I liked this quite a bit back when I played an earlier version. Keep in mind it's been a while and I might be misremembering a bit in my comparisons.
What happened to the various dungeons with meta progression? Or that tutorial stage with the fairy for that matter. That was very nice.
The menus are not the mess they used to be, but the in-game UI feels a little bit claustrophobic compared to what I remember. The art and design style is still very much all over the place.
Didn't this use to have rhythm mechanics? I can't seem to find them.
I played a few runs and all my losses were from picking death. One time I got stuck in a room where I had no option but to choose it.
Thanks for playing again! Let me answer your points:
- There was no rythm mechanic in any of the versions. The only rythm tied game element that's intended without being pushed is having the OST a fixed BPM compatible with the overall game difficulty, so a slower player can uncounsciously let his inputs synchronize with the beat. I will still play with that once I start making more music, see if it's worth having as a development constraint
- The meta progression and little fairy got ditched unfortunately. The way I started the code was too problematic to easily implement features and content, hence why I want to finish a very simple version of this project and move on
- First time I hear about the UI being claustrophobic, that's an interesting remark. I'll keep it in mind as I ciment it towards next versions. As for the Art Direction yeah, still messy. I believe I can make the game clearer as I approach the end of the project
- When dealing with bad haphazardness, you can use the SPIRIT gauge to "deal" another set of Opportunities. This mechanic was intended to have a rare chance of the game being unfair, while the player have better odds and ways of countering it. This mechanic was not explained well enough in that build, I need to work on that
There's a good chance I completely change the theme of the game soon, so it's again going to change. But the mechanic should stay very similar, with a bit of simple content unlocking. Thanks again for your feedback, much appreciated.
Nice core mechanic, but lacks a bit of meat on the bone. Felt like maybe it could've been a good rhythm game, "Crypt of the NecroDancer" style? Dunno. I won't say it was easy - but I stayed fairly consistent after I understood the mechanics.
Also monsters seem to serve close to no purpose, it seems much better health-wise to just wait til you see a weak enemy or a scroll. Also time refill vials spawn pretty often, so I could top up my time even after ignoring it for a while.
Got a triple grim reaper spawn once, that's where the reroll came in handy, but if I rolled a second triple grim reaper - it would've been unfair. I dunno if you have it purely random or not - but that one thing to consider.
A cute little game, I wish there was a bit more than just selecting a correct tile.
There's a lot that could be made with that core mechanic, but I coded myself into a place where it's too complicated for me to add sustainable "meet" to it. I'll try to add what I can to make it worth a bit (I'd be happy with 2-3 hours of entertainment).
For the monsters their main purpose is to give SPIRIT back. The intent as for now was to have them in a place where if you're being stressed by time and dent one by mistake, you now have the decision of "do I finish it or do I watch for another OPP". Monsters might serve another key purpose for the next version (ressource gathering).
I'm trying to constantly keep the player in check of what his few next actions should be despite having so few options to chose from – until he makes the ultimate mistakes of chosing the Death OPP.
The spawns are completely random, and I want to keep it unfair in a sense. There are very few chances for a triple Death spawn twice for example, but I'd rather (as a dev and a player) have to face the unfairness as long as there's a "fairness" in the way back in. Ultimately there will always be a mathematical chance for an awful succession of bad luck, but it's so rare I don't want to change it.
I wish there was more too, but it seems I won't be able to have much more once it's done. Thanks again for the feedback!
Watched this on stream as you know, giving it a spin today. Gotten to level 10 for now, got some initial thoughts. The core gameplay system here works, it is fun, but I think it needs a little more flair. Once you reach a level save point, introduce some sort of choice for an ability unlock, make the player able to create "builds".
Abilities such as: double healing, more damage, survive one death, traps heal you, break rockdoors etc. These are abilities that depend on what is in the game now, I think you can add a lot more.
Gambling/party feel I think would be good. Special blocks with slots or fantasy roulettes giving gold, exp, damage or something else.
Every tenth level, introduce a boss sequence, the rune thing is cool. Some kind of clicking minigame to solve a boss, possibly targeting body parts in a correct order or something like that, using the core mechanic.
Introduce a shop here and there too where gold can be used, also use max gold as score.
