Indie Lurking - Inspired by Ultima 3 (released)

[Kalarion]

oklabsoft I think I've hit a bad snag. I went to the wreck of the Soulbearer with just the plans to try to repair it. When I got the message stating I didn't have the skill, I immediately teleported out to buy the toolkit (I figured repairing the Soulbearer worked the same as repairing the Photus will). I came back to where the wreck should be after picking up the kit, and the wreck is gone. In its place is a fordable shallows. Wut do?

I posted in your Discord too but I don't know how often you check it so I figured I'd ask here.

 

[oklabsoft]

oklabsoft I think I've hit a bad snag. I went to the wreck of the Soulbearer with just the plans to try to repair it. When I got the message stating I didn't have the skill, I immediately teleported out to buy the toolkit (I figured repairing the Soulbearer worked the same as repairing the Photus will). I came back to where the wreck should be after picking up the kit, and the wreck is gone. In its place is a fordable shallows. Wut do?

I posted in your Discord too but I don't know how often you check it so I figured I'd ask here.

Resolved on Discord and bug fixed for next update.

 

[Kalarion]

I beat it a couple days ago. Had a grand time.

I loved the exploration aspect, it was clearly the focus. Wandering around, finding locations/items/NPCs who I had absolutely no clue what they were for when I found them... all of that felt really good. The highlight for me was finding Thalasea while wandering around trying to find entrances to the Deep to explore. At this point my party was like level 4 with some iron chain mail and swords for equipment. I had this vague thought that I'd heard someone mention her in connection to ice so I typed it in, and voila! ICE IX! Went straight to Stormpeak just to screw around and figure out the layout for later once I had the Lantern. Guess what kind of treasure Stormpeak has

Combat was serviceable. I would have liked making bow users a little more powerful throughout the game, and maybe clearer indication of what causes a Backstab (from what I could tell, Backstabs are just this game's version of crits?). Hit rate, especially in melee, seemed a little on the low side. At 10 Combat skill, I seemed to be hitting about 50% of the time. Ouch. Ranged, for whatever reason, actually seemed to hit much more consistently. I really appreciated that shots could pass through allies. Oh, and I never figured out what the point of hiding was. It didn't seem to make me untargetable, and attacking instantly dropped the Hide for what appeared no benefit. What gives?

Character progression felt really good, but it had issues. I liked the 2-tiered progression of raising skills whenever you feel like it, but stats only at their respective pool. I also liked only getting 2 points per level, and the feasible level cap being around 8 (9 is doable if one or two chars get all the xp from killing Wights). I really considered how and when to distribute my points, especially for the first 4 levels or so. But I would have appreciated a little more clarity, either documentation through readme/manual or ingame, on what each of the stats did. I didn't realize, until digging around on the Discord, that Wisdom is something akin to this game's Luck stat, for instance (affects just about every action but in a smaller way then other stats). And once I did understand it, finding the Pool of Wisdom was a big moment for me. Possible missed opportunity for a high moment if I hadn't known. I also didn't realize that Agility was mono-focused on raising evasion- I raised it on both my melee fighters hoping it would improve their abysmal to-hit chance. Things like that were frustrating.

Overall I had a fantastic time with the game. Planning to start up Lurking II later this week.

 

[oklabsoft]

Glad you enjoyed the game and thanks for the excellent feedback. I have been fixing a few bugs and will probably make some adjustments based on this. I will definitely check on hiding as a hidden character should not be targeted and attacking from hiding should do extra damage and indicate this in the narration. Thank you! I'm looking forward to hearing your impressions of L2 if you get to it.

 

[newtmonkey]

I've been playing this all weekend and am quite addicted. So far I agree with everything Kalarion said, it's a lot of fun gathering information and taking detailed notes is a must. It's also very satisfying once you learn the "structure" of the quest, very similar to how the puzzle pieces begin to fit together in Ultima 4 as you figure out the relationship between the mantras, shrines, stones, etc.

The combat is not anything amazing, but it seems quicker than Ultima 3-5 and giving your spellcasters some basic combat abilities makes it a lot easier to keep them leveled up early on. Random encounters are not too frequent, but can be dangerous even after you've gained a few levels and have upgraded your equipment. Definite improvement over the combat in Ultima 3&4, at any rate.

I think the game would really benefit from a manual. I don't think it would need to be anything fancy (though a fancy Ultima-like manual would be great!), just a short description of the towns and what services they offer, a bestiary, items and prices, equipment stats, etc. Some more information on what the attributes and skills do would also be helpful—I think most people playing this would probably spend their initial points on mostly attributes with maybe a few points on skills, thinking that most rolls under the hood would be based on attributes with skills providing bonuses; however, the COMBAT and ARCHERY skills apparently largely determine your to-hit %, so it is crucial to have a decent level in one or the other right from the beginning I think.

Anyway, those are my initial impressions several hours in. Would love to see a "Lurking Trilogy" physical box release once Lurking 3 is completed

 

[newtmonkey]

I completed this just now. I reckon it took me around 25-30 hours to finish this, though I was quite thorough in exploring and taking notes.

Great game! It plays most like Ultima III-V but with overhead perspective dungeons. It's all about gathering information, following up on leads, and figuring the quest out. One great thing about it is that a lot of crucial hints are provided by more than one character, so you have less of a chance of getting stuck by missing an important NPC somewhere. As long as you take good notes, you can get through without much trouble.

Combat is alright. It feels a lot like Ultima III-VI combat, but is very fast and much less tedious than in Ultima III&IV. Fodder enemies have low HP and your spellcasters can get spells that target all undead or even all enemies at once. You can also give your spellcasters some skill in ranged weapons so they can earn some EXP before getting the powerful spells. Combat can be difficult at first, but it doesn't take long to get more powerful. Combat also does not appear to be scaled at all, though of course there are more difficult enemies lower in the dungeons, etc.

There are a lot of spells for you to find (beyond the basics, you must be taught spells from NPCs, sometimes hidden). I didn't have a very magic-heavy party, so didn't make much use of spells. The game also has a secondary spell type (music) but even with a dedicated bard I didn't really use music much.

The dungeons are pretty great in here. You have smaller dungeons across the land, as well as a single megadungeon that connects to entrances all over the world. You need to explore these to complete the game, but they also have lots of hidden areas full of powerful magic equipment. Getting loot is always exciting, even toward the end of the game, and I found myself constantly upgrading equipment as I played. MUCH better than the Ultima games here.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this one and can't think of anything I'd want changed in it. I'm looking forward to playing the sequel!