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[porousnapkin]

There is Only Power is a quick strategy / roguelike. You’ll build a small army and find a slew of magical powers and artifacts in an effort to enslave a kingdom before its citizens overthrow you. The world and options you’re presented are randomized. You’ll play through light narrative elements forming a different story each time you play. Games take around 30 minutes to play and death is permanent.

Play it here!

Alternate mirror for Windows

Feedback requested:

• How many times did you play? If you played after your first death, what brought you back? If you didn't, why not?
• Any mechanics you found confusing?
• How do you feel about this ratio of story to combat?
• All other feedback is appreciated.

[Quicksand-S]

-I only through played once, and rushed to the goal after my first battle because I didn't enjoy the combat at all. That's at least partly because I rarely like turn-based combat. I then went back and checked out a few things but didn't try to finish.

-I don't understand the combat. Sometimes I choose actions and then manually end my turn. Other times, I get attacked while choosing actions. At least twice, I performed an action before ending my turn. I'm not sure why things are occurring when it's still my turn to choose actions. It was never clear when things would happen. This was my biggest issue.

-The second issue I had was that the game shows me a path for my character when I move the mouse, but only moves one square at a time. I didn't enjoy having to click ten times to move down a path that had already been set at the first click.

-The paths are a bit inconsistent. If, for example, I place the mouse NW of my character and then north one square, the path leads to the NW and then up. If I do the same with the NE side, though, the path goes north first. This bit of weirdness meant that I had to constantly adjust my paths to avoid buildings that I didn't expect to be in the way. I also found my character walking on squares that were mostly water, which seemed a bit weird.

-The graphics are a bit muddy and distorted, but I kinda like the art. I do find the varied pixel sizes a bit unappealing, though (like the rooftops of those towers in your screenshot).

-I really like the variety of building types. The first time I played, I didn't see that many in the generated world, but when I went back there were tons. Maybe the selection is too random.

-Playing a lich is something I'm not sure I've ever gotten to do before, so that was cool.

-When I died, the screen seemed to stay black until I clicked on it. Maybe that was just because the game wasn't in focus. I'm not sure.

-I wasn't sure what sort of "currency" was used to gain spells through the tab.

-The "Artifacts" tab starts to close for a moment before enlarging if you click the "Gain Spells" tab.

-"Army" (the tab) has the "y" off-screen a bit.

-I'm not sure I can comment much on the story. I didn't actually encounter much of it, although I kinda liked the lich's introduction.

Typo: "Word proceeds your arrival" should say "precedes".

My main issue is just that some of the mechanics are unclear. Other than that, it's pretty good. I think it's safe to say this isn't my sort of game, but it's obvious that a lot of work has gone into it.

[porousnapkin]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. You can continue casting spells when you cast an "Instantaneous" spell. Casting any other spell (like Magic Dart) ends your turn.

I just messed with the pathing to try something similar to what you're saying. It actually isn't fun to have your character travel to the destination you click after a single click (because raid parties form as your notoriety builds up and they will intersect you without input if the game auto-travels). So instead, I changed it so your character travels towards your mouse (rather than along the path generated by the end point) while your mouse button is held down. Sort of like Diablo. Hopefully that alleviates your pathing issues.

[Quicksand-S]

You can continue casting spells when you cast an "Instantaneous" spell. Casting any other spell (like Magic Dart) ends your turn.

I noticed the "Instantaneous" keyword, but the text made it seem like that one would just be cast before the enemy could react, not before I finished my turn. Maybe everything should show the "End Turn" button for more consistency. You'll just have it appear sooner if you try to cast a non-instantaneous spell.

I think another thing that threw me off was the stack of moves. That visual layout seemed to strongly suggest to me that I was preparing a combination of attacks/defenses for my character to use when I ended the turn.

I just messed with the pathing to try something similar to what you're saying. It actually isn't fun to have your character travel to the destination you click after a single click (because raid parties form as your notoriety builds up and they will intersect you without input if the game auto-travels).

The first time I played, I didn't encounter any raiding parties so I didn't think of the issues with instant travel. That said, you could likely just make the character walk along the chosen path, step-by-step (no need to arrive at the destination instantly).

Your new version does feel better to me, although it's easy to walk onto a building before you realize what's happening. It might be a good idea to pause the action when about to enter a dangerous area, or to just give the player a "Nevermind" option in the window that pops up.

