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A jam submission

4KRLView game page

A roguelike game inspired by HOMM series (7DRL 2021)
Submitted by underww — 3 days, 4 hours before the deadline
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4KRL's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Scope#133.5003.500
Aesthetics#163.7503.750
Innovation#373.5003.500
Traditional Roguelikeness#763.5003.500
Fun#763.2503.250
Completeness#1013.2503.250

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • A fun and interesting mix of exploration, combat and city building. There were a large variety of enemies, terrain and enemies. The game does suffer minorly from not being quiet deep enough to be playable for hours. The enemies are mostly the same despite looking different, the items don't seem to do much interesting besides raise stats in usually unnoticeable ways. The city building is intriguing but the balance is a little off and I raced to get even a level 3 city built before either the AI killed me or last of the other city leaders died. Often they killed each other. It was cool that the other factions fought each other independent of what you were doing but they often ended the game right when it was getting good.
  • I really enjoyed the experience of exploring this world even 3 runs in I felt like i was discovering new enemies items and locations. The different starting kingdoms all have their own personality and charm. Min maxing the characters stats was surprisingly engaging although it was a little disappointing to have no inventory space when wearing full gear. Upgrading the kingdom was another major replay factor that had me wondering what different builds would look like. Thats where some of the problems begin, I didn't manage to get enough gold to actually fully upgrade my kingdom in any of my runs as there just isn't enough money in the world. The other kingdoms are clearly gathering materials and clearing out their areas as judged by the massive amount of corpses I find when i go to visit. Once I clear out their kingdom I get maybe 5k from ransacking it and that's it most of their resources to trade have already been collected. On that note those champions are relentless they will chase you to the ends of the earth once they see you. Well more specifically they will chase you to the front of your kingdom, where you can fight them with as much health as you have gold as they politely wait for you to take a nap in between stabbing each other. On my first run every hero decided to come straight to my home and thankfully didn't notice the pile of bodies by the front door. Also the inn was the only thing I had built as after building it and upgrading the town I had no money left to buy the trading outpost. Since the only way to make more money other than 2k chests rarely around the map is to use that trading center it was a very sad and poor town that ended up winning that run. My second run I tried not locking myself out of money. I min maxed by traveling straight to other kingdoms and stealing everything not nailed down and at that point i realized that I didn't know what to buy because there isn't a lot of clarity as to what the upgrade's actually do and once you get them what the unlock purchasable sometimes unclear as well I think this game would have benefited from descriptions for town upgrades as well as showing the cost of things they unlock. There is so much to say about this game and that's a really good thing but since I don't have forever here's some other tangential thoughts for you. -I will remember gog and his juggling skills -the sheer number of enemies is impressive -the loot system always seems to make fun gear -does unidentified gear still give you its stats? -are staircases supposed to spawn so close to each other -on that note I loved traveling between continents on staircases 1 tile apart -lastly I'm not sure what to do with this from a review standpoint but this game doesn't really feel like a rogue-like it sort of exists in a midpoint between other genres
  • * Very pretty game! * Punishingly small inventory limits * Game play needs some development! Loads of potential though.
  • Interesting concepts, having a customizable home base and AI factions that act like the player! I think you should take the time to flesh out those mechanics - say, let the AI heroes build buildings, and change the victory condition from "kill all enemy heroes" (which is difficult when they could be literally anywhere) to "capture all enemy bases". I also like the art; it's easily recognizable even though it's so tiny. The animations are a bit too slow, though, leading to frustration, especially when ranged weapons are in play. Good job! 🙂

Successful or Incomplete?
Success

Did development of the game take place during the 7DRL Challenge week. (If not, please don't submit your game)
Yes

Do you consciously consider your game a roguelike/roguelite? (If not, please don't submit your game)
Yes

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Comments

Would it be alright if I featured this game in a video covering some of 7RDL? I can post the link here once done!

Developer

Sure, it would be very nice. Thank you for your interest in my small game :)

The video just went up! I had a lot of fun with 4KRL even if I got squished like puny bug by lion. Thanks for making such a cool game! There's timestamps in the description if you don't want to hunt through the video for your game.

Super into this! HOMM is one of my favorites and you captured that feel of looting resources really nicely

Submitted (4 edits)

I could spend hours in this! I loved the HOMM series and this is just an awesome game - especially for being done in less than 7 days! Because I would really love to see this game being developed further (I'd even spent some dollars on it) here are some things I would like to see being added/changed:

- Music and sound effects (important!)

- Equipping items doesn't closes inventory

- Treasures and similar stuff like campfires disappear or are clearly marked as being looted (after being looted)

- Some tooltips (or similar - maybe in the bottom right corner?), which explain what the different buildings can do (I think it's more motivating to the player to know, what he could do by building that)

- Mouse support (not that important - but could make interactions with the UI much easier)

- If really being developed further: main and pause menus (of course)

Maybe I'll add some things under this post, while I am not finished playing this game but just wanted to get these points out of my head :)

And please please please don't get this wrong: by pointing out all these suggestions I don't want to tell you how bad that game is. This game is super cool and I want to play the best version of it!

EDIT:

Some more things :D

- Direct compare equipped item with the select (if same type)

- Possibility to see the heros stats (not just the modifiers from the item tooltips)

- Can I sell items?

- A minimap

- End menu (or restarting the game automatically after dying for now)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thank you! I'm also very happy with the interest of many people in my game. After I finish cleaning my messy 7DRL code, (It's almost done, but I still need more time) I'm sure I'll update the game. The things you talked about were also told by many others and I'll fix it and improve it. Feel free to leave your opinions/suggestions at any time. I always want to hear people's thoughts.

Submitted

Great!

Fantastic - polished, with plenty of potential.

Love the style, simple and addictive gameplay, nice job!

(+1)

good one, nice job!

(+1)

very creative and cool.