Crabs have some "Silent"(?) Symbol over them, don't know what it means, can't inspect it, not shown when clicked on the crab. I also can't open context Menu on the Floor or walls to inspect those even when nothings there. (Once Inspect is implemented ofcourse).
I wish I had some passive life generation over time. Why does moving cost 2 AP? I also wish I'd regen at least some AP at the beginning of my Turn instead of being forced to always wait.
You have no Defense Icon, and picking up stuff from a chest should remove that icon from the Chest while its hovering on your Cursor.
Unless I missed something, the Map isn't infinite, or at least not always, I went through the Red Building but got hit by a Stone in the last Room and died. Had all Walls looked at however, and didn't see a Door or a marker on the Minimap or anything.
I like that you can move with the Minimap to far away Areas, I dislike that my Skill Window disappears when I open a Chest. I also don't think you need the number Shortcuts on the Bottom, I was just using all the Skills through the menu, and assumign the actual rate of equipment gain once the overworld and more RPG/Adventure Areas are done, rather then a short dungeoncrawl as it is now, you're probably looking at a bunch of more Skills, aswell as maybe even caring extra equipment with different Skills to swap to when out of combat for healing i.e., since you're really laking on that front, and it'd be annoying constantly having to reassign hotkeys.
Combat seems useless right now, its mostly a slog of wait>attack>move one tile away, and kiting enemies that way until they are dead, and theres no drops of any kind, so it doesn't offer anything to gain.
I like your Enemy descriptions, their short but nice.
Theres not much to talk about otherwise I think, theres not much there yet after all. But I didn't encounter any Bugs, assuming the not-endless Map wasn't one.
You're currently generating a new Dungeon on Death, but if you turn this into a big overworld RPG, you might want to create a consistent World seperately from starting a new Game, so you don't have to wait through generation each run, and can either restart in the same World with a different Character once you die, or have some form of revival/savesystem in Place. Could also stand to become a bit easier to encourage experimentation and exploring more. If every hit from the weakest enemy takes a quarter of my health, and one misstep in combat usually means 10+ damage or direct Death, I'm very not incentivized to try out a Firescroll or groundpound or whatever, and just continue with wait>hit>move kiting, as that works.
There’s a lot of mental processing I need to do even to fight your chump enemies. the game should do some of that heavy lifting for me. for example sound effects to convey enemy state instead of just color (see crypt of the necrodancer for examples of how to do that). a change in music when we go between “explore” to “battle” to “hidden”. since enemies have a set amount of hp and always die in the same amount of hits just show me how much hp they have left.
sorely missing the “pick shit up off the ground” gameplay that is common in roguelites
I think your maps are way too big… so much walking around when I should be punching enemies. making a more condensed map with fatter encounters may lead to an increased difficulty which you’ll have to account for in enemy attack frequency and health of course.
finally I think your gameplay is too punishing. either make damage not stick so hard or make you take less. personally i like full resets outside of combat but i know I’m alone in that. High difficulty in games is totally fine when the variety in gameplay is high enough to support cruising through the early game a bunch of different times like DCSS. but it’s just 3 or 4 enemies and almost no gear. i dont want to have to engage my brain at the level I need to until im at least far enough into the game that I have a build going and something to lose
Really charming, and the AP based combat while a bit confusing at first, gives the fights a nice rhythm. My only complaint is that against tankier enemies the "block every two turns for regnerating AP" gets a little dull, and that I couldn't find any way to cancel a skill after I selected it. Would be nice if the starting skills are automatically added to your skill bar so you don't have to do the setup after every restart. And personally I didn't see much reason to use theh eavy attack much - two turns and two AP for twice the damage looks basically just two attacks with the downside of not being able to do anything between them.
I like this a LOT. Pixel art is more or less what I wish mine looked like, and the AP system is intuitive while not being brainless. I was filtered a bit by those ladybugs and mushroom guys at first, and it was satisfying to come up with strategies to overcome them. Looking forward to the full release, especially if you manage to deliver on your promise of turning this into a fully-fledged RPG.
Visually looks nice, and the combat system was a great surprise. It really peaks my interest to see a roguelike with an AP system. It also has body part damage/targeting in the future it seems, and I'm a sucker for those kinds of systems. If you haven't already, you may want to start showing off your game in roguelike communities to get more dedicated players to brute test your game.
