itch.io

Hey, there! I've just played your game and I wanted to say it looks promising. I've also looked through your python code and I think that with a little effort, you can make it a little more readable for someone who is seeing it for the first time :P . But otherwise, yeah, good effort!

Thank you very much! My email is teo.tucan@gmail.com

The bit that I was interested in was the dungeon generator. I believe it's a procedural one, that uses a seed. I was wondering if you could take a little bit of time and talk with me about the algorithm. I have a similar thing implemented in one of my projects (you can find it here, on itch.io, on my page), but it has some limitations and I am always looking for ways of improving on it. If that's ok with you, let me know and I can provide you with an email address or even a subreddit that I've set up. By the way, I'm using python for my programming, but I think it won't be a problem, since we'll be discussing algorithms, not programming.

The reasons why a player would not be incentivised to exchange their old gear for new one are the following:

- the gear is a rare commodity in the game

- the gear is evolving together with the character (it gets improved by smiths)

- the concept that "if the enemy has it, you can have it", that usually applies with the "after the enemy is dead" addendum :) that usually implies that the enemy is going to use the shield and damage it in the process as well.

Regarding of what you have said about keeping track of damaged equipment, I entirely agree. It can become a tedious task in most games, but since  this is a text based game, it will not pressure the player to make rapid decisions and I have already put in place a system that signals the need for repairs, when that need arises.

If you are interested in seeing it in action (for swords, not for shields), my game is called Project Tezerat and it can be downloaded for free in a very alpha version, here, on itch.io.  I'm not going to post a link to it, because I believe the forum prohibits it.

Hey, man! I just wanted to let you know that I've been playing your game for a little while. As someone who is working on a similar project, I can tell you that it really inspired me. What language did you program it in?

During my work on the text-only video game that I'm designing, I've stumbled upon a question that I've always left unanswered, in a corner of my mind. What would be the most balanced way for a non-animated entity to use a shield? Little did I know that this is a strand that once you start pulling, it keeps going and going ... and going. I think that after researching the subject a bit, I can open a discussion and find out what I've missed, and shamelessly showcase what I believe to be the best shield system (for my game and others alike it!!!). I do expect to be humbled, but the greatest lessons come from that, so ... please do!

= Shields as Absorbers =

One of the most common ways of shield deployment that I came across is that of a padding like structure, that reduces incoming damage through absorption. The bigger the shield, the more damage it absorbs. Needless to say, I find this implementation to be quite lacking in many important areas. First of all, this is not how a shield works in 99% of real life situations. I'm no advocate of "real-life realism" in video games, but I do insist on realistic basic functionality. When blocking with a shield, you either get hit or you don't get hit, unless ... I don't know ... instead of taking a sword to the head, you block it and the shield hits you, instead.

= Shields as Barriers =

If the first category covers almost 50% of the examples that I came across, a similar percentage is covered by this second one. The shield is used as a barrier, that reduces incoming damage to zero, but loses some of its durability in the process. I find this implementation to be more akin to real life, but it's still very limited, linear and quite boring way of doing things.

= My Solution =

This is the way shields are working in my game: 

- Every shield acts as a barrier, as in the previous example. 

- The more damage a shield takes, the harder it becomes to block with it.

- Needless to say, the shield takes damage only if you successfully block with it. 

- The more skill a character has in using the shield, the easier it is for said character to block with a broken shield.

The consequences of this system:

- Shields are more akin to their real life counter-parts.

- It involves a blocking skill that can be advanced during game-play.

- This knowledge can be used not only for defending with a shield, but for reducing the chances of an enemy to block.

- A low level skill prevents the player from losing the shield (a very precious commodity in my game).

- This way of using shields is in line with, empowers and in exchange is empowered by the "learning-by-failing" concept.

