did the thing I said that I was gonna do! The game now runs in 4:3 and I shrunk the UI a little bit too. I think it looks better:



Also new gameplay gif:


I played with the mushroom ghost (Spore), who can telefrag ghosts with his special attack (he does it to the fireball guy towards the end).

Also the game in in alpha now, I guess because I finally implemented The Ghost King (final boss) properly. He's just a regular enemy with too much health right now, so he's pretty lame, but you can totally kill him and get the "You win!" screen. Here's a spoilers gif of him standing around (he's the one on the right with the crown, obvs):



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mike_w
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« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2014, 07:28:48 PM »

Been playing around with the layout/design of the character selection page. What do you think of this mockup?



Compared to the the current one? I'm leaning towards implementing the mockup because it's a little more informative, I guess? In the case of Ghost it would just say "Starts with more bombs" in the description rather than showing the actual starting health/bombs (which by default is three each for most characters).
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mike_w
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« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2014, 11:21:38 PM »

Kind of quiet in this thread but I guess I'll see if anyone has any advice to give! So, I'm not super happy with how the grid looks. It was originally meant to be a controlled assortment of two colors to make the ground look interesting but found that having a visible grid in this game help, so I ended up adding grid lines:



I'm not super psyched about how that looks, and I'm probably going to ditch the overall floor design anyway, so I came up with some alternatives:



It's a little bit inspired by Road Not Taken which I haven't even played yet, but I like the very subtle grid of that game from what I have seen. Anyone have any input on the matter? I'd love to hear what you think!
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beeglebug
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« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2014, 01:05:08 AM »

I like the last image, with the very subtle grid, it's enough to aid the eye without being distracting.
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ndke
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« Reply #9 on: August 07, 2014, 01:10:19 AM »

This game looks like it's going to be tons of fun.
I really like the looks of the game Smiley
The mockup you made for the selection page is great, it's better than the previous one!
About the grid... I think the last one and the third one are the best.
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mike_w
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« Reply #10 on: August 07, 2014, 08:11:44 AM »

Thanks, guys! I like the last one best as well, so I think I'll go for it.

I hope it's fun! I guess I'll find out first hand since I'm hoping to post a playable alpha-ish version sometime this weekend or early next week. It's fully playable now but still needs some things to be fixed and/or hidden before I'm comfortable putting it out there.
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mike_w
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« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2014, 12:03:57 AM »

I spent the weekend working on a tutorial. A couple of weeks ago I had my wife play the game and she said it was good but she was unhappy with how it didn't tell you how to really do anything. Right now the plan with the tutorial is to explain the basics and some simple tactics, but mostly just be a way to know how to use attacks and bombs and such.

It also got me to finally implement some of the crap I hadn't bothered with. Like the camera code is dumb and can only follow the player, but I needed it to be able to focus on any arbitrary item for the tutorial, so I implemented that. Lots of weird stuff. Here's a couple screenshots if you're interested:





I also made the changes to the grid. So far I like it a lot. I still need to add decoration items like gravestones and rocks (or whatever games have. crates?) to give them a little more variation, but here's how it looks on some of the levels:





Let me know what you think!

The game is at the point where all the stuff I work on is either boring or kind of interesting but doesn't translate to making a cool post about. I might write something up for the blog about the tutorial, but I'm not sure yet.

Obviously no build yet, but it's close. I won't promise a specific-ish date this time though!
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Aki-at
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« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2014, 01:50:12 AM »

The gameplay looks pretty neat. I like the element of strategy in the game, planning ahead with your moves and managing your bombs look pretty fun! I'm digging the art direction too, comes off clean and somewhat calming, perfect for a game that I can play in short bursts. Can't wait to see more!
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mike_w
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« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2014, 08:39:56 AM »

Thanks, Aki-at!

Devlog stuff; I finally got around to adding sounds to the game, and holy shit it makes the game feel so much more like a real game. I don't know why I always wait until this late to do this, especially since I just use sfxr (or one of its derivatives), but it's so satisfying to blow stuff up or punch a ghost or even just placing a bomb or taking a step. I'll try and throw a quick video (not just a gif!!) up sometime later today or tonight.

 Coffee
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mike_w
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« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2014, 10:35:43 PM »

I'm bad at delivering on promises I guess, but a cool thing I implemented over the last few days is a Daily Challenge. Obviously inspired by Spelunky, but I was playing Crypt of the Necrodancer and saw that they had one, so I thought, why not my game?!

