itch.io

Hi @Trevelyan83,

I don't think there's a reason to have both versions. I'll still keep updating both itch.io and steam store with everything new and also with the final release, whenever that comes, with the same price as well.

Hi Shafk,

apologies for the delay :( these days are quite busy.

• hmm, so are you saying that even after killing the devil, the Lisandro wont come back with an event when you walk up a square, saying that his work was done? Event logic simply checks if the devil is dead. Did you fought him directly or by using the "bone" ? Indeed, if this quest fails, then only 1 rune can be obtained, not allowing access to last map. I will try to reproduce this one and come back if anything else is needed.
• the Cult of Wizards (in Amphill) is accessible through a key obtained on Monastery, where you eventually can find the "bone". Its a part of "Infernal Matter" quest so no new quest is shown, only a special key is needed. Did you take that from monastery and still can't access it?
• hmm, the shop items being the same sounds an issue. I'll try to reproduce through multiple restocks and fix if that's a case.

Thanks a lot for all this work, so appreciated ;)

Hey,

thanks for the bug report! I thought all these were fixed already :( I'll try to reproduce that and fix it for good. By default cleric, you mean a "prebuilt" cleric from character creation, right?

Thanks!

nice idea, copied that to my feedback list, as well your other ones ;)

thanks!

Hey,

thank you for your feedback, I copied it in my /todo things.

Indeed, sometimes that error shows up in logs and it was an issue of some enchantments not having an entry in the game, like "Potion of Cure Poison" (the "cure condition" enchantment was the issue here). 

I added them all so these error logs shouldn't be shown anymore.

I uploaded already the newer update (20240125).

Regarding the "Short blade" skill, I checked it again and it seems there's no issue. What kind of short blade you weren't allowed to equip? Usually, when you can't equip an item, a "reason" shows up in message bar (above characters).

You can find the criteria for all skills under "7.4 Skills" in the provided RULEBOOK.pdf

I will consider some of your nice ideas as the content keeps building up :)

Thanks for the feedback!

Hey,

apologies for the delay :) Indeed, it was a bad name issue in the game's data, fixed in the newer update (20240125)

thanks for the report!

Hey thanks, I appreciate that you liked this one so far :)

Actually, I have already setup some trainers for weapons and armor. There's a trainer for 'Leather armor' in Silkmoor and also a 'Short blade' almost next to her, in the same village :) These will allow you to wear leather armor and use small blades like daggers and short swords i.e.

Although, it wouldn't be good to put all kind of trainers in one village and one town. There will be more skills as well and more civilised areas with trainers.

Regarding the more details about items, spells and all that, it's something I may need to consider. Since I am after M&M 3-5 and EOB, I really don't like to modernise things too much. Copied the feedback though and will revisit it again, I could perhaps on what's already there.

Regarding the sounds and music, yeah its something that bothers me as well sometimes. I might rework all sound work so far, especially event music.

What's in my full game? well, the basic premise of the game was / still is to provide a very long single-based game, with tons of maps, lore, items, side quests and lots of puzzles and riddles, along with a major quest which is basically explained in the intro. Not AI, not super deep stories and generally modern stuff. Just the grinding single-based cRPGing experience of the past (M&M 3-5) and exploration / D&D based puzzling (EOB). I have put another screenshot in the list on right column of the world map to realise the length of the final game ;)

Thanks again for the purchase!

hey, I just updated the game to 1.2_20240111 version, you can download it from files =) I also playtested the save.dat you provided to me, it worked like a charm after the fix =) Thanks again!

right, bug is fixed. I had to rework the save system a bit, fixing a few other bugs as well :) I will upload a fixed version today, I will inform you.

Ok, I think I was able to reproduce this :)

I will go through it and provide a fix as soon as I have something ;)

thanks for the bug report!

hey man, thanks a lot:)

The game for sure it will end up loads better.

Hmm, strange, I fixed such issues before the release. Do you have the save.dat that causes issues with "Load The Last Game"? If yes, please upload  it here as a file (if possible) or e-mail it to me: burzum_mewtwo@yahoo.gr

I will try to reproduce that as well, going through your excellent details. Are the save slots in save.dat, in sequence? Could you reproduce it? (backup the original save.dat somewhere else). Just to make it appear to me.

