Played for a while until I accidentally killed myself with Basic Fireball. 12 floors in after after beating two of the bosses.
Pretty great atmosphere, the sound design especially sets the mood along with the graphical style. I like the design of the enemies, the flat 2d designs seem like a comic book. But It was actually quite a shock when fighting the first boss, I'm guessing it's supposed to be a sand golem because I was expecting those to be 2D as well.
Gameplay is pretty fun too, I ran out of weapons by the 2nd boss, managed to make it through but had to end up killing the next merchant to steal one. Is running out of weapons generally expected or is there a mechanic that influences how much durability is lost based on timing of attacks?
Conserving your weapons is a core part of the game, and there's several ways to do so. Using spells, traps and gates to kill enemies, and making proper judgement of what situations call for a good weapon or just the rock are some of them. Oh, and most importantly, not hitting walls. There's no pseudo-RNG to help you in case you get unlucky with loot, though.
Overall it's pretty fun! It feels like there's a lot to discover and mess with, which seems like it should be the main focus in this kind of game. I especially liked the variety in the spells, that's something I always look for in old RPGs and Roguelikes. The progression was nice, and outside of a lull halfway through, it felt like I was getting new toys to play with often enough. I also like the aesthetic and tone quite a bit, but I have a soft spot for retro graphics and stuff like King's Field, so I'm biased towards it.
However, the combat overall wasn't that engaging. It seemed like I fought most enemies in the same ways, holding "S" was too strong, I very rarely had to deal with multiple enemies at once, and didn't have to make those fast, hard decisions you do in something like a souls game. "Whether or not to dodge/parry" isn't a very tough decision. I'd suggest looking more at the Souls games, King's Field, or even something like Doom, really. Combat doesn't have to be super hard or engaging, and can instead lean on RPG elements, but:
The dungeon traversal wasn't super engaging either. Again I never really felt like I was forced into tough decisions about which item to take, or whether I'm strong enough to risk doing something with a nice payoff, whether I need to use my long-term resources to survive this fight or not. For this I'd suggest looking at the old school roguelikes like Nethack, I think it's done perfectly there. (Giving you lots of one-time use scrolls, unidentified potions/scrolls/weapons, rings doubling your hunger rate, some enemies having unique+dangerous effects like petrification on touch, etc.) The combining system and stuff like Fools Gold is a great step in this direction, I want more stuff like that.
Also, I wish the enemies were 3d models. I know that's easier said than done, but especially when timing dodges/parries is important, it was kind of rough. The sprites rotating helped immensely, but I'm not sure it's enough. It was especially hard to tell different attacks apart, like lunges. I think it would help the feel, presentation, and even gameplay immensely if the enemies were low-poly 3d instead of sprites. I guess that could be planned, since the bosses were 3d...
Random notes/bugs:
Ranged weapons and magic seemed maybe a little too strong? Not having to worry about timing the dodge or spending shield durability is really good, and the drawbacks didn't seem to matter enough. This could tie into me not liking the combat very much, I think I ended up pretty OP and kept getting good enough ranged weapons to carry me.
I don't really get how returning to town works, it seemed like I was supposed to have enough gold to get some of the more expensive stuff there? Maybe that's just for classes that start with more gold though... Having some way to return to town temporarily during a run could be really cool.
When I started my chaos run, it seems like I kept my... boons? Passives? The cannibalism and revive were carried into it, that seems like a bug.
I didn't see the combine section of the inventory for a while, which left me a little confused.
I think my first dungeon didn't have an exit and I was just stuck, I had to quit out.
Cannibalism felt pretty jank, like it was random how fast corpses got eaten and where I had to stand.
The attack and kick animations could use a bit of work, basically just speeding up the "acceleration" parts to give them more impact. To keep the timing the same for gameplay, you could start the animation with pulling the weapon/foot back, before a quick snap forward. The animations in the game overall feel kind of slow and watery, but I guess they did in the King's Field games too, heh. The "keyframes" for the enemy sprites are fine, though, if you're sticking with sprites. You could also try messing with scale somewhat to improve the feel of animations. (Y axis shrinking and X axis growing to emphasize an enemy crouching down to lunge forward, stuff like that.) If you exaggerate it too much, it'll look cartoony and screw with the tone, but there's probably a good middle ground you could find.