Implied randomized story encounters would be cool too. Nothing too advanced, a rare princess encounter, dragon enemy, mimic chest, mysterious crystal etc.
Chests with loot. Loot could just be collectible unlocks.
Edit: Collecting collectable "loot" also provides further investment to play the game more.
Thanks for giving it a try despite having seen it.
- Unfortunately if I want to finish this game I'll have to cut any roguelike element (it was the initial vision). It's too much for me to handle with the codebase I have - I'll think of the dungeon party theme, but even more of the gambling aspect. Having a simple roulette on the side just giving bonuses and inviting the player to make a certain combination of Opportunities could be interesting - I had bosses before, but I scrapped them unfortunately - I had a shop too, with the structures to be randomized - Collectibles would be something I could try adding back in. A simple system where you just turn a ressource into a Collectible, with rarity rates
These all are nice ideas but I have to retain myself unfortunately. Maybe I can add all of these in another project one day, that would be nice! Thanks for playing horbror. I'll do my best to give your game a try too. Thumbs up.
-Why do you start the game windowed? I know this is minor, but starting fullscreen feels more professional to the average gamer.
-Good tutorial pages, brief but to the point.
-Played for 10 levels. Music's drum beat feels too loud, it bothers my ears. Gameplay is OK? It feels a little less interesting than last time.
-Level 30. Doesn't feel much different to level 1, really. I suppose Death is more common.
-Got to 60 before dying. idk, I felt bored. If you threw in a twist like using the fourth direction too or adding new icons part way through it may be more engaging. Being able to start again from 60 is a double edged sword. On one side it's not that punishing to die, but on the other it makes the challenge feel arbitrary if you can do it piece meal.
-Sprit burn feels too one note. I just save it for when stuck between death and a hard place, and nothing else. If you could cast different flavors, like a guaranteed spawn of weed or oil on burn reroll, it would be more interesting.
-Finished the game, it got a little more engaging towards the end, but not by much. I think in part it was me changing strategy, because instead of mostly going for scrolls, I engaged with the systems to fight enemies while managing health.
- The game starting windowed is mostly a remnant from the dev build. I shall try to have it fullscreen on more serious builds - I'll think of adding more options to Spirit Burn unless it breaks the balance too much
Really surprised you finished it, well played. You must be very fast with reflexes. Maybe harder difficulties would suit players like you. Thanks again for the feedback
i spent like 10 minutes playing up to level 20 with no noticeable increase in difficulty until i stopped. for a long time i had assumed you were supposed to get to floor 100, so i was taking a lot of paths and getting nowhere. early on i had assumed experience was needed because later enemies would appear more often and would get more hits on you if you weren't leveled up
i think paths make death less likely to spawn? i remember something like that from an older version, but i would have assumed they did nothing if i hadn't seen something like that in an earlier version
i assume the idea is that the player has to manage their health with herbs so they can attack enemies to get experience, while keeping death away with paths, while keeping their lantern from going low, while keeping a spirit so they can reroll a difficult situation
the problem, in my limited experience, is that i managed to do that just by tediously grinding on scrolls and presumably could have continued to if i so wished. i also think that it would be a very flat difficulty curve where you manage your variables in the same way and avoiding touching death ad infinitum
delete didn't seem to work as a cancel button for me, i had to use escape
Thanks for playing it diabolodev. Let me give an answer to some of your points :
- Compared to old versions, it's not more about "floors", just your "levels", as in experience levels - Paths are just neutral Opportunities, they do not change any other variable - There's indeed an intent to make the player manage lantern, health and spirit, but from the playtests I've seen so far is that it only becomes potent when the player is being under pression. And this pressure is dependant on his abilities, just like a game of Tetris depending on the level reached. I don't have a better formula so far to better calibrate the player level to lantern time
"Grinding" for scrolls is an intended mechanic. Maybe a Scroll is not the perfect item to indicate the process? Monsters can give more XP but are less safe. The game intent does not reveal itself until you reached a pressure level. So I guess I would need to make sure player hang in there until they reach it.
Thanks for the feedback, don't hesitate to propose ideas if you think the game could be more for you.
Comments
I liked this quite a bit back when I played an earlier version. Keep in mind it's been a while and I might be misremembering a bit in my comparisons.