Paco's Anything is a strange title to me, especially if it's like a normal roguelike where you die and get new characters. Unless it's all about this one guy or his lineage I guess. Shielding was sort of OP in a non fun way, I had to use it against the stronger enemy types to not run out of AP while whittling them down. While the mouse controls work well, I was really wishing for numpad support, if at least to walk around with. Lastly, my quest was finished by a goblin throwing a rock through a wall, so that put a slight sour taste in my mouth.
Really nice, great job so far. Feels very fun and polished already. I didn't understand the AP system at first. But once I got it, I really loved it. It's very smooth and adds a lot to the system. Like someone else said, like Fallout 1/2, but without the insane clunkiness of those games. I would consider changing out the red "X" when you're out of AP. Before you "get" the AP system, it's very frustrating and obnoxious to see a red X and not know why you can't do anything. Last DD there was a game, Lunchbox Reverie or something, that had a really clever and intuitive way of messaging "exhaustion, can't act" right on the player. I'd check that out for some better ideas. Plus, drawing attention to the AP is a good idea. In fact, it's so core to the whole thing, I'd consider just putting the AP dots right under the player, instead of in the HUD. Enemies could use them too, and it might provide some great strategic moments to exhaust the enemies.
Ok, second point. I honestly think that most AGDG games miss the mark in term of difficulty (myself included), and this is no exception. It's a sort of blind-spot of a developer to keep tuning the game harder, because you've probably put in hundreds of hours playing it, and know every little trick and tactic so the game feels right for you. But for a new player, the difficulty is just smothering. Difficulty ideally should be the spice in a dish, helping bring out the full flavor of the mechanics. Too much makes the entire game unpalatable. Because you get creamed so fast as a new played (or rather, *I* get creamed so fast), there is no opportunity to build tension. I die before anything matters. If the difficulty was tuned down, then after playing for like 10 minutes on a life, you start getting invested in your progress and items and all that. Then, each encounter is infused with tension and high stakes. That is what makes games like this engaging. As it stands, I keep dying so fast that I don't really care too much.
Lastly, please learn from my mistakes. Do not put the word "quest" or "adventure" in the name of your game. Another anon described them as cursed names, and they were exactly right. I names my last game "Frauki's Adventure!" thinking it was cute and on the nose. No. When most gamers see a title like that, they instantly categorize the game as trash. I see there is humor here, lean into that. Stevens Sausage Roll. Pizza Tower. Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. Liberal Crime Squad. These are the kinds of names you need if you have a funny/odd game that you want people to notice.
Very solid and bug free foundation there (at least for me). Visually coherent , simple and effective, although some sprites are placeholder art from the looks of it. Inactive monster for example seem to have a talking indicator, which probably symbolizes them being "asleep"? Anyway, that's not a big deal for a first demo.
The only technical thing i noticed was the mouse cursor. When starting up the game the cursor movement felt a bit off, like it was a bit sluggish.
Please develop this game further and give it a lot of cool stuff, im really rooting for Paco the baldy!
Really cute game. The combat's a lot of fun, I've never seen anything done quite the same way. Took me a second to figure out the controls - being able to move with WASD (or the arrow keys, since you're using S already for something else) would be nice, although the mouse movement does work well. I actually encountered a bug after dying to a ladybug where the screen went grey and the game froze up. I was looking at the "help me" section to see what I was missing and tried to start a new game when it froze. It's fun, though, so I'm gonna play some more and will update this post if I have any useful feedback.
I really enjoyed this. The combat system is great, it has huge potential, reminds me of Fallout a bit. Never seen another roguelike do it like this and now I wonder why, do you know of any?
Options! I just need a sound slider at least please.
Would be nice if enemies (maybe only some) would wander around
Getting poisoned feels as awful as it always does in RLs
Scroll to zoom
Having the skills assigned when you start the game would probably be good, at least for the demo
Keys to move?