And this is just personal preference, but I think some more effects when dealing damage could really pump the "feel" up. A frame or two of color flashing, hitstop, hitstop-shake, screen shake. I know some devs really don't like these kinds of things, though.
Again, overall I liked it, and definitely see some potential. I can't think of any other 3D games that really feel like traditional roguelikes in this way.
Thanks a lot for the in-depth review, and the long, fun video!
Overall, I agree with pretty much all your points, and will tinker the game to go more in those directions. You might feel the dread of traditional roguelikes more when playing on hard, as everything you do and choose to spend has a huge impact on your success. Enemies also pose a much bigger treat. Speaking of them, full animations are indeed coming for the enemies, so most of your issues with them should be gone by then.
Ranged weapons are a bit strong, but also considerably weaker, and also require more skill with aiming than most other games. You played so masterfully that this drawback was pretty much nullified, though.
You don't return to town at all after the beginning, as I wanted to sell that feeling of going deeper and deeper into the dark and away from people and the outside world. The hooded merchants are there to take your gold still!
Yeah, keeping your stones when you started a new run was a bug I'll get fixed, but that dungeon floor you thought was broken actually had a hidden wall you could see in the minimap, or if you noticed one of the walls had no decorations at all.
Also, all the player's animations scale with his stats, so a character with low STR will have a slow swing, while one with low AGI will have a slower windup, etc. Some combinations can look really off, but at least they're directly tied to your own power, and really make you feel the difference.
No but really, I find the game really charming in it's graphical design and motif. The combat actually feels pretty good. Just because it's slow and weighty doesn't mean it's not engaging! I'll play more tonight to give a detailed review, but so far this game is the frontrunner for me in this jam.
Glad you liked it! But please wait until tomorrow morning as I've yet to update it with the latest version, that'll come with a LOT of meaningful changes.
The menu has no visual indication that you can click left/right side to set the option (difficulty)
Is the dark intentionally gray instead of dark? Also is there some meter that shows how much lamp oil I have left, it felt like I got infinite.
cannot swich equipment when inventory is full
Died to the second boss, kinda unsure how I´d go about fighting this guy as a melee character. I briefly tried ranged and it seemd much stronger in comparison
In general everything feels a bit sluggish/slow
Overall it seems like a cool game, lots of dungeon crawler vibes. I liked the hand that exchanges weapons for new weapons.
I'm sorry, but this isn't the latest version. I'll post it tomorrow morning.
Anyway, your points still stand in the new version, so I'll repond to them:
The button for difficulty does have the < and > arrows and a special box for it, but I guess that was insufficient. Still, I changed that graphic for the new version so that might be fixed already.
The dark is lightly colored in most dungeons. Some of them also have mist instead of darkness so that might be it. Lamp oil is displayed in the bottom left of the inventory.
That will be fixed in the next, next version.
If the second boss you got was the floating idol head, going in very aggressively is the best option, but you must dodge his spells when he casts them. If the boss was the twin guardians, letting them kill each other with clever positioning and baiting is the ideal strategy.
It starts out slow, but the Agility stat really influences the speed of everything, so as your character progresses so does the overall speed of the game.
Thanks for the review, and sorry again for the outdated version! Lots of other objects and characters of interest pop up in the dungeons other than the hand, so look for them!
- No folder for the download. Ick, but not an actual problem.
- I don't think I brought it up last time, but I don't think I understand what the difficulties are, particularly the ones that cost souls. Or are those different campaigns?
- Are there reasons I want to turn my lamp off? I can't see any use for it as is as it doesn't seem to have any sort of oil meter.
- The new interface looks really nice!
- Actually starting with non-rusty gear is really nice!
- The chest animation seems a lot faster than I remember it. You speed it up? Either way it's nice.
- Still is slow as molasses in every other respect. I even made sure to have decent agility (12) when I was rolling.
- Found the sprint. It seems faster than last time as well.
- Dual wielding doesn't work like I expected it to. It's kinda awkward but I can see what you'd want to still be able to block.
- Is durability no longer a mechanic? I was expecting my weapons to break.