Other elements that are not involved in my solution, but I am aware of:

- The type of weapon used against the shield bearer: an axe has far more chances to damage a shield, than a dagger; a curved falx like implement has more chances of circumventing the shield altogether

- Penalties that come from shield usage

- Linking shield usage with ripostes and counter-attacks

I'd really love to hear from you about other implementations that you have thought about or even applied to your games. Consider this to be an open invitation to discussion.

Project Tezerat is a video game that aims to recreate the feeling of a pulp magazine fantasy story in the sword-and-sorcery or heroic fantasy vein. It's still in its alpha stage, so there are a lot of elements still missing. Please, be patient and we'll get there, eventually. 

This game is different from most (if not all) other RPG's because it will require you to mainly focus on your reading abilities, not on your mathematical ones. The entire mechanical/mathematical system is hidden from view, but is still accessible through text.

I've been making the art, game design, programming and world building on my own for some time, but I became so used to everything, that only someone else playing the game can help me with the blind spots. I am open and eager to hear any and all comments on the game, no matter how small or insignificant you might think they are.

Thank you for your time!

You can download the game here: https://turnus.itch.io/project-tezerat-alpha

I've had a lot of fun defeating all three of the Hwarangs. I've downloaded and played the game on purpose, because I will implement a similar system in my text based game and I wanted to see how you have done it. Mine might be a little more complicated, but in essence they are very close to each other. The only thing that I couldn't agree with was the AI generated art, but that is a personal preference. Overall you have quite a fun game and you should try to increase its complexity. 

Hey, man! I just wanted to tell you that I've played your game for a few hours to see what makes it tick. I fell in love with the way you have designed the menus. I'm a novice with python, so I can't really put my finger on it, but I think it's something to do with multithreading?! I'd really love to find out how you did that!

This is one of the best games ever. And I'm not even kidding. A nice update would be to add a counter to it and when you guess the number print the number of attempts needed to get there.

So ... I've managed to reach the final destination. Out of curiosity ... what happens if you hide? :) As promised, here is the map: https://ibb.co/ZWqSqFG . I've taken some notes regarding things that I liked and things that I would have done differently. Please note that they are not regarding the story - that, by the way, seems very familiar (in a 90's Final Fantasy Super Nintendo kind of way) to me.

So, this is my list:

- I really liked the "comparative damage" fighting system. As far as I understand it, there's a base damage (STR) that gets an additional bonus from (LUCK)?! The SKILL governs, well, the skills/abilities, I guess.

- We've already spoken about the waiting times and the unwanted key presses. If I'm not mistaking, you have programed the game in java. I'm not familiar with the language, but I can show you how this is avoided in python, if you wish, and maybe there's a similar way to sort things out in java.

- I've noticed that at some point I got to fight a ... :unknown: with 1 HP. Is that supposed to happen? I found it extremely funny, thinking about fighting "THE UNKNOWN"

- The potions have no "label", so I drank them without knowing what they did. I kind of figured it out, but it took me a while.

- The buy/sell options and the skill use ones are case sensitive and need to be imputed by hand. You have already figured out how to assign keys to the movement/directional/interaction menu, so I kind of wonder why you didn't use the same system here

- The text is not wrapped, so obviously there are spots where words are broken in the middle at the end of a line. 

- Do the monsters "evolve" as you level up?

Overall, I think that the game is a really nice take on the old ZX Spectrum (and before) text adventures with the obvious addition of a combat system and a 90's flavoured story. 

There are a few more things that I could add, but I won't do it here, because there are spoilers involved. I've started a subreddit named r/asciiadventures that you can join and we can continue this discussion there. Just start a thread about your game. 

Cheers!

This is a "hardcore" take on the classic Hangman game. The words are extremely unusual and difficult, but you do receive definitions to help you in the process. All you need to do is to reveal the words, a letter at a time.

For each letter of a discovered word you get 1 point and for every mistake you make, you lose one. There are three levels of difficulty. Easy mode allows you to make 10 mistakes per word. Medium allows 7 and Hardcore allows 5. The score multiplyer is 1, 10 and 100, respectively.

