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A jam submission

Tower of KalemonvoView game page

Hack and slash ARPG inspired by Diablo 1
Submitted by osur (@kalemonvo) — 3 days, 8 hours before the deadline
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Tower of Kalemonvo's itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Hey. I played your game as part of a Demo Day stream. If you didn't catch the stream live, here's a link to the video:

You can see my other demo day 46 streams as well on my channel.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I like the dark but goofy style.

Timing the attack animations is fun, as is dodging projectiles. However, maybe I'm just unlucky, but far too much of this early game was kiting around >5-enemy trap room squads around corners so that I could single them out and chip them down, and that's just annoying.

Moving the shortcut number icon to an upper corner would make it clearer that's the shortcut key and not the number of items I have.

The item highlight button looks more like an inventory than the inventory button in both its location and icon.

Sound controls appear to not work, at least for the menu music.

I have mixed feelings about the leveling up heal as it feels wrong to be using it intentionally as such a huge boost to healing in a game with generatively limited resources. "I feel stronger" is a very soulful level up message.

Sometimes an item will be highlighted when my cursor is not over it. Dragging my cursor over it then makes the character start and stop moving repeatedly. That seems to happen near walls.

The game froze on me while trying to load a previous floor at one point. I can't climb up the stairs to floor 3 after the guardian - my character walks into (yes into) the stairs and nothing happens.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for the feedback! 

The earlygame is still in a tricky place since this is a type of game that starts clicking when you have multiple options to kill things. Only having a sword/bow and opening a door only to get clown-car enemies flooding out can get a bit overwhelming. I still gotta figure that part out. 

As for the level up heal, I consider it to be one of those clever player-abusable mechanics. As another dev put it, you could know you're close to level up and decide not to heal, in order to maximize efficiency knowing you'll get healed soon anyway. This requires a more obvious EXP visual (instead of having to check the stats page), but I think the core concept is there.

Its unfortunate that the game bugged out on you when it did. I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what happened. 

Thanks again for playing and the review! It's very appreciated


Edit: I wasn't able to replicate your staircase bug - if you have the time I'd be thankful if you would copy the log file it autogenerated after playing. It's -should- be in C:/Users/Yourname/Appdata/LocalLow/osur/Tower Of Kalemonvo v.15. The log itself is named Player.log. Well, you probably know this since I see one for World of Mold right next to it on my PC

Submitted(+1)

Gameplay is great. Really enjoy fighting the groups of fireball witch ladies, trying to decide when to dodge and when to unga is peak Diablo in my opinion. Love the atmosphere too. Visuals are solid too, though I found the doors hard to see sometimes without the map, especially when the wall became transparent. Also found that the resume button on the pause menu didn't do anything.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! The button is something I'll get to right away, but the door transparency is annoying, since it's only an issue when the door is to your South. Otherwise, they look fine.  I'll need to think of something for that. I'm glad you gave it a go and appreciate your feedback!

(+1)

Love the atmosphere, game is pretty responsive. I did encounter a couple of bugs but fortunately nothing big. You can't quit from the death menu and that the resume button doesn't work if you press Esc. Agility does nothing, I leveled it up but neither my defense or armor changed. Save works for the first file but not the others, haven't tried loading. Also sometimes the save button also does nothing, I think it's linked to the other bug(when I try to save in the 2nd slot).

As for feedback, I feel like the doors south west/east are almost impossible to see, when you go near a door to the north your light makes the door shine brown which makes it stand out from the walls, but the doors south of you stay black and if you get too close simply become transparent. Also I personally think that there should be a visible experience bar somewhere and I don't see why you have the player click a key when the level is ready, could just load in directly I feel. Another thing is that I found a couple shrines but I have no idea what they do from the message given, I guess a temporary buff but I didn't see it anywhere.

For me inventory management is a mess, right click to drop makes juggling weapons in combat pretty much impossible and drinking potions in battle also very difficult. Dropping items is usually done when you're not in combat so there's no need to assign an important click to it, you can just drag and drop them to the floor. Another keybinding thing, I wish you could just use your mousewheel to switch spells instead of having the circle with Q.

I played 3 times, my first game I played a mage since I found a fireball book early, it went pretty well except for the bloodguard boss which took forever to kite with the bow since he was draining my mana and I couldn't fight him melee without dying super fast. I still killed him and reached the 3rd floor but got ambushed by a dozen skulls that shot fireballs at me and killed me.

My second game I tried a melee character, I found 3 rare monsters this time on the first floor(didn't see a single one in my first game) and man are they tough to kill and not really rewarding. I died on the 3rd one which was a vampire girl with her groupies since I was out of health potions after the other two magic skeletons. I don't feel like melee is really viable compared to ranged since you use your health potions really fast considering monsters usually come in packs.

