Game News Islands of the Caliph Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Islands of the Caliph; Schmidt Workshops

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[lukaszek]

no longer providing steam links?

 

[Grauken]

A KEYBOARD ONLY 1980s style Dungeon Crawler with an open world.

When I played the demo in one of the game fests on Steam I thought keyboard-only was only preliminary, now it's a design decision. This makes much more sense in a Wizardry-style game, but in something that seems more modeled on Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder-like games, it's not a good idea. When 30-year-old games have a better user interface than a new indie, that's not a good sign.

 

[Tacgnol]

Looks good, but I'm not a huge fan of reducing QOL with the controls with the sole intent of a "classical" feel.

Having intuitive controls/UI is never a bad thing.

 

[0sacred]

time to break out the explosive belt Greek fire

 

[toughasnails]

I thought the demo rather enjoyable, reminded me of The Quest on mobiles from way back albeit simpler. Really charming visuals as well. It WAS needlessly archaic on the tech side tho, so much so that it felt assumed/forced. Resolution, selecting options in the menu sending you to ini file, keyboard only controls yet no native gamepad support.
Will pick it up regardless.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

No party?

 

[toro]

I thought the demo rather enjoyable, reminded me of The Quest on mobiles from way back albeit simpler. Really charming visuals as well. It WAS needlessly archaic on the tech side tho, so much so that it felt assumed/forced. Resolution, selecting options in the menu sending you to ini file, keyboard only controls yet no native gamepad support.
Will pick it up regardless.

I uninstalled the demo in like 20 seconds because of this retarded UI.

Great game, probably.

 

[Maxie]

Tags: Islands of the Caliph; Schmidt Workshops

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how much you chargin for front page exposure

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

A KEYBOARD ONLY 1980s style Dungeon Crawler with an open world.

When I played the demo in one of the game fests on Steam I thought keyboard-only was only preliminary, now it's a design decision. This makes much more sense in a Wizardry-style game, but in something that seems more modeled on Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder-like games, it's not a good idea. When 30-year-old games have a better user interface than a new indie, that's not a good sign.

The message at startup say that "currently" the game has no mouse support. That's why I first thought I got another Early Access title here. I takes some accommodation to accept the keyboard-only controls but I think I'll get into it. Game itself feels pretty nice, very classical and yet original thanks to the unique setting.

 

[toughasnails]

^The controls are p simple really, so I didn't find the absence of mouse too grating. Still, there is no good reason for mouse support not being there.
One can also map the controls to gamepad via steam or thru some dedicated program.

 

[thesecret1]

Playing it right now, it's pretty good. Literally only place where mouse would be useful is inventory management (managing it with keyboard is kinda clunky), but it's not a big deal since the inventory is pretty small and simple anyway. Rest of the game actually controls great.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Haven't played it yet (plan on doing so shortly), but I'm somewhat flummoxed by the complaints about lack of mouse functionality; most blobbers released before 1996 play much more intuitively when playing them with keyboard only controls (Wiz 6, MM3-5, etc.). Playing them with mouse controls has always felt clunky as hell to me. Dungeon Master is the only one that I can think of offhand as being remotely as playable with the mouse scheme.

 

[Grauken]

Haven't played it yet (plan on doing so shortly), but I'm somewhat flummoxed by the complaints about lack of mouse functionality; most blobbers released before 1996 play much more intuitively when playing them with keyboard only controls (Wiz 6, MM3-5, etc.). Playing them with mouse controls has always felt clunky as hell to me. Dungeon Master is the only one that I can think of offhand as being remotely as playable with the mouse scheme.

All real-time dungeon crawlers since Dungeon Master basically invented the genre were primarily mouse-based, so why would you be surprised about this? Mentioning Wiz 6 or MM3-5 isn't really relevant as these aren't real-time

 

[Grauken]

Wow, the dev of the game is kinda moronic

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1845670/discussions/0/3877093297632489673/

I plan to add controller support after all the feedback. Mouse may come later. I really never liked mouse controls in dungeon crawlers though. I feel like it may have led to the demise of the genre.