Yeah, you can simply remove the save slots until you end up with the one you want, preferably setting the slot = 0, but that's as much as my hypothesis go.

<save slot="0"> ... </save>

thanks =)

yes, its the "prelude" version only, that means a version with about all the major fixes and functionality and about ~3 hours of the main game's content. A "short" release of sorts.

it's a kind of early-access for itch.io, which however its fully playable; I mean, this is how the full release will start about. A version for anyone wanting to play in its current state.

happy new year =)

thanks, I appreciated it =)

have a happy new year and crawl dungeons :)

thanks man,
happy new year =)

released! =)

released! =)

Yep, its basically ready =) Just finished a "short" playthrough of the first areas that took a good ~1 hour.

I am on publishing / uploading mode right now, just an hour after getting it into 2024 ;)

So, keep these hopes high and check again this page in a bit = few hours :)

Hey :)

Yes, I am going to publish this very shortly. It could be even a matter of hours, although I have some work left. Thanks for your lovely words :) Yeah, I am after these games, their atmosphere and mechanics, as well as M&M but also infusing it with my own things. I just love their raw approach on D&D world, cutscenes and their huge graphics.

I liked the first Legend of Grimrock because it was quite close to EOB1 and DM. I mostly like to play games with similar atmosphere and (lower) technology to my own, Grimoire, The Quest, Legends of Amberland etc.

Not really interested in very modern takes, because I feel there's a lot of copy/pasting of the LOG formula, over and over again. Even M&M X tried to capitalise on that, sadly. Very few games ended being good enough compared to LOG, one of them being "Dungeon Kingdom: Sign of the Moon" and I heard good stuff about "Operencia" but never played it.

However, I much prefer to play Lands of Lore or watching some Dungeon Hack walkthroughs or even reading D&D modules, rather playing modern cRPGs these days :) I guess this keeps me close to this kind of games after all these years.

Yep, it takes first and foremost heart, soul but also a lot of persistence for the years that will take you to make a game. There's still so much more that I would like to add to the game but I feel its time to show a thing or three of what the game looks like now, a "prelude" of sorts of what is coming =)

you're welcome :)

not really.. the v1.2 build, with all of its changes / improvements was simply merged to the short release, which was further enhanced after the thorough playtesting.

I decided that since the playthrough by other guys revealed some really nasty bugs on a content that was pretty much around ~60% of the short release.

Fear not though, I am really focused to get this out before the end of this month :)

Hey, sorry for the late reply :)

Thanks a lot for still following this. Well, the game should have been already released but recently I gave it for thorough playtesting and I am still working on the enormous feedback I got from the people that played it, well, along with some bugs or five :)

I am not good with ETAs and stuff but what is left for now is adding one last level / map for the game to have a proper "mini" closure, a chapter of sorts, since the demo didn't had one.

And there are still some minor stuff to address, more like annoyances that need to be eliminated. There have been a lot of changes while I was designing the last version, which only got worse after the playtesting :)

So, yeah, this will be a demo no more, it will be more like a short cRPG that will last a couple hours, more closer to what the full game will look like in the end than previous demo.

Yeah, I posted this update on dungeoncrawlers discord for now. If you see major update there, or facebook or rpgcodex, then the game will be already published on itch.io (at first), so keep an eye, mostly in this month ;)

Thanks :)

Hi simonschreibt

Thanks for the comment.

No worries at all, this issue has long been fixed in new (and last) v1.2 demo. In addition, a window and a letterbox mode were added to support these large resolutions / monitors, without losing the original aspect ratio i.e. no stretching.

New v1.2 (demo) build has been already playtested and already working on last bits, expect it in few days with tons of improvements and original content :)

Hey, thanks man :)

I am already improving it and will soon have something more to show :)

Glad that you're liking this very early version!

