Cool game! I especially like how you incorporated puzzle and story elements into the roguelike levels, really makes them feel more like real places. The tiles and music also really help with the atmosphere. The keys relocking open doors did feel confusing though, I kept accidentally losing them to it. I think a visual indication whether gear is better than what you have equipped would really streamline things too (ie a small +/- or color coded), even if it only appears after walking over the item once. Also not sure if it was a bug I got attacked by an enemy I couldnt see before moving, traveling through an open arcane door. I lost my good run to a ghoul spawning behind me while I was fighting another enemy :c (the next zone after the first shrine, I dont think I got very far lol)
Viewing post in The Ruins of Calaworm comments
Hey, thanks for playing!
About Gear: good idea with the Plus/Minus thing ... actually, when picking up an item, it DOES tell you if it's better or worse than currently equipped, but you are not the first one to have seemed to missed this. I guess it's too important information to casually incorporate into general pickup-information, so I'll see what I can do; making it visually noticable might do the trick. :)
The Enemy attacking you is not a bug, but I think I can do better here with explaining things, maybe incorporate another Tutorial: initially all Enemies are sleeping, waiting for you to wake them up. However, some effects in the game (Spawn Traps, and Deep One's Summoning) can spawn additional Monsters into the game, which are then awake by default, and start looking for you immediately.
Enemies, that have once been awake, and then are deactivated (either by encountering another Enemy, or by leaving a Region) are not sleeping, but lurking, so once another Enemy dies, they may wake up again on their own. Needs better teaching here, will see about that!
Dark Magic Doors are blocked for you, but Enemies may pass through them and vice versa with Light Magic Doors, maybe that information helps (will put a thematic Hint somewhere on the very first stage in the Watchtower).
Ghouls are a sneaky bunch, and if you die often enough, you will eventually get a Death Hint how to deal with them. ;-) They have low health, but hit super hard, so once you know that a particular Region may spawn Ghouls and you're not equipped to deal with them, don't just run ahead. ;-)
The Keys relocking Doors was a part of the original KALAWAUM-Game mechanics this one's based on, and while I agree that it's not very realistic and a bit gamey, it's a major aspect of the Puzzles, looking where you can go, how to get Keys from one Room into another. You will always get a first Warning, though, for each Door that you're trying to walk through with the respective Key equipped.
Once you've found a Shrine, the "Seek Counsel"-Option will actually tell you, which Key opens which Door! And if you don't reset the World Seed upon starting a new game, that information will persist.
Shrine Locations are procedurally generated and differ from game to game. But there's at least one guaranteed in the second or third Region. The next time you find a Shrine, try out the Binding Ritual, you might like it ...
Either way, thanks a lot for trying it out, the points you made will help a lot to improve on the existing design!
I did try all the shrine options, the binding was really helpful getting back in quick. Also I really liked the Align the Stars pipe mini game, it was more complex than the tutorial lead me to believe :D. As soon as I closed the counsel window I immediately forgot which key went with which door lol. Also I did notice the equip better/worse messages, I was more thinking after swapping weapons abunch, going out to fight, then coming back to the weapons I left behind to get an undamaged one I had to go pick up each one to find out which was the best. The new effect visual for equip you showed is very helpful tho!
Thanks for sticking with me! <3
I still think, I can offer some improvements ...
Here's a small hint, though: a cracked Weapon doesn't do any less damage, just like a cracked Shield still offers full protection, it's just an indicator, that it'll break soon. Will probably include another Tutorial teaching about this, but won't pop up until something breaks (don't wanna frontload too much information):
If an Item cracks, depends on how much Damage Potential it dishes out (for Weapons), or how much Damage Potential it receives (for Shields). So Ghouls, who have really high Damage Potential even when they have just 1 HP left and therefore aren't much of a threat to you, still maintain their Damage Potential, so a hit from them is still more likely to crack a Shield, than from, say a full Health Deep One, who have high Health, but very low Damage Potential.
So dropping Items midfight to avoid unneccessary hits, and finishing hurt enemies off with the Whip, is a legit tactic. It's a bit of a gamble, though, because the farther you advance in the game, the more likely Enemies are apt to "catch you off guard" when you drop an Item, so you gotta be sure, that you can take that Hit, and still have enough HP left to finish them off.
About that thing having to pick up a Weapon/Shield/Consumable again to see what type it is ...
You got me thinking here. Now, the primary reason it has been implemented this way, is that the Classic Kalawaum, which this game is based on, handled it this way. Actually I've once had an iteration, where I was displaying the actual Weapon/Shield/Consumable-Class lying on the ground, but it looked bad and cluttered and was too much information to process with one glance, and then I also liked how you had to remember certain stuff to play effectively.
Thus was gaming in the 90s. Now, the more I think about it, hitting a healthy middleground between Aesthetics, Retro-Tribute and modern day QoL-concession might be appropriate. Having some ideas here, I think I'll make it so, that after having used the Map, for the remainder of the turn ALL Items around you will display their actual Class!
Would still be reasonable restrictive, because in every Region you have to find the Map first AND activate all Lightsources to use it effectively, and using the Map also costs a Turn so you can’t just repeatedly hit [M] during Combat, but outside of Combat this feature would become a cool ability like Detective Vision in WITCHER 3, lol.