Legends of Amberland - oldschool open world blobber

[Infinitron]

Hmmm, honestly I haven't thought about it :D
Button related ones, well you get sounds for equipping/unequipping but are you sure sound *each* time you click on any button makes sense? I mean wouldn't it be distracting and the like? Sure, I could add it (I think in early versions of Stellar Monarch I got sounds for each button, so it's not a technical problem), but are you sure?
As for barks and footsteps, well... maybe? But again, is it desirable? Like wouldn't the party members footsteps that you hear *each* time you move be irritating?

This would require some thought

I suggest you prepare to blow past that expected June release date

 

[Lady_Error]

A good summary of the content on Steam:

Let's divide the areas into 3 categories:

1) Overworld - the most rich, contains a lot of huts inhabited by various NPCs (mostly side quests providers or info/lore/tips providers, sometimes safe heavens), vehicles (boats and ships) and occassional other features (like portals, fountains).

2) Friendly locations (towns and castles) - contains NPCs and sometimes monsters and treasures (usually in basements).

3) Hostile locations (most towers, forts, dungeons, caves, mines, etc) - mostly monsters, traps and treasures (including crystals, orbs, books). Might have occassional NPCs (frequently imprisoned). There might be also some levers and the like (but on the simple side of things, not like in The Eye of The Beholder or Dungeon Master series).

There might be also wells/fountains (in various places).
As for puzzles there are very few if any (unless you count levers manipulation but that hardly counts).


On a more abstract level I would describe the content (note that it might be highly subjective) as exploring a rich and beautiful world filled with NPCs, local quests and stories with focus on lore of the world you are exploring and with interesting hand crafted items that stay meaningful for a long time. But again, that would be my description and some might disagree

 

[Snorkack]

, but are you sure?
As for barks and footsteps, well... maybe? But again, is it desirable? Like wouldn't the party members footsteps that you hear *each* time you move be irritating?

All blobbers I can fondly remember had that footstep feature, and I noticed its absence immediately. Made me feel a bit detached from the world. Well, better no sound fx at all than having enemy bark samples being fired 10 times a second tho...
What IS irritating is the in-your-face music when you enter a dungeon. That track could benefit from a remaster...
Well enough complaining. I played for around 10 minutes and so far really like what I see. It pleases me to be able to breeze through trashmob hordes just by spamming the A key, something that recend M&M clones (M&MXL included) always seemed to get wrong.

The danger in this is what happened to Grimoire: it also had a steep price at first and people were giving it bad reviews for not living up to being a full price game at the time (no manual, etc.).

Unlike Grimoire, this game has the decency to be labelled as Early Access.

 

[Martyr]

not really important to know, since you get A LOT of money in no time, but you don't have to buy a boat. the ogre guarding the bridge is easily managable at level 2 and there's a free boat right there next to my party:

that's south-east of the bridge:

 

[Chris Koźmik]

not really important to know, since you get A LOT of money in no time, but you don't have to buy a boat. the ogre guarding the bridge is easily managable at level 2 and there's a free boat right there next to my party:

Hmm, how to say it without including spoilers... Note that boats can enter only shallow water and can not pass through bridges. Also you can't enter a tile with am hut (it's an obstacle). And... there might be other things you might have overlooked (arhg! I hate answering while avoiding spoilers :D).

Anyway, my general philosophy when designing the game was absence of hard obstacles (with necessary exceptions) and a high degree of freedom for the player (for example I always loved when a game allowed me to try my luck with much, much stronger enemy). So, yes, you are encouraged to buy the boat but the game does not prevent you from trying your luck with the troll (especially if you went first to one of the starting locations and use the experience to level up).

