itch.io

Most annoying is that the browser version resets progress on close (so I keep seeing the same achievements). Some other games have this issue (not all, so I don’t think it’s my setup). Also, sometimes on re-focus a key is stuck (I know that was an older lwjgl thing). EDIT: Also having rings not melting (but still giving the rune). Though I also wish it were easier to just merge rings/spells instead (or allow transmuting spells).

The drain magic spell should have some use against magic monsters (especially animated purely by magic, if it does I couldn’t tell). EDIT: similarly, the totem of haste could be temporarily disabled with slowness spell.

Item stacking (even 2-4 depending on the item), especially as you mentioned that you intend for users to save runes (maybe even have universal storage for runes in forges, or similar for all items at staircases… or non-combat-accessible backpack). Also have worn equipment not count towards inventory space (or at least make one of each for weapon+ring+spell+armor/shield free, or maybe have bound items do this if they don’t already+bound spells?). EDIT: Forgot to say, keys shouldn’t take up inventory.

Re-work how allies are displayed (perhaps allow the game to use native aspect ratio but have one pillar for allies and the other for enemies). I think that’d also help when seeing a door listed instead of an enemy.

Give a zzz-type icon next to doors of a room with a sleeping enemy (or even big enemies moving, any spawning etc with generic sound icon).

Said before, but would like to see more unicode use (even keeping it to non-color font). Block walls, ┇ or ║ for doors, something like ░ or ▓ could be used for various things (grass, gas, rubble, spell animations).

I'm trying again now and I still am not sure on how to use the bow for the eye. The spots I would think to try are never valid targets (I'm guessing diagonals mess with "second row" calculation).

I think the bow would be better if it revealed walls/floors at very least, perhaps some alternate type of highlight (miss?) that doesn't count as revealed. I'm assuming it can't take out all enemies, but no idea where that line is at (lvl 8 or lvl 5?).

Other note (re: Is the Game Always Solvable): I've noticed it's possible for walls to cross the map, and with diagonal gaps not always crossable... if you use the available hammers on banners (like before the entire wall is revealed) you can get stuck that way.

Not sure if you have support for landscape mode with phones, but that'd be nice to be used here for the browser version.

The bow targeting makes it feel random to the point of uselessness. The only time it feels useful is for sniping the slime master. Not sure how to fix that especially if you want a simple way that does not overlap with the staff too much.

Not clear to me what the buzzy (split animation) floor tile means.

Really? The new version has more 27 hearts more of common monsters  (45 w/Romeo+Juliet) which is less blank spaces. Max hearts only goes up on odd levels.

The only thing easier is the new marking system, which is now much faster. Mid-game for me feels much slower, and I can't win consistently as with the original.

It was 12 for a short time, too.

Mentioned in the comments of the blog post, but you need to use an http server. (like python, Linux it's: python3 -m http.server).

I also mentioned a speedrun would probably be a lot better with the old version but new marking system (which maybe somebody could splice in if nothing else, though I guess be unofficial probably isn't great).

Masterful update, though a step up in difficulty. I prefer when the start has more empty spaces (esp w/the scaling change), double walls are a bit annoying too (map structures are great, it just feels like a roadblock here).

Small note: the new  version seems to be a bit blurrier, like a difference with (visual) scaling.

I have to run the downloaded versions with `python3 -m http.server`. I have another http server (diff language) that I was trying first and for whatever reason all it does is infinitely loop the colors (inspector says some assets aren't loading).

The old version with the new marking system would be a lot better for casual or speed. I suppose with both versions available someone could probably even splice it in.

Multiple tracks with some down-time between. I agree it sounds like an error at first when the beat starts coming back, but I think it works.

Yes, one with an HP of 5. Listed as ? remaining in monster list. Is at the center of the ? tiles.

Small issue: the game sometimes slows down when you are able to level up but are still using hearts. I assume related to multiple animations, as it clears up as soon as you do level up.

Also can someone tell me what the occasional chirp when revealing an empty tile means? EDIT: I just made the connection on this one... obvious in hindsight that it's only empty tiles, but this seems more like flavor than some sort of indicator like I thought it was (unless perhaps, there is a meta-strategy possible).