- Died to the slime boss. Truthfully I'm not sure what I was supposed to do as a melee character to it. As melee it seemed to come off as a DPS race. I'm sure I could probably memorize when the attacks were coming but I couldn't immediately notice any tells.
Overall, much much MUCH better than the build I played last time. I had a much better time. Keep up the good progress!
Comments
Played for a while until I accidentally killed myself with Basic Fireball. 12 floors in after after beating two of the bosses.
Pretty great atmosphere, the sound design especially sets the mood along with the graphical style. I like the design of the enemies, the flat 2d designs seem like a comic book. But It was actually quite a shock when fighting the first boss, I'm guessing it's supposed to be a sand golem because I was expecting those to be 2D as well.
Gameplay is pretty fun too, I ran out of weapons by the 2nd boss, managed to make it through but had to end up killing the next merchant to steal one. Is running out of weapons generally expected or is there a mechanic that influences how much durability is lost based on timing of attacks?
All-in-all enjoyable.
Thanks for playing!
Conserving your weapons is a core part of the game, and there's several ways to do so. Using spells, traps and gates to kill enemies, and making proper judgement of what situations call for a good weapon or just the rock are some of them. Oh, and most importantly, not hitting walls. There's no pseudo-RNG to help you in case you get unlucky with loot, though.
Overall notes:
Overall it's pretty fun! It feels like there's a lot to discover and mess with, which seems like it should be the main focus in this kind of game. I especially liked the variety in the spells, that's something I always look for in old RPGs and Roguelikes. The progression was nice, and outside of a lull halfway through, it felt like I was getting new toys to play with often enough. I also like the aesthetic and tone quite a bit, but I have a soft spot for retro graphics and stuff like King's Field, so I'm biased towards it.
However, the combat overall wasn't that engaging. It seemed like I fought most enemies in the same ways, holding "S" was too strong, I very rarely had to deal with multiple enemies at once, and didn't have to make those fast, hard decisions you do in something like a souls game. "Whether or not to dodge/parry" isn't a very tough decision. I'd suggest looking more at the Souls games, King's Field, or even something like Doom, really. Combat doesn't have to be super hard or engaging, and can instead lean on RPG elements, but:
The dungeon traversal wasn't super engaging either. Again I never really felt like I was forced into tough decisions about which item to take, or whether I'm strong enough to risk doing something with a nice payoff, whether I need to use my long-term resources to survive this fight or not. For this I'd suggest looking at the old school roguelikes like Nethack, I think it's done perfectly there. (Giving you lots of one-time use scrolls, unidentified potions/scrolls/weapons, rings doubling your hunger rate, some enemies having unique+dangerous effects like petrification on touch, etc.) The combining system and stuff like Fools Gold is a great step in this direction, I want more stuff like that.
Also, I wish the enemies were 3d models. I know that's easier said than done, but especially when timing dodges/parries is important, it was kind of rough. The sprites rotating helped immensely, but I'm not sure it's enough. It was especially hard to tell different attacks apart, like lunges. I think it would help the feel, presentation, and even gameplay immensely if the enemies were low-poly 3d instead of sprites. I guess that could be planned, since the bosses were 3d...
Random notes/bugs:
Ranged weapons and magic seemed maybe a little too strong? Not having to worry about timing the dodge or spending shield durability is really good, and the drawbacks didn't seem to matter enough. This could tie into me not liking the combat very much, I think I ended up pretty OP and kept getting good enough ranged weapons to carry me.
I don't really get how returning to town works, it seemed like I was supposed to have enough gold to get some of the more expensive stuff there? Maybe that's just for classes that start with more gold though... Having some way to return to town temporarily during a run could be really cool.
When I started my chaos run, it seems like I kept my... boons? Passives? The cannibalism and revive were carried into it, that seems like a bug.
I didn't see the combine section of the inventory for a while, which left me a little confused.
I think my first dungeon didn't have an exit and I was just stuck, I had to quit out.
Cannibalism felt pretty jank, like it was random how fast corpses got eaten and where I had to stand.