Shift to see more info is nice
Are animations like attack planned? Just the two frame animations are already better than many other RLs though
I'd like to be able to look at what a weapon's skills (I know you can see the skills) do without having to equip it first
Shield block seems incredibly strong, but I suspect it wouldn't be that simple later
The window still says Created with Gamemaker
Can lure enemies like the ladybug to kill allies, very nice
Being able to attack diagonally next to walls but not walk is a bit odd, not sure if it matters though
A way to also scroll the map would be nice
Sometimes when walking out of range of the goblins range while they're attacking the attack indicator stays on the ground, walking back into range they toss a stone:
Goblins can toss stones through walls? That's just evil. I didn't finish it though because I got annoyed by the goblins tossing stones through walls. I'd be with it if it was magic but it literally says Stonetoss heh.
It feels pretty polished already, the UI is really nice like the eye slowly closing and being able to walk by clicking on the map. I expect great things from you in the future.
Thanks for trying it out! Glad you liked it. Main sources of inspiration have in fact been Fallout and Live A Live, so I'm happy to read that some of their DNA is present in the game.
I'll try to respond to all your feedback! If I skip a point just assume I'm adding it to my backlog of tasks.
Options! I just need a sound slider at least please.
Sure! Next demo will have a proper title screen with Options and all that stuff. I just didn't have enough time before DD to implement it. ^^u
Would be nice if enemies (maybe only some) would wander around
Indeed! I'd like to implement some sort of stealth system, maybe by using invisibility scrolls, smoke bombs or some skills that let you go unnoticed. Having the enemies being able to move around or even patrol would add a lot to that.
Keys to move?
Yes, numpad keys are a must, and I'm also considering arrow keys + some key held down for diagonals.
Are animations like attack planned? Just the two frame animations are already better than many other RLs though
No. I'm planning to have the player sprite reflect the equipment you have equipped at that moment. If I had to animate all that that would be way too much work, specially for someone who's really bad at drawing.
I'd like to be able to look at what a weapon's skills (I know you can see the skills) do without having to equip it first
That'll be displayed when you inspect an item, by right clicking it to open the context menu and selecting inspect. That window, which still has to be implemented, will also show some extra info on enemies, like which status effects / passive effects they have and some more stuff.
Shield block seems incredibly strong, but I suspect it wouldn't be that simple later
I'm considering putting a cool down on some skills to avoid abuse. Or maybe adding some unblockable attacks, I still have to think more about it.
About the goblins: I noticed the AI might be bugged when it comes to targeting the player with stones, since they don't seem to check if they are in range before doing so. Should be an esay fix, so I hope they are a bit less annoying on the next demo.
So yeah, thanks again for all your feedback and the time you put into playing the game! See ya!
No. I'm planning to have the player sprite reflect the equipment you have equipped at that moment. If I had to animate all that that would be way too much work, specially for someone who's really bad at drawing.
Understandable. I hope you keep the two framed animations though, gives it a lot more life.
I'm considering putting a cool down on some skills to avoid abuse. Or maybe adding some unblockable attacks, I still have to think more about it.
Something you could try is have skills increase in AP cost if you use them too much in close succession. For example if you use shield block it'd cost 2 AP to use again for a few turns. Could increase and decay differently for skills too, like increase 0.25 every time you use it but won't actually cost more til you reach a whole number, etc. Just an idea, might not need to punish using the same skills at all with clever enemy design instead.
The AP-based approach to combat is really interesting. The only complaint I have is that I had to beat a lot of enemies by repeatedly doing attack -> shield block -> wait (if AP is low) which got tiresome after a while. Maybe shield block can auto-target if there is only 1 enemy? Also, having a system where you can avoid all attacks would theoretically lead to a situation where a lv. 1 character can defeat a lv. 99 enemy - curious to see how this will be addressed in the full game.
Dungeon exploration felt pretty good - it felt worth it to go down each "path" to get a chest full of items at the end. New weapons seemed to make a big difference in combat effectiveness. Ranged feels very different than melee.
The game's difficulty is BRUTAL. Especially the goblins at the end. One mistake or misclick and all your health is gone in an instant. I eventually made it to the end but died a bunch of times lol.
As others have mentioned, equipping the skills with the number keys is a bit unintuitive. I also accidentally unequipped my skills a few times - I think it was when I right-clicked to cancel a skill, which somehow unequipped it? Otherwise no real issues with the UI.
Hey, many thanks for trying out the game and leaving some feedback!