What happened to the various dungeons with meta progression? Or that tutorial stage with the fairy for that matter. That was very nice.
The menus are not the mess they used to be, but the in-game UI feels a little bit claustrophobic compared to what I remember. The art and design style is still very much all over the place.
Didn't this use to have rhythm mechanics? I can't seem to find them.
I played a few runs and all my losses were from picking death. One time I got stuck in a room where I had no option but to choose it.
Thanks for playing again! Let me answer your points:
- There was no rythm mechanic in any of the versions. The only rythm tied game element that's intended without being pushed is having the OST a fixed BPM compatible with the overall game difficulty, so a slower player can uncounsciously let his inputs synchronize with the beat. I will still play with that once I start making more music, see if it's worth having as a development constraint
- The meta progression and little fairy got ditched unfortunately. The way I started the code was too problematic to easily implement features and content, hence why I want to finish a very simple version of this project and move on
- First time I hear about the UI being claustrophobic, that's an interesting remark. I'll keep it in mind as I ciment it towards next versions. As for the Art Direction yeah, still messy. I believe I can make the game clearer as I approach the end of the project
- When dealing with bad haphazardness, you can use the SPIRIT gauge to "deal" another set of Opportunities. This mechanic was intended to have a rare chance of the game being unfair, while the player have better odds and ways of countering it.
This mechanic was not explained well enough in that build, I need to work on that
There's a good chance I completely change the theme of the game soon, so it's again going to change. But the mechanic should stay very similar, with a bit of simple content unlocking.
Thanks again for your feedback, much appreciated.
Nice core mechanic, but lacks a bit of meat on the bone. Felt like maybe it could've been a good rhythm game, "Crypt of the NecroDancer" style? Dunno. I won't say it was easy - but I stayed fairly consistent after I understood the mechanics.
Also monsters seem to serve close to no purpose, it seems much better health-wise to just wait til you see a weak enemy or a scroll. Also time refill vials spawn pretty often, so I could top up my time even after ignoring it for a while.
Got a triple grim reaper spawn once, that's where the reroll came in handy, but if I rolled a second triple grim reaper - it would've been unfair. I dunno if you have it purely random or not - but that one thing to consider.
A cute little game, I wish there was a bit more than just selecting a correct tile.
Hey brim thanks for playing.
There's a lot that could be made with that core mechanic, but I coded myself into a place where it's too complicated for me to add sustainable "meet" to it. I'll try to add what I can to make it worth a bit (I'd be happy with 2-3 hours of entertainment).
For the monsters their main purpose is to give SPIRIT back. The intent as for now was to have them in a place where if you're being stressed by time and dent one by mistake, you now have the decision of "do I finish it or do I watch for another OPP". Monsters might serve another key purpose for the next version (ressource gathering).
I'm trying to constantly keep the player in check of what his few next actions should be despite having so few options to chose from – until he makes the ultimate mistakes of chosing the Death OPP.
The spawns are completely random, and I want to keep it unfair in a sense. There are very few chances for a triple Death spawn twice for example, but I'd rather (as a dev and a player) have to face the unfairness as long as there's a "fairness" in the way back in. Ultimately there will always be a mathematical chance for an awful succession of bad luck, but it's so rare I don't want to change it.
I wish there was more too, but it seems I won't be able to have much more once it's done. Thanks again for the feedback!
Watched this on stream as you know, giving it a spin today. Gotten to level 10 for now, got some initial thoughts. The core gameplay system here works, it is fun, but I think it needs a little more flair. Once you reach a level save point, introduce some sort of choice for an ability unlock, make the player able to create "builds".
Abilities such as: double healing, more damage, survive one death, traps heal you, break rockdoors etc. These are abilities that depend on what is in the game now, I think you can add a lot more.
Gambling/party feel I think would be good. Special blocks with slots or fantasy roulettes giving gold, exp, damage or something else.
Every tenth level, introduce a boss sequence, the rune thing is cool. Some kind of clicking minigame to solve a boss, possibly targeting body parts in a correct order or something like that, using the core mechanic.
Introduce a shop here and there too where gold can be used, also use max gold as score.