Also, the troll should be tougher :D It got nerfed too much during one of the testing iterations :D

 

[Martyr]

not really important to know, since you get A LOT of money in no time, but you don't have to buy a boat. the ogre guarding the bridge is easily managable at level 2 and there's a free boat right there next to my party:

Hmm, how to say it without including spoilers... Note that boats can enter only shallow water and can not pass through bridges. Also you can't enter a tile with am hut (it's an obstacle). And... there might be other things you might have overlooked (arhg! I hate answering while avoiding spoilers :D).

Anyway, my general philosophy when designing the game was absence of hard obstacles (with necessary exceptions) and a high degree of freedom for the player (for example I always loved when a game allowed me to try my luck with much, much stronger enemy). So, yes, you are encouraged to buy the boat but the game does not prevent you from trying your luck with the troll (especially if you went first to one of the starting locations and use the experience to level up).

Also, the troll should be tougher :D It got nerfed too much during one of the testing iterations :D

ah, I see. you can only use the boat on the light blue sea tiles! so that boat I pointed out is indeed not a replacement for the ones you can buy.

edit: then there's a real ship, not just a small boat like the others. with the ship you can sail on both the light and the dark blue sea tiles.

 

[Mikeal]

Are you trully a fellow potato?

 

[Ysaye]

Bought the game today whilst off from work sick - I like it so far - thanks!

Noting the comments before, the lack of footstep sounds doesn't bother me personally. There is also a lot of walking and you don't have an animated transition between squares (not that this bothers me) between locations so not sure it is really going to add much to it.

I did notice enemies behind doors at times between positions which allowed me to know they were there. Also took me a while with the switches (manual says interact with the spacebar? But switches you press move into them?).

Are there any dungeons which are more darkly lit? (Only played for an hour before back to bed so maybe just haven't reached one yet...). I like the day and night cycles - are there harder monsters that are only there at night?

 

[Chris Koźmik]

I did notice enemies behind doors at times between positions which allowed me to know they were there. Also took me a while with the switches (manual says interact with the spacebar? But switches you press move into them?).

Ideas? Maybe add additional mechanic "SPACEBAR act as if you triggered (entered into) the object (lever, chest, crystal, orb, book) in front of you"?

Are there any dungeons which are more darkly lit? (Only played for an hour before back to bed so maybe just haven't reached one yet...). I like the day and night cycles - are there harder monsters that are only there at night?

No, there are no harder monsters at night. Monsters are not regenerated (once killed the area is cleared) so it would be hard. As for darkly lit, only darker textures, nothing mechanics wise.

 

[Snorkack]

Clocked in close to 4 hours so far. I just crossed the sea after the desert and I think I cleared all dungeons except the tower with magic barriers on my way, including the one filled with warlocks and Totally Not Beholders.
The game loop feels fluid and slick, apart from some minor interface issues that interrupt the flow from time to time. The M&M feel is definitely there and it's fun to plow through hordes of enemies, exploring dungeons and the overworld, and of course looting shit. Art is serviceable and consistent, I like it. Music is good as well, my opinion on sound FX has already been voiced and still stands.