The attack and kick animations could use a bit of work, basically just speeding up the "acceleration" parts to give them more impact. To keep the timing the same for gameplay, you could start the animation with pulling the weapon/foot back, before a quick snap forward. The animations in the game overall feel kind of slow and watery, but I guess they did in the King's Field games too, heh. The "keyframes" for the enemy sprites are fine, though, if you're sticking with sprites. You could also try messing with scale somewhat to improve the feel of animations. (Y axis shrinking and X axis growing to emphasize an enemy crouching down to lunge forward, stuff like that.) If you exaggerate it too much, it'll look cartoony and screw with the tone, but there's probably a good middle ground you could find.
And this is just personal preference, but I think some more effects when dealing damage could really pump the "feel" up. A frame or two of color flashing, hitstop, hitstop-shake, screen shake. I know some devs really don't like these kinds of things, though.
Again, overall I liked it, and definitely see some potential. I can't think of any other 3D games that really feel like traditional roguelikes in this way.
Thanks a lot for the in-depth review, and the long, fun video!
Overall, I agree with pretty much all your points, and will tinker the game to go more in those directions. You might feel the dread of traditional roguelikes more when playing on hard, as everything you do and choose to spend has a huge impact on your success. Enemies also pose a much bigger treat. Speaking of them, full animations are indeed coming for the enemies, so most of your issues with them should be gone by then.
Ranged weapons are a bit strong, but also considerably weaker, and also require more skill with aiming than most other games. You played so masterfully that this drawback was pretty much nullified, though.
You don't return to town at all after the beginning, as I wanted to sell that feeling of going deeper and deeper into the dark and away from people and the outside world. The hooded merchants are there to take your gold still!
Yeah, keeping your stones when you started a new run was a bug I'll get fixed, but that dungeon floor you thought was broken actually had a hidden wall you could see in the minimap, or if you noticed one of the walls had no decorations at all.
Also, all the player's animations scale with his stats, so a character with low STR will have a slow swing, while one with low AGI will have a slower windup, etc. Some combinations can look really off, but at least they're directly tied to your own power, and really make you feel the difference.
Also, can I share the video on twitter?
sure thing
First impressions:
this game is bad ass
No but really, I find the game really charming in it's graphical design and motif.
The combat actually feels pretty good. Just because it's slow and weighty doesn't mean it's not engaging!
I'll play more tonight to give a detailed review, but so far this game is the frontrunner for me in this jam.
Glad you liked it! But please wait until tomorrow morning as I've yet to update it with the latest version, that'll come with a LOT of meaningful changes.
Overall it seems like a cool game, lots of dungeon crawler vibes. I liked the hand that exchanges weapons for new weapons.
I'm sorry, but this isn't the latest version. I'll post it tomorrow morning.
Anyway, your points still stand in the new version, so I'll repond to them:
Thanks for the review, and sorry again for the outdated version! Lots of other objects and characters of interest pop up in the dungeons other than the hand, so look for them!
Haven't played since DD34. Time to do this.
- No folder for the download. Ick, but not an actual problem.
- I don't think I brought it up last time, but I don't think I understand what the difficulties are, particularly the ones that cost souls. Or are those different campaigns?
- Are there reasons I want to turn my lamp off? I can't see any use for it as is as it doesn't seem to have any sort of oil meter.
- The new interface looks really nice!
- Actually starting with non-rusty gear is really nice!
- The chest animation seems a lot faster than I remember it. You speed it up? Either way it's nice.
- Still is slow as molasses in every other respect. I even made sure to have decent agility (12) when I was rolling.
- Found the sprint. It seems faster than last time as well.
- Dual wielding doesn't work like I expected it to. It's kinda awkward but I can see what you'd want to still be able to block.
- Is durability no longer a mechanic? I was expecting my weapons to break.
- Died to the slime boss. Truthfully I'm not sure what I was supposed to do as a melee character to it. As melee it seemed to come off as a DPS race. I'm sure I could probably memorize when the attacks were coming but I couldn't immediately notice any tells.
Overall, much much MUCH better than the build I played last time. I had a much better time. Keep up the good progress!
NOOO! I HAVEN'T POSTED THE NEW BUILD YET YOU CAN'T RATE IT REMOVE THIS NOW NOW NOW