itch.io

In my plight against ai slop used by physical game creators, I wanted to spotlight this and the rest of your wonderful tools here, showing how easy and intuitive and powerful they are and just hoping I can spread creations like this so talented minds can know they are never limited to slop to make their dreams - and dungeons - come true

Thank you for your hard work in this area and I'm looking very much forward to making works of my own with many of your tools :]

No worries and thank you very much! :)

(Just to answer the formula Q and for anyone else wondering about this!)

It assumes the monster first strike in order to ensure the AD attribute is relevant if the monster has no other significant attributes - in practice if a monster has 10 attack, but 1 BP and 0 DD, and we assume the heroes kill it on sight, the tool can't give a fair measurement of that monster.  It works against the purpose of the tool to discount it entirely when it's not a guarantee that it'll die upon being encountered.

That's a logical extreme, but the actual formula used would provide the same bell curves if we took away the first strike -- it is left in to make sure the cases like the above can be correctly mathematically accounted for, especially when said monster is encountered in a group.

The numbers mean nothing on their own though -- it is with comparison and frame of reference that any of it will start to make sense for the quest designer.

Also, apologies for not catching this sooner, but I looked again at your 8 goblin / 1 abomination scenario and I assumed that was meant to be compared singularly...but the numbers you have aren't what the calculator should be returning at all.

8 goblins singularly would give a quest difficulty of 32 while the abomination has 24.  8 goblins together in a room have a difficulty of 144.  Sounds like there is a calculation bug I may have missed, and if you could reproduce it and show where it's coming up with that, I'd appreciate it!

This calculator assumes monster will get first strike, which is part of the maximum difficulty :)  that chainsaw goblin isn't gonna be tough to take out, but it's gonna suck regardless!

So after two years of iterations and proba ly hundreds of logically extreme examples like the above, it's all accounted for already (even movement really - the user can pin movement into the S columns should they desire, to add an edge, or a fudge number).

No worries either though, liking the formulas isn't required and I highly encourage folks to come up with their own -- make it better, or make something entirely different! 

Best of luck!

Appreciate the corrections about the undead stats, I did the same thing for the abomination and have no idea how.  Too excited to get to the finish line maybe! I'll definitely update those.

Thanks for the detailed review.

It shouls say this somewhere in the info sheet but isnt e plained in depth -- the Calc is giving you the *hardest* possible version of a room, which may be giving you a sense of inaccurate measurements for skirmishes, especially when you add a weak monster and see the number jump really high.  To see how this works - and to see exactly why the monsters are sorted - think of your heroes killing the weakest monster in a room full of enemies before their turn ends.  The calculator isn't just using the attributes of the monsters but also taking a subjective application of turns into account, and so the strong monsters swamp your heroes.  The idea is that any calculation that is able to realistically take into account a room full of monsters should actually give you a range or window rather than a hard number.  The hard number that is given here is the "what's the worst case scenario" which to me was better than the alternatives (being "what's the lowest bar of entry for this room but only if you are very lucky?" Or "what's a random number in that window I can give you that won't make sense once you account for the difficulty ceiling with a completely different group of enemies that is much harder but returning the same number?")  So that's why I developed this compounding method.

To the point about additive formulas, I historically don't like them, but I realize simple formulas for base game monsters can be much simpler and more eloquent since there are only eight monsters.  This sheet is for (not to repeat the info section) adding in more complex entities and for homebrewers, and thus make the stats more weighted for situations where you might have a monster that has 1bp, 1ad, but 6dd, or another with 6ad, 1dd and 1bp.  These would have the same danger if their stats are added together, but obviously have very different presences in a room, and the calculator deliberately reflects that.

I think 1 abomination versus eight separate goblins would be a fun playthrough with a pretty close end.  I might play this out and see how it runs.  :)

Im sorry, i was wrong.

....it doesn't say it in your profile, it literally says it in the description of the game you posted

yessss 1000% agree, I got to a point where I just threw it and said GOTTA BE DONE but the very next version will have some nice controls outlined

Thanks so much for the rating, for playing, for commenting and for feedback!  

your profile said you were 18 before you edited it.

You said you had a 12 year old kid and are claiming it was the kid who spammed.

If you claimed to play my game and were caught in a lie, that's something to learn from if you choose.

But following it up with another untruthful statement warrants some frustration.

It isn't right for folks to be swearing and attacking, if that is actually happening.

I would just advise not to spam other creators, we (or at least I) honestly get excited when folks play our games and often want to know how their experience went, commenting just to get traction is unhelpful (not to mention unfair if you get folks legitimately playing your game because they thought you played theirs).

Either way, I apologize for coming off harsh, and hope you have gotten some good feedback on your game, and wish you best of luck in the jam.

you're 18 and you have a 12 year old, sure

I see nothing was learned

It was very nice of you to let me know this, I have uploaded the game after realizing I hadn't done so yet ;_;
It now exists!

I finished it, but I didn't realize until reading the comments here that I didn't submit it properly (I submitted the jam page, and forgot to upload the project).

A fool I am, O my folly

It exists now!  I didn't upload it when I submitted the newly created page to the jam.  Huge mistake on my end ;_;

Hello Echomoss,

congratulations on winning the RPG Developer Bakin Summer 2025 Jam!

I have prizes to distribute to you.

When you have time, please either join the RPG Developer Bakin Discord and message me @AmalgamAsh (server owner) or use my email (rewonderland at Gmail dot com).

You can confirm both of these points of contact in the description of the winner announcement video, which is on my YouTube channel AmalgamAsh, and that is live now ^^

Have a great day and congrats on your wonderful entry!!

Posted herein are the final, non-itemized scores for each entry, sorted in descending order.