Hey, I am glad that you played my game!

oh, thanks for your kind words :) Yeah, this is my engine and its a quite old one. I started creating its first incarnation around ~1999-2000 or something. I am going to release the engine's lib's and all that along with my other game The Darkness Below, in due time :)

I love working on consistency of a game and old retro  look/feel, until it finally "clicks". Although, for jam entries, this was a double-edged knife and had to sacrifice from other things; but regardless, I feel great about the UI and am glad that you liked it too, that was the intention. Indeed, not many games do that anymore; actually, your game Sanctuary's Grasp was one of the few that satisfied me in that department :D

Yeah, I made the game in such a way that you really need to think a bit in the end, otherwise you'll end up dead pretty quickly. I had plans to add more content but luckily my full job obligations caught up with me. Regardless, I have loads of feedback to make this another good entry in my own  games.

Thank you so much for the comment :D

Hey, thanks for playing my game :D

oh, that's a lovely comment and I so appreciate your comment about consistency; I do like to spend a lot of time trying to match graphics, sounds and all that, its definitely not an easy job for a developer :) Glad that you liked that!

Yeah, the event system need more love and really had not time to improve that; I had to sacrifice working on that to fully complete the game. I am definitely going to change the way, based on the lots of feedback that I got for that :D I am also going to provide some predefined battle tactics to give more control in battle.

Thanks again for your valuable time and writing down this feedback :)

Hey, I played your game :D

• Loved the scenario behind that, very traditional. Loving it when people spend some time of actually writing these details before throwing us into dungeons we hardly care about :D
• great title screen and music, loved the pixel style right from the start!
• I was impressed by the amount of options that you put there, not many people do that and my own game didn't even had a "settings" option, lol. Although, I would had loved more if "Controls" settings was shown in the same place as others, but its nitpicking
• So, did you even put a tutorial and a difficulty level? Impressive.
• Superb music on explaining the scenario and lore behind the game. So effective and immerses someone to really dive into it!
• Really retro look and feel of the game. Also, as a developer myself, I know when a game is properly optimized and doesn't pushes my system for throwing X effects just because. Impressive design and implementation of in-game movement and UI in general! Really, this looks like a game that came out in 1995 for voodoo cards :)
• I would love it better if you weren't forced to "crash" on another objects; simply checking orientations and automatically showing options would do wonders here :)
• "You get the Buckler" :D Although, the sound effect opening the hidden wall was really delayed; I usually start playing the sound immediately, thene do the action to keep it in sync (and trim silence from the start).
• now this is a proper automap, minimal, effective and with huge squares :D
• crashing on walls is wonderful feature but perhaps you want to drop the movement transition like half :D but this is nitpicking
• one of the few games that really have a great field-of-view while being a transition-based game!
• I died on battling the second bat :( would love if the first battles were child's play :D I underestimated these rats :)

Overall, such an optimized, polished and superbly implemented little game, in the old traditional way. You definitely need to work on this more :D

Hey, I checked your game :D

• I am impressed that you submitted your game like ~9 hours before the deadline
• nice intro and lovely music
• nice, quick movement and transitions, with impressive visuals? love it!
• loved the variety of items
• that trail to show me where I'd been, really nailed it, nice touch!
• the game kept crushing initially on a low-end laptop for reasons unknown, then played it on another and finally played. Needs some debug though.

Overall, a unique experience and cool concept and implementation :D

Hey, I checked your game :D

• lovely, classical screenshots from the game is what got my attention initially
• great title screen and music, very atmospheric and loved the transition between the two realities :) nice job!
• superb field-of-view and movement, can't be better.. Smooth and quick movement, makes movement an enjoying experience!
• it would be great if we had some introduction of what this is all about to improve the experience and motivation..
• I got stuck in the room, after the stairs? then I learned I had to hit 'Space' :D
• nice and complete combat mechanics but I feel that it could be worked more to end up faster, but that's nitpicking :)
• loved the concept of changing the realities and opening up new content, these polished graphics definitely increase the immersion!

Overall, great and polished work for sure, nice job :)

Hey, I appreciate that you checked my little game :D

Lovely comments, thanks! Yeah, I had to do some shortcuts and trim some expected functionality to get this out before deadline :( Definitely I am going to add some simple predefined battle tactics and a bit more complex item / party management, although without changing the fast pace of combat which is what the game is all about.

