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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsTangledeep: 16-bit roguelike dungeon crawler, now RELEASED on Steam!
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Author Topic: Tangledeep: 16-bit roguelike dungeon crawler, now RELEASED on Steam!  (Read 52284 times)
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« Reply #80 on: December 02, 2016, 10:42:53 AM »

Great points re: mouse control. I play almost entirely with keys as is the Roguelike tradition so the mouse control should be improved. I will make it so clicking an option selects it, clicking AGAIN will confirm it (if already selected).

I'm honestly not a fan of the idea of requiring two clicks to perform a single action. :/ Not only does it double the number of clicks required to perform such actions, but it seems to me to be less intuitive than I'd like. Instead, what I'm inclined to suggest is that hovering the mouse over an option selects it (as though the user had used the keys to move the hand-cursor to that item), and clicking performs the relevant command.

However, another thought has occurred to me: you've said that you play the game almost entirely via the keyboard; if that's your intended control mechanism, and implementing mouse support is a pain for you, perhaps it's better to simply remove the latter entirely. (If you do this, however, I strongly recommend removing mouse support entirely: having it be present in one place and not others might be frustrating for those inclined to prefer it, as I recall finding in an earlier build.)

I, personally, find the mouse to be a far preferable input device for this game--but it's not my game, and if it's not well suited to me, then that's okay, I feel.

UI scaling is a thorn in my side. For now if possible try to play at 16:9. It should scale properly to any multiple of that.

Hmm... Excluding the non-16:9 resolutions, it seems that the highest windowed resolution available is 960 x 540--slightly smaller than I've been playing at, I believe. A pity, but fair enough. :/

Tabs in the UI - definitely, it's on the list. I wanted to get the new wireframes and functionality in, but I agree that tabs would make life easier.

Good good! ^_^

Hurting own pet: I'm going to just make this impossible Tongue

Hah, fair enough!
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« Reply #81 on: December 15, 2016, 04:05:19 PM »

** NEW BUILD **

OK, been working very hard on this build which adds a LOT of new code. There's (as always) tons more I want to do but I hate going more than a few weeks without releasing something publicly, so here we go.

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build12-15-16.rar
MAC OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build12-15-16.app.zip

tl;dr / THOUGHTS
This build is a big step forward because it introduces the town hub, Riverstone Camp. Right now there is not a ton you can do there; there are just two merchants with static positions. But it took a lot of code and assets to get here, creating an entire NPC system, merchant UI, currency, shops with inventory that is cycled over time, branching dialog system, etc etc. So while it may be humble right now, a lot of groundwork has been laid down for future improvements.

I've also spent more time working on mouse control and bug fixes, plus refining and improving content (i.e. throwing out all existing magic mods and making new ones, new monsters and monster tweaks), balance and all that good stuff, all with the goal of making the game experience better, fresher, and more fun overall.

I'm looking forward to further fleshing out the town hub and adding the 4th character job very soon!


The dancing food merchant, Nando


New rivers added to caves (temp art)


New help system (press H)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* New tile set/skin for the boss fight room!
* Crappy temp skeletons (summoned by Summoner champions) are now Bone Crabs.

BALANCE
* Fungal Toads and bandits that call for help will no longer call for quite as large a distance
* Equipping MAGICAL armor, accessories, or shields now takes a turn. (This is tentative / may be reverted)
* Summoned Living Vine toned down slightly
* Stats no longer influence regen % rate

BUGS
* The game over screen now lingers and requires you to press enter, return or escape to move on
* Probably (?) fixed bugs where Sword Dancer abilities would sometimes not move the player sprite visually
* Alpha sort inventory, equipment, and player skill list now works
* Sort player skill list by job now works
* Clicking on sort buttons should work now too
* Monsters in wide-open areas are less likely to stop moving
* Fixed flickering bug with some visual FX fading out at <100% alpha
* If you have a unique status effect added by multiple items (such as a unique magic mod), the effect *should* no longer be removed if you unequip one item
* Items on the map should now save and load properly. Also fixed a number of other save/load bugs related to items.
* Items and champion monsters loaded from save will no longer lose their display names
* Fixed bug where some items (mostly accessories) would load the same mod twice on load game
* Hero status effects that have ingame sprites (shields etc) should now properly load

CONTENT
* Got rid of nearly all existing item magic mods and started from scratch. New mods have been added that have more flavor and offer more interesting choices/effects than simply small stat bonuses. More to come, of course!

* Money has been added to the game. Kind of important right? :D Money is granted upon killing monsters. Eventually it will drop from chests etc too. This means items now have a monetary value (different when buying vs. selling, and also varies based on merchant.)

* New feat: Entrepreneur. Find more money and sell items for more money.

* The town hub - Riverstone Camp - has been added! You can reach it by traveling to the stairs up on Tangledeep's first floor.

* Merchants have been added! You can find two in Riverstone Camp, Katje and Nando. Talk to them to buy/sell items. Each time you reach a new floor of Tangledeep, their inventories will be refreshed. Their goods may also improve depending on what level you are!

* New type of consumable item added: food. Food will restore one of your prime stats (health, energy, stamina) over a short period of time. It's cheap, and easy enough to come by. However, eating ANY food makes you full, and if you're full you can't eat more for a bit!