[porousnapkin]

I noticed the "Instantaneous" keyword, but the text made it seem like that one would just be cast before the enemy could react, not before I finished my turn. Maybe everything should show the "End Turn" button for more consistency. You'll just have it appear sooner if you try to cast a non-instantaneous spell.

I think another thing that threw me off was the stack of moves. That visual layout seemed to strongly suggest to me that I was preparing a combination of attacks/defenses for my character to use when I ended the turn.

I think you're confusing Instantaneous with First Strike. Instantaneous description is "Action does not end turn". First Strike is "Occurs before opponents act". I think I will remove the Instantaneous designation and replace it with a Slow designation on spells that do end your turn. Hopefully that will make more sense as an exception.

The stack of moves are all executed on that turn (as a long combo) so I think it's good they're suggesting that to you.

[Quicksand-S]

I think you're confusing Instantaneous with First Strike.

Ah, yeah. Apparently I was. Every "Instantaneous" spell I have is also a "First Strike" spell, so I guess I forgot which of those designations was causing things.

Knowing a bit more about how the combat works, I went back to give it another try. I still dislike that sometimes it ends my turn automatically and other times it doesn't (I'd prefer for it just to say "You can't add any more actions - End Turn?" or something when I use a non-instantaneous spell).

It would be nice to have the option of using the same spell multiple times in a turn if I have the mana for it, or to cancel something that's already in my stack (although I guess I should just think harder before doing things).

I got into a big battle and it was kind of cool to see all the spells flying back and forth quickly.

I also finally played with my speakers on. I like the music quite a lot. Is it from somewhere or did you record it yourself?

[porousnapkin]

I just removed "Instantaneous" and am instead calling non-instantaneous actions "Slow". I think this will be better because in the opening spells, every spell will only have one designation ("First Strike" on two spells, "Slow" on the third). I added a message that appears in the center of the screen with a slight delay to combat that says "Slow - Turn Ended" that will hopefully help explain how it works. The intended goal is for the player to think out their turn in advance and choose spells appropriately, so I don't think I want to change how it works but rather focus on signaling how it works better.

It would be nice to have the option of using the same spell multiple times in a turn if I have the mana for it, or to cancel something that's already in my stack (although I guess I should just think harder before doing things).

EDIT: Clarifying
Not being able to choose the same spell twice is one of the incentives to seek out more spells because it allows you use more mana per turn (and use it more efficiently). Look for the Mad Hermit huts and Witch's huts to purchase some spells.

I got into a big battle and it was kind of cool to see all the spells flying back and forth quickly.

I also finally played with my speakers on. I like the music quite a lot. Is it from somewhere or did you record it yourself?

Glad you enjoyed a bigger battle. The music is from magnatune.com. You have to sign up for a monthly subscription, but if you do, they have a friendly policy on their music being used in non-commercial products. Their music selection is quite good.

[RainWorldIsAwesome]

alrighty the game overall is pretty fun, thanks to reading the last persons reply i could avoid the problem with the slow spells. i encountered what i believe to be a bug where after talking to the crazy guy twice and giving him three random mana he gave me the heal spell, so i open up combat spells and try to heal my dude in the world (i wasn't in combat) and the little targeting line appears and when i try to click my guy it doesn't resolve. other than that the game is good but,  the tabs for your party inventory and army are a bit superimposing, other than that i enjoyed it a lot and am still playing it trying to unlock everything. hopefully more content and building are planned, and maybe you could make different terrain make you move slower, like maybe a desert takes you two turns to walk through. All in all great potential.

[porousnapkin]

alrighty the game overall is pretty fun, thanks to reading the last persons reply i could avoid the problem with the slow spells. i encountered what i believe to be a bug where after talking to the crazy guy twice and giving him three random mana he gave me the heal spell, so i open up combat spells and try to heal my dude in the world (i wasn't in combat) and the little targeting line appears and when i try to click my guy it doesn't resolve. other than that the game is good but,  the tabs for your party inventory and army are a bit superimposing, other than that i enjoyed it a lot and am still playing it trying to unlock everything. hopefully more content and building are planned, and maybe you could make different terrain make you move slower, like maybe a desert takes you two turns to walk through. All in all great potential.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback, very glad to hear you liked it. I hope to expand it at some point. Different terrain would be cool (maybe with different buildings only available on certain terrain).

