E.X.P.L.O.R.™: A New World - turn-based blobber 24 years in development

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

E.X.P.L.O.R.™ my asshole

 

[Moaning_Clock]

It looks honestly interesting, especially the enemies and walls but my biggest gripe is that it doesn't fit together. I really don't understand these absurdly long development cycles, I would go completely insane - but maybe that's the appeal or a masochistic tendency?

 

[mondblut]

I really don't understand these absurdly long development cycles, I would go completely insane - but maybe that's the appeal or a masochistic tendency?

This usually means "I work on it for a few days, then shelve it for a year", rinse and repeat.

Taking 25 years to develop something is nothing. Actually getting done with it one day - now that's impressive.

 

[Shackleton]

Yeah, looks like it's worth a go for us blobber fans if it's not some crazy AAA price.

Art style is giving me slight 'Swords and Sorcery Underworld' vibes and I enjoyed that a lot. Just hope the maps aren't too simplistic and the combat isn't too easy.

 

[CryptRat]

The game is released and at least it's cheap.

The specified requirement is low so it might work on my rig, currently installing.

 

[Fluent]

Bought it and playing it now. Cool game! I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's indeed a legit crawler in my book. Hope u guys have fun with it! <3

 

[Fluent]

Yeah, looks like it's worth a go for us blobber fans if it's not some crazy AAA price.

Art style is giving me slight 'Swords and Sorcery Underworld' vibes and I enjoyed that a lot. Just hope the maps aren't too simplistic and the combat isn't too easy.

Art style is nice in-game! The maps aren't too simplistic, they seem 'just right'. Combat challenge is there, plus different difficulty modes. Enemies can come in different levels which determines their power. Quite a nice way to throw harder foes at you mixed in with the lesser minions. First dungeon is pretty small but I expect them to get larger as we go.

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1387120/discussions/0/4402812641356953204/

A Message from the Developer

Hi. It is with great pleasure that I present E.X.P.L.O.R.: A New World to the public.

I want to give a history of this game for anyone that is interested. (One of my friends says that the documentary of an eccentric man programming his own game might be more interesting than the game itself.)

I jokingly like to say that I have been working on the game for over 20 years, and that is sort of true. I originally conceived the game around 1997 or 1998 as an answer to some of the problems I had with older dungeon crawlers, and even started coding it back then (https://github.com/beemfx/Beem.Media/tree/master/games/Explor2002) but I never got further than basic map exploration. (Some of the original maps from back then are "sort of" in the release version of the game .) In 2002 I made the 3rd beta of the game and never did anything more with it. I started thinking about it some more in around 2013 when I was playing through Might and Magic 2 for the Sega Genesis, and I like that game but I felt the combat was really lacking in that game and that got me to thinking about E.X.P.L.O.R. again...

I started E.X.P.L.O.R. in it's current form in 2015, and for about five years I was developing it as a hobby. I occasionally worked mornings and evenings, sometimes weekends. Very part-time. I always thought maybe I would have something that could be released some day, and I always had the idea that "I could finish it in a year if I wanted to".

After five years of leisurely development I pretty much had all the features I wanted in the game, exploration, combat, game mechanics, a system for designing quests and NPCs, etc, but I didn't really have a game. I had a bunch of systems that could be used to make a game... I was pretty much in a lull because coding has always been my favorite part of game development and there wasn't much more coding to do.

Then 2020 came along and in April or May something personal happened in my life and I got massively depressed. I was getting up later and later every day. It was pretty bad for me. Eventually I thought to myself I have to get out of this depression so I figured maybe I should work on E.X.P.L.O.R. some more.

I found myself working on it for hours on end. Finally putting content into the game. After a month or so I was still depressed but I had E.X.P.L.O.R. to keep me going. The game was making so much progress I really thought I was actually going to complete it! It was an exciting moment. I figured I could finish it by December. December 11, 2020 was my original release date. Then... My depression was over! But... that was bad news for E.X.P.L.O.R. In December I hit a wall. I knew what had to be done to complete the game, but I didn't have the motivation to do it. I didn't work on the game for pretty much all of December and January.

