Vapourware Monstromino: what if game = character build?

[baturinsky]

One day I was looking at Path of Exile passive tree and though: "it's complex enough to be a game by itself".

And then I made it A game where world is a tree of stat bonuses, and you have to defeat them to get them. Quite simple yet, but already fun, imho.

There are three modes. "Vanilla" monstromino where you fight the "usual" way, even if automatically. "Life" mode is supposed to represent (in a very abstract way) a flow of human's life, with "monsters" being life situation and a simpler formula for "winning" is used. "Rainbow" is even simpler mode, without stats at all and only limitation being that board should be cleared in rainbow color order.

Play: https://monstromino.netlify.com/

(Chrome is recommended, otherwise some visual effects are disabled. Firefox performance really hates animations.)

Source https://github.com/baturinsky/monstromino

So, questions are:

1. Is the initial idea sound?
2. Is it easy to understand how to play?
3. Is it fun to play?
4. Where to go next? Try to expand on this (add campaign, passive/active skills, board mods etc), or change something radacally?
Maybe make "monsters" looking more monster-like and combat with them more detailed? Or this simple style is ok too?

 

[Wayward Son]

You made a literal excel spreadsheet simulator... Kudos

 

[baturinsky]

You made a literal excel spreadsheet simulator... Kudos

Thanks for honesty

 

[Optimist]

Fun little game. I like it!

I had to take a mouseover or two to realize how the mechanics for 'clicking down' a block work. There seems to be a slight overabundance of high defence/ low attack blocks, and going for ATT/SPD seems to be a way to go (although, my opinion may not count for much, as I failed to clear a board yet). As it is, it seems to be a great commuting/ slackoff game. If you really wanted to mix the formula up you could go Puzzle Quest route, with boards being dungeons, and players having abilities like "change colour of a single square", or "destroy target field without gaining xp".

The one thing the game could use, would be making it easier to notice why can't you beat a block (whether you're not doing enough damage, or perhaps it kills you first), including incoming/ outgoing damage, but I don't think it's doable while keeping the clear interface.

It also took me a while before I realized that you might occasionally want to go for smaller clusters downscreen rather than for big ones in the upper parts, as the value of squares increases the further down you go.

Do you have any tests in place to ensure at least one winnable paths while building a board?

 

[baturinsky]

You have figured right that ATK/SPD (especially ATK) is most useful stat by far. I'll try to balance it out.

No, there is no guaranteed path, but you can try another seed

Yes, I was planning a campaign with boards as dungeons with different traits and player choosing which hero (active ability) and weapon(passive ability) to take to it. I have a list of those modifiers here: https://github.com/baturinsky/monstromino/blob/master/src/todo.txt

Also, have you tried "life" mode? You can use the form at the bottom to change mode/seed/size of the board.

 

[Wayward Son]

You made a literal excel spreadsheet simulator... Kudos

Thanks for honesty

Tbf I was actually complimenting you on taking the RPG genre to its purest form

 

[Ysaye]

One day I was looking at Path of Exile passive tree and though: "it's complex enough to be a game by itself".

And then I made it A game where world is a tree of stat bonuses, and you have to defeat them to get them. Quite simple yet, but already fun, imho.

There are three modes. "Vanilla" monstromino where you fight the "usual" way, even if automatically. "Life" mode is supposed to represent (in a very abstract way) a flow of human's life, with "monsters" being life situation and a simpler formula for "winning" is used. "Rainbow" is even simpler mode, without stats at all and only limitation being that board should be cleared in rainbow color order.

Play: https://monstromino.netlify.com/

(Chrome is recommended, otherwise some visual effects are disabled. Firefox performance really hates animations.)

Source https://github.com/baturinsky/monstromino

So, questions are:

1. Is the initial idea sound?
2. Is it easy to understand how to play?
3. Is it fun to play?
4. Where to go next? Try to expand on this (add campaign, passive/active skills, board mods etc), or change something radacally?
Maybe make "monsters" looking more monster-like and combat with them more detailed? Or this simple style is ok too?

Just me but I like it.

On point 4, what if you had only a limited view of the tree? Then you are arguably adding exploration to it.....