My 3rd game I went mage/archer again, things went pretty well, didn't use many potions since it's easy to kite mobs and dodge ranged attacks with the bow early on. When I got to the upper hall(the place with the goblin statue) my bow was starting to suck big time but I luckily found a hunter bow there which outclasses pretty much all the other weapons in my opinion. Crossbows are pure trash, slow, no damage and impossible to kite with. I unlocked a lot of spells, fireball, fire trap, combustion, poison circle, but the one that I used pretty much from floor 2 to the end was purifying circle, that spell was just insanely good compared to the others since it's both AoE and single-target damage with the multiple projectiles, it's only weakness is that projectiles get lost if you cast in a small hallway. I did make it to the end in this game but the reason will probably be very anticlimactic, it was because I looted the two best pieces of equipment currently in the game, %lifesteal and %manasteal rings. You round up the values so my bow was giving me 1hp and 1 mana per hit allowing me to pretty much facetank everything from floor 3 to 5 and have infinite mana. It got a bit more dangerous for floor 6 and 7 since my armor and defense were really low but I had accumulated tons of potions which allowed me to survive them. The spitters in the breeding grounds were especially dangerous but I saw that if you're melee they hit less hard so I guess that's how they're balanced. I took a screenshot of my end stats/inventory if you're curious. I don't think I could have won without the rings, had some close calls even with them on since enemies love to swarm you. I did have fun though.

Developer

Thanks for playing and actually make it all the way to the end!

I didn't expect anyone to reach this far, especially on their 3rd try! Well done! I think the farthest someone made before you was Tomodev, reaching the Upper Halls but dying immediately. It's always fun to hear someone's experiences, since everyone has a different "this build is busted and carried me through the game" story. I believe you are the first to really utilize Purifying Circle - people usually skip it due to the trajectory of the spikes. The Rings are strong, but it's also a case of rings having a lot of possible "busted" options. It's rarer to get life/manasteal, and it's also one of the simplest modifiers for the player since all the need to do is facetank. Either way, the game is always balancing. Crossbows should get buffed to compensate how powerful Hunter Bows are at some point.

Things like Named Enemy count is a bit tricky since I don't have a min/max amount per level, they just spawn if the conditions are right. I probably should have a max count set at least to prevent what you faced. 

As for the inventory, I'll take a look. For potions, you can Middle Mouse to autoequip a potion to your hotbar, but you're right to say that the player really shouldn't need to RightClick drop. Perhaps I'll remove that by default and add an option in the menu or so.

Thanks for the very detailed writeup, and thanks again for powering through!

Submitted(+1)

Just a few quick notes. I like the graphic improvements you did to the game. Tiles from last version look nice and blood efects are also alright.

I think you should really focus on making loot more visible. Adding simple spin and drop animation and some kind of sound effect when item drops should be enough. Diablo I and II does the exact same thing. Adding a brief glint effect to newly dropped items might work too. I'm saying this because I play the game with item filter constantly on and I forgot I turned it off once, not realising it for a floor, confused why no items are dropping from enemies.

Lack of healing items for some people could be fixed by making the blood heal (forgot how it really is named) heal less, have a greater penalty and make the penalty go away once you reach next floor. I don't think I used that skill once because I just hate permanent debufs. You could also add some kind of healing shrine at the start of each level, which you could activate by giving it some items. This would also make weaker items still useful to some degree since you can't sell them and golden goblin is only on the upper floors.

Developer(+1)

Based Quentin strikes again; I gotta give Sinathir a try as well this DD.

You're spot on for the item animation. It's coming and I know it's really important to this kind of game. 

The healing shrine is actually an excellent idea. Like seriously, I'm gonna give it a try as soon as I'm back on my dev grind! 

Thanks again and as always, thanks for playing! Truly you are my best tester.

Submitted

The Introduction Text is a bit hard to read, but really sets the Moot, nice.

Would like it to be one of those oldschool prerendered videosequences or something maybe tho.

Walls should disappear around enemies even if they're in another room, when they attack you. It makes it hard to find the Vampire ladies ( who I think I've seen their model somewhere before) sometiems.

Why is a magic Wand meelee? It makes Sense I guess, but I was expecting it to shoot some magic.

Your Vampires have a tendency to try and shoot through doorways, but hitting the sidewalls instead.

The Bloodsoaked Guard is an utterly stupid Bossfight. Does he heal himself when getting low health without any mana cost? Ontop of that with his manaburn, it took me forever to get him down.

At least twice as long as the entire first floor, of just meleeing, burning through all potions and dark pakts until I had 1 mana and no maxhealth left, then kiting with my Bow, until he finally died.

Also accidentally threw away half the Stuff from my Inventory during this, trying to equip new potions to the Hotbar, failing to find it again later on. Please just add a Health/Mana potion shortcut, that automatically consumes the weakest one from your Inventory or something, without having to reequip your Hotbar constantly.

What am I supposed to do with the Fat Golden Goblin Statue? I'm sure its to sell stuff, but I couldn't, regardless of what I tried.