Glad to read you had some fun. I've been thinking about having some skills have a cooldown so you can't spam them, but I'm still thinking about it. Might be a good solution to avoid the shield block spam. Also, I don't think I mind having a low level player being able to beat a high level enemy, as long as it's very hard to do but still possible. I'll have that in mind when balancing the game in the future.
The difficulty being as it is is more or less done on purpose. I didn't have the time to put an actual boss fight in this demo so I made the goblins difficult to beat. Glad you were able to make it to the end tho! Not many have been able to do so, so I'm glad to read it's possible for a new player.
So yeah, many thanks! I'll try to put more work in the areas you mentioned, specially the skills management. Hope to see you at the next demo! :)
i got this crash when trying to walk into the sideways-facing locked door of the red room
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event1
for object obj_cursor:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - -1.pathPoints(100042,0)
at gml_Script_UpdatPlace
############################################################################################
gml_Script_UpdatPlace (line -1)
gml_Script_MovePlayerInPath
gml_Script_ReadPlayerInput
gml_Object_obj_cursor_Step_1
i died like 25 times before realizing that i had to set the skills myself at the start and was too burned out at that point to go on
A wonderful roguelike about a guy who happens to be bald. Gameplay is fun and intuitive for the most part, and the RNGless approach to combat makes learning enemy attack patterns the primary skill you need. Abilities are fun to use, though there are some balance issues (armor crush is hot garbage), and you will often find alternative ways to use skills. Preparing a strong attack for enemies at a bottleneck or using ground-slam's AoE to give yourself extra range is fun (gasp) and most of the abilities I encountered had at least a few uses.
As for criticisms and suggestions, one thing I immediately noticed was had I not read the game's description or used the help screen I probably would've never intuited how to find the skills menu. I would suggest either a skills button or tab next to the main inventory, possibly with a bold S to hint at the keybind, that can be pressed to open and close skills. Alternatively have it to where clicking an empty skill slot opens the skill menu. I also frequently shield-blocked myself and messed up my rotations trying to play quickly, a dedicated Rest button could probably remedy this some. A way to click and hold navigation could be nice too.
Total playtime: roughly 1 hour 15 minutes. I did not reach the end because of goblins.
Hey, thanks for the review! Glad you had fun exploring the dungeon while getting to know how to make the most of the available skills. Armor Crush kinda sucks yeah, I'll probably make it so maces put a debuff on enemy's defense just with the normal attack instead of needed a skill for that.
Also yeah, you are not alone when it comes to almost missing out on skills. I really need to put a button in the UI for that, one that's easy to spot. A dedicated rest button was something I was going to implement but somehow forgot about. ^^u
I've added some stuff from your comment to my tasks backlog, so many thanks for the feedback!
When I click an item in the inventory, I can drag and drop it to the equipment. But this doesn't work the other way around.
Kinda feels strange that diagonal movement costs the same as hori//verti movement.
Disengagement costs 2AP, maybe make this more clear. Especially since it applies even when you're not bordering an enemy.
Those ladybugs are damn though HP wise. Problem is that they are very easy to deal with if you know how, it just takes time to wittle them down.
Giant bat took me by surprise when it survived the two hits and hit back for 9 damage.
Disengagement cost feels strange if you're not bordering an enemy.
Equipment (e.g. helmet) isn't reflected on Paco.
Ladybug lunge goes through diagonals with walls in it.
Goblins are absolutely brutal, being able to attack at both two and one range and doing 4 damage (even against helmet + gloves + chainmail) means that you're forced to slug it out. I died when encountering the two at the start of the sewer. Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't really a way to beat those without taking damage right?
Without any meta progression, there wasn't really any reason for me to continue after that.
In general there seem to be too many filler battles, fighting X bats + Y ladybugs + a giant bat time and time again gets old quickly.
Also, did I miss skills? I don't think I encountered any.
Thanks for trying it out, and even more for leaving so much feedback.
I'll try making inventory management more consistent. I didn't allow easy drag & drop when unequipping to avoid the player doing that by accident, but maybe that's not necessary and it's more confusing that anything else.
Diagonal movement costing the same is on purpose, it adds some strategic value (I guess lol)
I'll make the disengagement cost more clear by turning to red the AP point it's going to take before moving, just like with the skills.
