next »

[MaloEspada]

Wow. This is incredible.

I hope to see a playable demo soon.

[Loren Schmidt]

I'm planning to release a demo soon. The demo will contain:

• dungeon levels 1-5
• 7+ classes of lesser monsters, with variants
• 2+ classes of greater monsters
• one unique boss (and a second secret boss)
• the first 6 spell tabs (and two secret spells)

[Loren Schmidt]

The basics of a summon system are in now. It involves capturing monsters and converting them to our side. There are still details to be decided, like the exact capture method and how exactly the enemy monsters pick their targets (I'd like to keep the combat simple, but it would be nice if there were some amount of defensive decision making here).

I've also been tweaking the level generation. There's now much better control over exactly how many items are created and what types they are. We're ensured an even mix of powerups and spell tabs, and spell types vary by level.

I'm planning to have the first playable version up tomorrow.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Love the look of this game!

[Galaxy613]

This is gonna be awesome and have crazy amounts of replay value. 

I can't wait to try out the spell casting system!

[Loren Schmidt]

Christmas preparations have me running a bit late... I'm putting together a first public build and will post a link shortly. This will have a few holes in it, but should give some idea of what the game will be like.

[Loren Schmidt]

Okay, this is pretty buggy and incomplete, but here is an early playable build:
http://vacuumflowers.com/temp/doors

Controls:
<space> to attack / interact
<arrow keys> to switch rooms
<tab> to cycle targets
<1, 2, 3> spell hotkeys

I'll be putting in a lot of time on this tomorrow, and will update that link as the game progresses. Known bug: the game sometimes crashes on generating a new level.

[Geeze]

Hay i tried your game (very neat indeed) but it seems to lag/crash/or whatsoever in a place where are vermin.
1. I defeat them
2. Egg appears
3. I can't do anything; go outside of the room or do something to the egg.
here's a screeny

So ?

[Crackerblocks]

I got the egg bug too. I love where this game is going though. Very cool idea.
And I was going to complain about the traps, but I just scrolled up and read...

[SirNiko]

I love the style and the controls!

I had a bad habit of eating mushrooms I didn't want to eat, because the game doesn't stop you from wasting them. Pressing space after death makes your first action in the new game to eat a mushroom.

Identifying the location of traps is fun. I like the double exclamation marks to denote two traps nearby. I wish I could manually mark trapped locations on the map to avoid them.

My first few games ended in death pretty quickly, usually after consuming all the mushrooms and not finding any powerups.

My fourth game saw me finding a sword upgrade and a healing spell early on, and suddenly I became a lethal force. I could march into a room, kill the first monster I see, retreat, wander in circles healing, then return and kill the second monster. Once I had two of the multi-target spell tabs, I could clear any room with two turns, and then heal. My march on the dungeon only ended when the egg-glitch froze me.

I also noticed that if I entered a room with monsters the first time, I get to strike first. When fighting 5 monsters at a time, that is usually enough time to kill one and escape before I die. If I enter a room with 5 monsters, retreat, then return, the monsters get first strike. Sometimes this means I don't even get to kill a monster before I die.

Game is shaping up very well! I think all you need is to balance the mechanics, fix the bugs, and you're ready for release. After that, any content added is just bonus polish.

Great work!

-SirNiko

[Arucard]

Is pretty nice, you're games are all very unique and interesting. I was wondering how only moving between rooms (rather than inside of them) was going to work, but it seems to make the game very fast paced and exciting! One level had two exits, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. I never got the vermin bug though, will there be any downloadable version?

[saluk]

What a great game! The moving between rooms mechanic, and multiple-monsters combat system works well. I don't have much else to add beyond what others have said, except I'm not sure if the first strike thing - where you leave and lose your first strike - is exactly a bug. It seems to me, the monsters would be more ready for you when you came back. Also, it's a gamble, do I leave and lose my first strike, trying to find another way; or do I stick around for a bit.

Great job so far!

[Loren Schmidt]

Vermin bug-
Thank you all for spotting this, I'll fix it first thing today and upload a new version.

Arucard-
Yes, I thought about allowing movement within each room, and it would be really nice in some ways. I think it would help make the game feel more tangible and responsive. But I realized it would also slow down the pace of the game a lot, so I'm sticking with room based movement. Because the game is room based, I'm trying to give it a responsive, sort of tactile quality indirectly through responsive controls, little pieces of control-related animation, and sound effects. I've still got a ways to go in that department.