Weirdly, I had this overwhelming anxiety that I could die before finishing E.X.P.L.O.R., my 20 year project. I actually had a friend promise me that if I died before the game was released that he would take up the mantle of finishing it. He made that promise .

In February 2021 I thought to myself, I need to finish the game. So I set a release date: May 11, 2021. With the requirements I had for the game I knew that was a reasonable goal. Come around April I knew I was on target, but I decided to extend the release by one more month to June 11 just so I could add a little extra polish to the game. I worked hard on the game in that time. I found that it was best for me to work for an hour or two each weekday morning, as I was too burnt out after my day job to work evenings on it, and weekends were often filled with other obligations (though I did work some weekends as well).

And here we are. E.X.P.L.O.R. is a real thing out in the world. I'm proud of it. I had a game in my mind that I wanted to play, and that's what it is: I made the game I wanted to play! I'm glad to say that I enjoy playing my own game (though I might be biased ), and I certainly hope that someone else out there does too.

I want to thank anyone that gives this game a try. I hope you enjoy it. It's a simple game in a lot of regards, but it should provide a lot of fun to anyone interesting in the old school dungeon crawler genre. I think the game is evident that a lot of care was put into making the game the best that I could.

-Jack

 

[Shackleton]

Yeah, it is a simple game like he says. It's no Grimoire, that's for sure. 4 classes, Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Warlock and a 6 person party so you need multiple of a couple. Not found combat much of a challenge and not come across any status ailments or mobs doing anything other than damage but it is early-ish on. I say early-ish as the dev has said it should take between 5-8 hours to complete and I'm 3 hours in so maybe I'm at mid way? Seems a bit short considering I've only cleared 3 levels of the initial dungeon and my chars are level 6.

I'm enjoying it in a casual, easy-going way. Saving only occurs in town but as there doesn't seem to be any traps or status ailments I've not really felt in any serious danger. No idea why he's gone with the space angle, so far there's been absolutely zero elements of sci-fi and it could just of easy been '6 friends turn up to search for the Maguffin' plot-wise.

No bugs though that I've found and it's cheap enough to consider if you're as bored with AAA clone games as I am and like a casual blobber.

 

[Contagium]

My pre judgement may have been harsh. I like this dev and bought it. Look forward to spending time with it this weekend

 

[grimer]

the dev has said it should take between 5-8 hours to complete

it took him 24 years to develop a 5-8 hour long game???

 

[Shackleton]

Finished the story in 7.1 hours. Still got a little bit of the final map to explore and one outstanding item to find, but pretty much it's done. Was level 21 for the final fight and the XP from that brought me to 23. Played 75% of the game with the increased combat frequency as I found the base spawn rate very low.

Hmmm. It's not fair to judge this by the same standards of a game with a large team and budget working on it, and he's not asking much for it so the developer clearly knows it's limitations. 'Simple' is the right word for it. I found the following tile in a map and felt like it was a perfect description.

Spoiler

The maps are simple, with no environmental hazards at all. There's the obligatory fire level, but no tiles that drain health, no spinners, no pits, no dark zones, nothing. The combat is simple, with nothing to think about apart from damage and health. No debuffs, a couple of buffs that may as well not be there and no status effects at all. This makes the Warlock by far the best class as the last few battles were just me casting Earthquake for 7K+ damage to everyone and the fighters did 500 to one target. This is pretty consistent with blobbers, but with nothing else but damage it made every combat routine. The character building is simple, no choices apart from equipment and that's very linear.

But even though it was simple and basic, I enjoyed it enough to finish it with no bugs. The developer is a decent chap who patched in strafing just because I asked about it and he's set a fair price, so I would say if you want a simple, short and sweet blobber with not much thought required then it's worth it.