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[JasonPickering]

yeah I realized that. although now the player constantly goes to the right on the way in and left on the way out, so I think I could switch the stairs to a path and it would be fine.

[JasonPickering]

update. You can see the new castle and the Dark Cave.

[DustyDrake]

Personally I think it should be off screen for the intro, so the player just walks out of the castle and it's just there

[JasonPickering]

Oh yeah, the screen size is 80 pixels wide so when you are in the throne room you will only see to about half the door, and I might expand that so you don't see the edge of the castle.

[JasonPickering]

So the plan for tonight is to get the intro sequence in and working. Then the outro sequence.

Also I have been getting lots of comments and questions about a site for MicRogue. I have no experience in this kind of thing. Should I be looking to a site, or a tumbler, or a blog. What do you think. It would be nice to have a localized are for people to come to and get basic information.

[JasonPickering]

Update:

Okay so the full gameplay loop is in.

Try It

a player starts on level one and upon reaching level 3, they find the treasure. when they grab the treasure they must return to the surface to return it to the king.

I also added 2 rough cuts for the intro and outro sequences. the player will only see the intro when they enter the dungeon, if they die in the dungeon, they will just restart on floor one, I wanted the game to be super fast in the getting the player to be back in the game. the longer it takes, the more likely they are to quit the game. They will see the Outro when they win. so Couple Ideas I had and would love feedback on them are...

1. Different Dungeons - will have different enviroments, traps, enemies, and final depths
2. "Quest" Tiers. level up dungeons as you beat them, forcing you to go deeper to find the treasure. (can always play an easier tier)
3. "Artifacts". right now the king says jewel, but this could be a randomly chosen mcguffin to get and I could keep track of all of them for the player. so the player can see which ones they found.
4. Skills. basically the player would have one skill/spell to use. this would replace in game items. Not a lot of people actually use the items though.
5. Different heroes. (This would probably be best if I did the skills idea. each one could have a different skill)

also a final question. I am thinking of replay-ability. Anything you would like to see?

[Franklin's Ghost]

Just tried the latest version and hadn't played in awhile so quite a few changes. Noticed that at times I was only able to move one space to the side rather then two and was wondering if this is a new thing?

[Uykered]

Franklin maybe that was because there was obstacle which was restricting movement? I'm pretty sure it's always 2 moves in any direction.

I think maybe a way to help show moves like the Ninja, is to perhaps maybe put a particle in each sqaure between his 2 teleport points? That might make it clearer that he moves in an L shape? Just a thought. I find the ninja's more fun/interesting to play against now that I understand they're not completely random in their teleport jump movement.

I can't say I find the quest thing terribly interesting, I think its cool as an intro/outro because its short and sweet, but I'm more excited in just going deeper and deeper and discovering new things (not doing errands)!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Thanks alastair for the reply but there wasn't anything blocking my movement from what I could see. Just sometimes my movement was reduced to one step rather then two. Maybe a bug or I was being stupid will try again and see.

Ok seems to be occuring when I kill the blobs. The next move for me is only one space. Is this a new thing with the blobs characteristics?

[DustyDrake]

It's been like that for a little bit, a while ago, it used to make the player get a '!' mark over his head, but I don't know if that's coming back.

[JasonPickering]

Franklin's Ghost: I wanted each enemy to be special. so I have some enemies with special movements, like the ninja, or Eye. Some enemies just have normal movement though and to these I added special death mechanics. The yeti causes all enemies to freeze, and the blob causes the player to become sticky, getting only one move. I really need to show this in a better way though. Originally I had a pop up over the player with a ! to show them that something has happened, but it doesn't seem to be working in the new build. Would having the ! and perhaps tinting the player purple, be good?

Alastair: what if there was a way to show all enemy movement? I am thinking that maybe tap and hold would highlight an enemy's moves in red, or perhaps giving in option in the menu(does not exsist yet) to see how enemies move (Would only show enemies on the level).

Another reason I added the quest is I think giving people a goal is pretty good. I find that sometimes people like having goals to shoot for, that are not just get farther. You are starting to see this a lot in Forever runner games where mini objectives have been given to the player.