That fixes the issue, thank you.

I tried that before, it just gives:

 error while loading shared libraries: libSDL2_net-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (the current version is all DLLs, no SO files)

The bit on width was because it seems like the issue occurs with content size of 1920x1068 as well.

It doesn't seem to fix it (EDIT: unless the runner file needs to be updated to load the patch/in the right order?). 

Note that the issue seems to apply for any theme with the WM tweaks mentioned, though with what I've said previously maybe the problem is specific to width check?

I'm on Arch+XFCE (I have never seen another game exhibit this behavior).

To be clear, esc will still open the menu but mouse input still didn't work (even on restart of game). Editing the settings file to revert back to fullscreen fixed it perfectly, though.

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You're right, I tested it on Cinnamon and it worked fine. Further testing in XFCE, I can get it working if I unmaximize the game and manually shrink the window. Probably forces something to recalculate properly. (maximizing again re-breaks it)

My guess is my setup is an edge-case that you don't have accounted for. Specifically, a maximized window that is native sized (1920x1080) due to XFCE window manager tweaks (accessibility>hide title of windows when maximized\*). I'm not sure why it'd cause this problem, unless maybe some differing technical requirement for fullscreen vs windowed (+trying to detect fullscreen via window resolution).

EDIT: It still occurs when maximized with the mentioned tweaks disabled, so it does not need to be exactly native-sized. If I also set theme to RedmondXP it works fine when maximized (funnily enough, if I un-maximized it went to the previous size which did cause the issue again, and manually scaling it larger-than-native did not cause the issue so this is very odd)

\*=Also the frame setting that is required, though I use a window manager theme that is extremely minimal, almost frameless. Plus an auto-hide panel, so even with those tweaks disabled  on my system a maximized window has content at 1920x1068.

Mouse input stops working if you switch it to windowed mode (on Linux at least, also I like to do that because for my setup maximized windows are borderless and this allows me to see the time always).

On a side-note, I think I like shisen-sho more (though some of that may be due to the visual style of mahjong commonly making it hard to tell the depth of pieces open on their left side).

I  have not the greatest internet (6-8mbps) and with this game it gets stuck past 90%+ or even at load complete. Refreshing does not fix the issue. The inspector shows an issue:

Uncaught SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data 

at 

readFile html/9512760/Web-Version/utility/util-io.js:38

III does not have the issue.  Sidenote, it'd be cool if any changes could still be made to III, specifically fixing the issue of lacking elemental resistance (like making spell power or mastery of elements add some relevant resistance).

Yeah, for me turning fullscreen OFF makes the window slightly larger but still unusable.

BIY is much better w/scaling, particularly just for allowing maximization. That also is Linux native.

Yeah, I see. I did some basic font tests in Godot, desktop exports seem great for basic unicode characters as system fonts have it. Web exports don't seem to allow any fallbacks, manually downloading Twemoji.Mozilla.ttf gives what I expect for color unicode but doesn't provide the basics except for some that got upgrades. These are vector and I can use multiple fonts (and a custom font providing just what's needed might even be a good option), though using a label in a tilemap is actually a bit clunkier than designing a polygon (for repeating tiles). But it could work (far easier to get the visuals than the rest of a game), though I'm not really a developer.

For some context on my previous comment, I've had a few runs where I get a lot of the same type of equipment but none of it is really better (unforge-able or I'd need to backtrack), which I guess is a common roguelike frustration. I have made it to level 7 a few times, but it's a bit unfortunate that data (scores, achievements) is lost as soon as the page is refreshed. On the pixel version, lacking permadeath is somewhat of a hinderance when I start dying in the 2nd dungeon sooner than the initial death.

Hey, just want to say that as someone not usually into the ASCII look I like what you've done with visuals of Dungeon Mercenary. Understandable if you move on, though I think you could go further with Unicode characters (walls ◢■▩🮒🮁🙫🮕🮙, enemies ☠♞🕷, character 🯅, etc ☁⛊🗲⎚⁍⚿🗝❄⸾🁱) or even color unicode 🍓🐀🐉🌟🏺🚪🪨💗. Maybe even some simple combinations (2-3 layers, auras etc)?