Combat spells like Heal are not supposed to be clickable while not in combat. They're intended to be greyed out in that state. Thanks for the bug report. I will look into what's going on there.

[porousnapkin]

I appreciate the feedback so far. I'd love it if I could get feedback on the latest build (either from previous players or new ones).

I attempted to address Quicksand-S's confusion with Slow abilities. Now you can choose abilities in any order and your turn doesn't execute until you hit the "Execute Turn" button. Some spells require "Focus" (instead of being slow) and you can only cast one spell with focus a turn. That keeps the gameplay restraints the same, but hopefully makes the process less confusing. Please tell me if this clears up action selection during combat or if anyone is still finding that confusing. Thanks!

The new build is up at the same website. Here's the link again.

[mtarini]

Played a couple of time until I could finish it once (with the default consume-soul-to-get-mana one).

I am really enjoying this. It's rather addictive!

(be warned that in the pc version the window is titled "magic world", maybe an old name for the game?)

Stuff I liked, in random order:

• the difficulty level. Challenging! It is a little random how sometimes you feel like you could not have won no matter what, e.g. faced too many / too strong opponents before you could grab hold of enough resources (spells, allies, and especially artifacts). But I think it's the challenge contributed to keep me playing!
• the story! all that you are the bad guy stuff. I like how consistent the game is in telling you that you are some kind of voldemort. Hurra for squashing bold heroes coming to slay you! It feels, like in a hollywood movie this would be their story, but it's nice to see the other side of it.
• the mechanics. Yes, nothing strikingly new here, attack, defense, mana, front row and back row, ranged, gold, hp, first strike, creatures... overall, simple and quite traditional. Feels a bit like Magic the Gathering and similar card games, naturally, but that's not a bad thing. Nice touches here and there, like the double-edged role of popularity, the low/medium/high/etc difficulty level of places, or the no-automatic-healing idea. Overall, it is nicely balanced and more importantly it just works! I found it very fun to play. Maybe it's how the level complexity is just spot-on. Easy to learn, too.
• the randomness and the variety: this worked great. Random encounters, random spell orders, random map. Feels very adventurous. Makes you wanna have "just another go", to see what you'll get this time. It reminds me old table-top games like the Talisman saga, and that's a pleasant feeling.
• the GUI/interface: it does its work, and that was no easy task (I can imagine). Nice how you are always shown all rules and relevant things. It's quite a complex game, to be able to play it immediately with no tutorial level or anything. So, well done.

On the so-so side, the graphics. I like that it is pixelated, and isometric... this old school Civiliation's style is great thing actually, but with a bit of pixel-art magic by some skillful artists could make this great. What you need is... a better, more inspired "tileset".
Also, the rendering. Depending on the resolution, it loses pixels, or pixel widths are made uneven. This make the overall look of the game a bit sloppy, and also the writings not very readable.
Maybe some screen pixel-effect would make this shine even more (you know, monitor scan-line simulation), but then again maybe your pixel resolution is too high for that.

Now, forgive me, I've gotta go back and play it a bit more!

(edit: typos)

[porousnapkin]

Wow, thanks for the positive feedback! Great to hear you're enjoying it!

I agree on all your graphics complaints. The font may have been an issue and in retrospect I probably should have just stuck with Arial. All the art is from the open-source tileset at Tometik (http://pousse.rapiere.free.fr/tome/) and I didn't do it justice since the camera doesn't guarantee pixel precision. Definitely something I want to do better on next time.

I'm working on the next build now. It should be out in about two weeks. It'll have a ton of bug fixes, a tutorial, highscore boards (global and local) and an "easy" difficulty since I'm worried the challenge is distancing for some people. If you're interested, it'll get posted at indiedb here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/there-is-only-power  so you could just check there. Or you could follow me on twitter (@porousnapkin) since I'll post about it there.

[mtarini]

That's great!

About the tutorial... I understand your reasons, but the game felt really good without one, even the fist time I played.
That's also because every rule is nicely explained "on mouse over".

If it had a tutorial, it probably would have been more boring. When, as a player, you see a "tutorial" available, you assume you have to go through it, before being able to play the actual game. That risks taking away a lot of the freshness and the charm of this game, and also the fun of discovering it. Usually, tutorials are boring, discouraging, but necessary... yet, in your case, you managed to make a pretty complex game work without needing one, which is quite an achievement! Given that, my suggestion is that you let players just play.