Final game will let you see your current equipment on your character sprite, but that's still a bit far away. ^^u
About your other points, I'll try balancing stuff better for the next demo. Giant Bat will probably get a color swap to make it clear that it's different from normal bats, and yeah the whole demo should be beatable without taking damage. Goblins are hard yeah, but that's because I want the player to explore the whole cave section before entering the sewers, since with any good weapon the Goblins fall with 3 hits. What do you mean you missed the skills? If you found the longsword, broadsword or mace, those come with skills. Also, a tip for Goblins, they are weak to fire!
I'll do another playthrough. I only found the chainmail, gloves, and helmet. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of chances to practice fighting the gobbos since I died rather quickly.
Ah, thanks. I completely missed that. You should probably at least have a button on the UI so pressing S isn't the only way to find it. Also, it's quite common to automatically assign skills while the bar isn't full.
Also, number keys from the keypad don't seem to work for assigning skills.
Edit: being able to use skills really mattered, managed to get to the thank you not now.
Yeah I can imagine you had a bad, or at least quite difficult time the first time around, specially not being able to dash around. Hope you had more fun this time around!
And yeah, numkeys don't work since those will be used for movement, for those that don't like having to click to move around. Apparently it's quite common in roguelikes.
I'll take your feedback on skills filling automatically, good idea.
Comments
Crabs have some "Silent"(?) Symbol over them, don't know what it means, can't inspect it, not shown when clicked on the crab. I also can't open context Menu on the Floor or walls to inspect those even when nothings there. (Once Inspect is implemented ofcourse).
I wish I had some passive life generation over time. Why does moving cost 2 AP? I also wish I'd regen at least some AP at the beginning of my Turn instead of being forced to always wait.
You have no Defense Icon, and picking up stuff from a chest should remove that icon from the Chest while its hovering on your Cursor.
Unless I missed something, the Map isn't infinite, or at least not always, I went through the Red Building but got hit by a Stone in the last Room and died. Had all Walls looked at however, and didn't see a Door or a marker on the Minimap or anything.
I like that you can move with the Minimap to far away Areas, I dislike that my Skill Window disappears when I open a Chest. I also don't think you need the number Shortcuts on the Bottom, I was just using all the Skills through the menu, and assumign the actual rate of equipment gain once the overworld and more RPG/Adventure Areas are done, rather then a short dungeoncrawl as it is now, you're probably looking at a bunch of more Skills, aswell as maybe even caring extra equipment with different Skills to swap to when out of combat for healing i.e., since you're really laking on that front, and it'd be annoying constantly having to reassign hotkeys.
Combat seems useless right now, its mostly a slog of wait>attack>move one tile away, and kiting enemies that way until they are dead, and theres no drops of any kind, so it doesn't offer anything to gain.
I like your Enemy descriptions, their short but nice.
Theres not much to talk about otherwise I think, theres not much there yet after all. But I didn't encounter any Bugs, assuming the not-endless Map wasn't one.
You're currently generating a new Dungeon on Death, but if you turn this into a big overworld RPG, you might want to create a consistent World seperately from starting a new Game, so you don't have to wait through generation each run, and can either restart in the same World with a different Character once you die, or have some form of revival/savesystem in Place. Could also stand to become a bit easier to encourage experimentation and exploring more. If every hit from the weakest enemy takes a quarter of my health, and one misstep in combat usually means 10+ damage or direct Death, I'm very not incentivized to try out a Firescroll or groundpound or whatever, and just continue with wait>hit>move kiting, as that works.
I like the combat a lot.
There’s a lot of mental processing I need to do even to fight your chump enemies. the game should do some of that heavy lifting for me. for example sound effects to convey enemy state instead of just color (see crypt of the necrodancer for examples of how to do that). a change in music when we go between “explore” to “battle” to “hidden”. since enemies have a set amount of hp and always die in the same amount of hits just show me how much hp they have left.
sorely missing the “pick shit up off the ground” gameplay that is common in roguelites
I think your maps are way too big… so much walking around when I should be punching enemies. making a more condensed map with fatter encounters may lead to an increased difficulty which you’ll have to account for in enemy attack frequency and health of course.