So, the big elephant in the room is the difficulty, or better its total lack so far. Maybe it ramps up later on, but the earlygame balance is not what I expected from a M&M-like at all. Here's a few issues.
-Magic points seem to be pretty much a non-issue. Even my knowledge-starved Bard could cast his expensive buffs two consecutive days without resting and still have MP left over for a heal or two.
-The Wizard character feels absolutely useless. The spells that supposedly deal big single target damage never seem to reach their damage potential. Might as well just attack with the staff. AoE spells aren't worth it either because the limit of opponents at the same time seems to be three, and even that is pretty rare. Due to how initialtive works, by the time the wizard has his turn, his teammates most likely murdered them back down to one enemy anyways.
-Likewise, the ranger feels like a gimped warrior. Without traps to disarm, chests to unlock or ranged weapons to fire and nothing but a couple of offensive spells that are weaker than his base attack anyways, he feels a bit lost.
-I get showered in XP for trivialities. I entered an ogre keep waaay overleveled (I don't even know why - I didn't skip it until later, I entered it at a time where it seemed natural to do so). Just lawnmowed the minimap without even looking at the main viewport. If the cursor didn't move anymore, I knew I got in a fight and mashed 'R' until enemy dead, including a dining room and a garrison with hundreds of trashmobs that couldn't even touch me. Not a single time in that dungeon I had to restore health or back up. Yet, when I returned to the city, I could train two to three levels at once per character.
-After one of the more intense fights with a beholder, I wanted to heal everyone back to full... had to click the combo Magic->cast spell->select character surely 15 times in a row to get the job done. Heal doesn't scale with knowledge, does it? Pumped the latter stat with my healer, but the spell didn't seem to get better. A quicker way to trade my healer's MP for my party's HP would be highly appreciated.
-Overall, there was never a sense of danger for me. Even when facing the not beholders in their dungeon, you know you could turn around anytime, find the exit, griffin yourself to the next town and restock on food and healing. What I missed was stuff like being thrown into an unknown dungeon and having to fight your way out, or having your minimap disabled, having you teleported around,... stuff that requires you to plan your steps carefully.

A few other issues that kinda rub me the wrong way:
-There doesn't seem to be much that your party can do. You kill shit and you loot stuff, that's it. There's no alchemy, no item identification, no bartering with merchants, no exploration skills like mountaineering, no weapon/armor skills,... Even in combat, you make a melee attack, you cast a damage spell or a healing spell. I'm missing options like ranged attacks, enemy debuffs, enemy displacement spells, an option to flee, or...
-Consumables / activatable items. Seriously, where are they? Brings me straight to the next point:
-Itemization. Finding items doesn't feel very rewarding, from time to time you find a piece of gear with a slightly better armor/encumbrance ratio or a resistance modifier that fits better to the environment you're currently in. But there's no cool shit, like activatable items that can wreak havoc for a limited amount of charges.
-There's not much going on in the world, if a tile doesn't contain a special symbol on the minimap, it's rarely worth checking out. At one point I stumbled across a tree and got a message about an old withered tree, this was pretty much the only time where I thought, interesting, did I stumble across a secret? There also don't seem to be any hidden pathways or walls that you can pass through in dungeons. This makes exploring a bit less rewarding than it should be.

Anyway, my general philosophy when designing the game was absence of hard obstacles

But what's with all the shallow/deep water pathways and the content gating via boats? I feel like it wouldn't be harmful if you were able to land on the southern coast with the first boat you find and enter the desert with a puny level 5 party. Sneaking around areas way above my current level and hoping to snag a high value treasure or two without getting caught and instagibbed by the residents was one of the coolest things about the original M&Ms.

So, that's my first impressions, didn't bother writing about stuff that's clearly WIP anyways, like inventory management. I'm really curious about how this game will be coming along. Guess you won't change fundamental mechanics or how itemization works at this point, but with a tighter difficulty and more small and large secrets and points of interest in the world, this might become a pretty good blobber.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

