I used the 7 day roguelike challenge to test out an idea I had for simulating objects in a sandbox kind of game. I'm thinking of continuing the project as a more fleshed out 3d game in Unity, but before I do that I want to know how people react to the gameplay, so if you'd be willing to take a little time to check it out and let me know what you think I'd be very grateful
The image below shows off a little bit of the robustness of the system. In the image I've just finished transplanting the brain of a cat into that of the troll, which allowed me to give the troll a tummy rub.
You'll also notice a field mouse nibbling on a wet moss and later freaking out. That's because the wet moss has anxiety-inducing properties, which cause certain AI patterns when they interact with a creature's brain in a certain way. Those properties are stored within the mouse itself after it eats the moss, so if the cat were to eat the mouse it would start to panic as well. If you dissolve the moss into water those anxiety inducing properties will be transferred to the water, and then you can mix up potions with different combinations of effects.
So it seems to me like this system makes for some interesting and complex interactions, built out of fairly small, easy to understand chunks, but I'm worried that players will have a harder time comprehending it.
Here is the link to the game: http://marekkapolka.com/games/7drl/(It's just javascript but I've only tested it in Firefox and Chrome so I apologize if there are bugs in other browsers)
My questions to you are:
- What was your experience like playing the game? Was it too frustrating? Slow? Incomprehensible?
- Did you feel at all compelled to closely examine how the game works and experiment with your options in the game? If not, what do you think would encourage you to try more things?
- Is there any pleasure in figuring out how things work in the game? Or, to put it another way, is learning about the game fun?
Developer
