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Voidspire Tactics

V_K

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However, I also plan to make completely handmade side dungeons.
Wouldn't it work better the other way around - handmade main dungeons and procedurally-generated side ones?
 

Eldiran

Rad Codex
Developer
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Wouldn't it work better the other way around - handmade main dungeons and procedurally-generated side ones?

That's actually something I had considered doing for Voidspire Tactics! But I ran out of time.

Handmade main dungeons does put something of a cap on how many times you can do an interesting run (that cap being the number of dungeons I hand-make). Whereas if you've seen everything the side dungeons have to offer, you can just skip 'em. Not that I'm planning on making it a super-long experience where you have to keep repeating content to win - but some players want to grind up everything, and other players might lose important characters and need to do extra runs to make up for it.

Rest assured I'll be tinkering with the formula as I go. Also rest assured that I've got plans to return to completely hand-crafted game worlds in the future; I'm not a fan of the emptiness that tends to result from over-reliance on procedural stuff.
 

V_K

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Handmade main dungeons does put something of a cap on how many times you can do an interesting run (that cap being the number of dungeons I hand-make). Whereas if you've seen everything the side dungeons have to offer, you can just skip 'em. Not that I'm planning on making it a super-long experience where you have to keep repeating content to win - but some players want to grind up everything, and other players might lose important characters and need to do extra runs to make up for it.
I'm not sure I get this argument. If you have procedural side dungeons, you can have an unlimited number of them, and grind and train new characters there, no?
Or do you mean that side dungeons are only accessible from the main ones, and to do them once again you have to do one of the main dungeons once again?
 
Self-Ejected

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Just finished it. Very, very good game. The worst thing I can say is that some of the music on the soundtrack was absolutely not my cup of tea.

The biggest bug I encountered came near the end, when I could infinitely respawn the battle with the boss and his pet worm by talking to that furry dude after the battle. I just skipped talking to him and proceded, so it wasn't a big deal.

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Last edited:

CryptRat

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3,548
Just finished it. Very, very good game.
You know you're basically our savior who played the game and is able to write a long review to teach everyone how good the game is, right? :)

Eldiran About the next game,
To be honest Voidspire Tactics is good because it's totally handcrafted and there's probably not a single encounter which looks like some filler content, the different environnements are...different, the amount of gold you earn through the game and the number of pieces of the best crafting materials are very well balanced too, consumables are somewhat well balanced too. The secrets and side bosses are cleverly placed, and discovering some secret or side boss or even some piece of material is satisfying partly because it's unique and hand-placed.
Besides travelling through the world to look for some winnable encounter (and at the same time finding some secrets you missed the last time) is the core gameplay of the game.

So my point is IMHO if you add procedural content to artificially raise the playtime, you'll flood the good content in a big amount of generic content and the game will become some generic grindy mess (I have to give you that it has full party creation and tactical turn-based combat, which is not exactly the norm) where everything regarding equipement and stuff becomes uninteresting, the exploration becomes boring and the only single satisfaction is to finally being able to kill some hard pack of monsters. I know some players like this kind of grindy experiences, but I personally don't. Adding some randomness regarding encounters (I'm 90% sure it's already like this in Voidspire Tactics, with the respawning mobs around the fire in the central map for example which are not exactly the same each time, but I don't think respawning mob are a good idea either :)) is probably ok as long as most enemies are stuck to one environnement, but procedurally generated environnements (dungeons) look like a terrible idea ; automatic generated content is filler content by nature.
Man, your game is good because it's not grindy, why would you want to add some content exactly to grind? That seems to be a very bad idea.
 

Eldiran

Rad Codex
Developer
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Messages
130
I'm not sure I get this argument. If you have procedural side dungeons, you can have an unlimited number of them, and grind and train new characters there, no?
Or do you mean that side dungeons are only accessible from the main ones, and to do them once again you have to do one of the main dungeons once again?

Yeah, I meant side areas, only accessible via the main dungeon.

My current setting idea revolves around a single shifting 'dungeon' that I can put a bunch of side areas into. I'm being purposely vague about it since I'm liable to change my mind; it should be a little more interesting than I'm making it sound though.

Just finished it. Very, very good game. The worst thing I can say is that some of the music on the soundtrack was absolutely not my cup of tea.

The biggest bug I encountered came near the end, when I could infinitely respawn the battle with the boss and his pet worm by talking to that furry dude after the battle. I just skipped talking to him and proceded, so it wasn't a big deal.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it : ) Nice job only getting KO'd once, too!

That's an interesting bug. I've never heard of that one before - I'll have to do some investigating.

Eldiran About the next game,
To be honest Voidspire Tactics is good because it's totally handcrafted and there's probably not a single encounter which looks like some filler content, the different environnements are...different, the amount of gold you earn through the game and the number of pieces of the best crafting materials are very well balanced too, consumables are somewhat well balanced too. The secrets and side bosses are cleverly placed, and discovering some secret or side boss or even some piece of material is satisfying partly because it's unique and hand-placed.
Besides travelling through the world to look for some winnable encounter (and at the same time finding some secrets you missed the last time) is the core gameplay of the game.