Another good reason is I don't want this to have the usual structure like in a roguelike. usually as you go you find new monsters. My goal was to do something more akin to Binding of Issac, you don't discover new things by going deeper, you discover new things simply by playing the game. each time you play you get a vertical slice of the world. The problem is just A. adding tons of content and B. Making it easy to add the content.

[Sleight]

Hi Jason,

I haven't been around for a while, and I see the game's changed quite a bit since the last testing build you sent me. It plays great though! I really like the new movement system in particular.

My suggestions:

- The time bar doesn't seem to add anything to the gameplay, so you might consider removing it. In the previous builds that I tested, the player had to choose between (a) opening chests to increase his score, and (b) avoiding them to save time. Now that you've removed the chests, though, there's no longer any decision-making involved: players will always try to get through the dungeon as quickly as possible, regardless of whether there's a time limit or not.

- If you want to make the game as quick and as simple as possible, how about removing the spells/items as well? Players may need to think a bit about which item to choose before entering a dungeon, and that slows down the gameplay. Another possibility, though, would be to give the player a random spell/item each time.

As for the question of how the player should advance through the game, here's an idea:

- The king starts off by asking you to retrieve a random trinket from a random dungeon, which has three rooms and a small selection of simple enemies--e.g. rats, blobs and spiders.

- When you return to the king, he sends you off to another random dungeon, which also has three rooms. This time, however, a slightly less simple enemy (e.g. the blue eyeball) is added to the selection.

- This goes on and on, with each dungeon having three rooms, but one more potential enemy than the last.

- As you complete the dungeons, a pile of treasure begins to accumulate behind the king, becoming slightly larger each time. His castle also becomes increasingly fancy and well decorated. This could be a fun graphical indicator of how far you've progressed through the game.

Hope you find some of this useful! I'm looking forward to the next build.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Thanks for the explanation guys. Things have definitely changed since I last played it.

The blob reducing you to one step is great but as you said a visual indicator would really help. Maybe just some purple slime left over on the floor and covering your feet would make it clearer.

Also like the new king quest system, think it helps with the replay ability especially if each tie you finish he sends you off for something else and something is added to the game.

Great job though this has really come along way from the first version I ever played.

[rek]

Ninja got stuck in the wall for two turns. Then when I killed the yeti he froze and moved back into the room on the next turn.


Ninja (he's moved once) and chest appeared on the same spot.

I'm still having the same fundamental problem: being forced to move is what kills me more than half the time – but now I can be killed by moving too many times trying to avoid being killed by monsters.

[JasonPickering]

Franklins Ghost: Thanks. Yeah its coming together finally.

Rek: Every once in a while the ninja does that. I am trying to figure out what the cause is. It seems that its not detecting the wall there. I think I know a fix for it, though.

I will also add a code to fix the spawning on the item bug.

I will probably remove the timer. I was hoping that it would add something. I want some kind of timer in there to give the player a downside. The player can sit there dancing back and forth until the enemies get into position, but I want there to be some choice to that and some type of cost to that behavior. I might try a smaller timer, that spawns an enemy and resets. so taking longer, just makes the game harder.

[JasonPickering]

sadly I have been lazy recently and have not got much done. Its been a bit of a heat wave and I done want to spend time with a hot laptop, so my nights have been reading, and playing my iphone. The next big thing I am going to try and do is add the "skill" I basically want to give the player one power that they can use. I hope that will open up play a bit, but we will see.

I am also thinking a bit about replayability, and also adding in something of a score? or a way for a person to tell that they did better this time, then last time.

[DustyDrake]

Hehe! When I found out my new phone has a flash player, the first thing I had to do was play this.
It actually worked out quite well, as the game is just big enough to be comfortable to play as is!

[JackMenhorn]

I very much want to play this on my iPhone.  Very much so yes.

[JasonPickering]

DustyDrake: What kind of phone was it?

KomradeJack: Dont worry I am trying to hurry up and get it there.

[DustyDrake]

Evo LTE 4g