G'day

[Curious_Tongue]

Just thought I'd be the first to post here.

 

[Blaine]

Is this game any good?

 

[Pope Amole II]

Eh, it's a difficult time to start a subforum because this game is russian and within up to january 14th or so (past the Old New Year) everyone is freaking wasted in here. So it's hard to get any job done. I don't drink, but I feel so lazy to create topics n' stuff.

Anyhow, the game is this (my own vid as I'm the sole game designer of it and, well, no one else has the access right now):


It's like the anti-darkest dungeon, the "anti" part including us having some actual gameplay, lol. Kill your foes, cut them into pieces, reassemble these pieces into your undead minions, kill more foes, gain some levels to your necro, dress him in something nice, kill more foes, you get the point.

The codex perhaps will appreciate the classical design of the foes in terms of their capabilities - I've tried to incorporate some classical abilities into that. I.e., we have the Conjuress foe, for example, who casts M***'s Acid Arrow and Grease. Or suspiciously good dark elf ranger with duals, roots and favored foe: spirits.

Game is alpha so the visuals etc. is still pretty raw, ofc.

 

[Haba]

It looks pretty good.

Crafting seems a bit uninspired and having to transmute resources seems like a chore. But it seems like you are intentionally going for something simple here.

Maybe someone somewhere will eventually make the game where you hunt for specific body parts to create unique minions (find blood of the only virgin in the slutsville).

 

[Pope Amole II]

Crafting seems a bit uninspired and having to transmute resources seems like a chore. But it seems like you are intentionally going for something simple here.

Maybe someone somewhere will eventually make the game where you hunt for specific body parts to create unique minions (find blood of the only virgin in the slutsville).

Right now, the crafting is only barely implemented.

First, body parts will have roguelike/diablolike modifiers that will alter rules in one way or another. Up to the cursed items which will give stuff like "lots of stats but 5% chance to die each turn" and "double move but half HP".

Second, the way you kill your foes implements your drops. If they die from a heart attack, you're not getting the heart but other parts remain whole. Burning them to death tends to give you bones and ashes instead of blood & meat (duh). Critical kills are also better at preserving the stuff (that's, like, a clean kill instead of lots of chopping). So your fighting style may get influenced by your economical needs.

Third, alchemy is kinda optional - you can go magic or tactics instead & ignore most of it.

 

[King Crispy]

Looks very slick, Pope. You're clearly a talented programmer.

Good luck on the project.

 

[hilfazer]

Can we retrieve pieces of our fallen minions? Not all of course, just some.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Not a fan of DD-style 4v4 positional combat - which seems likely to result in DD-style sameyness - compared to the more conventional hexes and grids that would allow for more varied encounters. Since you probably can't revise this you'll have to think carefully about how to keep the gameplay interesting and varied.

Map-based exploration seems very limited, what else are you doing in these rooms? Surely not just going from one fight to another?

Sameyness stems from nothing but crap balance. I mean, you have 4 characters with 4 abilities each (six in our case, but whatever) and up to four targets for those abilities. Theoretically, that gives you a plethora of choice - I'm too lazy to do math here, but there should be hundreds (if not thousands) of theoretical turn variations. But, because the difference betweent he skills is minimalistic and there are way too much of the strictly better ones, you're just not having that. Instead, every character has basically a go-to button and he's built around that go-to button, all the way up to the quirks and trinkets.

So, obviously, I've designed around that. There's minimal amount of traditionally no-brainer skills (insanely good AoE, stuns, heals), most of the skills require some setup (not as blunt as the mark-combos) and there's lots of economy involved - every combat is a trade, basically.

As for the map - there's gonna be text events there in the Renowned Explorers style. With choices leading to different outcomes.

Can we retrieve pieces of our fallen minions? Not all of course, just some.

That would be too immoral in regards to our fallen comrades. Even evil has standards. Maybe we'll have to implement Stan's Previously Owned Body Parts Emporium, though.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

Can we retrieve pieces of our fallen minions? Not all of course, just some.

 

[Pope Amole II]

That is interesting. Can you elaborate on what you mean by economy/trade? Do you mean a kind of resource management, like spending consumables? Or are you saying that combat itself is a kind of resource?

The balance will be built in a way that every combat is one or two of your minions dying. More if you're careless or unlucky (though it's a slippery slope to death). Some abilities (like Lich's "Sacrifice") will actually cause you to lose minions. There are also some gold based consumables and gold-powered abilities and then there's mana regeneration too. And you can say that combat is kind of a resource - our fights are limited (grinding is a no-no) and they are the primary source of corpses, ofc.

That is interesting. Will you be writing all of these CYOA sections yourself or hiring sser?

I'm too busy with my other projects to be writing here, besides, I fucking hate writing. I can do it, but I fucking hate it, no other words to put it around. And Sser is kwan, right? This project is just a russian indie, it won't be able to pay the foreign-based salaries. Especially to a writer.

What did you think of DD's "exploration"? Their trap items and so on?

It's purely cosmetic and isn't really affecting anything (apart from the first-time lulz when you put torch into that thing or shovel that altar).

BTW, since I've spoke about Liches abilities - his full movelist is Shrapmetal, Armageddon, Control Undead, Sacrifice, Toxic Cloud, Reanimate. Just thought this fact might be interesting for the 'Dex.

 

[Storyfag]

Any chances at getting the "undead horde" feel at all? Like at least huge reserves of relatively crap minions? Maybe the ability to garrison tiles with groups of 4 crap minions, who will wittle down the enemies in preparation for the group of 4 elite troops to swoop in and finish them off?

 

[Pope Amole II]

Any chances at getting the "undead horde" feel at all? Like at least huge reserves of relatively crap minions? Maybe the ability to garrison tiles with groups of 4 crap minions, who will wittle down the enemies in preparation for the group of 4 elite troops to swoop in and finish them off?

There are no chances - there's exactly this playstyle with the Alchemy training. You're getting more resources that way and the enemy encounters will remember the damage you've dealt to them so yeah, nasheed bone golems incoming (that's a unit from the future updates that has the potent self-destruct ability).

 

[Falksi]

D'gay

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So alchemy is get more resources and make tons of minions.

What about magic and tactics?

magic is powerful debuffs to enemies and buffs to undead minions possibly??

Tactics making an elite squad of undead minions possibly??

 

[Pope Amole II]

Well, magic is pretty obvious. I've tried to make it not as game-breaking (i.e., nothing on the level of the HoMM3 slow, for example), but there is some good stuff there.

Tactics is about, well, tactics. All monsters in the game are divided in three categories - heavy, light and support. Tactics provides you various benefits if you have your party positioned in one way or the other (different tactical skills demand different positionings).

 

[Andhaira]

Despite being a balatant Darkest Dungeons copy, it looks sweet. Heck, DD is fantastic so I don't mind more of the same, just keep the stress out of it.

I would prefer you minimize rogue like elements also; I know it's hard to make a proper RPG in this type of a format gameplay style, but have more of a character progression than rogue likes. Alternatively have a ton of character classes we can choose to form our party with, and limit game play to like 20 hours max (more character types means more replayability)

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Undead minions so you don't have to worry about stress.

Eh roguelikes can have p. deep characer progression. see ToME. But yeah I would like more depth in undead minions than DD. Roguelikes can be amazing when done right.

40 to 60 hours of gameplay in a single playthru is more to my tastes. Definitely keep more replayability depending on alchemy/magic/tactics style.

 

[Iratus]

For now, we aim to around 15-20 hours of gameplay, with replayability ofc.