* Caves now have rivers running through them (with placeholder art, for now). Rivers carve through the map but take a bit of stamina to move through.

* Grotto Flyers now have a projectile sting attack.

* New monster: Toxic Urchin. These creatures are immobile but highly aggressive.

* New monster mod: Regenerating. These champions will buff themselves to heal up quickly after an attack, but if you wait for the buff to wear off you'll have the advantage!

ENGINE
* Created 'exclusion groups' for magic mods so certain mod combinations will never spawn.
* New support for skinned areas! Important for the new boss room skin and TOWN area! :D
* Support for animated components of skinned map areas
* Support for maps that exist outside the dungeon
* Fleshed out conversation/dialog/dialogue system - now loads from XML, custom window sizes, color/size parsing!

QUALITY OF LIFE
* You can no longer target your pet with ranged weapons
* Help button ('H') now displays an interactive manual with much more info!

USER INTERFACE / UX
* Tweaked fonts in the main HUD and dialog windows
* Hovering over UI options/buttons now moves the cursor
* You can now hit enter/return to go up and down stairs.
* You can how hit Numpad5 (middle) to pass your turn
* Mouse movement has been changed. Now, left-clicking (or left-click + hold) simply moves the character toward your cursor. Simple - no pathfinding. RIGHT clicking and holding will select a tile and attempt to pathfind to that tile as long as the right mouse button is held. It's still a little rough but will be continuously improved.
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Thaumaturge
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« Reply #82 on: December 16, 2016, 10:05:15 AM »

Quite an update, I feel! I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon. ^_^
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« Reply #83 on: December 17, 2016, 06:11:10 PM »

All right, I have a little initial feedback:

First of all, the reason that I'm doing this now, rather than after more play: I seem to have encountered a bug that makes the game difficult to play (by mouse, at least). Specifically, the skill-buttons don't seem to work--I can press them, and they respond visually, I believe, but it seems that nothing happens. :/

That said, the mouse-controls are otherwise rather improved thus far, I believe! In particular, I really like having mouse-selection work in menus. ^_^

I did find one bug with said selection: When selling, I found that selling an item resulted in the cursor jumping to the "exit" button, regardless of the mouse-cursor's location. It only resets when the mouse is moved--and further, it seems that it doesn't actually update the selected item until (I think) the mouse is moved to another item. :/

Otherwise, I do rather like having the shops available, both as a source of items and a place to dump unused loot, and get some resources in exchange for it. I do wonder whether going back and forth might become tiresome once the player has reached some of the lower levels--do you plan to implement a "town portal" of some sort?

The rivers seem like a nice idea. I haven't had much interaction with them yet, but I like the concept, at least. A suggestion, if I may: Have the rivers flow, pushing objects along their course. This might produce some interesting gameplay effects:
 - Objects being carried downstream
 - Easy travel in one direction and difficult going in the other
 - River hazards into which unwary creatures and players may be dragged
 - Places that can only be reached by river, whether by struggling upstream or riding downstream, with impassable tiles to either side
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« Reply #84 on: December 22, 2016, 04:22:57 PM »

Yes I think there is more I can do with rivers for sure. And I'll continue refining mouse control / fixing bugs with that. Although, re: skill hotbar, I do recommend IF you are playing with mouse to use left hand to trigger skills - that seems like a natural setup (left hand rests on 1-8, right hand on mouse)

Anyway, no build yet, but I'm working on a lot of stuff including testing getting rid of durability altogether. I've created a google doc which features everything I'm working on right now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIFBxOeX-ijjPTsrGuscJYKyGFre1WwHS_nfSlTT4kU/edit
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« Reply #85 on: December 23, 2016, 10:41:33 AM »

And I'll continue refining mouse control / fixing bugs with that.

Excellent, and thank you. ^_^

Although, re: skill hotbar, I do recommend IF you are playing with mouse to use left hand to trigger skills - that seems like a natural setup (left hand rests on 1-8, right hand on mouse)

Hmm... Actually, in a game like this, it seems natural to me to use only the mouse. After all, there's little call for quick reactions, and I see nothing thus far that couldn't be interacted with effectively via a mouse.

(Honestly, I think that I'd forgotten at the time that there were hotkeys for the skills. (Which is silly in retrospect, since as you've pointed out, the keyboard is intended to be the primary control mechanism.) While not ideal to my mind, at the least they should allow me to use my skills in the current build!)

Speaking of which, I a suggestion related to the mouse controls, if I may: I'd like to be able to use stairs via the mouse. Since moving up and down carries little penalty (as far as I see), the cost of a mis-click seems minor to me.

Specifically, what I suggest is this: When the player-character enters a tile on which some action may be taken, bring up one or more little buttons; instead of clicking on the player, clicking on these performs that action. For example, when entering a tile that contains loot, have an icon pop up that indicates "taking"; if the tile contains both stairs and loot, have two icons pop up.

Anyway, no build yet, but I'm working on a lot of stuff including testing getting rid of durability altogether. I've created a google doc which features everything I'm working on right now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIFBxOeX-ijjPTsrGuscJYKyGFre1WwHS_nfSlTT4kU/edit

Ah, interesting! Thank you for sharing that. ^_^

I like the idea of removing durability: thinking about it now, I think that it's been more of a nuisance than a mechanic that's enhanced the gameplay.