So my point is IMHO if you add procedural content to artificially raise the playtime, you'll flood the good content in a big amount of generic content and the game will become some generic grindy mess (I have to give you that it has full party creation and tactical turn-based combat, which is not exactly the norm) where everything regarding equipement and stuff becomes uninteresting, the exploration becomes boring and the only single satisfaction is to finally being able to kill some hard pack of monsters. I know some players like this kind of grindy experiences, but I personally don't. Adding some randomness regarding encounters (I'm 90% sure it's already like this in Voidspire Tactics, with the respawning mobs around the fire in the central map for example which are not exactly the same each time, but I don't think respawning mob are a good idea either :)) is probably ok as long as most enemies are stuck to one environnement, but procedurally generated environnements (dungeons) look like a terrible idea ; automatic generated content is filler content by nature.
Man, your game is good because it's not grindy, why would you want to add some content exactly to grind? That seems to be a very bad idea.

I understand your fears - there are a lot of ways to make a roguelite into a big, grindy timewaster. Even just tuning the numbers incorrectly could screw things up. I think you nailed a lot of Voidspire's strengths, too; most of the feedback I get is on how satisfying the exploration is.

So on the one hand it does seem kinda stupid of me to move away from exploration. There are a number of reasons I want to, some of which might be a bit reckless : P
  • Given that I have less dev time this go around, I don't feel that I could top Voidspire Tactics in any significant way if I followed the exact same formula. I have another game with the same gameplay as Voidspire in my head, but it demands an actual art budget and a bigger world.
  • It also wasn't a big financial success; another game like Voidspire might mean I have to get a real job : P Branching out a bit could help, and hopefully get some eyes on Voidspire after the fact.
  • Creatively, I really want to try a multi-squad game next. Roguelite seems like the best fit for that - otherwise I'd have to either expand the scope of the world to fit, or else take a dry battles-only strategy game approach.
  • I sort of just want to see if I can pull it off, in a way that isn't grindy or repetitive. I'm shooting for a 'short' (comparatively) roguelite where you don't have to waste 50 hours before you can win. Ideally you wouldn't see every enemy type or find every area on a typical playthrough.
I really appreciate the feedback. Especially knowing my approach to trash mobs - (I hate 'em) - paid off. I am going to try my best to keep the satisfying exploration in there, and to keep the grind out, but I definitely don't blame you if the next game isn't your cup of tea (or if you don't wanna buy it at all).
 

V_K

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My current setting idea revolves around a single shifting 'dungeon' that I can put a bunch of side areas into. I'm being purposely vague about it since I'm liable to change my mind; it should be a little more interesting than I'm making it sound though.
You might want to look at old Event Horizon's dungeon crawler DarkSpyre (not the same thing as Dark Spire on Nintendo DS, it's much older) for inspiration, it had a very interesting semi-rogulike structure. Its dungeon levels alternated between fully fixed (story levels), fully procedural (that featured only combar), and randomly picked from a number of premade designs (heavy on puzzles). It also had a unique approach to saving/permadeath: to save you needed a special type of consumable (runes) that you only got once per level, but could use anytime. Made for a very interesting dynamic where you had to decide whether it's better to save your current progress or have a rune handy for some future risk-taking.
 

Eldiran

Rad Codex
Developer
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Messages
130
You might want to look at old Event Horizon's dungeon crawler DarkSpyre (not the same thing as Dark Spire on Nintendo DS, it's much older) for inspiration, it had a very interesting semi-rogulike structure. Its dungeon levels alternated between fully fixed (story levels), fully procedural (that featured only combar), and randomly picked from a number of premade designs (heavy on puzzles). It also had a unique approach to saving/permadeath: to save you needed a special type of consumable (runes) that you only got once per level, but could use anytime. Made for a very interesting dynamic where you had to decide whether it's better to save your current progress or have a rune handy for some future risk-taking.

That sounds neat, I'll check it out! Went out and downloaded it, just gotta tear myself away from XCOM2 for long enough...
 

ColCol

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Jul 12, 2012
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Beat and played on Codex recommendation. A nice little game that doesn't wear out it's welcome. The combat overall is pretty good. There are some genuinely well designed encounters, few trash mobs, and the game has a reasonable amount of overall combat encounters. The combat and character building in the game owes a lot to final fantasy tactics. In fact, the game feels like tactics game where instead of jumping from mission to mission the player explores a map. Usually the player's four characters party will go up against 4-7 humanoid enemies that have access to the same abilities as the party. The exploration in the game is enjoyable. There are a wide variety of large maps that hold many secrets for the player to discover. I am disappointed that the game's exploration was not as open world/non-linear as I was lead to believe.

Overall a nice game. I would recommend it.
 

