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[killozapit]

I thought of that. It would require graphics describing the direction of the lock (which will be confusing). Un-wraithing in a locked vault I can detect and teleport the player out of (just like if you un-wraith inside a wall).

Heh. Your far kinder with unwraithing then some other games. I think usually losing intangibility powers inside a wall just out and out kills you. I would think in terms of graphics having a big and noticeable lock on one side of the door would be enough but yeah, I can't think of a good way to indicate that the other side is a side you can pass through. Well whatever works, works.

[st33d]

Small Update 359

More bug fixes.

Monsters nerfed again. Now current dungeon level - 3, no random. If getting into the sewers is still hard, then I think the issue must be the stats. I think after I've finished on gates and bugs I want to make graphs of the stats so this can be fine tuned better.

Keys and locked gates are now in. I liked them so much that you can get them on any zone now. However they are also extremely rare at the moment. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to detect fragmentation opportunities as opposed to just casting randomly.

[st33d]

Small Update 360

I've capped the minimum monster level as the kobolds on level 1 were being windshielded. There was no tension left.

No gates on level 1 anymore (too early for new mechanics).

Gate location code has been reworked to search for all possible gate locations (basically in the middle of a passage). Then each of these locations is tested to see if it can fragment the map.

This means that there's usually always one punch-gate or chaos gate, I might change that. But it also means that lock gates are now much more common. Not all levels allow it, some are too interconnected. But on a single playthrough you're fairly guaranteed to encounter a few.

Sometimes the exit is locked. Heh heh heh.

[st33d]

Small Update 362

Changed the spawn rates on gates that can be punched open and chaos gates.

Added writing to the walls. Press up to read a patch of writing. It's meant to be a tip of the day / story thing told by the minion escaping from the underworld. Some patches of writing will have special properties. Haven't tested for bugs yet on "elbereth".

[killozapit]

Jeez the writing on the walls is sort of big... It's a nice touch though.

It reminds me though, I once mused on if runes were randomly labeled (like potions in nethack) that they could use combinations of < > | / \ and such other characters like "<| rune" and "\| rune" which is kinda similar to how the characters on the wall look.

[Rumrusher]

now after Marathon of skullgirls Rogue kinda reminds me of someone... oh well here's another hat idea. maybe add in some umbrellas

[killozapit]

Haha, I am glad to see someone is doing fanart of this (Next stop, rule 34   ). Though I always thought that red T shape is actually a sash tying her robes together. Pixel art can be easy to misinterpret sometimes. I should do some too!

Edit: Hehe, I made one! Here is my extremely silly and bad fanart.

[st33d]

^.^

Small Update 363

The writing I've shrunk (this is like the 5th redesign of the writing, but I'm pretty happy with it now).
More advice/story has been added.
Chaos helms have been promoted to later levels.
There were some incorrect settings for endurance on armour - fixed.

I'll probably be playing Diablo 3 beta this weekend. I'll try to put my bug fixing hat on next though.

[killozapit]

Hehe, I take it by the face you liked the silly picture of mine? I like the smaller wall writings. You know it might be nice to add a lore option that lets you read messages you found some time.

[Kaian]

Checking in again, whoa, lots of changes - looking very good!

I can't turn off the spooky environmental music..   there're two layers of music??  Edit- I was able to turn off the music after reloading the game.  Apparently sometimes turning off the music doesn't work right, but I haven't consistently reproduced the problem.

[st33d]

Might be a "new game" issue. I've noticed it going into the test bed. I'll put it on my bugs list.

[Nate_G]

I think you should just disable turning off the music personally 

[Pandara_RA!]

This game is super polished so I am going to have to dig deep for things like make me feel otherwise. =3


General negative thoughts as they come/happen to me.
1. I died to a troll. then it took about 15 mins to bring me back to the main menu because I didn't know I had to look in the menu for that option.
2. my minion is basically suicidal and so I can't trust him/her with items, and I have no way to reviving him (till late-mid/late game)
3. No options for music/sound effects/on/off in main menu, only in game
4. Screwing over yourself or equipment by getting a bad random from identifying them makes me sad as sometimes I'm more curious about the lore/item info, but am punished for finding out. (seen in many rouge-type games, so I've come to terms with it)
5. My menu got stuck (can't move/select things) only happened twice though, and fixed itself by going out and in the menu twice and hitting every movement key at once.
6. Music came back on even when I set it to off in the menu
7. turning into a warewolf is super annoying, eating a null rune should cure (polymorph) in my logic, but doesn't T_T
8. I find myself afk waiting for my health to return knowing the hearts become pretty rare. without affecting the balance a speed up time or "sleep/make camp" function with a drawback would be cool. I understand the feeling of impatience might be on purpose, but if so it doesn't seem to have any other effect on me except being annoying
9. The game could do well with a few more music tracks. "Dark dungeon" gets a bit repetitive after your 4th death or so.
10. animation of Leveling up takes a second too long in my opinion, I know it's helpful to kill monsters, though when playing a new game it kinda makes me wish I could just skip it considering I'll be doing it 19 more times.
11. When enchanting; telling what weapon is your main/offhand would be great =]
12. Bad guy mosh pits at the bottom of the level seem to happen the more you explore, this is bothersome as it drastically slows down the game taking out one at a time, or worse yet you fall into the pit without knowing about their party and get destroyed by them.
13. putting on a face confused me when I first did it, at first I thought it was all just visual (like all the other armor) then I found out it gives the stats as well. a little message saying"You are starting to feel like a "____" or even "you have been transformed into a "___" by the mask!" would hint this change.
14 You can barely tell the difference of using a bunch of light runes, light barely feels like a resource right now as you get so much of it by default and even more from just a single rune.
15. I wish I had a connection to "skeleton guy as a character, starting off I never give him any attention or give him items, and just let him die when it's his time, as I know he's on death watch 24/7 as a sidekick and I don't care about him as a character to bother keeping him alive otherwise.
16. Hearts becomes extremely rare mid game...is this intentional? I'm noticing that even if I dont use hearts I'm noticing a large drop in their presence.
17. On my first play I didn't understand running into enemies attacked them, because my skeleton would kill them for me, I actually didn't figure it out till skeleman died 4 levels down.
18. Comparing equipment is confusing, how do I know a fedora lvl 1 is better or worse than a top hat lvl 1 without literally writing down the math for both after using up two runes, then solving the math, (for maximum sad face: I then find out one of them has a bad random rune on them from identifying them, making all the math worthless)
19. Does my equipment level up as I use it? or only with runes? I was confused first hour or so in.
20. Searching feels a bit too long like (.3 seconds too long), considering I do it about six times each level with no negative side effect besides draining patience. =P
21. If in your first few levels you don't get a heal rune on your armor you will have a very hard game coming up.