The new weapon-type properties are interesting; I don't care to speculate as to whether they're an improvement--we'll see once they're play-tested, I suppose. (Not likely by me--I'm sticking to my spellcaster classes, I intend. Tongue)

I see that we have a "town portal" coming up--excellent! ^_^
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« Reply #86 on: January 05, 2017, 11:17:32 PM »

Happy new year all!!!

And good suggestions, you can now click on yourself when on stairs to use them. To avoid issues with using items instead of stairs I've also added a new auto-pickup option. This can be toggled at will, though it feels pretty good to leave it on.

These last few weeks have been crazy productive. Check the build notes Gdoc - so much happening here, not just bug fixes and balance tweaks but major new content and quality-of-life stuff.

The SPELLSHAPER will be in the next build as noted in the guide and looks positively awesome thanks to Fervir. It's pretty advanced but very powerful once you get a handle on it. Essentially you have/can learn up to 4 basic elemental spells, each of which affect a single target instantly:

FIRE - Strong damage and leaves a residual burn damage over time (DOT)
ICE - Light damage, slows and reduces accuracy
SHADOW - Moderate damage, but leaves a stacking debuff for shadow damage, making it very powerful for repeated casts
ACID - Moderate damage, debuffs target's defenses

Then you have abilities which change the shape of the spell: CONE, BURST, LINE, RECTANGLE. These let your spells hit multiple targets in different patterns, but they add an extra Stamina cost to the spell. You can have one spellshape active at a time via a toggle effect.

Lastly you have special modifiers which add either extra cooldown or 'exhaustion' time after casting: the mutually exclusive PENETRATE and MATERIALIZE. Penetrate makes the spells pass through resistances, while MATERIALIZE changes the spells from instant damage to summons. Materialized Fire creates a flame that burns + adds a DOT to anything passing through. Materialized Ice will block enemies, forcing them to break the ice to pass through (which also slows them!) Materialized Shadow will root and damage enemies that pass through, while Materialized Acid damages and debuffs.

You can combine these to create effects to fit your situation. We'll see how it pans out balance wise but so far it's pretty fun to play!





Along with a new PALADIN class that is designed to be the entry point for new players, as well as one that can serve as a baseline to balance other classes.
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« Reply #87 on: January 06, 2017, 12:59:35 AM »

Quote

The dancing food merchant, Nando
If we would work in my "EDEKA" I would buy everything.
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Pixel Noise
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« Reply #88 on: January 06, 2017, 08:11:04 AM »

Spellshaper class sounds like a lot of fun, and the way the spells and modifiers work is really cool - great design!
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« Reply #89 on: January 09, 2017, 03:16:51 PM »

Happy new year to you too! ^_^

I recall you describing the Spellshaper class previously; as then, I rather like the idea! The sprite looks cool, too. I imagine that I'll be switching from the Floramancer to this once you release a build that includes it. ^_^
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« Reply #90 on: January 17, 2017, 07:51:41 PM »

Three cheers for

NEW BUILD DAY!

Today I'm confident enough to put my completion percent at 30%. In the last month we've done a staggering amount of development and for the first time, playing the game last night, I forgot for a second I was developing it and was instead focusing on just enjoying it. That's a big step for Tangledeep! :D

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-17-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-17-17.app.zip

OVERVIEW

So much has changed it's hard to cram it in a tl;dr. Two new jobs (Spellshaper & Paladin) are now in the game, rounding out some of the core play styles and archetypes. Weapon durability is gone. All stats have been reworked. About twice as many items and magic mods. Better map generation. New map terrain (lava, mud). A field of view/line of sight system. New non-stock icons and art for player abilities and items. New incentives for dungeon exploration. Tons of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements too.

In every way it is simply a better game across the board now, and I'm eager to make it even better. If you play, be sure to leave me your feedback, bug reports, suggestions, etc.!

PICS!


The mighty Spellshaper using multiple elements to fend off champion monsters!


The noble Paladin summons divine retribution to strike her foes!


Loot is now scattered throughout Tangledeep, dropped by less fortunate adventurers perhaps?!


New auto-pickup feature and pop-up item display (both optional)!


New and improved maps, showing new terrain types and shapes!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Besides tons more content (classes, items, monsters...), I want to make the dungeon itself even more dynamic with merchants, hidden areas, shrines, etc. UI will continue to be worked on and improved. The town will be built up, with more to do there, and a persistent progress system across saves. All ground tiles will be reworked/improved with more tile sets as you descend in the dungeon. More floors, more bossfights, and more dungeon layouts.

