Battle for Esturia - Old-School CRPG

[Dorateen]

Maybe allow the player to create an entire party

Always a good idea.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Agree with that, it'd be interesting to try out unbalanced parties. I think a well-designed dungeon would be much more preferable than a randomly generated one. The only weak aspect I found on the game was encounter design (I believe it could have offered more challenge), hand-crafting your dungeons tailored to an increasing difficulty could make it so much better.

Will buy soon to support btw, I really liked my playthrough.

 

[680x0]

On the store page it says "a party of up to 6 characters"

Bessie lets out a lonely moo.

 

[nlfortier]

On the store page it says "a party of up to 6 characters"

Bessie let's out a lonely moo.

Yeah... I really did Bessie dirty there. She's one of the best party members too!

 

[Darkozric]

I've just finish it, cool little game simplistic but enjoyable exploration.

 

[Infinitron]

https://esturiagames.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/map-generation/

MAP GENERATION

I have started working on an expansion for Battle for Esturia. In this expansion you will create a custom party and explore the depths of a massive procedurally generated dungeon. I want to combine my favorite parts of roguelike games like procedural generation and perma-death with the tactical party-based combat of the original game.

Over the past couple of weeks I have finished most of the map generation algorithm and I thought I would share my approach. The algorithm starts by generating a binary tree, where each node represents a room of the dungeon and edges represent connections between rooms, with the root node representing the entrance. This representation is convenient as it allows me to easily place keys and locked doors. When placing a locked door between a node and its parent, I know that the key must be placed in a room of the subtree rooted at the node’s sibling. Using this fact, the algorithm can place locked doors and keys while guaranteeing that all rooms of the dungeon are reachable.

In the image below you can see the map generation in action. The top of the image shows the initial binary tree from which the dungeon is constructed. The numbers are the node identifiers, the exclamation marks represent locked doors, and the character “K” denotes a room containing a key. Below the graph, you can see the fully constructed dungeon.

I’ve got the basic dungeon generation algorithm working and I’ve started populating the level with items. The next step is to add some enemies to fight. Hopefully I will be able to share some gameplay footage in the coming weeks.

 

[Tavernking]

I have an unhealthy interest in why you put the game out for free on itch.io. Was it worth it in the end? I think it's a great idea, but I feel like I need to make back the money I've invested in art sprites.

 

[nlfortier]

I have an unhealthy interest in why you put the game out for free on itch.io. Was it worth it in the end? I think it's a great idea, but I feel like I need to make back the money I've invested in art sprites.

In the end I made very little money on itch.io relative to Steam. On itch I had about 400 downloads, but only 11 people actually paid for the game. In contrast about 200 people purchased the game on Steam.

My reasoning was that I wanted as many people to play my game as possible and I didn't want a lack of money to prevent anyone from playing it. Ultimately, my goal was to make a game people would enjoy and any money made was secondary to that. If my goal was to make money, I probably would not have made it available for free on itch. It's unclear how many of those 400 people would have paid for the game if it wasn't free, but it would almost certainly be more than 11.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Found a bug in the game, at the battle against the demon on the Isle of Dread if you attack him with a clay golem the game crashes.

 

[nlfortier]

Found a bug in the game, at the battle against the demon on the Isle of Dread if you attack him with a clay golem the game crashes.

Thanks for finding that! I will look into it right away.

 

[nlfortier]

I have been continuing work on the roguelike expansion for Battle for Esturia. Lately, I've been adding books to the game. Each book has an associated topic and will improve the skills of certain party members if they read it. Each book has text generated using a Markov chain algorithm. For each topic there is a corresponding text corpus from which a Markov chain is generated. Here are a few examples of titles and generated text on different topics:

The Art of the Spear

He was furious, and his sons taken, and bonds were set upon them, and when they were charging toward them with all his sons went eight times right through the air, spears hurtled after them, stones were hurled by strong hands, and those who had lain privily in the end was he borne down by many men fell fast about him; naught did the king himself not least of all, that human beings are many but men are few.

The Pyromancer’s Handbook

It was then placed in a circle and turned on its axis and the fire is destroyed by the expedient of a dry exhalation. Thus it naturally followed that the upper regions were full of fire, the heat of which is the most mysterious; for, while earth and air and water were always in evidence, fire came and went in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that a little fire kindleth!

The Toxins And Their Antibodies

Nay, so terrible was the nature of these toxins--and in this volume, and to which the names ptomaines and leucomaines, Researches, which were begun scarcely twenty years since we began to acquire a knowledge of the albuminoids is due to some toxins, with the true diastases in all their properties.

A Treatise On the Study of Corpses

The necromancer might also surround himself with morbid aspects of death, which often included wearing the deceased's ghostly spirit instead. In the pallid light they seemed like corpses, freed from the nightshade family such as these, varying from the dead, or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Rituals could be quite elaborate, involving magic circles, wands, talismans, and incantations.

Of Remedies of Disease And Their Cures

In all intermitting pains and inflammations are, and the patient of his disorder, and is not easily found. It is true, habit, then, rendered it less dangerous and unyielding disease, anxiety leads to the part. And as regards other parts, so more especially here, ulcers are liable. The former perish before suppuration is white and thick. On the first application of the arcs the jaw began to quiver, the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and the left eye actually opened.

The text generated is mostly nonsense or course, but it is interesting nonsense that reflects the topic of the book. I could probably improve things more by adding to the text corpus for each topic.

The expansion is still a long way from being released, but if you want to play the original handcrafted adventure, there is currently a Halloween sale on Steam this weekend: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1514780/Battle_for_Esturia/