I suggest you prepare to blow past that expected June release date

My wife would respectfully disagree with your suggestion :D

So, the big elephant in the room is the difficulty, or better its total lack so far. Maybe it ramps up later on, but the earlygame balance is not what I expected from a M&M-like at all. Here's a few issues.
-Magic points seem to be pretty much a non-issue. Even my knowledge-starved Bard could cast his expensive buffs two consecutive days without resting and still have MP left over for a heal or two.
-The Wizard character feels absolutely useless. The spells that supposedly deal big single target damage never seem to reach their damage potential. Might as well just attack with the staff. AoE spells aren't worth it either because the limit of opponents at the same time seems to be three, and even that is pretty rare. Due to how initialtive works, by the time the wizard has his turn, his teammates most likely murdered them back down to one enemy anyways.
-Likewise, the ranger feels like a gimped warrior. Without traps to disarm, chests to unlock or ranged weapons to fire and nothing but a couple of offensive spells that are weaker than his base attack anyways, he feels a bit lost.
-I get showered in XP for trivialities. I entered an ogre keep waaay overleveled (I don't even know why - I didn't skip it until later, I entered it at a time where it seemed natural to do so). Just lawnmowed the minimap without even looking at the main viewport. If the cursor didn't move anymore, I knew I got in a fight and mashed 'R' until enemy dead, including a dining room and a garrison with hundreds of trashmobs that couldn't even touch me. Not a single time in that dungeon I had to restore health or back up. Yet, when I returned to the city, I could train two to three levels at once per character.
-After one of the more intense fights with a beholder, I wanted to heal everyone back to full... had to click the combo Magic->cast spell->select character surely 15 times in a row to get the job done. Heal doesn't scale with knowledge, does it? Pumped the latter stat with my healer, but the spell didn't seem to get better. A quicker way to trade my healer's MP for my party's HP would be highly appreciated.
-Overall, there was never a sense of danger for me. Even when facing the not beholders in their dungeon, you know you could turn around anytime, find the exit, griffin yourself to the next town and restock on food and healing. What I missed was stuff like being thrown into an unknown dungeon and having to fight your way out, or having your minimap disabled, having you teleported around,... stuff that requires you to plan your steps carefully.

Yeah, I thought there might be problems with the healer... I wonder which way to go:
1) More healing spells, like 5 or so (more powerful but more expensive variants of the basic heal).
2) Power Heal spell (restore 50% of maximum HP, cost 100MP) unlocked at level 20 and Ultimate Heal spell (restore 100% of maximum HP, cost 150MP) unlocked at level 30.

BTW, heal scales with mastery levels (Arcane). But it depends which one, soem are more cost oriented and soem are more power oriented.

Wizard, hmm, how about one of those solutions:
1) A very cheap and mediocre offensive spell (better than staff) so effectivelly Wizard can cast such spell instead of enganging in melee as a no brainer basically each time.
2) Up both power and cost of offensive spells.

Ranger:
"nothing but a couple of offensive spells that are weaker than his base attack anyways"
OK, definitely those need to be more powerful

So, the overall thing I was thinking, increase both power and cost of most spells? What do you think?


More on difficulty. Well, after the base (normal) difficulty is forged out I will add the Hard difficulty option (should it be adjustable in the middle of the game?). The thing is, people here are Codexians, probably the most hardcore RPG players, it might be not so easy for other players Now I wonder if a sinngle Hard dififculty level is enough (maybe also add Insane? :D)

 

[Snorkack]

So, the overall thing I was thinking, increase both power and cost of most spells? What do you think?

Sounds like a decent solution. As for the healer, I don't really have an issue with the balance/powrlevel of heal spells during combat. But outside of combat it would be nice to have a way for him to heal up all members to full that requires less than 50 mouseclicks. For example, make healing spells more powerful when not cast in combat. Or add a button 'heal all' that automatically casts heal until everyone is full or healer's out of mp.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

v0.21 is out.
List of changes: http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2019/04/03/legends-of-amberland-version-0-21/

I focused on the balance issues we discussed above. If possible please confim which of those were ressolved/improved in this version and which ones should be looked into again.

 

[Darth Canoli]

More on difficulty. Well, after the base (normal) difficulty is forged out I will add the Hard difficulty option (should it be adjustable in the middle of the game?). The thing is, people here are Codexians, probably the most hardcore RPG players, it might be not so easy for other players Now I wonder if a single Hard difficulty level is enough (maybe also add Insane? :D)

2 more difficulty levels seems like a good idea and / or some custom difficulty settings.
Please, not too much HP bloat for the difficulty settings.

Some suggestions

Hard mode
- more damage
- faster enemies (i didn't try the game) meaning with either more initiative if it's relevant or with more attacks)
- more armor
- a little more health

Insane mode
- better AI focusing on a single wounded enemy when possible, possibly trying to surround you on the map (if relevant / possible)
- way less gold finds, maybe less loot (but better loot)
- more everything from the hard mode

There's also the option not to raise the difficulty too much but to decrease both the loot/gold you get and the xp rewards.