(I understand you are afraid that newbie gamers, the ones not into the Magic-the-gathering/RPG/Strategy/Roguelike genre, will be lost without a tutorial, but I don't think they will ever be much interested in this game anyway).

Instead, I sure hope you'll focus on adding even more variety (locations, encounters, events, allies, spells, objectives, scenarios, enemies, skills, etc).


Edit: same for difficulty levels! As I said, I found the high level of challenge one of the main reasons making this game compelling! If this had felt like it was due to my own choice (of a difficulty setting), it would probably have been a lot less captivating. In general, I'm very much for "one-single-difficulty-level" games. I'm not alone here: the vast majority of rogue-likes (e.g., well, "Rogue") don't have a difficulty level, for a reason.  See also Locomalito's "game philosophy" page for more arguments against difficulty levels.
Rather, my suggestion is to make a new campaign unlock afterward, and make that one more difficult.

[porousnapkin]

That's fair. I'm glad you think the game is so self-explanatory. I'm trying to make the tutorial not feel like the first thing you do. My hope is it'd be something someone would check out if they feel confused by the game. It's pretty short, just a few combat puzzles that focus on teaching concepts I noticed a bunch of people didn't understand in game.

The reason I think it's helpful is if you don't understand the mouse-over text, you can die really suddenly without comprehending why (I heard a few people having trouble with how "Ambush" worked, for instance). Worse, it's not possible to replay the encounter to see exactly what happened. The goal of the tutorial battles is to have battles players can play repeatedly until they really understand what that mouse-over text means. I'm trying to make them feel like puzzle battles rather than traditional explanation focused tutorials.

I am hoping to add a bunch of content later. Specifically, I'd like to add a new campaign. I like the level of complexity and balance of the current game, but I think a new random map with new classes, spells and locations would be a good way to expand things without ballooning the current game. It's going to take a long time, though. I'm a pretty slow developer.

[porousnapkin]

Edit: same for difficulty levels! As I said, I found the high level of challenge one of the main reasons making this game compelling! If this had felt like it was due to my own choice (of a difficulty setting), it would probably have been a lot less captivating. In general, I'm very much for "one-single-difficulty-level" games. I'm not alone here: the vast majority of rogue-likes (e.g., well, "Rogue") don't have a difficulty level, for a reason.  See also Locomalito's "game philosophy" page for more arguments against difficulty levels.
Rather, my suggestion is to make a new campaign unlock afterward, and make that one more difficult.

I think I may agree with you here. I have "easy" difficulty in a local build and it sort of makes the game feel more like toybox then an objective-driven game. I may cut it before the next build goes out. I'm apprehensive, though, because players have found the game more challenging then I expected, and this build will make it harder (I'm shortening the notoriety per level to force more careful location picking). Not sure which way it'll end up, but I appreciate the discussion on it.

[mtarini]

I understand your concerns. The main question is: what happens when the player loses its first games. On me, this had the effect of really making me embrace the game and try harder.

At my current point, I can consistently beat it, so it probably exhausted its replayability.
Naturally, this has to happen eventually, but maybe it can be postponed a bit.
I had so much fun before that point that it is maybe worth analyzing the reasons and look for countermeasures.

Currently, the winning strategy seems to be a bit too repetitive: focus on anything "first-strike"  and disregard the rest (apart for artifacts, naturally; gain them asap). Beast-taming in the... was it the jungles? is maybe too a predictable way to get an abundance of cheap first-strike firepower. So a first countermeasure is to find alternative outcomes to your visits to these locations. More generally, maybe, just like anything else, also the first-strike ability should be occasionally countered, like, I dunno, occasional enemies having a specific ability to cancel that effect as long as they are alive (like, a "fog-demon" with a "negate-first-strike" ability? and/or "citywalls", a first-line "enemy" with the same ability?). That would force the player to differentiate strategies a bit more instead of relying on a single one.


Here's a short list of additional specific suggestions for you. As I said, I think the biggest potential for growth of this game lies in extending its variety (again, board games like Talisman, and many others, set the example). I'm sure you have your own set of ideas, so feel totally free to disregard any of mine.