Thanks for the useful feedback, I am glad that you liked it so far :)

Hey, I played your game :D

• I liked that you made builds for OSX and Linux, I liked when people provide additional stuff other than Windows and Browser :D Although, I would had liked more if you offered a Windows binary as well :)
• I loved that title screen and the choice you give :) I am all about "find and killing the boss"
• I liked the UI generally, quite retro and fell in love with your navigation pad, not many people are even coding that. You get 5/5 for the retro vibes :) Lovely music as well!
• I liked moving the dungeon and being presented with these very classical events
• great perspective of dungeon, walls, floor and ceilings all perfectly arranged to give the classical view of a retro dungeon crawler!
• nice battle mechanics but would had liked more if you had some effects on attacks; something to feel that I am hitting that dog brute or feel their hits too :D
• loved the additional actions like "Bribe" and "Charm", mane, how much classical can this be, loved it!
• I liked that you found the time to put these scattered boxes for us to pick up, yet another retro point for this lovely game.
• its so nice that you spent time for making up these retro-looking wall / floor textures and didn't settled for something more realistic. They're quite a match! I would love it more if you do the same with ceiling though :D

Overall, it feels quite classical and traditional, which is something I love and practicing for like decades now <3. A 5/5 game, kudos!

Hey, thanks for trying out my game :D
Lovely that you checked the up linux version as well.

Heh, not many players managed to reach that dimensional wizard, let alone kill him :) Definitely wanted to provide a lot more content but I barely managed the deadline, fixing a lot of other more urgent stuff.

Thank you for your kind words, yeah I am about presentation but I guess on a 7-day jam they took a bit more time than necessary :) Still, I am glad you liked it, I do like it a lot and will continue to work with it for certain.

Yeah, the "Jolt3d!" officially discontinued at around July 13, 2008.. You probably know already know my old website. In fact, I was working on it from like ~2000. These versions were using DirectX 9.0c and generally older tools. The new "Jolt3D!" engine is based exclusively on cross-platform code (that means OpenGL and a bunch of other libraries).

However, its a closed project at the moment, not publicly available. I am going to release the latest version of Jolt3D! along with the release of my other game The Darkness Below, which is also using the engine. However, its an "engine" in the "older" meaning of word, like it was used to be in 2000'; that means its pretty much a low-level API like SDL, nothing even close to Godot/Unity/Unreal editor based.

Thanks for the lovely comment and interest on my engine as well, loved it :)

Hey, I checked your game :)

• I am impressed that you managed to submit the game like ~4 minutes before the deadline :D I would afraid myself to upload in such time, being a totally autistic guy :) I thought my ~2 hours were close to deadline :)
• I am glad that you somehow managed to make Godot "detecting" my inability to run Vulkan and instead run OpenGL 3; I've played some games where I had to start the game with additional params :)
• Lovely must and title screen. I so loved that you offered key binding and this amount of settings, not many games did that, including mine when I offered no options at all :D lovely!
• I so loved the introduction with all these little cutscenes and text, so atmospheric!
• Its great that you managed such a classic "create character" screen, very efficient and retro-looking graphic style :)
• I would love it better though if QE was turnin left-right from the start and S was simply moving backwards :) but that's nitpicking.
• sadly, the game crashed on me twice and actually hanged my PC, while exploring that forest :( I am using a low-end laptop these days, perhaps this is the reason but I didn't noticed something like that on other Godot games. But don't scratch your head too much on this, I am using older OSes and hardware in general so its not an issue :D
• liked the variety of objects in the forest, definitely added to the game
• nice atmosphere overall, I liked that brownish color that was matchingg the general theme :)

Overall, a nice and quite polished experience, although with some understandable bugs (at least for me :D) and great customization for a 7-day entry :)

wow, what a lovely comment :)

Really tried to reproduce  that kind of retro look and feel and spend a nice deal of time wrapping the interface up :) Although, a bit more than necessary perhaps, as I had to sacrifice some content time, but can't everything :) Still, I like it myself and I glad that you liked the aesthetic, it was mostly what I was going for.