Also, not sure if it's planned or not but early M&M games have some monsters focusing on some classes, like undead focusing their attacks on your healer and assassins (dark hunters, not sure about the name, they were in one of M&M 3 tough dungeon) trying to kill druids in priority ...

Edit : Water tiles
Maybe it's just me but i don't like the water tiles from the regular map (the mini map ones are ok though), not sure why, too bright and blurry, maybe ?

 

[Dorateen]

Also, not sure if it's planned or not but early M&M games have some monsters focusing on some classes

And races, too! That is actually a neat idea to include. But I'm not sure how feasible it would be in LoA, because the enemy's targeting system is tied into the party's formation. If it were possible to supersede that in special cases where an ogre is supposed to go after elf characters regardless of position, that would be great.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Please, not too much HP bloat for the difficulty settings.

Yeah, I know what you mean.
Definitely something along the lines of +1 Initiative to all monsters and significant damage boost. Possibly combined with double shop & training prices and double exp requirements for level up.

That is actually a neat idea to include. But I'm not sure how feasible it would be in LoA, because the enemy's targeting system is tied into the party's formation.

Exactly

 

[Darth Canoli]

And races, too! That is actually a neat idea to include. But I'm not sure how feasible it would be in LoA, because the enemy's targeting system is tied into the party's formation. If it were possible to supersede that in special cases where an ogre is supposed to go after elf characters regardless of position, that would be great.

Exactly

I think it's even better combined with formations, in this case, some monsters could have some priority targets but they'd have to do with their weapon reach, which could be included, like halberds (+1 reach) and throwing/ranged weapons ("unlimited" reach )

The M&M3 system was interesting but also slightly frustrating due to the absence of formation.

 

[Snorkack]

played 0.21.0 a bit. Some thoughts:

Bugs/Interface issues:
-I was able to abuse the griffins to get past the protected Enchanted Forest ( c3, 44,50).
-You can't leave the Save menu by pressing ESC, you have to click the button
-Those six direction buttons in the lower half are a neat nostalgia touch, but I swear, no one will ever use them. Just remove those and replace it with a combat log. The damage splashes disappear so quickly, it would be nice to keep track of what's happening.
-In the desert, I was engaged in combat a few times by some invisible enemies. They had 0/0 hit points, had no name and one attack made them go away (no reward, either). Same problem in the frost labyrinth (E1, 94, 9)
-All in all, your game's a pretty bug-free experience for an EA game. Never had a crash or show stopper so far. Every mechanic that is in place already seems to work exactly as it should.

Balance:
-I haven't restarted, so I'm still grossly overleveled. Cleared the new dungeons in the East without troubles. Then I cleared the "Dark Castle" (E5, 92, 93), which seemed to be the natural next destination. Wasn't very difficult, although I had to heal up several times in between. Yet, when I was done and returned to a city, I could level up five times per character! Still feels like way too much.
-The Wizard spells are definitely worth using now. Still, I never have to fear empty MP reserves.
Addendum: I just restarted to try something out. Whoa! Snorkack, watch out what you wish for! Now the Wizard is the matchwinner early game. Right after character generation, you can go straight to the roadblock troll and blow him off his stupid bridge with two or three powerfists. You can even tackle snakes easily at level one with him and the ranger.
-There was one thing that almost killed me: The lava sea with the tower in the middle (E4, 92, 79). Suffered wading through and losing a few characters, just to be greeted by a 'Not implemented yet' message when I reached the tower. Well, fuck you, too, Lord Archibald
-The overworld progression is pretty linear. I just reached an area full of Goblins which weren't a real threat at level one, and now that I'm level 30, they're even less. I just cleared three dungeons in a row filled to the brim with goblins and apprentice sorcerers without even looking at my health.
-Gold economy is pretty pointless. There's hardly anything I'd want to buy (even with 5 craftsmen unlocked), and if there is, it costs nothing compared to my funds.
-Crystal economy is lots better. Just now had enough to buy a fancy sword.