Died on the Floor with the Golden Goblin, due to not having enough health left to survive a single Attack. Quit button on the Deathscreen doesn't work.

I got some nice loot on the later Floors, but was ultimately useless, since I didn't get enough Healthpotions, had to use basically all my maximum Healthpool on the first Boss, aswell as all my Mana, so all the Manapotions and spells I found where useless, since I couldn't cast them.

Weaponarts seem absolutely not useless whatsoever. I'd much rather cast any of the spells then ever do a Weaponart. Bow also seems to become useless almost instantly, with no higher quality ones dropping.

Developer(+1)

Hey Tomo, thanks for playing and the review!

You made it pretty far, most people get filtered by the Bloodguard or don't reach him at all. He's a bit of a gimmick pushover, where he punishes kiters and bow builds. He likes to heal/mana drain if the player is far away, but has a pretty weak melee attack and low health. It's a challenge to balance him, since either he's really really easy or really hard especially if people try to kite him. If you just sit and click him down, he goes down easy. I'll think of a way to ease this difficulty disparity.

As for the potions, Middle Mouse clicking a potion in your inventory sets it in your hotbar, I think I forgot to write that in the controls after rewriting them. Fuck.

The goblin is also tricky, but my game philosophy is trying to have the player figure out mechanics like that. I think I might have overdone it a bit and it became frustrating for some. The way he works is that you need to click an inventory item on him (then a torch lights up, while 2 others stay dim, signaling that it needs to be done thrice). I'll probably end up making a UI box or something to shoe players what's happening.

For the rest, I noted it all down!

Thanks again for the playthrough!

Submitted

You really should have a dedicated Heal/mana button, even if clicking MMB in the Inveotry instantly consumes it, you can't keep that open constantly with the Enemies on screen etc.

Did you test the Bloodguard fight? He definetly does not have a weak melee attack, and he also definetly doesn't go down quickly in melee. Maybe I was just underleveled and undergeared, but I did clear everything I could find on the first Floor.

As for the Goblin, I need to click on him to open the Inventory, then left click on an Inventory Item 3 Times to sell it? But why 3 Times? Why not just click on it once to sell? Theres nothing to be gained from either you or the Player for clicking on it three Times, right? Also I'm not going to reopen and play up to there just for that, but I'm pretty sure there were only 2 Torch pedals, one on each side. Is there one behind the Statue or something maybe? If so that was blocked by the Inventory Screen, so I couldn't see it light up.

Developer(+1)

Sorry, I meant to say you click an item and click it on him to "give" it to him. You do that 3 times and he will give you an item in return. There's a brazier on either side of the goblin, and one in the back( it'll go left -> back -> right so it's not like the last one is hidden)

Sometimes you can get unlucky and roll a weak first floor, which may have left you unprepared to deal with Bloodboy. It's a downside of random generation being given a lot of freedom and not enough constraints, or perhaps bad drops, etc.

As for the healing, you're right that it's tough. It's also something I need to look into. Several people had the same thing to say when it comes to that. I already have a "dedicated slot" option where you can set a slot to only accept health pots, perhaps I could assign a slot to "autoload" potions from your inventory.

Thanks again for your detailed feedback, I appreciate it all and it helps me improve!

Submitted (3 edits)

Really nice Diablo 1 feel on this one! Weapon skills is a good improvement on the formula and was something D1 really lacked. I did encounter some bugs, most very minor though. You are probably aware of most of my suggestions already.

What items get auto-equipped when picking up seems inconsistent, gloves for example did not equip but most others seem to.

Changing the volume in the main menu didn't change the volume of sounds from the main menu.

The Resume button in the esc menu doesn't do anything.

Cult Apprentices not outlined properly.


Dying while poisoned and loading a save - still poisoned.

I got a lot of holes in the automap where there were walls.


Right clicking on potions dropping them instead of drinking was a bit annoying when shit hit the fan hehe.

Outlines for doors when hovering over them would be nice.

Options for a transparent automap and having it in the corner would be good.

Shift clicking with a melee would should let you swing at the air I think.

All in all it seems really promising, great job.

Developer

Hey, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to write out the bugs

Never knew about the gloves + the poison issues either, I'll take a look.

The automap holes are super annoying and they require a big refactor to loading, which I'll eventually get to. The corner automap is a good idea - I think I should be able to resize it, although you can  move it with arrow keys. It's probably obtuse since who really uses arrow keys in this kind of game anyway.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Submitted

Oh right the arrow keys yeah, been to long since I played D1/2 heh

Developer (1 edit)

Posting here because i forgot to put it in the game and i'm lazy:
PLAYED BEFORE? There's a cheatcode to teleport you to the lategame if you want to see how that's like, without replaying what you've seen before.

Press "`" (the default console key) and write in "aggydaggy" without the quotes. You'll get sent to the last level with gear + spells. Good luck, its hard!

BUGS? Let me know. There's bound to be a few because I rushed this release very, very hard.