So I threw together a quick API that generates a random seed every day (based on the date, so it's repeatable forever and totally automatic) and the game can load that up. I wrote a blog post about it if you want to read. Pretty simple, but it was a lot of fun to work on.

Also finally added destructible decorations. So far only the first two maps have them, and they don't have much variation, but it's nice to have them in there to give the maps a little more permanence. Also it's neat to see unrelated stuff break while you're playing. Quick gif:

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mike_w
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« Reply #15 on: October 07, 2014, 10:29:25 PM »

It's been a while! I don't have a ton to report because I was working on a thing for a game jam (you can 'play' it if you want), and I've mostly been working on some website stuff. Here's a pretty big animated gif of a Daily Challenge I just played though:

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mike_w
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« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2017, 09:52:26 AM »

Hey all! After three years and a name change I've put out an announcement trailer!





The game will be out on Steam and itch.io on January 16th! Woot! I'm excited to release my first game.

(I also updated the top post with relevant info)
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mike_w
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« Reply #17 on: December 16, 2017, 10:10:50 AM »

Woot, the Steam page and builds have been approved! If you're interested you can add it to your wishlist: http://store.steampowered.com/app/764370/Realm_of_the_Ghost_King/  Coffee

Also here's a new gameplay gif I've been showing around. I'm going to release these over the coming weeks to show what gameplay looks like for each different player.

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mike_w
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« Reply #18 on: January 06, 2018, 03:26:42 PM »

Hey everyone! I've been doing some gifs that hopefully illustrate how each different monster plays and all eight are finally complete so I figured I'd share them here with a quick blurb on each one. It was a lot of fun to try to balance each of these. Not quite sure how successful I was, but I like how different they feel while still keeping with the overall way the game works.

BOT_3000 - Can convert souls (collected every time you kill an enemy) to health. Also has a contingency for when you die, which is a limited ability body that can't use bombs (if you collect two souls you can regenerate your fully functioning body). Both player and enemy BOT_3000s also explode when they die which damages anyone standing next to it.

Vlad - Can temporarily make the closest enemy fight on your side. Passively Vlad also steals health from any enemy he kills up close. Enemy Vlads will move backwards a space when you attack them.

Icecap - One of my favorites to play as. Your ability is that you can freeze enemies within a certain radius. You also randomly freeze enemies sometimes when you attack them. Enemy Icecaps can do the same, so you might want to try to deal with them in other ways.

Fireball - The obvious foil to Icecap. Fireball is the only monster who can't be frozen. Her ability is exploding! You basically have a free bomb with you (that can't hurt you) as long as you have two souls. Both player and enemy Fireballs will also explode when killed.

Squid - Squid's ability is that it can summon an ally skeleton (or skull, I guess) to fight with you on the current level. The skeleton can be killed by enemies but works as both a helper and a distraction. You can only summon one at a time but there's no limit to how many can be summoned in a level (as long as you have the souls to spend).

Titan - He's all about survivability. He's got extra health and his special ability allows him to become invulnerable for a few turns. Useful for surviving in bad situations, you can play the game in a strangely different way as Titan. Enemy Titans also have four health instead of two for everyone else.

Ghost - The starting monster, Ghost's special is a double move, which can be two steps, planting a bomb and stepping, attacking twice or any other combo. Enemy Ghosts always move twice per turn, which makes them kind of annoying.

Morel - Morel is a mushroom! I guess a giant sentient mushroom is a monster. Anyway she can telefrag enemies, which is super fun and satisfying. Enemy Morels will teleport away from you when they're damaged.

Glob - Glob is probably the hardest character to play as. His max health and bomb inventory are low (3 each) but he does 2x damage up close. So he's not super survivable but can take down almost every enemy in just one attack. His special ability is that he can slime enemies in a close radius, which isn't super useful because it makes enemies behave unpredictably, but I didn't think giving him a super powerful special was beneficial. Enemy Globs still do double damage, so you need to be careful about getting next to them.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading, that was a lot of stuff. The game is out in just ten days. Woot!
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mike_w
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« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2018, 06:23:11 PM »

Last update, probably! The game launched and everything is going fine. Not a ton of sales but I wasn't expecting that. I'm mostly just happy I released a game and a couple people bought it. That feels great.

Here's the launch trailer:





And if anyone is interested:

* Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/764370/Realm_of_the_Ghost_King/
* itch.io: https://mantiseyelabs.itch.io/rotgk
* Humble Widget at the bottom: https://realmoftheghostking.com/buy

Thanks for everyone who checked out this thread!
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