finally I think your gameplay is too punishing. either make damage not stick so hard or make you take less. personally i like full resets outside of combat but i know I’m alone in that. High difficulty in games is totally fine when the variety in gameplay is high enough to support cruising through the early game a bunch of different times like DCSS. but it’s just 3 or 4 enemies and almost no gear. i dont want to have to engage my brain at the level I need to until im at least far enough into the game that I have a build going and something to lose
Really charming, and the AP based combat while a bit confusing at first, gives the fights a nice rhythm. My only complaint is that against tankier enemies the "block every two turns for regnerating AP" gets a little dull, and that I couldn't find any way to cancel a skill after I selected it. Would be nice if the starting skills are automatically added to your skill bar so you don't have to do the setup after every restart. And personally I didn't see much reason to use theh eavy attack much - two turns and two AP for twice the damage looks basically just two attacks with the downside of not being able to do anything between them.
I like this a LOT. Pixel art is more or less what I wish mine looked like, and the AP system is intuitive while not being brainless. I was filtered a bit by those ladybugs and mushroom guys at first, and it was satisfying to come up with strategies to overcome them. Looking forward to the full release, especially if you manage to deliver on your promise of turning this into a fully-fledged RPG.
Visually looks nice, and the combat system was a great surprise. It really peaks my interest to see a roguelike with an AP system. It also has body part damage/targeting in the future it seems, and I'm a sucker for those kinds of systems. If you haven't already, you may want to start showing off your game in roguelike communities to get more dedicated players to brute test your game.
Paco's Anything is a strange title to me, especially if it's like a normal roguelike where you die and get new characters. Unless it's all about this one guy or his lineage I guess. Shielding was sort of OP in a non fun way, I had to use it against the stronger enemy types to not run out of AP while whittling them down. While the mouse controls work well, I was really wishing for numpad support, if at least to walk around with. Lastly, my quest was finished by a goblin throwing a rock through a wall, so that put a slight sour taste in my mouth.
Looking forward to future updates.
Really nice, great job so far. Feels very fun and polished already. I didn't understand the AP system at first. But once I got it, I really loved it. It's very smooth and adds a lot to the system. Like someone else said, like Fallout 1/2, but without the insane clunkiness of those games. I would consider changing out the red "X" when you're out of AP. Before you "get" the AP system, it's very frustrating and obnoxious to see a red X and not know why you can't do anything. Last DD there was a game, Lunchbox Reverie or something, that had a really clever and intuitive way of messaging "exhaustion, can't act" right on the player. I'd check that out for some better ideas. Plus, drawing attention to the AP is a good idea. In fact, it's so core to the whole thing, I'd consider just putting the AP dots right under the player, instead of in the HUD. Enemies could use them too, and it might provide some great strategic moments to exhaust the enemies.
Ok, second point. I honestly think that most AGDG games miss the mark in term of difficulty (myself included), and this is no exception. It's a sort of blind-spot of a developer to keep tuning the game harder, because you've probably put in hundreds of hours playing it, and know every little trick and tactic so the game feels right for you. But for a new player, the difficulty is just smothering. Difficulty ideally should be the spice in a dish, helping bring out the full flavor of the mechanics. Too much makes the entire game unpalatable. Because you get creamed so fast as a new played (or rather, *I* get creamed so fast), there is no opportunity to build tension. I die before anything matters. If the difficulty was tuned down, then after playing for like 10 minutes on a life, you start getting invested in your progress and items and all that. Then, each encounter is infused with tension and high stakes. That is what makes games like this engaging. As it stands, I keep dying so fast that I don't really care too much.
Lastly, please learn from my mistakes. Do not put the word "quest" or "adventure" in the name of your game. Another anon described them as cursed names, and they were exactly right. I names my last game "Frauki's Adventure!" thinking it was cute and on the nose. No. When most gamers see a title like that, they instantly categorize the game as trash. I see there is humor here, lean into that. Stevens Sausage Roll. Pizza Tower. Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. Liberal Crime Squad. These are the kinds of names you need if you have a funny/odd game that you want people to notice.
Good luck!
Hello there, orbless rpg dev!
Very solid and bug free foundation there (at least for me). Visually coherent , simple and effective, although some sprites are placeholder art from the looks of it. Inactive monster for example seem to have a talking indicator, which probably symbolizes them being "asleep"? Anyway, that's not a big deal for a first demo.