This jam event had four judges, and four categories, with a total of five stars to be awarded for each category possible.
Every judge was required to rate at least one star in every category for every quest. 

The formula shown hence is 4(judges) x 4 (categories) x (1 through 5 stars). 
The minimum score using this formula is 16 (4x4x1), while the maximum is 80 (4x4x5).

The announcement and further delving into how this works is in the video linked below!

we're so close!

Did you remember to use Bakin?

To not use the combat for combat?

To not use pre-built systems?

(And to not try to get around this by making those same systems from pre-built "scratch"?)

To avoid AI visuals and audio?

To NOT use the Final Fantasy VI theme on your title screen?

To stay hydrated?

To submit regardless of how finished the project is?

Then, I can't wait to play your entries!!

See you very soon!

YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY 

JUDGING IS COMPLETE!

FINALLY!!!

ANNOUNCEMENT FRIDAY!

GET HYPED!

WE'VE ROLLED ALL SKULLS AT LAST!

that's less than three weeks to get your submissions in!

And if you haven't gotten around to starting yet, don't worry about a thing.  Three weeks is a ton of time to use the engine to make a nice, quick WIP or short adventure game, walking simulator, choose-your-path, VN...or, anything else at all really, including platformers or whatever you can think up.  No matter the type or completion level of the submission, they will all be enjoyed!

So have fun and best of luck!

it would, and from the looks of things....that is the treasure card we are hoping to draw.

much appreciated, I hope they will be able to respond soon.

We continue to be plagued by the unmoving, unyielding error message informing me that results are not yet available.  I have now a response confirming someone let the itch.io admins know, and that's probably as good as I can hope for, so I wait patiently for now.

Well...as patiently as I can.  I'm very eager to see the results myself and announce the winner, especially so I can begin videos.  Until then, I wait....

hi BrightStrike :]

Fear not, GeekGoneGiddy's post was only an acknowledgement of the good receipt of your entry.

It has since been played and judged, and given a score.  The jam is nearly done with this stage of the event and we can release the overall rankings soon ^_^

Stay tuned for an update!

Hello!  I have finished up hosting the HeroQuest Quest Jam 2025 (https://itch.io/jam/hq2025/) and had to push the judgement date back during judging phase so that my judges could have a little more time to deliberate -- I see this causes calculation issues.  It looks like a common fix is for someone to push a manual calculation, to whom may I direct this request?

Thank you kindly and please let me know if I can help or clarify anything!

Ash

ahh, but announcing the winner here would be quite anticlimactic eh?

Keep an eye on the channel for an announcement very soon  :]

Excellent work, folks -- the expanded Judge roster really helped this year due to the large amount of VERY creative, balanced, fascinating, dungeon-y, crawl-y quests received this year.  There were 41 entries and 34 qualifying which will be nice and tasty warm in a bundle that will be posted freely here before long.

I look forward to the announcement - please give a round of applause for the wonderful talent and newcomers to the Quest!

And now...ONWARD!

two out of four judges done!!

The file is not available for download at the time of judging, so with no quest to judge, I must disqualify the entry from the 2025 quest jam.

You're a legend for the comment.  Let me know if you like them :]

I just wanted to check in and declare judgement is still ongoing, so worry not, for we are quietly in yhe background going through and diligently rating and ranking accordingly - stay tuned for an update on where we stand and a ballpark estimate of when presentations can begin and ratings shared!

Onward!

Color me CURIOUS!!

This entry is unplayable.  Once the adventurers step through the door at D, there is no way for them to progress any further through the quest, and the quest notes don't explain this problem.

Thank you so much for your submission.
The stylized page and the iconography are impressive and the map looks really cool.  This is worthy to play at any table.

Unfortunately the cover image being the first page got it booted from qualification for the jam proper.  I'm not removing it, just disqualifying it from ratings.

(see https://itch.io/jam/hq2025/topic/4874576/important-first-page-rule-reminder)

This is wonderful addition to the Jam Sir Craig, and the formatting on the quest notes is impeccable.

The Sir Ash inclusion is an honor.

Unfortunately -- tragically --  the cover image being the first page got it booted from qualification for the jam proper.  I'm not removing it, just disqualifying it from ratings.

(see https://itch.io/jam/hq2025/topic/4874576/important-first-page-rule-reminder)

The quest notes are entirely on page 2, meaning this had to be disqualified from the 2025 quest jam.  nicely done anyways, quest on and please consider future jams!

Your cool quest must be unfortunately disqualified from the 2025 quest jam due to rule 4, its relevant length is more than 1 page :'( please consider joining future jams!

Your quest submission, while deserving, must unfortunately be disqualified from quest jam 2025 participation due to formatting issues that require it to be two pages long :'( thank you for your quest anyway, and please consider reformatting and submitting it to future jams!

make sure your quest submission is only one page -- per official rules everything past the first page will be ignored for judgement, so if your submission includes a "cover" page it'll actually be disqualified since the first page isn't a quest.

I'd be less of a stickler on this but the jam has started and I've already advised one participant when they asked if they could have a cover, so please mind the rule so it doesn't bite you!

(You can still upload a version of your quest to the itch page you're using, just make sure to submit a quest that has all applicable quest map and noyes on its FIRST page only!)

Thanks!

Ash

there are no prizes mentioned because there are no prizes :)

Thanks, 

Ash

before the submission phase, I updated some of the details of the rules, and specified exactly what third party assets are now allowed in the design of your submissions.  I also added what prizes are up for winning!

Please see the video for a breakdown!

excellent :)

LOL

that....I don't know how that is possible. WHAT XD

Sorry for the lack of page flair.  That'll just distract you anyway - with the time you save not looking at fancy graphics, you can download and play HeroQuest!

This has nothing to do with me being absolutely lazy