Art!:
1. A storyline would be cool to encourage me to keep moving on and on. or even just dialog from skele/rouge
2. Please give skeleton man some cool dialog so I can love him as much as he loves me, as in my head skeleton man is very polite and has a secret unrequited love for the rouge xD (this kinda isn't a joke, I wonder if anyone else pretended this too lol).
3. A bit more red accent on the rouge would be nice to tell her apart from the rest of the world, also a bit of red on all the monster skins when you transform would be a great touch so when I polymorph I can see what ones mine.
4. The area "sewers" looks pretty much identical to the "dungeon" level

Positive things:
1. I love skeleton man and red rouge art wise.
2. I find the rune system very addicting and I love finding the runes I want.
3. I love that throwing my weapon automatically picks it up and places it into the throw slot <3
4. I highly enjoy the secrets in the game, they really enhance the gameplay as you learn about them.
5. If skeleton man would stay alive I find him as a sidekick interesting gameplay wise, I would send him down and then chain stun a mob and feel incredible, or send him out to tank what I was scared of.
6. Turning into mobs reminds me of Majora's Mask transforming, if only the effects of the masks where a bit more noticeable, most mobs have very simple mask effects
7. The lighting and animations on everything are clean and polished looking =O


Overall:
I felt like I actually wanted to play this when I was alone after trying it out for a bit, and in the back of my head I feel like I want more from it then what might be in the game (story wise), the difficulty is unforgiving but fair as a rouge-like. As a rouge-like it's a game that got me both excited and frustrated as I played, but never stopped being fun and inviting to try again. I'd love to play more, so send me all your new versions, on the final build I may just do a let's test of this for fun. =]

[st33d]

Thanks for this.

A lot of it seems to be down to no tutorial. I think I'll need to build a pre-dungeon area.

Light I can't fix. The code is near impossible to balance beyond where it currently is without wrecking everything (believe me I've tried). That will have to remain a weakness in the system.

The fuck you factor on Identify I can relate to. I think I will change it to add random bonuses to existing enchantments on an item.

The minion can be recovered from level 5 onwards. He's intentionally weak, but I guess I can give him a mild buff. He does actually talk to you, the writing on the wall you can press up to read. His story is told chronologically from level 20 to level 1. Again, tutorial stuff.

Null for polymorph is a good idea, will take a lot of work to implement though.

Sleeping is a very good idea. I can prevent sleep in areas with monsters. This will solve the AFK heal issue. I can give the player a slow heal when sleeping - this may change the balance a lot.

More music in a Flash game is asking for a bit much. It was free and it takes up a shitload of bandwidth.

There is a sort equipment option, I may change this to auto-sort on picking up any new equipment if people don't mind and allow them to turn it off.

There are some things that are supposed to be fuck-you, but not too much fuck-you. Mob quantities I feel I haven't gotten right because in the original Rogue you rarely fight packs of monsters. Hearts I reduced because someone complained about their frequency, with a sleep mechanic it may not be necessary to add more though.

Bugs I'm working on right now.

Thanks again, this was valuable information.

[Pandara_RA!]

More music in a Flash game is asking for a bit much. It was free and it takes up a shitload of bandwidth.

That's it, now I'm going to demand you get a full soundtrack...and have it orchestrated just for that comment =P

Oh I totally understand actually, I just list all the possible changes I can possibly think of while pretending I don't have any knowledge of the limitations and issues that a game might have, just not limit the honest stream of conscience thoughts. So my comments hopefully may very well be of something you might see on a consumer ask for.

There is a sort equipment option, I may change this to auto-sort on picking up any new equipment if people don't mind and allow them to turn it off.

I knew about the sort function, though thought it only knew the stats of the items I identified first, because it would have only the knowledge I did, but knowing this now, I can't see a use for identify in it's current "gamble state" I love the change for only positive effects on the items! That you suggested.