Terrain effects. The map could affect gameplay a little more. This would also differentiate a bit the attackers from the defenders. E.g. hills could advantage defenders (an initial +1 block?), or rivers tiles could take away blocks from attackers. Fenced villages or walled cities could have similar effects. Vision impairments (permanently fogged regions? thick forests?) could negate first strikes (as above), and/or impair ranged attacks. I know this is not easy to implement, because you would need to make the interface give all the appropriate info to the player, plus you would need to make the "map AI" aware of this: only the most self-confident enemies would choose to attack the player when he stand on advantageous ground! But this would also make the chases on the map more interesting.
Edit: here's one starting point for the interface: maybe a "terrain effect" card in the left stack, displayed only in relevant battles, and taking place even before "first strikes".

Walled cities could start battles with an extra citywalls "troop", which, depending on the type  (from small village fences to massive city walls), could do stuff like negate first strike effects, negate ranged attack, award blocks to all defenders, etc. Consequently, artifacts could include "siege" oriented war-things specifically designed to counter that. Saruman styled "explosives" comes to mind.

Two-step objective. Currently the end-game is maybe a little too short. When you are powerful enough, you head to the capital. At that point, you don't need any additional power-up, so the highest level locations risk becoming redundant, because they are prohibitive before that point, and useless afterward. Again, Talisman offers a possible solution. In Talisman, players had to grab hold of an instance of titular "talisman" to unlock the final door (in addition to becoming powerful enough to have a chance at what is behind it). Here's how this concept could translate into your There Is Only Power:

When your notoriety reaches a certain level, the capital would panic and trigger some extreme defensive measure, like a magic indestructible shield bubble, or destruction of bridges around it (water isolated capital), or conjuring a huge levitation spell and flying up in the air, or whatever. Maybe pick a random one each time. The player needs to track down a special artifact (water walking? levitation? counter-magic talisman? magic passwords?) to grant himself access to the capital. This special artifact would only be found on a random "difficulty: extreme" target of a given kind (e.g. levitation only in keeps,  or whatever). Maybe the player could occasionally also gain info on the exact location, through a new option to torture-interrogate victims after certain victories. Naturally, the player could also choose to try keeping a lower profile and get into the capital before it "panics".

Again, the challenge would be how to design a GUI and make all this simple and planar enough for players to understand, but this seems to be just your thing!

[porousnapkin]

Those are great suggestions. I'm particularly fond of the two-step objective idea since it allows making the end-game harder but still allowing a feeling of skill growth for new players when they finish the first step.

I was playing the board game Mage Knight last night, which was one of the games I was originally trying to ape, and it deals with your "first strike" issue nearly identically to your suggestion: Enemies who are "fortified" (either as an ability on them or as an ability granted by their environment) can't be hit during the first strike phase unless the ability has the "siege" tag. I like your idea of a Wall enemy granting fortified so if you take it out you'd be able to first strike the next phase. I imagine implementing something like that will require a ton of balance changes, so it'll probably take me a while to get it in. But I agree that first-strike feels a bit too overpowered at the moment.

[marcgfx]

had a hard time even downloading the game. first try i got "504 Gateway Time-out The server didn't respond in time." ok... same on second and third try. trying for a forth time, did not make me happier. this was the link i was using: http://www.gamefront.com/files/files/24599571/ThereIsOnlyPowerPC.2.zip

[porousnapkin]

had a hard time even downloading the game. first try i got "504 Gateway Time-out The server didn't respond in time." ok... same on second and third try. trying for a forth time, did not make me happier. this was the link i was using: http://www.gamefront.com/files/files/24599571/ThereIsOnlyPowerPC.2.zip

Yikes! Try downloading it at my personal website: http://willswannack.com/thereisonlypower/ThereIsOnlyPower.zip

That's my "in progress" build so it's a bit further along but less tested. I'll look into that link breakage when I get some time. Sorry about that.

[marcgfx]

thanks for the new link. gave it a go. i liked that you added a tutorial. i was still a little confused about the mechanics. even after doing all 6, i never understood how you could target an attack. i think i just found out when i was killed (it's the mouse right?). i never found out how to restore my allies health, so whoever followed me always died quickly. i also did not like the fact, that enemies always get the first attack (does not seem fair). there is also no way to escape (howabout by paying gold or so?). not being able to target the mana you would get was also annoying. why do you even need different types? why not let the player decide how to use it? I think my experience was quite different to mtarini's but i did only play it once.