The only technical thing i noticed was the mouse cursor. When starting up the game the cursor movement felt a bit off, like it was a bit sluggish.
Please develop this game further and give it a lot of cool stuff, im really rooting for Paco the baldy!
Really cute game. The combat's a lot of fun, I've never seen anything done quite the same way. Took me a second to figure out the controls - being able to move with WASD (or the arrow keys, since you're using S already for something else) would be nice, although the mouse movement does work well. I actually encountered a bug after dying to a ladybug where the screen went grey and the game froze up. I was looking at the "help me" section to see what I was missing and tried to start a new game when it froze. It's fun, though, so I'm gonna play some more and will update this post if I have any useful feedback.
I really enjoyed this. The combat system is great, it has huge potential, reminds me of Fallout a bit. Never seen another roguelike do it like this and now I wonder why, do you know of any?
It feels pretty polished already, the UI is really nice like the eye slowly closing and being able to walk by clicking on the map. I expect great things from you in the future.
Thanks for trying it out! Glad you liked it. Main sources of inspiration have in fact been Fallout and Live A Live, so I'm happy to read that some of their DNA is present in the game.
I'll try to respond to all your feedback! If I skip a point just assume I'm adding it to my backlog of tasks.
Sure! Next demo will have a proper title screen with Options and all that stuff. I just didn't have enough time before DD to implement it. ^^u
Indeed! I'd like to implement some sort of stealth system, maybe by using invisibility scrolls, smoke bombs or some skills that let you go unnoticed. Having the enemies being able to move around or even patrol would add a lot to that.
Yes, numpad keys are a must, and I'm also considering arrow keys + some key held down for diagonals.
No. I'm planning to have the player sprite reflect the equipment you have equipped at that moment. If I had to animate all that that would be way too much work, specially for someone who's really bad at drawing.
That'll be displayed when you inspect an item, by right clicking it to open the context menu and selecting inspect. That window, which still has to be implemented, will also show some extra info on enemies, like which status effects / passive effects they have and some more stuff.
I'm considering putting a cool down on some skills to avoid abuse. Or maybe adding some unblockable attacks, I still have to think more about it.
About the goblins: I noticed the AI might be bugged when it comes to targeting the player with stones, since they don't seem to check if they are in range before doing so. Should be an esay fix, so I hope they are a bit less annoying on the next demo.
So yeah, thanks again for all your feedback and the time you put into playing the game! See ya!
Understandable. I hope you keep the two framed animations though, gives it a lot more life.
Something you could try is have skills increase in AP cost if you use them too much in close succession. For example if you use shield block it'd cost 2 AP to use again for a few turns. Could increase and decay differently for skills too, like increase 0.25 every time you use it but won't actually cost more til you reach a whole number, etc. Just an idea, might not need to punish using the same skills at all with clever enemy design instead.
This game is super rad and I'm glad I played it. I'll probably play it some more later.
Don't have much in the way of useful criticism, I have no idea how I'd improve it.
The AP-based approach to combat is really interesting. The only complaint I have is that I had to beat a lot of enemies by repeatedly doing attack -> shield block -> wait (if AP is low) which got tiresome after a while. Maybe shield block can auto-target if there is only 1 enemy? Also, having a system where you can avoid all attacks would theoretically lead to a situation where a lv. 1 character can defeat a lv. 99 enemy - curious to see how this will be addressed in the full game.
Dungeon exploration felt pretty good - it felt worth it to go down each "path" to get a chest full of items at the end. New weapons seemed to make a big difference in combat effectiveness. Ranged feels very different than melee.
The game's difficulty is BRUTAL. Especially the goblins at the end. One mistake or misclick and all your health is gone in an instant. I eventually made it to the end but died a bunch of times lol.
As others have mentioned, equipping the skills with the number keys is a bit unintuitive. I also accidentally unequipped my skills a few times - I think it was when I right-clicked to cancel a skill, which somehow unequipped it? Otherwise no real issues with the UI.
Hey, many thanks for trying out the game and leaving some feedback!
Glad to read you had some fun. I've been thinking about having some skills have a cooldown so you can't spam them, but I'm still thinking about it. Might be a good solution to avoid the shield block spam. Also, I don't think I mind having a low level player being able to beat a high level enemy, as long as it's very hard to do but still possible. I'll have that in mind when balancing the game in the future.