As a side note, it's actually possible to move one room per frame if you tap the keys fast enough .

SirNiko-
Thank you very much for the thoughtful and detailed feedback.

Marking traps on the map is an excellent idea, and I think I will implement that.

I think it's a bit difficult to learn the ropes- a lot of people are going to die a lot and never get the hang of the game. I think the beginning of the game is more difficult than it should be. Finding the first couple of upgrades makes a huge difference in how powerful the player is. I'm thinking of sticking a spell select screen at the beginning before the first dungeon, so when we begin a new game we start with one spell tab of our choice.

Yeah, having two multi-target tabs is a pretty lethal combination in the early levels. Probably brokenly so. I should probably add in more large enemies (~3 hits with the multi-target missile). Healing is also overpowered because of the possibility of running back and forth between empty rooms to recharge it. I'm considering alternate ways to work the healing spell as well as new additions that might make that trick more of a choice than a default behavior.

The first strike behavior is actually deliberate- the idea is that the monsters 'wake up' when we first enter the room, giving the player a one time first strike opportunity. It's supposed to make it so there's a cost for retreating. The 'waking up' idea should be made clearer through animation and such.

Thanks, everyone, for putting up with this buggy early version. I'm going to act on all your comments, and put up a new version later today.

[Loren Schmidt]

New Version
Play Untitled Dungeon Crawler v.0.20

changes:

• Egg bug fixed
• Ability to click on map and mark traps added

[Galaxy613]

Are we supposed to start out with two spells and an already upgraded blade? Not to nitpick, but the "Press Space to start again & accidently eat a mushroom" bug is still there..

I'm really really liking the style.

[SirNiko]

Another point I forgot to mention: I'd love to be able to move with WASD so I can keep my right hand on the mouse.

-SirNiko

Edit: I played through again, after the glitch was fixed.

The player starts with one sword upgrade, one armor upgrade, and two multi-missile spells. I'm guessing this was accidentally left in from your debugging. With these upgrades, the game is incredibly easy to complete.

It seems like the optimal way to play is to start by finding two of the multi-missile spells (Or better, one multi-missile and one double-power spell) and a healing spell. Once you have that, you can effortlessly clear the first two dungeon levels completely. Double spell is great because it doesn't take a turn to use, and even works on the sword, giving you free bonus damage.

Big bug: If I click one spell (multi missile) then immediately click a second spell (multi missile again) I can launch my second attack before the enemies act. This makes combat early in the game super-trivial with two multi-missiles.

I found a single missile spell, but it wasn't as strong as my sword, so I didn't see any reason to use it.

Around the third or fourth level, I outgrew the multi-missile spell, so it was better to use my sword. I found at that point my preferred spell roster was two healing spells and a double-action spell. During combat, I'd use double-action sword for critical strikes. I never needed to flee combat to heal. Between fights I wandered and healed.

I found the shield spell, but I couldn't justify using it over two heals and a double-action. Shield spell taking a turn seems to render it useless, when one hit from my sword is much better. Freeze spell seemed like it could be useful against the single powerful foes. Both spells might have value at higher levels, because they scale, while missiles do not.

I was easily clearing the entirety of every floor, killing every monster on sight.

I had a lot of fun doing it, but it certainly was not challenging.

[Loren Schmidt]

The sword and spell setup was from testing, you're correct. Sorry about that.

I've uploaded a version with a couple of small changes (the map is markable now). I'm afraid I have to leave in a hurry, but I hope to be able to fix a few more things when I get back.

SirNiko-
Thanks once again for the useful observations and feedback. I'll respond in full as soon as I'm back. Cheers!

[Galaxy613]

For some reason sometimes I do not get first strike? The enemies start attacking me right away when I enter rooms sometimes. It seems this mostly happens in rooms that have 5 enemies.

[moonmagic]

I have played this a lot today. It Tickles My Fancy.

[Hangedman]

I just die a lot. Ran into 5 trap rooms in one map, and got repeatedly attacked by rooms of 5 enemies... usually there is nowhere enough health even to get to the boss.

It is smooth and cool and fun, but somewhat frustrating.