Be careful, if you insert more than a letter at a time, it will be considered a mistake. If you insert a correct letter that has been discovered previously, that will also be considered a mistake. If you insert a non-letter character, or press enter without entering any character, that will be considered a mistake.

You can download the game for free here: https://turnus.itch.io/hardcorehangman

I hope you'll have a nice hanging ... errrmmm ... I meant experience! Yes! Experience!

Hey, man! I played a little more tonight, but I won't make any additional comments until I'll finish the game. I'm also making a map (without any spoilers) for it. By the way I have found the Secret D. Quest and I ran away, because of the D. , you know. Will it come back? :)))) I went with an Orc Warrior. 

Hey, man! I'm currently doing my first playthrough and as a fellow game gamer would like to point out at some things that would make the game experience even better. 

I've died at the first resting place door (I can't say the word here, for spoiler avoidance reasons) because while the game "waits" between messages, it takes inputs. So, instead of the word, it took a pure "enter" and it killed me. 

By the way, the waiting time could do with a little bit of reduction or, even better, with a "press a key to continue ..." option. Maybe some more "cls"'s or "clear screen"'s would help declutter the screen a little bit?! 

Otherwise, I really enjoy your take on combat (with the critical being a very nice surprise). I'll have to play a little bit more to get the whole gist and be able to comment on it. 

By the way, if you're keen, I'd like to discuss your game (and maybe one of mine) in the future. I don't see a lot of really good text based games, so I take every opportunity to chat with the makers of the ones that I like. 

If you have the .py files anywhere, I can run those. 

The game shows up as a virus, for some reason. Do you have a source file that I could compile? 

There are a couple of .dll files still missing. The errors won't allow me to run the game on Windows.

Hey, man! 

The ANSI escape codes seem to have a problem. Instead of seeing the colours, I see the codes. I've run into something similar in python. The way I've sorted it out was to run clear screen (cls) in the OS module, if I remember it right. Otherwise, pretty cool little project. 

Hope this is helpful! 

I have programmed the game from scratch in python. Actually this game is my attempt to learn python a little bit better. I'm currently building on what I have learned and I really hope I can release something in the next few weeks or so. Things look pretty good for the new game, so stay tuned, I think you'll really like this new one.

The music doesn't loop, as I haven't found a way to do it ... yet :) So, yes! That is a big minus for the game, but I am working on it. The idea behind the game is to offer a 10 minutes adventure to the player. I don't know how games ended up being 100+ hours of gameplay or more. I think we got so used to that, that nowadays having fun for a few minutes seems almost impossible. 

The wounds system is like that by design. I don't want the player to know exactly how bad (s)he's wounded. Like in real life. You get punched a few times and you know you're wounded, but you don't know exactly how bad it is :) I'm really trying to make the game feel like a short story, more than a maths exam. The only numbers you see are the pieces of gold and the healing potions.  

Thank you very much for playing my game and if there is anything that I can do to help you in your future projects, drop me a message!

Your file looks like it has a virus in it. Both chrome and the Windows antivirus reported it as such. I've scanned it online and this is what came back. 

Bkav Pro

W64.AIDetectMalware Cynet

Malicious (score: 100) DeepInstinct

MALICIOUS Jiangmin

TrojanDownloader.Pyfatget.d Microsoft

Program:Win32/Wacapew.C!ml Skyhigh (SWG)

BehavesLike.Win64.Agent.tc

I've just tried to run the file through python and it failed! I've installed all the additional libraries and it worked, until it failed again when I have pressed a key too early.  Then it failed again when I have pressed the wrong letter (a "G" when asked a "Y/N" question). 

I've finally managed to talk to Ares, Chronos, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Moirae and got killed a couple of times in the process. Every time I had to start fresh and listen to the whole computer-voiced dialogue, because any key press at the wrong time would mean an error followed by the exit code. 

But I'm not mad because I've learned quite a little bit by examining the code and, at the end of the day, this is a game about patience and taking the hard path.

Keep on coding, bro!