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* All new icons for player skills & abilities!
* All new custom art for items!
* The rest of the waterfalls in Riverstone Camp have been animated, along with some of the river <3

BALANCE
* Monster health has been increased.
* Magical and Artifact items (2, 3 mod) are now less common.
* Floramancer: Bed of Thorns duration reduced from 20 -> 14 turns
* Many skill damage equations tweaked to account for Spirit Power, but this is ongoing.
* Salamander fire breath can hit at angles now.
* All maps have been made slightly larger.
* Rewards gained for defeating monsters lower level than you have been scaled down.
* Moving through water now takes more stamina.
* Blocking with a shield no longer blocks 100% of damage - now 50% instead
* XP to level has been slightly increased
* Adjusted HP level up curve
* Salamanders, Fire Elementals, and Water Elementals now have appropriate elemental damage resistance
* Lower level monsters found on harder floors of the dungeon will scale up somewhat
* Global drop / powerup chance slightly increased
* Weapon drops are now slightly less common; armor, offhands and consumables are slightly more common.
* Picking up items no longer takes a turn
* Bows now do only 50% damage at melee range.
* Dark Alchemists do more damage with their Alchemical Fire, and have a stronger weapon
* Plunderers have stronger weapons
* Health regen now occurs every 5 turns out-of-combat instead of every 3 turns

BUGS
* Character sheet opens again.
* Clicking on hotbar abilities/items works again.
* You should now get rewards when a pet kills a monster.
* It should no longer be possible to have more than 0 but less than 1 HP.
* "Wild" weapon magic mod works, and no longer crashes the game.
* Equipment screen: item info display is no longer cut off, fixed multiple-mod display
* Monsters should no longer spawn on top of the player at game start
* Fixed bugs with dodge / parry chance being out of whack with certain items/effects
* River tiles no longer obscure some actors and sprite effects (work in progress)
* Fixed bug with monster pathing for jump / teleport type abilities. Should no longer veer about at random!
* All item mods and effects should now save / load properly (??)
* Elemental resistance and absorption should now work properly
* Saving the game, loading, then saving + loading again should now work (was an issue with town not being deserialized right!)
* When your pet dies, it should now be cleared from the UI
* When physically attacking a monster with a damage resistance, the appropriate message should now be displayed in the combat log
* Stairs in caves should no longer spawn at inaccessible tiles
* Fixed various display bugs related to the equipment screen

GAMEPLAY
* Durability for weapons is gone. Kaput! Use weapons all you'd like!
* Fog of war / exploration fog has been changed. Player’s vision range has increased. Explored tiles that are NOT in direct line of sight are now greyed out showing the underlying terrain, but not the contents of that tile. (First pass on this system!)
* Your character sheet now tracks monsters killed, lowest floor reached, and steps taken!
* There are now three things that can happen when re-applying a status effect, depending on the effect. The effect can stack (multiple copies, compounding the effect), the effect can extend duration (i.e. a poison with 5 turns left, re-applied as a new poison with 8 turns, will result in 13 turns), or the effect can simply refresh duration (the poison at 5 returns to 8 turns.)
* Stats have been reworked and tweaked as follows.

- STRENGTH
   * OFFENSE: Increases melee damage dealt
   * DEFENSE: Increases physical resistance
   * SECONDARY: Increase crit damage

- SWIFTNESS
   * OFFENSE: Increases ranged damage dealt
   * DEFENSE: Increase CT gain (extra turns)
   * SECONDARY: Increase crit damage

- GUILE:
   * OFFENSE: Increases chance to crit
   * DEFENSE: Increases chance to parry
   * SECONDARY: Chance to find powerups

- DISCIPLINE:
   * OFFENSE: Increases defeat parry/dodge
   * DEFENSE: Increases elemental resistances
   * SECONDARY: Contributes to Spirit Power

- SPIRIT:
   * OFFENSE: Increases Spirit Power
   * DEFENSE: Increase health regeneration
   * SECONDARY: Recover more from powerups

CONTENT
* NEW CLASS: Spellshaper! A powerful spellcaster that can use elemental forces in a myriad of ways. Using 'spellshape' and 'spellshift' abilities, you can modify spells as they are cast... at a price.
* NEW CLASS: Paladin! A “sword & board” melee fighter that uses divine power to smite enemies. Good for beginners!
* Floors of Tangledeep will now contain various items - consumables, weapons, armor, or money - strewn about the dungeon floors. These appear as glimmers on the ground. What could these items be? You'll have to walk over the glimmers to find out!
* New item: Torch of Escaping. Warps you out of the dungeon and back to town.
* Now that durability has been removed, weapons have extra properties - special effects that occur only on crit!

   - SWORDS: 100% chance to parry NEXT attack.
   - MACES: Deals additional damage equal to 10% of the target's current HP
   - DAGGERS: Grants an instant +60 charge time toward extra turn
   - AXES: Target will take 25% more damage from whatever damages it next
   - SPEARS: Target is rooted for 2 turns

* Armor has been fleshed out further, with the addition of LIGHT armor:

   - LIGHT armor increases your stamina & energy regeneration, as well as your CT gain, plus a chance to dodge.
   - MEDIUM armor offers a mix of dodge chance and damage mitigation.
   - HEAVY armor has the highest physical damage mitigation outright.

