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Great but hard to learn

A topic by Paweł Ślusarczyk created Mar 21, 2020 Views: 162 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 4

Hi!

I really like the puzzleness and balance of this game. The gameplay is perfectly fit for 7DRL scope.

It's frustrating though to guess what various elements of the game do. While it's easy to get the behaviour of the enemies, it's much harder to find out what many of the scroll effects are about. Same with UI elements, upgrades and monster statuses. Maybe it's your aim that the player should find out all of these things, but I think that more documentation explaining the symbols and colors would improve the playability alot. Looking forward to try it again out when I know more :)

Developer (1 edit)

Glad you enjoyed it.

You  can hold right mouse button over things in the game to get a short description. Some more documentation (EDIT: applies to the original 7drl version of the game):

SCROLLS:
♠ absorb surroundings (enemies/terrain/items), +1 hp per enemy
♥ +3 hp, (if at max hp overheal 1)
☺+3 xp
▲ move up 4, ignores middle tiles, kills enemies moved onto
$ swap with highest
: create rows of chasms below
+ clears and damages row and column
♦ create diamond of fire (all spaces 2 steps from you)
◘ gives you effect [if not attacking take no damage]
! gives you effect [ignore chasm and fire]
_ gives enemies effect [cannot move (but can attack)]
% gives enemies effect [mirrors your moves]

ENEMIES:
A has 3 max hp
D can move diagonally
J splits after damage
M deals 2 damage
T teleports diagonal from you
V attack gives effect [damage/healing doubled]
X attack causes -1 level and -2 xp
F starts with effect [creates fire, ignores fire]
L starts with effect [levitates over chasms]
W starts with effect [teleports to wall, creates block of walls]

UPGRADES:
║α max enemies spawning at once = 4 (normally 9)
║Æ time between enemy spawns = 15 (normally 11)
▲▲ extra turn for every 10 distance
}▓ attack negates status effects
}↨ attacks in same direction after moving
☼♥ extra life (reset to max hp after death)
_☺ enemies left offscreen die (give xp)
8¿ increase inventory size to 8 and fills
║☺ xp gain/loss doubled
☼☺ level up 5 times
&¿ all scrolls have 2 effects
%Æ enemy death -> +5 until next enemy spawn
%♥ enemy death -> +1 hp
¿Æ read scroll -> +5 until next enemy spawn
¿♥ read scroll -> +1 hp

TERRAIN:
. empty space
# blocks movement
^ causes 1 damage
: fall for 2 damage
> descend to next depth

EFFECTS:




The game page gives more general game information.

Wow, that right mouse button tooltip works great. I somehow omitted it while reading the instructions. Thanks alot for other info you've written down too.

Just bet it! Score: 300.

This game is addictive. With (almost) each death I learned something new and was greedy to try one more time and utilise my knowledge.

It's very well designed. The ballance is great, despite so different characteristic of each scroll and monster.

Congratulations!