V_K

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I am disappointed that the game's exploration was not as open world/non-linear as I was lead to believe.
What more non-linearity did you expect? Some final areas are story-locked, yes, but otherwise you're free to go anywhere you want. I think you can even do the machines before the orbs if you want and can survive the encounters (which isn't that impossible given that there's very little damage/hp inflation).
 
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I second the Dark Spyre recommendation. But I think that you can do even better. Stick to your vision, it's already great, Voidspire Tactics is an incredibly good first game. Just like with Styg and VD, I'm curious to see where you're headed.
(Personally, I think that Voidspire should be in the 2015 top 3 with Underrail and AOD, Witcher 3 being 4th).
 

ColCol

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I am disappointed that the game's exploration was not as open world/non-linear as I was lead to believe.
What more non-linearity did you expect? Some final areas are story-locked, yes, but otherwise you're free to go anywhere you want. I think you can even do the machines before the orbs if you want and can survive the encounters (which isn't that impossible given that there's very little damage/hp inflation).

Don't know. I felt like the game was open but still pushed you to follow the specific path and the jrpg-like nature of the game didn't encourage me to go off the beaten path. The stuff you mention seems like hind sight.
 

Roqua

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Where are Jasomething and the other monkey shitface who dislike me bringing real crpgs to the attention of Rpgcodex? Why aren't you spewing your monkey gibberish in this thread? I provide a great service by bringing crpgs to the attention of the handful of crpg fans this site has. And when I have my crpg safe place subsite you won't have to worry about being annoyed by finding out about non-console games, as the normal people with good taste will be consolidated (in a safe place might I add).

I'm the prosperlanded Butchy by the way, who posted on that account because the console loving rpg-haters who run this show banned this account for no reason (other than me being a loud mouthed idiot if you consider that justification). Just mentioning this for the normal people who may be confused as to my taking credit for bringing this game to the attention of rpgcodex).
 

Ent

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Nov 20, 2015
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I'm thoroughly enjoying messing around with the Mechanist class right now but I have just one question about it: Whats the point of having the Electric element as one of the skills it can level up even though none of its abilities use it?
 

ColCol

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Where are Jasomething and the other monkey shitface who dislike me bringing real crpgs to the attention of Rpgcodex? Why aren't you spewing your monkey gibberish in this thread? I provide a great service by bringing crpgs to the attention of the handful of crpg fans this site has. And when I have my crpg safe place subsite you won't have to worry about being annoyed by finding out about non-console games, as the normal people with good taste will be consolidated (in a safe place might I add).

I'm the prosperlanded Butchy by the way, who posted on that account because the console loving rpg-haters who run this show banned this account for no reason (other than me being a loud mouthed idiot if you consider that justification). Just mentioning this for the normal people who may be confused as to my taking credit for bringing this game to the attention of rpgcodex).

Okay.....




I'm thoroughly enjoying messing around with the Mechanist class right now but I have just one question about it: Whats the point of having the Electric element as one of the skills it can level up even though none of its abilities use it?


I think the logic is....he works with machines so he must be good with electricity! I do believe one of the class's attacks is lighting focused.
 

Ent

Savant
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I think the logic is....he works with machines so he must be good with electricity! I do believe one of the class's attacks is lighting focused.

I thought remote pulse dealt electric but then I checked the description and it said wind so they have a fire frost wind and life element grenade. So unless the turret deals electric its then they are sadly bereft of lightning moves. Your explanation is pretty amusing tho.
 

ColCol

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I think the logic is....he works with machines so he must be good with electricity! I do believe one of the class's attacks is lighting focused.

I thought remote pulse dealt electric but then I checked the description and it said wind so they have a fire frost wind and life element grenade. So unless the turret deals electric its then they are sadly bereft of lightning moves. Your explanation is pretty amusing tho.

Maybe it is the turret. Which is one of the most disappointing aspects of that class.
 
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Bubbles

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Do Mechanist abilities actually scale with anything, or are they all independent of player stats due to being "indirect"?
 

Ent

Savant
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Messages
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Do Mechanist abilities actually scale with anything, or are they all independent of player stats due to being "indirect"?
I assume the grenades scale with the corresponding elements just like spells.
 

Ent

Savant
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Nov 20, 2015
Messages
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How does shiftcloak play? never tried that class.
I made a dual dagger character once and I used to the shift cloak as the main class because of that massive evasion boost it gave. I liked the mobility of the moves but I think I like the blade classes skills more. The passive they have that allows them to reload two weapons with the same action is amazing if you want to go down the crossbow / pistol route.
 

Lucky

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Eldiran, any chance of this seeing a GOG release? I know you have a DRM-free version on your website, but I prefer not to spread my creditcard info around if at all possible.
 

ColCol

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How does shiftcloak play? never tried that class.
I made a dual dagger character once and I used to the shift cloak as the main class because of that massive evasion boost it gave. I liked the mobility of the moves but I think I like the blade classes skills more. The passive they have that allows them to reload two weapons with the same action is amazing if you want to go down the crossbow / pistol route.


Yeah, sounds good. Crossbows seem to get a little too much attention in this game.
 

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