Post by kakoeimon in Under the Shrine of Death comments

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Thanks for the comment and for playing.

I know that the controls are quite unique, but I believe it is for the better.

Long answer, but those were my thoughts when I was making the controls.

I tried to keep the depth of the menus as minimal as possible.

My priorities were that, interacting with the environment and accessing the inventory must be done with the less possible button presses.

So with that in mind, A became the interaction with the environment, B the Main Actions menu and C the Inventory.

Also, A is the confirm/select button in the Menus and B the cancel Button.

With those controls, there is no menu when you are searching for traps or secret doors (secret doors are not implemented yet).

You just press A and if there is no trap or items on the ground or an enemy in front of you or a door or a secret door, nothing will happen. No menu, no message etc.

This makes the gameplay much faster.

The Inventory cannot be accessed and from the Main Actions menu, cause this is the wrong (slow) way to pay.

For example, ending your turn is very important in this game, cause for example when you are approaching a new room or when your move may reveal new tiles of a room, the possibility of revealing a new enemy is very high. The best strategy is to walk slowly and have as much possible Action Points when a new enemy is revealed.

To walk slowly, you just do not spend all your AP (you end your turn). Move one block and then end your turn. So moving slow became UP -> B -> A.

Underneath the "End your Turn" are important actions that may exist or not exist in the menu. For example "Charge". If you can "Charge" then the option to Charge is there, if not the option is not. Putting this as a second option helps the eye to identify changes.

Last options to the Menus is the Special category of any character (Fighter does not have a special category). Cleric and Mage have Cast Spell, Thief will have his Sneak.

So the Special Category can be accessed very fast. B->UP->A and you are in the Spell List.

When you understand the controls, the gameplay becomes very fast, even for a turn based game.

Try playing the game by selecting to attack from the Action Menu and you will see how much faster it is right now, when you can just double tap the A button to do so.

I hope this clear things up, because I really believe that the controls are very good.

Edit: I changed the main game page. Hope this is more clear now.

Thanks.

OpaiTheSailorMan337 days ago(+1)

I see. Thank you for your interesting answer. I'm glad I understand the design of the controll.

Although off topic. I was convinced that hunger was adopted as a measure against slow walking in common roguelike games.

kakoeimon336 days ago(+1)

Long answer again.

Rogue and in extent roguelikes, borrowed rules from the Original Dungeon n Dragons (ODnD). Reading those rules now days is a little bit difficult because the author wrote for the War Games players. But you can find many clones written in modern style.

Search for ODnD clones, many clones are completely free too.

So I believe that hunger was not a measure against slow walking, but something that exists for realism.

In extent, many mechanisms are dependent on hunger. For example, a very basic one, "Camp".

In roguelikes camping will regain you some of your hp. In DnD Clerics and Mages can use a fixed number of spells based on their level, and they can regain spells by camping. So hunger and food ratios play a more important role.

I personally never been fun of the Hunger - Starvation mechanics, so I just ignored it all together.

Movement in roguelikes is one tile per turn (unless you cast a haste spell, etc). You can move or attack.

In DnD you have movement in feet and one attack.

I used the DnD rules here from the Basic Fantasy RPG. I just converted 10' to 1 tile. I changed the movement in Action Points (AP) and gave the player character the ability to spend those APs even to attacks. Also, APs not used go to your Armor Class (AC).

I did that cause DnD is made to be played with 6 players and a Game Master, but it plays well with 4 players too (that's why almost all the DnD based dungeon crawlers are party based).

To balance this up, you can have attacks equal to a party of 4 if you do not wear very heavy armor.

The combination of more tiles per turn, unused APs going to your AC and equal vision range with monsters (this is something I added too), I believe that it is too strong.

For example, you move one tile, and then you end your turn. This translates to Shield Up and very careful moving. It is a must when you are about to enter or explore an unexplored room.

Not ending your turn, the moment a new enemy is revealed, is a must.

If you do not do that, you will not survive in this game.

itch.io

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