 

[v1c70r14]

He's not wrong about that, clicking on the weapon for each party member to hit an enemy like in Grimrock is a design decision that plain sucks. The square dancing is kinda stupid too. Hilarious to see Grauken go Pikachu face when an Islamic game developer makes very old school decisions and won't support haram newfangled inventions like computer mice.

 

[Grauken]

He's not wrong about that, clicking on the weapon for each party member to hit an enemy like in Grimrock is a design decision that plain sucks.

Newbie got filtered by real-time crawlers, pitiful

Hilarious to see Grauken go Pikachu face when an Islamic game developer makes very old school decisions and won't support haram newfangled inventions like computer mice.

lol, the dev is American

 

[v1c70r14]

lol, the dev is American

So?

 

[Grauken]

lol, the dev is American

So?

Islamic my ass, his name is Michael Klaus Schmidt, you moron

 

[v1c70r14]

Islamic my ass, his name is Michael Klaus Schmidt, you moron

So you're telling me you're not only a racist piece of shit but you're also incredibly ignorant? Imagine my shock. Anyone can convert to both Islam and Christianity, they're not religions for a select group of inbred people that claim to be chosen by their god to be the master race of humanity like in Judaism. Here's a quote from the game developer.

I appreciate that. I (the developer) am also a Muslim, so I am hoping to do a good job with representation of different cultures and beliefs.

Now crawl back to your troglodyte hole in shame and attempt to continue to live in delusion with your fellow racists that you can determine someone's religion and faith based on their name alone.

 

[Arthandas]

This looks pretty goEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW real time

 

[Cross]

Real-time blobbers were a mistake.

Haven't played it yet (plan on doing so shortly), but I'm somewhat flummoxed by the complaints about lack of mouse functionality; most blobbers released before 1996 play much more intuitively when playing them with keyboard only controls (Wiz 6, MM3-5, etc.). Playing them with mouse controls has always felt clunky as hell to me. Dungeon Master is the only one that I can think of offhand as being remotely as playable with the mouse scheme.

Real-time blobbers were all about using the mouse to interact with the environment, e.g. clicking a suspicious pebble in the wall to open a hidden door or dragging an item from your inventory to trigger something in the world. So this seems like the worst of both worlds: a real-time blobber, meaning poor combat, but lacking the trademark environmental interaction of the genre.

Why wouldn't you include a hotbar for easy item access in a game like this? A lot of these indie games pride themselves on being "retro" yet lack basic UI features from games released 30 years ago.

He's not wrong about that, clicking on the weapon for each party member to hit an enemy like in Grimrock is a design decision that plain sucks. The square dancing is kinda stupid too. Hilarious to see Grauken go Pikachu face when an Islamic game developer makes very old school decisions and won't support haram newfangled inventions like computer mice.

Dungeon Master came out in 1987. If anything, lack of mouse support is "new school" design.

 

[Tacgnol]

Why wouldn't you include a hotbar for easy item access in a game like this? A lot of these indie games pride themselves on being "retro" yet lack basic UI features from games released 30 years ago.

Autism.

 

[Grauken]

Islamic my ass, his name is Michael Klaus Schmidt, you moron

So you're telling me you're not only a racist piece of shit but you're also incredibly ignorant? Imagine my shock. Anyone can convert to both Islam and Christianity, they're not religions for a select group of inbred people that claim to be chosen by their god to be the master race of humanity like in Judaism. Here's a quote from the game developer.

I appreciate that. I (the developer) am also a Muslim, so I am hoping to do a good job with representation of different cultures and beliefs.

Now crawl back to your troglodyte hole in shame and attempt to continue to live in delusion with your fellow racists that you can determine someone's religion and faith based on their name alone.

You got me there, I didn't expect the dev to be some hipster Muslim. Religious tourism is even worse than normal believers

Still, it doesn't invalidate anything I said about his game design. He clearly has no clue about the games he is trying to ape and it shows

Yes, definitely inspired by the old dungeon crawlers. I never played Lands of Lore, but I remember drooling over the graphics back then

 

[Tacgnol]

Does the dev have ginger hair?