Simple polygonal art could also be mixed with this and go a long way. This is possible with tilemaps (using scenes) in Godot 4.X but the main issue would be lack of AA in the web(+mobile?) export or tilemap clunkiness.

Back to your games, I think the biggest issue with UI is mouse-hover descriptions being too overzealous... making enemy descriptions on right-click so you could add pathfinding (when not interrupted) would help. I would probably also make the forge able to merge items per-type (equivalent to melting non-equipped+applying in one step) and also make spells not take (normal) inventory space (or allow them to be merged/recycled in a similar way).

Personally I would like more options/opportunities and especially more slack when it comes to inventory management, as combat will still be the biggest factor.

Please make it scalable or at least fullscreen-able. 

With Godot it should just be a matter of the right project settings.

Similarly when winning a round on the last turn, if you place another block onto the old board (before the new board pops up, because it's nice to get rid of unwanted blocks) it will force a loss.

Something annoying I just noticed: if you get a temple and reaper in the same block, the temple will absorb the reaper first but then the reaper (which again, isn't there) destroys the temple anyway.

EDIT: And 145 on round 4 because I placed an angel on my last turn and it did not convert (despite being connected directly to a bloodriver)

I'm new to the game, but I'd prefer if instead of rerolling both cards, you could reveal 2 more cards (leaving the previous 2 there) or you can reroll cards individually twice instead so you can choose between a pragmatic option (gargoyle -> hellfire) and something that changes strategy more.

It would also be nice to add a bit more options for deck management. Like a card bank and/or a way to get multiple cards in one selection. As-is certain options don't make sense when you get them early on. There are probably interesting ways of dealing with that, though I would probably make it something that works in the early game (block discarding/splitting or some buff(s)/alternatives to Maw).

I had this happen and I think the calculation boosts the level capacity before turned over to a preset 0 (it even looks like it w/the animation), so it also skips card choices.

It would be nice for some intended bonus, be it for extra score or remaining turns (or even free board space?).

Where do I sign up? Get me out of here.

I was already imagining cryo and then a post-organic-body brain/cyborg that maybe volunteers for space/underwater/arctic life/science in all sorts of bodies.I was thinking about bioreactors (and similar) too.

1. Controller input doesn't quite work (with the Steam Controller, via SCcontroller or when added via Steam). When standalone, the controller is not seen at all. With Steam, the analog stick works (the left touchpad does not, even when configured to left joystick using configurator in Big Picture mode), but nothing else does.

2. There's some sort of random stuttering. Sometimes one-off, sometimes multiple times in a few seconds, I have seen it freeze once.  There are no usage issues that I can see (such as a fully-used thread, 100% GPU utilization, full RAM etc) but for reference I have a Ryzen 2700 , 1050Ti, and 16 GBs of RAM.  Adding the API indicator (which adds an FPS counter) shows the game is dropping FPS by 20+FPS, which it really shouldn't be.

It seems that the game will freeze if it doesn't always have context (or switching back-and-forth?), even if the game is windowed. Possibly related to the stuttering?

3. Settings aren't saved after game is closed(I think the bullet-eater progress is saved though).

Relevant to all issues, I'm on Arch Linux and after having these issues I updated to confirm they were issues with the game itself (or at least not a short-lived issue), and yes nothing changed.

I got this via a bundle so it's not a refund issue. For some comparison, *A Short Hike* has none of these issues and even has controller rebinding.

Though for the controller, I'm not sure how much it's even needed (for me personally) if it's just move'n'shoot (no manual aim rotation).

Sorry, I can't imagine why substituting a b sound for a p would be intentional... it just sounds odd. I've never heard anyone say it like that.

It kinda-sorta-maybe makes sense as a way to show fatigue post-workout, but that'd be better served by a more tired/breathy pronunciation (like a drawn-out 'biiiih-chen', maybe even with an inhale inbetween). Even more complicated is the energized attitude and that if you work-out first he won't say it until after eating (allowing him to Popeye). So it really seems like a higher-energy (contrasting his normal laid-back attitude) and faster pronunciation (maybe even b'ch'n') would be more in-tune with how he acts.