Implied randomized story encounters would be cool too. Nothing too advanced, a rare princess encounter, dragon enemy, mimic chest, mysterious crystal etc.
Chests with loot. Loot could just be collectible unlocks.
Edit: Collecting collectable "loot" also provides further investment to play the game more.
Thanks for giving it a try despite having seen it.
- Unfortunately if I want to finish this game I'll have to cut any roguelike element (it was the initial vision). It's too much for me to handle with the codebase I have
- I'll think of the dungeon party theme, but even more of the gambling aspect. Having a simple roulette on the side just giving bonuses and inviting the player to make a certain combination of Opportunities could be interesting
- I had bosses before, but I scrapped them unfortunately
- I had a shop too, with the structures to be randomized
- Collectibles would be something I could try adding back in. A simple system where you just turn a ressource into a Collectible, with rarity rates
These all are nice ideas but I have to retain myself unfortunately. Maybe I can add all of these in another project one day, that would be nice!
Thanks for playing horbror. I'll do my best to give your game a try too. Thumbs up.
Plenty of opportunities for TREASURE SEEKER 2: ENTER THE PARTYDROME.
-Why do you start the game windowed? I know this is minor, but starting fullscreen feels more professional to the average gamer.
-Good tutorial pages, brief but to the point.
-Played for 10 levels. Music's drum beat feels too loud, it bothers my ears. Gameplay is OK? It feels a little less interesting than last time.
-Level 30. Doesn't feel much different to level 1, really. I suppose Death is more common.
-Got to 60 before dying. idk, I felt bored. If you threw in a twist like using the fourth direction too or adding new icons part way through it may be more engaging. Being able to start again from 60 is a double edged sword. On one side it's not that punishing to die, but on the other it makes the challenge feel arbitrary if you can do it piece meal.
-Sprit burn feels too one note. I just save it for when stuck between death and a hard place, and nothing else. If you could cast different flavors, like a guaranteed spawn of weed or oil on burn reroll, it would be more interesting.
-Finished the game, it got a little more engaging towards the end, but not by much. I think in part it was me changing strategy, because instead of mostly going for scrolls, I engaged with the systems to fight enemies while managing health.
Hello Wierdox thanks for playing.
- The game starting windowed is mostly a remnant from the dev build. I shall try to have it fullscreen on more serious builds
- I'll think of adding more options to Spirit Burn unless it breaks the balance too much
Really surprised you finished it, well played. You must be very fast with reflexes. Maybe harder difficulties would suit players like you.
Thanks again for the feedback
i spent like 10 minutes playing up to level 20 with no noticeable increase in difficulty until i stopped. for a long time i had assumed you were supposed to get to floor 100, so i was taking a lot of paths and getting nowhere. early on i had assumed experience was needed because later enemies would appear more often and would get more hits on you if you weren't leveled up
i think paths make death less likely to spawn? i remember something like that from an older version, but i would have assumed they did nothing if i hadn't seen something like that in an earlier version
i assume the idea is that the player has to manage their health with herbs so they can attack enemies to get experience, while keeping death away with paths, while keeping their lantern from going low, while keeping a spirit so they can reroll a difficult situation
the problem, in my limited experience, is that i managed to do that just by tediously grinding on scrolls and presumably could have continued to if i so wished. i also think that it would be a very flat difficulty curve where you manage your variables in the same way and avoiding touching death ad infinitum
delete didn't seem to work as a cancel button for me, i had to use escape
Thanks for playing it diabolodev. Let me give an answer to some of your points :
- Compared to old versions, it's not more about "floors", just your "levels", as in experience levels
- Paths are just neutral Opportunities, they do not change any other variable
- There's indeed an intent to make the player manage lantern, health and spirit, but from the playtests I've seen so far is that it only becomes potent when the player is being under pression. And this pressure is dependant on his abilities, just like a game of Tetris depending on the level reached. I don't have a better formula so far to better calibrate the player level to lantern time
"Grinding" for scrolls is an intended mechanic. Maybe a Scroll is not the perfect item to indicate the process? Monsters can give more XP but are less safe.
The game intent does not reveal itself until you reached a pressure level. So I guess I would need to make sure player hang in there until they reach it.
Thanks for the feedback, don't hesitate to propose ideas if you think the game could be more for you.