* New shield mod: MASSIVE. +5% chance to block, -2% chance to parry
* New shield mod: EMERGENCY. Reduces incoming attack damage while at low HP.
* New mod (any slot): ZEN. 10% chance to recover extra health/energy/stamina while passing turns or resting.
* New mod (any slot): FAMILIARS. Summoned pets have +15% HP.
* New mod (any slot): SCAVENGING. Increases drop chance of powerups.
* New weapon mods: Frog, Insect, Beast-Slaying. Extra damage to certain monster types.
* New weapon mod: CONJURATION. All summons last +1 turns. Stacks if dual wielding.
* New armor mod: CLOTTING. Bleed effects are less powerful and wear off quicker.
* New armor mod: BONECRABS. Randomly summons an undead crab when struck.
* New armor mod: GLUTTONY. Food is more effective, but you remain full longer.
* New armor mod: VANISHING. When struck, there is a chance you will randomly teleport to a nearby space.
* Stat-boosting magic mods are back in the game, appearing on Accessories.
* Several new consumable items that have damaging effects when used
* New accessories: Endless Flagon, 5 elemental enhancement rings, Running Shoes, Sturdy Boots
* New feat: FOOD LOVER. Food is extra effective!
* Lava pools can now be found in some areas. These are harmful to (most) monsters and hapless adventurers…
* Mud now appears near water sometimes. Mud takes some stamina to move through, and occasionally you may get stuck briefly!
* Some monsters are immune to certain terrain hazards, and some may even benefit by fighting on certain terrain. Uh oh!
* Fungal Toads can now regenerate their health (once per battle)
* Slimes now randomly split off smaller mini-slimes.
* Barrels now randomly spawn. There's a small chance you'll get loot from them.
* Alchemists now have a point-blank gas cloud attack!

ENGINE
* Toggle abilities can now be set in 'exclusion groups', so certain types of abilities may be unique and not stackable with other similar abilities
* Turn behavior optimization (more performance!)
* Support for effects that raise/lower resistances (statuses, for example)
* Reworked and expanded consumable item system, now supports a robust range of abilities and powers.
* New audio manager system (v0.1) to deal with various simultaneous SFX in a better way
* Support for abilities that repeat their effect multiple times, and abilities that hit targets in range at random
* Support for destructible / map objects that move on their own (useful for traps, abilities, etc.)
* Support for more randomization in sprite effects.
* Support for items / effects that boost damage of specific damage types
* Cave generation algorithm has been refined.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* There is now an option to auto-pick up loot when walking over it! (This can be disabled in Options)
* Picking up items now displays a quick popup over you showing the item that was picked up (This too can be disabled)
* Your character sheet (C) now shows powerup drop chance
* On the equipment screen (E), weapons in your hotbar are no longer shown in the general equipment list
* Reworked equipment sheet character stat display and item comparisons - should look/work a lot better now
* Equipment sheet layout tweaked for clarity and to always show item info in the same place (like Inventory)
* Currently toggled abilities on the hotbar now have a red overlay
* When Slimes combine, text will appear above them indicating they have combined.
* You can now click on stairs (while standing on them) to travel up/down
* While selling items, hotkeyed weapons are marked with an asterisk
* On the equipment sheet, hovering over an item slot filters items below
* On the skill sheet (S), hotkeyed abilities indicate which hotkey they use
* Once an item is unequipped manually, it will no longer be auto-equipped if that slot is empty for whatever reason
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« Reply #91 on: January 18, 2017, 01:36:20 AM »

hey, nice game! art and music in particular are great. just a few minor nitpicks/suggestions:

1. i couldn't find anything ingame on how getting extra turns works

2. i got a tip saying i had enough JP to buy a new ability even though i didn't (was playing brigand)

3. the help menu seems outdated. it still has stuff about weapon durability which you said was removed.

4. consider making keys rebindable in the future. i use a german keyboard and using ][ for weapon switching is pretty unintuitive for me.
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« Reply #92 on: January 18, 2017, 09:12:19 AM »

hey, nice game! art and music in particular are great. just a few minor nitpicks/suggestions:

1. i couldn't find anything ingame on how getting extra turns works

2. i got a tip saying i had enough JP to buy a new ability even though i didn't (was playing brigand)

3. the help menu seems outdated. it still has stuff about weapon durability which you said was removed.

4. consider making keys rebindable in the future. i use a german keyboard and using ][ for weapon switching is pretty unintuitive for me.

All good suggestions -

1. Yes I will explain this better in HELP and I'm also going to add a meter in the upper right that shows how close you are to an extra turn. It's based on your Swiftness.

2. Will fix!

3. Agreed, I gotta update it

4. Right now they are rebindable when you launch the game, in the Input tab. But it's not the prettiest way of doing it.
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« Reply #93 on: January 18, 2017, 10:36:49 AM »

4. Right now they are rebindable when you launch the game, in the Input tab. But it's not the prettiest way of doing it.

ah ok, i never look at that tab in unity games because i tend to assume devs don't use it. thanks for the heads up!
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« Reply #94 on: January 18, 2017, 03:39:27 PM »

Once again, quite an update, I feel! I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon! ^_^
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« Reply #95 on: January 25, 2017, 09:38:14 PM »

NEW BUILD

Yes it's been less than a week, BUT this has some key bug fixes along with a variety of content, art, and quality of life additions.

The biggest new content which I'm eager for people to try out is the addition of secret rooms/hidden areas. These are tucked away in Tangledeep starting on floor 3. You can find the entrance by looking for standalone wall blocks which can be broken by attacking. They contain treasure, danger, or maybe both!