Also Re:English Bernard, does your English Laverne voice actor have English as a second language? She has more of a foreign accent (one I can't really recognize) and less of a crazy voice. Sort of makes me think maybe Laverne is an exchange student (maybe she was kicked out of medical school in her home country for doing something... unethical... or because she had a breakdown/episode? Either one barring her from medical practice, but not in the US?) so it doesn't feel too out-of-place.

Don't think about it too hard... let's just say other people have had the same problem.

Uhh yeah, I understand all of that (hence the last paragraph). I just figured these are small enough to actually fix (hence why I didn't say anything like "you need to redo all of this"). Or, in the case of Bernard, maybe I was wrong about him being born/raised in the US. Some of the issues may even be editing errors (noise removal gone awry or mistakes with splicing?) and may be fixable more easily if the raw recordings are still saved.

FWIW most of the voices are decent impressions of the original voices and good in their own right. Many of them you have to compare one-after-the-other to tell the difference (for instance the original Hoagie voice is more John Goodman-y--as in more gravelly yet booming--although I think the RotT voice is perfectly fitting and acceptable. Like maybe his voice was just a bit stressed back in the DotT days).

I gave hints to Zilon above.

For magnesium, have you been listening to the descriptions of the things you pick up? You won't be finding pure magnesium...

For ethanol, you need alcohol... this might make it too obvious, but you need to use the coin to get the needed item.

For Hoagie aside from the bowling balls, you need 2 other things... you need to finish Laverne's path in order to get one of those things, and the other is a bit tucked away (I didn't find it until I realized the game has an option to show clickable areas if you press the spacebar). He won't assemble the device until... You also need a suitable place to use it.

After Hoagie does the bench press, it sounds like he says Pitchin'. Unlike the other instances of when he says that (I mean he still says it a little oddly other times, but it's in-line with the rest of the voice/attitude).

I'm not sure if it was intentional (isn't it set in the US?), but Bernard has a few Intrusive-Rs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R#Intrusive_R ) as if he (or is voice actor) has a non-rhotic dialect (dialects from the UK/Australia/New Zealand especially, maybe more). An easy example of this is when he says "I don't want to scissor this", he says it like "I don't wanter scissor this". I'd say it was him just saying it too fast but I'm pretty sure he also said 'draw ring' instead of 'drawing' (I don't remember where that was, so It might've been a different character) which is a common intrusive R.

Also in Bernard's description of Hoagie, he says "he's the one who has to tidy it up" like "his the one who has to tidy it up". So maybe it is just hastiness.

I could point out more (I'd have to replay and listen to every dialogue) but I'll just leave it at this for now as I'm not sure what the capacity/desire for fixing stuff like this is. Obviously some descriptions could be differentiated more as well to better suit each character's personality...

While I don't doubt takedowns are swift, unquestioned/undisputed, and can have a chilling effect (intentional or not)...

it's not entirely cut-and-dry. See http://www.inta.org/INTABulletin/Pages/NotAllIsFair(Use)inTrademarksandCopyright... and http://www.betalaw.info/can-lose-trademark-rights-dont-sue-infringers/

Particularly, simply using a name is not necessarily infringement (people aren't going to assume association of Nutella just because it's the centerpiece of a recipe, and if anything it will boost sales of the trademark holder) and intellectual property doesn't need to be protected like the last thin-shelled egg of an endangered species that's largely undocumented.

I'm sure if fan games are ever attempted to be used as a defense to claim abandoned intellectual property that defense would be stricken down. Certainly if said fan game is gratis (and non-commercial to a certain degree, especially if the difference of revenue vs profit is taken into account), non-competing, not intended to cause confusion, and not causing significant damage to the brand. And heck, if EA match all of that, then more power to them (considering their track record, I doubt they can accomplish any of that).

Unfortunately, companies can easily ask for takedowns of anything with no repercussions and many people don't have the money to fight anything in court (plus the companies have teams of lawyers) and are scared even by the thought. If this project gets too big (especially close to anything planned by the parent company for a new DotT release) I don't doubt that it'll be seen and taken down.

Luckily, most fan projects are removed because of they're stupidly-low low-hanging-fruit... by which I mean they use trademarked names/logos.