Yeah, I had perhaps lots of feedback regarding the event system and understand its less than "good enough" and I fully agree. I was planning to add some nice sound around it but I didn't had anything quick. I tried some fanfare and stuff sounds but they all ended up being weird and stuff. Perhaps, it would be lots better if I could just had lowered the music volume.

Oh really? I thought Luther was programmed to heal the ones that are mostly wounded :) Perhaps there's some bad blood between them indeed, who knows :D Definitely I am going to add some quick predefined tactics to give a better control over battle in future versions.

I loved your last paragraph, I mean its the best compliment that a developer aiming for a traditional / retro cRPG can get :)

Glad that you liked it so far, definitely I am going to continue developing it :)

Yeah, I am going to change the event mechanics and text scrolling for sure, its not ideal. No worries at all, thanks for the feedback, I really want to know all the wrongs of my game :)

You did a pretty good job as well, I was actually very short in content so I kinda failed in that department :) Regardless, I understand that my game is not for everyone, its just another perspective of what I wanted to do. I am already developing my other traditional cRPG The Darkness Below so I really wanted to make something more casual and fast :)

Glad that you liked some parts of it :)

Hey, thanks man :)

yeah, the autobattler was both a quick idea that would enable me to show some effects fast and also because I really wanted to make something that can "stand" between traditional battle mechanics and an autosolver, in time. Definitely requires some quick predefined tactics and other things to become meaningful. For sure, the player has to have a say at least per round for a start :)

Yeah, I loved the skills and the experience gained in your game, very classical implementation, loved it :) In my case, I ran out of time and had to go for some content and "completion" and I also had to work 2 hours after my submission, meaning I didn't slept at all for doing it :D. I guess jam inexperience and not much preparation.

Event and text scrolling is pretty weak, I definitely agree. Regardless, I am going to work on the project as I really like it. It plays quite different from TDB and will be quite different when fully completed.

Thanks a lot man, it seems we're going to end top #20 in this jam :)

Heh, I guess that low resolution old-man wasn't too convincing after all :) It would be funny to make a nice cutscene where the village is engulfed in flames and destruction because you were convinces by an old man :)

Yeah, I am considering to change these billboarded buildings into full normal cubes and add some events. Initially, I wanted to use them to hire different people from there. In reality though, I barely completed the game :)

Thanks for kind words! yep, I already have some great ideas to improve on the game, after I finish the demo for The Darkness Below at last. Yeah, the mace sounds exactly how it sounds in TDB, I really had no time testing all that stuff.. I liked the sound thought but need something heavier :)

I really wanted to make a game that plays fast and doesn't require much time from players to equip stuff or going through lots of text and epic quests and all that. Casual yet retro gaming :) Not going to satisfy all players for sure but I am all about fun :p

Yep, I am all about optimizing everything and mostly file sizes, being a game engine developer and all that :) Coming from that old era of cRPGs, I can't stand big file sizes and I always have the habit to shrink everything down to absolutely necessary, even though I know that isn't really necessary nowadays :D

I am glad that you liked my game :) even in this rushed version. Definitely, more to come out of it :)

Hey, I finally played your game :)

• felt that before even starting, mainly from the screenshots, that this is a top-notch work, at least in graphical and atmosphere department.
• great title screen, very atmospheric and with a nice background music
• I really appreciate the time putting such an "Options" screen, not many people did that, including myself :) And you put many settings in there, that's a commercial-level options page :)
• I love that you started the adventure in the most traditional and efficient way ever, in a loud tavern.. Great vibes. Pretty nice that you multicolored the text, I like the technique myself, loved it :)
• I really like good D&D-like PC games and this one is really oozing this kind of inspiration.. Loved the whole text, the screenshots and lore being explained before even starting. Presentation was outstanding!
• unfortunately, the game seems to be built for high-end PCs and couldn't managed to play a lot. I am left with a crappy laptop these days, I will check it again when my new monster of a machine arrives :)
• It also crashed twice on me when I entered on that dungeon; definitely need to be checked on lower-end machines. Lovely graphics by the way
• regardless, I loved the movement and field-of-view, such a classical implementation, I loved it :)
• you seem to put a lot of work there, content, puzzles, graphics polish, for such a small time-window, along with lots of lore around :)
• I need a week myself to fully appreciate this game and you made it in a week, ha!

