I like your game, the look and how you managed to keep it minimalist in the gameplay too.
But I did not get far in it because of the combat is a bit too difficult. I played as an Adventurer. The Great Rat which is your first encounter has 100 HP more than the player. Which isn't a good start for new players. I get you might be going for high tension and roguelike mechanics, but it would be better to ease the player into the game. I could see players bouncing off this game after dying over and over just to try and progress.
Some players like story and exploration over combat. Combat is fine, but limiting progress because of a weak character at the start isn't a good way to draw in a player. I dont know how fleshout your gameworld is?
Perhaps add a difficulty level and have enemy HP tweaked according to that level. At least then a player can choose.
Some questions that need to be covered in the readme but are not:
Q1) How do we restart a new game? apart from closing the game and restarting it?
Q2) How to save game?
Suggestions:
What about adding some basic commands such as i/inventory, get/drop item, wield item (if we want to swap weapons)
It would be cool if you create another version, whereby the player can type commands to create their own world in the game on the fly, ingame. Like type exits n, s, e and the game will create those new locations and the player moves to them and can then type roomdesc. and then start writing a room desc and saves with a command saveroom Etc. Place mobs via list monsters and there could be preset ones 1-20 in a list and you pick one out etc.
Players can save their game and others can play it. It also would be nice if you can have some cyoa elements with conversations with NPCs in the talk menu with a NPC. Like we choose a template NPC from a list (like with the mobs I mentioned) and then type talk 1-4 which creates 4 choices all having a random id num gen by the game- but the last number is the nested ID number 237721_1 63247_1 (so we could have nested choices) if that makes sense. These could be txt files for each and we just write a headline which is the choice eg. Ask about the old sword and the rest below is what is output if the player chooses that conversation choice. Perhaps there could be some basic syntax for storing variables to the choice. and If true syntax with in the txt files pertaining to the choice. That would only be used by players who have some basic coding experience or understanding, but having in there could give the game a little more depth. Maybe this suggestion would have to be handled in a different way.
The User could modify stats of weapons, mobs, static objects etc from txt templates and create new ones by modifying the txt files (after backing up the master of course).
Anyway just an idea. It could be quite fun to create something and share with friends. Even sort of play by post where the other user adds new content based on choices that the other player made. You could add a transcript that outputs to file each movement or turn or save, so the user creating content could look at that and then create a new scene based on those choices or keep making new rooms in a new area, add npc with new conversations that is relevant to the story thread the player picked etc.
So even though this is still Single User Dungeon, it could be like 1 Game Master and 1 Player. I will cite a game called Sleepisdeath as inspiration http://sleepisdeath.net/ by Jason Rohrer.
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Very cool
I like your game, the look and how you managed to keep it minimalist in the gameplay too.
But I did not get far in it because of the combat is a bit too difficult. I played as an Adventurer. The Great Rat which is your first encounter has 100 HP more than the player. Which isn't a good start for new players. I get you might be going for high tension and roguelike mechanics, but it would be better to ease the player into the game. I could see players bouncing off this game after dying over and over just to try and progress.
Some players like story and exploration over combat. Combat is fine, but limiting progress because of a weak character at the start isn't a good way to draw in a player. I dont know how fleshout your gameworld is?
Perhaps add a difficulty level and have enemy HP tweaked according to that level. At least then a player can choose.
Some questions that need to be covered in the readme but are not:
Q1) How do we restart a new game? apart from closing the game and restarting it?
Q2) How to save game?
Suggestions:
What about adding some basic commands such as i/inventory, get/drop item, wield item (if we want to swap weapons)
It would be cool if you create another version, whereby the player can type commands to create their own world in the game on the fly, ingame. Like type exits n, s, e and the game will create those new locations and the player moves to them and can then type roomdesc. and then start writing a room desc and saves with a command saveroom Etc. Place mobs via list monsters and there could be preset ones 1-20 in a list and you pick one out etc.
Players can save their game and others can play it. It also would be nice if you can have some cyoa elements with conversations with NPCs in the talk menu with a NPC. Like we choose a template NPC from a list (like with the mobs I mentioned) and then type talk 1-4 which creates 4 choices all having a random id num gen by the game- but the last number is the nested ID number 237721_1 63247_1 (so we could have nested choices) if that makes sense. These could be txt files for each and we just write a headline which is the choice eg. Ask about the old sword and the rest below is what is output if the player chooses that conversation choice. Perhaps there could be some basic syntax for storing variables to the choice. and If true syntax with in the txt files pertaining to the choice. That would only be used by players who have some basic coding experience or understanding, but having in there could give the game a little more depth. Maybe this suggestion would have to be handled in a different way.
The User could modify stats of weapons, mobs, static objects etc from txt templates and create new ones by modifying the txt files (after backing up the master of course).
Anyway just an idea. It could be quite fun to create something and share with friends. Even sort of play by post where the other user adds new content based on choices that the other player made. You could add a transcript that outputs to file each movement or turn or save, so the user creating content could look at that and then create a new scene based on those choices or keep making new rooms in a new area, add npc with new conversations that is relevant to the story thread the player picked etc.
So even though this is still Single User Dungeon, it could be like 1 Game Master and 1 Player. I will cite a game called Sleepisdeath as inspiration http://sleepisdeath.net/ by Jason Rohrer.