This project doesn't do that so likely isn't going to get removed by a simple bot (one that just searches for keywords or searches for a copy-paste of an entire logo) but when it comes to more advanced AI for image recognition (especially with neural networks) it becomes more likely that they could detect it early. Although the AI wouldn't even really need to be that smart, as the logo (particularly the 'of the tentacle') is extremely close even if it's not a 1:1 copy. If anyone is using or will use AI for stamping out anything remotely resembling infringement, it'd be Disney (who owns LucasArts and thus DotT).

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Even if you think to yourself "MY corporation wouldn't do that to fans, they're cool!" remember that they want money, don't always have fans' best interests in mind, and can end years of work with less effort than a finger snap (in relation to the collective of the organization). Just because you (possibly) can, doesn't mean you should (risk it).

So you should distance yourself from any existing designs (design things as if you were given description alone). Use the core ideas (in spirit, that is) and incorporate your own ideas as well. If you absolutely have to make things similar, make names/designs original-but-close in an "everybody knows what you mean" sort of way (Mikey Mouse, Polkamen, McDarren's, Burger Lord, Harold Sampson, Harvey Potter and the Alchemist's Stone, Lucas Cloudrunner) and design your game to allow players to rename characters or even specific story elements (places, events, concepts etc) via options or via data packs for people who want the names from the inspiring work (also resource packs for the assets themselves).

I would be even more paranoid than that: I wouldn't even mention the inspiring work in any official capacity. Much like renaming/resource packs mentioned above, fans as free to do what they want. If others make comparisons, that does not concern the project itself. It wouldn't even give keywords for bots to latch onto, just like I'd try not to give even a shred of legal justification in the work itself.

It might not be preferable, but you could always try installing Linux (maybe in a VM or on a removable drive/portable hard drive?) so you can play the Linux version of the game. At least if this is fully an OS issue.

"That is all you have to say about this game?" Yes, because I haven't been able to download it. It is current year, but I live in a somewhat rural part of the US so I only have 1 choice of ISP for wired broadband, so price and reliability leaves much to be desired especially compared to other countries... no fiber for me.

I'm sure it is great, but it's also 10x larger than the original. I've played the original, and I don't think the graphics or audio was completely unbearable. However, modern technology and techniques mean much more can be done with much less. So that's all I was saying.

How much of the size is from the voice lines? If it is a significant size, perhaps doing a seperate download for each language would make sense.

I get that doubling the amount of downloads would be a bit messy... if your setup allows separate data and executables (like Godot and I believe Unity do... also ren'py if you count that) perhaps you could do multiplatform downloads (the executables in the zip would have their platform in the name), so you'd have 2 downloads (English and German, I'm assuming) instead of the current 4 (that cover both languages but are per-platform).

Also I don't know if it applies to your speech files (forgive me if it doesn't), but the Opus codec seems interesting for decent sound (particularly voice, not sure about music) at low cost.

I'm not sure how much of your art is touched up or redone/new, but some areas have that wobbly look like you used an upscale as a base (similar to how the official "remaster" did). Using in-game filtering or or going full vector would likely also be more scalable, particularly if you're not fully saturating the detail of 4K anyways (but you could still get smoothness+sharpness out of it). Yeah, probably too late now even it something like that was an option, but I've always preferred scalable/dynamic formats particularly for their value.

Why is this 1 GB? I'm having trouble downloading... which is partially the fault of my connection, but it's also an issue with the server as well (particularly because the download goes into 'forbidden' status blocking download resumption, and because I cannot use a download manager--like jdownloader--to download this game from itch because of the download being behind javascript).

I'm not sure if it's uncompressed audio or if all of the art is HD bitmaps (rather than vector or upscaled+filtered pixel art) but a smaller file size would be nice. If the issue is that you're using bitmaps and you can't change that, GPU compression might be a possible solution.

I am talking about the rotation or your art, not the art itself. Particularly I mean AA in the project settings of Godot, so your rotated pixel art looks better. Making 1:1 pixel art is more of a style issue.

I wouldn't mind testing, although I don't use Discord (I prefer IRC).

Assuming everything you're using is a sprite (no polygons), have you considered using anti-aliasing (AA)? The pipes especially look bad without AA.

Godot can't do AA on polygons yet, but for sprites it should be fine.