The difficulty being as it is is more or less done on purpose. I didn't have the time to put an actual boss fight in this demo so I made the goblins difficult to beat. Glad you were able to make it to the end tho! Not many have been able to do so, so I'm glad to read it's possible for a new player.
So yeah, many thanks! I'll try to put more work in the areas you mentioned, specially the skills management. Hope to see you at the next demo! :)
i got this crash when trying to walk into the sideways-facing locked door of the red room
i died like 25 times before realizing that i had to set the skills myself at the start and was too burned out at that point to go on
Thanks for trying out the game! Sorry to hear you had a bad time because of the skills menu being kinda hidden.
I'll try adding a button to make it more easy to spot, and also add a proper tutorial to explain all the stuff related to skills.
Hope you try out the next demo, and many thansk for the bug report! I didn't see that one, so it'll be quite useful.
A wonderful roguelike about a guy who happens to be bald. Gameplay is fun and intuitive for the most part, and the RNGless approach to combat makes learning enemy attack patterns the primary skill you need. Abilities are fun to use, though there are some balance issues (armor crush is hot garbage), and you will often find alternative ways to use skills. Preparing a strong attack for enemies at a bottleneck or using ground-slam's AoE to give yourself extra range is fun (gasp) and most of the abilities I encountered had at least a few uses.
As for criticisms and suggestions, one thing I immediately noticed was had I not read the game's description or used the help screen I probably would've never intuited how to find the skills menu. I would suggest either a skills button or tab next to the main inventory, possibly with a bold S to hint at the keybind, that can be pressed to open and close skills. Alternatively have it to where clicking an empty skill slot opens the skill menu. I also frequently shield-blocked myself and messed up my rotations trying to play quickly, a dedicated Rest button could probably remedy this some. A way to click and hold navigation could be nice too.
Total playtime: roughly 1 hour 15 minutes. I did not reach the end because of goblins.
Hey, thanks for the review! Glad you had fun exploring the dungeon while getting to know how to make the most of the available skills. Armor Crush kinda sucks yeah, I'll probably make it so maces put a debuff on enemy's defense just with the normal attack instead of needed a skill for that.
Also yeah, you are not alone when it comes to almost missing out on skills. I really need to put a button in the UI for that, one that's easy to spot. A dedicated rest button was something I was going to implement but somehow forgot about. ^^u
I've added some stuff from your comment to my tasks backlog, so many thanks for the feedback!
Some thoughts I wrote down while playing it:
Anyway, very good promising game, keep it up!
Thanks for trying it out, and even more for leaving so much feedback.
About your other points, I'll try balancing stuff better for the next demo. Giant Bat will probably get a color swap to make it clear that it's different from normal bats, and yeah the whole demo should be beatable without taking damage. Goblins are hard yeah, but that's because I want the player to explore the whole cave section before entering the sewers, since with any good weapon the Goblins fall with 3 hits. What do you mean you missed the skills? If you found the longsword, broadsword or mace, those come with skills. Also, a tip for Goblins, they are weak to fire!
Anyway, many thanks again for trying it out! :)
I'll do another playthrough. I only found the chainmail, gloves, and helmet. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of chances to practice fighting the gobbos since I died rather quickly.
Am I missing something here? Found the longsword which should grant me some skills, but nothing shows up:
Press S to show the skills panel! From there you can assign skills to the bottom bar, or just use them from there.
It's stated on the itch page and the ingame help section, but still, I should add a proper tutorial on the next demo. ^^u
Ah, thanks. I completely missed that. You should probably at least have a button on the UI so pressing S isn't the only way to find it. Also, it's quite common to automatically assign skills while the bar isn't full.
Also, number keys from the keypad don't seem to work for assigning skills.
Edit: being able to use skills really mattered, managed to get to the thank you not now.
Yeah I can imagine you had a bad, or at least quite difficult time the first time around, specially not being able to dash around. Hope you had more fun this time around!
And yeah, numkeys don't work since those will be used for movement, for those that don't like having to click to move around. Apparently it's quite common in roguelikes.
I'll take your feedback on skills filling automatically, good idea.