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Axu

An open-world graphical roguelike. Still in development. · By Cynapse

Quick first impression of the game

A topic by Dent Games created Sep 22, 2018 Views: 307 Replies: 1
Viewing posts 1 to 2

I had added this game to my "to play" collection based on the looks and because I like roguelikes. I only played a few minutes.

* The pixel graphics look very cool and attractive - I like also the font and ANSI colors, reminds me of my days playing MUDs

* Menu graphics are, however, incongruent with the rest of the graphical style - it does not feel like the same style at all. Sizes and layouts of menus do not seem to follow any structure

* I would really have liked to have started with a tutorial to learn the keys - had to look at the controls menu, which turned out to be really long and had to spend time hunting for how do I actually talk to the first character

* This is not objective but personal preference - I feel like I got too much lore in the beginning, I just wanted to start playing. Had to spend time reading the descriptions of items in my inventory, what that regeneration thing is, etc. Maybe again a tutorial where you acquire those things one-by-one would be helpful for this.

* Maybe a macOS thing, but there was no repeat on movement keys. Became annoying fast.

* Looking should be much more accessible. Maybe if the only way to interact with an object is looking at it, then interact would be the same as look. It felt annoying to have to hunt for the L key for such a mundane thing as looking at things.

* I gave up when I saw the staircase going into the basement - didnt want to go back to the huge controls screen to find out how to descend the stairway (I saw it was a separate key).

* Maybe I'm not the target audience as I'm a casual gamer but numpad keys to move diagonally seemed very intimidating having only a small laptop keyboard

I see a lot of effort has gone into this already - if you want to get more players, I'd focus more on making it easier to learn in the beginning. 

Thanks for the feedback! I feel like many of those aspects are pretty familiar to most roguelike/rpg fans, but I'm always open to attempting to cater to a more casual audience. The difficult part is that, by nature, roguelikes are pretty impenetrable. The number of keybinds present in Axu is very small by comparison, and lacks something like Nethack's #commands (like MUDs' verbs) for something as simple as looting a chest or removing traps from it. What I'm trying to do with this game is to provide something the hardcore fans will enjoy while also giving those who are new to the genre a chance to ease themselves into the genre. That is by no means as easy feat.

Some core things I've taken away from your feedback:

  1. Tutorial is important. I've gotten many requests for this, but I've had to put it on the back burner for now. Keep in mind that I can't tutorialize the entire game. I assume the player knows what most keywords mean, or is willing to learn.
  2. Streamline keys more. This has been more of a focus in the upcoming release. Your comment on stairs got me thinking that I really don't need keys for going up and down stairs when there's a perfectly good "accept" key already there and unused in this scenario.
  3. More effort into UI presentation. This is very much my weakest facet of development. I'm much more of a programmer than an artist, but I'll do some reading on good UI design.

Again, thank you for your feedback. It's not often I get some from a more casual audience.