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-26-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-26-17.app.zip

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* Reigned in weapon swings a bit
* More of a bug, but all tile variation has been restored. Oops!
* New skill icons for Spellshaper and Paladin (more coming)
* New ingame status icons for various effects
* New combat FX sprites for some abilities and monsters

AUDIO
* Better punch sound

BALANCE
* Brigand's "Concussion" now costs only 150jp to learn (down from 200)
* Sentry Bots in the steam golem fight no longer drop loot. Conversely, the steam golem should now drop more/better loot.
* You will no longer regenerate any stat while on terrain that is dangerous to you (lava, mud, water)
* Reduced chance to hit with your offhand weapon while dual wielding

BUGS
* Probably (?) fixed bug where you would pass turns automatically/unintentionally and let monsters wail on you.
* Fixed a serious crash bug related to monster pathfinding.
* When attacking with a ranged 1h weapon in your main hand (such as a sling or spear), you will no longer proc dual wield attacks from your offhand. You must be in melee range to do a double attack with dual wield.
* Projectile weapon rotation has been fixed. Again.
* Fixed a bug where re-applying a stackable status would sometimes cause it to 'stick' permanently.
* Possibly fixed some bugs with alignment of text on the equipment sheet, but need to investigate at other resolutions/modes
* Stairs should no longer spawn enclosed by walls (i.e. impossible to get to!)
* Your summoned pet, when killed, should now disappear from your list of summoned pets immediately.

CONTENT & GAMEPLAY
* New item type: Spellbooks. These are offhand items that, unlike dual wielded weapons or shields, offer no direct combat power but instead restore your Energy while attacking, boost your Spirit Power at all times.
* Secret areas have been added to the game! These rooms may hold treasure, danger, or both… and all will give a JP bonus for discovery. Look for breakable rocks to find your way in!
* New consumable: Deflecting Philter
* New accessory: Knight Gloves (when wielding a 1 handed weapon with no offhand, increases damage)
* New feats at character creation: SCAVENGER (find more/better items) and ESCAPE MASTER (grants you a permanent Torch of Escape-type ability)

ENGINE
* Modified line of sight (you will no longer see walls in pockets of nothing)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Equipping weapons in the EQ screen should be better now. If a weapon is in your hotbar, hit enter to switch to it. (This is just like clicking/cycling on the main screen). If it's already selected, hit enter to swap to a new weapon.
* Under your stats in the upper right, you will now see a display indicating how close you are to a free turn. This will also turn yellow when you have earned a free turn.
* You can now disable the "EXTRA TURN!" popup over your character (Options menu)
* Stairs will no longer spawn in lava, water, mud, or with destructibles (i.e. barrels) on top
* Help guide has been updated to reflect changes to weapons (no more durability, special effects on crit) and the three armor types
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« Reply #96 on: January 26, 2017, 10:31:55 AM »

Oh wow--I hadn't even gotten around to giving feedback on the last build yet! XD; (I've been meaning to, but had wanted to play at least once more, and hadn't yet done so, I believe.)

I really like the idea of secret areas (indeed, the inclusion of secret areas in a procedurally-generated roguelike is something that I've given thought to myself). I'm eager to see how they work here!

Once again, I have the new version downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it out soon! ^_^
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« Reply #97 on: January 28, 2017, 12:09:15 PM »

All right, I've played for a bit, and have feedback! Beware: long post incoming!

(Indeed, for the first time I've reached--and for that matter beaten--the golem found on level five-ish! :D)

A Few Miscellaneous Points:
  • It's good to have the skill-buttons working again! :D
  • In the equipment screen, the arrows that indicate changes in stats from a change in equipment are appreciated. ^_^
    • (Although they do appear somewhat to the right of their expected positions on my screen.)
  • I like the new line-of-sight system. ^_^
  • Being able to simply click on stairs to move up and down them is appreciated!
  • A thought: should stepping into a river remove the "burning" status? Similarly, should certain combinations of element counteract each other--fires melting ice, or ice putting out fires, for example?
  • I may have mentioned this before, but I rather like the enemy special abilities--the salamander's fire attack, the toad's leap, etc. They add a bit of interest to the fights, calling for a bit more thought in combat, I think. (Indeed, I think that I'd like to see more of them!)

The Spellshaper Class, overall:
  • I really like this class! Indeed, I think that it's likely to be my main class going forward. ^_^

    It did feel rather slow at the start--the first few levels, fighting scattered enemies with only two evocations (and thus delays between castings) and limited shaping ability, were a little boring, I fear. (Perhaps a change to the starting spell-shapes might help here? "Materialise" and "Line" might make for a good starting pair, perhaps.)

    However, once I managed to save up enough JP to buy the Materialise spell-shape, and discovered that I could combine spell-shapes, things became far more fun. The question of what shape to use, with which evocation, and where, all done while avoiding enemies, made for some interesting fights, I feel.

    The golem boss was a little easy, however: I simply stacked evocations onto him using the Square and Materialise shapes, and supported their damage with a bow. Lacking many ranged abilities, and being rooted by the shadow evocation, he largely sat there and took damage; I think that I saw one ranged attack come from him in two battles. It seems that the sentries largely didn't notice me, perhaps because I was fighting from afar.