Overall, although I didn't it played much due to hardware constraints, I loved every second of that. Will definitely bookmark it for later :) Please, continue on it!

Hey man, I played your lovely crawler at last :)

• its lovely that you put a proper download for your OST in the game, not many people do that, I loved it :)
• great, atmospheric title screen, with one of the best CRT filters that I've seen.. Simple, efficient and sest the tone!
• definitely, the game has the best combination of field-of-view and retro graphics in this jam. Great job of reaching that level!
• I would loved more if you've put a nice retro cursor out there.. The game oozes retro vibes and that could be really cool.
• I would also loved it more if WASD + QE worked right away but its nitpicking :)
• my first combat with an enormous scorpion wasn't glorious; although, I tried solo, forgetting all these adventurers that were awaiting me in the next room :(
• however, the ending screen was also great and atmospheric!
• then assembled a rocking adventuring party, properly this time.. nice job and idea of setting such a camp, great music as well :)
• it seems that you put a lot of work on combat mechanics as well.. I loved all these actions and text and the fact that characters were gaining levels and attributes.
• I was victorious in a battle, only to die in the next battle two squares ahead.. Perhaps the encounter numbers need more fine tuning, especially after a difficult battle that you barely make it :)
• there was a lot of space mashing between the rounds.. perhaps automating some monsters attacks and show their outcome in the same page would be something to consider.

Overall, a pretty solid and complete dungeon crawler, you did everything right. I expect you to continue "Demon Lord"'s development as it has great potential!

I am really jealous of that crawling experience, one of the most genuine retro experiences in this jam. Well done!

Hey, I checked your game :)

• outstanding dungeon music, so fit for such a game :)
• I liked the graphics concept
• movement seems a bit weird though; I felt the turning takes a lot more time than usual and one time it took like 5 seconds to turn. It also felt that you really move slower, perhaps choosing another field-of-view?
• great shaking effect, definitely a threatening dungeon! I wish it wasn't used against you on movement :)
• nice concept in battle mechanics; if you miss one or three actions, you're simply dead :) nice and efficient.
• it would be better if the "background" color on monsters was removed as well and monsters were placed a bit below in Y-axis, like walking the ground (except beholder of course).
• when you enter a battle, you can't turn left or right to face the monster :(
• I lost some battles later but then I couldn't exit from this "Game Over :(" screen.

Overall, a nice crawling experience, with great music and nice ideas :) Just need  more time to fine-tune the experience :)

Hey, I checked your game :)

• nice title screen and really nice music, reminded me of Silent Hill 2 :) Nothing better to set the atmosphere.
• I love that you added some 'Options' there, often overlooked, including my game :)
• very interesting scenario!
• I am used to WASD for movement and QE for turning, but was quickly used to the game, just nitpicking :)
• I really loved the variety of walls and drawings on them, really added a lot to atmosphere
• there's a tutorial "computer" there that informs you to "strafe with Q and E" but that's wrong :)
• really surprised by Shlak's ability to go into vents, loved the idea of selecting a character!
• nice to see entries made with anything else of Unity and Unreal.. Gamemaker did pretty good here.
• I loved the organization of files and work in JSON files, nice compact work.

Overall, really well made game and I expect to see this one becoming something more in the future :)

Hey, I checked your game :)

• interesting title screen and music, reminded me of lovely Zelda :)
• nice concept to turn a dungeon crawler into a multiplayer experience, definitely a unique one
• great sound effects and overall atmosphere
• very easy to die though.. It seems the game was made for a team of players but not easy to find people on jam :)
• I liked the different effects per class i.e. wizard with spell, paladin with shield and spear, lovely implementation

Overall, a nice, different experience and approach on dungeon crawling :)