General Ideas/Feature requests, sorted from most important to least
-Before you do anything else, please increase the difficulty a lot. At the moment, the game is not easy. It's trivial. Some Ideas on how to achieve that: Make the power curve flatter, i.e. less HP/MP gain on levelups, less impact of Strength on damage. Disable Griffin travel when enemies are near. Make enemies chase you longer and give some the ability to outpace you (i.e. you move one square, they move two). Increase the standard deviation when choosing targets, i.e. make it more likely for some monsters to target characters on the side. Make debuffs/bad conditions more common, also resistances actually feel like immunities, which is imo too strong.
If the game doesn't get harder, all other changes will be somewhat pointless.
-Make the world more interesting. Place riddles, hidden traps etc. Right now, exploration is a bit lackluster. Especially dungeoneering boils down to mindless map lawnmowing and looking for the next lever.
-Once the Monsters are a real threat, it would be nice if we were able to debuff them with poison/confusion etc... as well.
-It would be cool if the overworld map behaved like the ones in dungeons, i.e. you'll only see the tiles you already cleared (plus maybe the adjacent ones). This could be enhanced with an eagle eye spell. At low levels, it just shows the floor tiles on the map, at higher also walls, the position of enemies, traps or even secret doors.
-More consumable items, please! Scrolls, potions, wands, weapons with charges,...
-A thievery skill would be nice, as would be locked/trapped doors and chests to go along with. Would make characters like the Bard or the Ranger a bit more useful compared to the warriors. Also, the unavoidable traps are rather annoying, being able to remove them (with a risk of course) would be great.

 

[Snorkack]

LordArchibald I'm stuck...

Spoiler

Think I completed every side quest so far, found the three orbs, incarcerated the evil wizard, used the magical door unsealer and found a "strange device" in a chest. Now nothing moves forward: The royal wizard keeps insisting I should search the Ivory Tower thoroughly. Besides the Evil Mirror that I can't interact with, there seems to be nothing left to find. Talked to a lot of Lords, Wizards, past quest givers etc. to see if they got some clues, but no dice. Am I missing something?

 

[Chris Koźmik]

LordArchibald I'm stuck...

Spoiler

Think I completed every side quest so far, found the three orbs, incarcerated the evil wizard, used the magical door unsealer and found a "strange device" in a chest. Now nothing moves forward: The royal wizard keeps insisting I should search the Ivory Tower thoroughly. Besides the Evil Mirror that I can't interact with, there seems to be nothing left to find. Talked to a lot of Lords, Wizards, past quest givers etc. to see if they got some clues, but no dice. Am I missing something?

Can you send me the save file (silverlemurgames@gmail.com)? I will look into it.

EDIT: OK, I found the bug. It's fixed in v0.22 which will be relased today or tomorrow. Thanks for reporting!
BTW, you could still send me the savefile, I would love to check it (balance wise).

 

[Snorkack]

Done. Thanks for the reply!

 

[Naraya]

GOG please!

 

[Grauken]

GOG will say it's too niche

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.22 is out. Adressed a lot of the issues posted above (especially related to difficulty & balance).

GOG will say it's too niche

Yeah, sort of The game was rejected by GoG.

 

[JarlFrank]

Version 0.22 is out. Adressed a lot of the issues posted above (especially related to difficulty & balance).

GOG will say it's too niche

Yeah, sort of The game was rejected by GoG.

Lol again.

Grimoire, Vigilantes, Geisterschiff, etc etc. One indie RPG after the next is rejected by GoG because "too niche" despite this being exactly the kind of niche GoG customers would be into.
Meanwhile some more generic hipster indie games get accepted.
WTF GoG???????????????????????