    I have three suggestions regarding this, if I may:
    • First, give the golem at least one more ranged ability, and the inclination to use it. (I had the idea of giving him a one-tile shadow evocation (to root the player to the spot), followed by a one-tile line of fire, similar to the salamander's special attack.)
    • Second, give him a means of escape--perhaps a teleport or a leap that he can do occasionally, and that ignores the "rooted" debuff".
    • Finally, make the sentry-bots aware of the player as soon as they spawn, and make them aggressive--having them harry me might have made it more difficult to keep pressure on the boss himself.

    I like the new spell-shaping icons, although I think that they could perhaps use a slightly higher contrast.

Spellshaping
  • I love that spell-shapings can be combined! It really adds to the flexibility and interest of the class, I feel. I also really like that the Materialise spell-shape produces a more-or-less separate stable of effects (such as Shadow producing the "rooted" debuff). ^_^

    I did encounter a bug, I fear: it seems that the Materialise and later the Square spell-shapes became stuck in their "active" state; clicking on their skill-buttons produced log-messages indicating that they were being deactivated (and activated on a second click), and the cooldowns seemed to work, but the spell-shapes remained active throughout.

    It seems that the UI allows me to activate three spell-shapes, but only two actually take effect. In addition, it seems that the "Cone" spell-shape doesn't combine with the "Square" spell-shape. However, this was tested with the above-mentioned bug active, so I'm not confident that my results were valid.

    If they were, however, then it might be worth either disallowing a third spell-shape, or having the activation of a third spell-shape disable the least-recent spell-shape in the list.

    I don't like that toggling a spell-shape takes up a turn, especially when I want to toggle more than one for a given action. It allows enemies to move around while I'm trying to prepare a casting, reducing my ability to react to their positions. :/

    When applying the Materialised shadow evocation to a tile that contains a creature, it seems that the "rooting" effect doesn't take effect immediately, leaving the creature free to move out of the tile on its next turn. This feels a little unexpected to me, and makes materialised shadow a little trickier to use than I'd like, I think (especially with spell-shapes smaller than the Square).

    As to the shapes themselves, I'm a little dubious of the proliferation of conformations available. While they each have their uses, some of those seem a little niche to me--although I'll admit that there was at least one situation that resulted in my character's death, and that a broader use of shapes might have seen me through.

    If I may, I have a few suggestions for additional shapes:
    • "Ray"--The spell is cast on each tile along a line passing through the indicated tile, continuing until the line hits an obstruction other than an enemy. (Combined with the "Square" shape, I could see this either producing a thick line, or--perhaps more interestingly--producing a spray of lines towards each of the tiles in the square.)
    • "Chain"--If the spell hits a target, it jumps to all targets within two tiles (i.e. with at most one tile between them and the original), and ignoring any already hit. This repeats from each of those targets, and so on until no more targets are found. Importantly, the player character is not exempt here: the attacks spawned can target and affect them.
    • "Galvanise"--Much like "Materialise", this changes the way that the spell works: instead of producing a simple effect, it produces a short-lived summon based on the evocation. Each does a certain amount of damage, and applies an effect to the tiles immediately surrounding it.

Secrets and sparklies
  • I like both of these additions: they're not obtrusive, but enticing and interesting when spotted. I do think that the secret walls could likely use a better tile, but I imagine that the current one is temporary.

    I encountered a secret wall that opened onto a small, square room filled with lava, and holding a chest at its centre. Is this intentional? o_0

    A suggestion, if I may: When picking up sparkles, it might be nice to have the associated item appear briefly on-screen (perhaps above the player-character), to show what has been acquired.

Water and lava
  • I like both of these additions--they make the environment, and encounters in it, a little more interesting, I think.

    That said, lava doesn't seem to hurt me, but does seem to hurt enemies, which seems odd... o_0

    I've seen cases in which water tiles spawned on top of walls, which looked a little odd, I think.

UI Issues
  • The use of codices wasn't clear to me at first: based on the seeming-example of the Thick Tome, I expected them to be weapons, and thus thought that a codex's insistence on going into an equipment slot was a bug.
    • (I'm not sure of what to suggest here, I'm afraid. ^^; )
  • In the shop:
    • Moving the mouse to an item, then pressing an arrow key, can cause the cursor to appear to "jump" to another item. (I'm guessing that the "current item" is stored separately for the keyboard and mouse controls.)
    • Pressing the "up" arrow with the selection at the top-most item moves the cursor to the "exit" button. Pressing it again moves the cursor to the last visible item in the list--which is not necessarily the last item.
    • There seems to be no mouse-based way of scrolling through items. (Perhaps a scroll-bar at the side of the list?)
  • It might be useful to have skill-icons produce some effect when their cooldown finishes--perhaps glowing briefly, or sending up a few particles. This might help the player to note a skill becoming available.
  • In the main menu, the "continue" option is available regardless of whether or not a saved game exists; using it when one doesn't seems to spawn the player into an invalid world.
  • The cursor seems to be a black box in the main menu. (In one or two cases, this extended into play for a short while, presumably until something happened to prompt a change of cursor, after which the gameplay cursor seemed to work as expected.
  • Every so often, clicking on a skill-button seems to move the player-character "towards" it. :/
  • In the equipment screen, clicking on an item to equip it seems to also exit the screen, which can be a minor nuisance at times.

Miscellaneous Bugs
  • I discovered a situation in which I could open menus, but not move around. This seemed to happen more easily when standing in water and clicking on an adjacent wall tile, but that may not be a relevant correlation. Clicking on certain skill-icons seemed to fix the problem.
  • I saw only a very few orb-powerups, and then it seemed that I only saw them later in my game. I did spend a fair bit of the start wearing "scavenger" gear, which I expected to increase the number of powerups found--is this perhaps malfunctioning?
  • I think that I had an instance of the Canteen Heal ability remaining on my skill-bar, and remaining functional, after de-equipping a Bottomless Brew (but not removing it from my inventory).
  • I encountered a level in which the logical walls didn't seem to match the visual walls: monsters walked through apparent wall-tiles, and I kept fetching up against obstacles that I didn't see.
    • When this happened, I think that I had a single turn (before I moved after entering the level for the first time) in which the level seemed different, and contained a great many barrels--much like the level after the golem boss.
  • A Moss Jelly ended up chasing me while rotated to lie on its side (presumably after one of its tumbling leaps).
  • This is a minor matter, and not really problematic, but it's possible to "rest" multiple times. Each additional "rest" causes the character's stats to recover more quickly.
  • The monster-attracting gem spawned on lava in one level.

Whew! I hope that you don't mind so exhaustive a response! ^^;
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« Reply #98 on: January 30, 2017, 08:42:58 PM »

As always this is super great feedback. Thank you very much!

Misc Points
* I'm still trying to figure out how to best anchor the stat arrows. Can you take a screenshot and show me how it looks on your screen?

* There will definitely be more terrain interactions beyond what there are now. Going into a river to remove burning: great idea. Likewise I was going to make it so that if you're on lava (or an enemy is), freeze attacks don't work.. etc.

* Definitely want to make more special abilities for enemies. It's coming.

Balance
* Steam Golem fight can certainly be improved. Balance is sometimes tricky to nail down at this stage in development but I'll keep trying. The sentries are definitely supposed to aggro you and they should have ranged attacks.

Spellshaper
* I think I will make it so that your toggle abilities are free to turn on/off.

* In theory I had set it up so only one SHAPE can be toggled, while either Materialize or Pierce can be added on top... not sure how two were active...

* I agree that maybe ditching burst or cone in favor of one or two new things like your suggestions would be great.

Other Stuff
* Yes some hidden areas can have weird contents, like treasure with lava surrounding. Why not, right? :D

* There is actually an option in the general options menu to turn on loot popups when you grab something. It should be enabled by default. Not sure why it isn't - looking into that.

* There was a fairly serious terrain related bug in the last build which may have caused a number of odd issues like lava not hurting you, being stuck, etc...

* Looking into those other bugs!!!
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« Reply #99 on: January 31, 2017, 11:21:52 AM »

As always this is super great feedback. Thank you very much!

I'm glad, and my pleasure, respectively! ^_^

Misc Points
* I'm still trying to figure out how to best anchor the stat arrows. Can you take a screenshot and show me how it looks on your screen?

Sure. Here you go:



(I am using a slightly odd resolution, admittedly. It's a matter of getting a decently-large view in windowed mode, without hiding my menu-bar.)

* There will definitely be more terrain interactions beyond what there are now. Going into a river to remove burning: great idea. Likewise I was going to make it so that if you're on lava (or an enemy is), freeze attacks don't work.. etc.

* Definitely want to make more special abilities for enemies. It's coming.

...

* I think I will make it so that your toggle abilities are free to turn on/off.

...

* I agree that maybe ditching burst or cone in favor of one or two new things like your suggestions would be great.

Excellent, on all counts! ^_^

Balance
* Steam Golem fight can certainly be improved. Balance is sometimes tricky to nail down at this stage in development but I'll keep trying. The sentries are definitely supposed to aggro you and they should have ranged attacks.

Hmm... Perhaps a pathfinding bug? They might be failing to find a route to the character.

* In theory I had set it up so only one SHAPE can be toggled, while either Materialize or Pierce can be added on top... not sure how two were active...

In that case, it may be that the other bug that I mentioned--the spell-shapes ending up permanently active, regardless of the state of the buttons--might have confused the system: it thought that they were inactive, and so allowed a "third" shape to be toggled.

* Yes some hidden areas can have weird contents, like treasure with lava surrounding. Why not, right? :D

Why not indeed! ^_^

* There is actually an option in the general options menu to turn on loot popups when you grab something. It should be enabled by default. Not sure why it isn't - looking into that.

Aah, fair enough. It may well be checked--for some reason, the options menu has no text for me. (I've been assuming that it was an issue related to WINE, I believe.)

* There was a fairly serious terrain related bug in the last build which may have caused a number of odd issues like lava not hurting you, being stuck, etc...

Ah, fair enough.

* Looking into those other bugs!!!

Good good! ^_^
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