Infra Arcana - An H.P. Lovecraft/Horror based Roguelike

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Sounds great .

 

[DwarvenFood]

Good effort, salute to you sir, also for not showing off some alpha version but release 6 already.. good stuff. Looking forward to version with sfx/music.

 

[non]

Good effort, salute to you sir, also for not showing off some alpha version but release 6 already.. good stuff. Looking forward to version with sfx/music.

Thank you! And to thee as well.

 

[Haba]

After playing a bit more, a few ideas.

-Religion? Nothing silly like Nethack, but rather like in CoC. Occasional opportunities to converse with elder powers. High risks, as always.

-Mutations. See Crawl.

-Permanent sanity effects. The further you come to insanity, the more dangerous the effects are. Maybe give minor bonuses alongside the drawbacks so that sanity balancing wouldn't be as straight forward as it is at the moment.

Pretty much all of the three are along the same vein; as you're trying to maintain your sanity, you'd also be trying to keep your humanity.


Also, I do hope that we'll encounter some egg laying niggers and a multi-headed d... monster at some point of the journey ;-)

 

[non]

-Religion? Nothing silly like Nethack, but rather like in CoC. Occasional opportunities to converse with elder powers. High risks, as always.

I have been thinking about doing some sort of Faustian bargain events. Would be hard to do/balance, but could be extremely cool.

-Mutations. See Crawl.

I'm totally unfamiliar with Crawl's mutations. I'll see if I can find them in some youtube let's play, or read up on them somewhere.

-Permanent sanity effects. The further you come to insanity, the more dangerous the effects are. Maybe give minor bonuses alongside the drawbacks so that sanity balancing wouldn't be as straight forward as it is at the moment.

I intend to expand the current list of "insanity events" with more permanent stuff like developing various phobias (depending on the situation the event occured in, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, fear of dogs and wolves, fear of open places, fear of blood, fear of dead things, etc etc...). You could also realize that there are invisible creatures from a parallell dimension existing among us, and now you have to deal with them, because they notice that you are aware of them.

Also, I do hope that we'll encounter some egg laying niggers and a multi-headed d... monster at some point of the journey ;-)

There exists, somewhere in the murky depths of an early alpha version, such a multi-headed beast, complete with its attack message telling you it hit certain body parts.

 

[thesheeep]

There exists, somewhere in the murky depths of an early alpha version, such a multi-headed beast, complete with its attack message telling you it hit certain body parts.

 

[betamin]

You NEED to play Crawl, its the best roguelike in terms of gameplay and avoiding grindy features.

 

[Stalinhater]

Played a bit; liking it quite a bit so far, though I echo turning the spawn rate way the fuck down.

 

[non]

Alright alright, I'll turn it the fuck down.

Is it the initial amount of monsters, or the rate at which they spawn during exploration that you find too high (or both?)

 

[Excidium]

I think the respawn rate is fine.

The only time it got a bit crazy was when I went down a stair and there were like 5 reanimated corpses waiting for me, hehe.

 

[non]

Implemented sound via SDL_mixer yesterday, only to find out it totally sucks. I'll try openAL instead.

The only time it got a bit crazy was when I went down a stair and there were like 5 reanimated corpses waiting for me, hehe.

Use Molotovs.

 

[Excidium]

Yeah, I always forget about the explosives.

 

[Elwro]

Great project. Stick with ASCII. Hope you'll continue working on this!

 

[crazyirish]

Great project. Stick with ASCII. Hope you'll continue working on this!

Definitely great project. I think having a choice between ascii and a tileset is the way to go. Either way I'll follow with interest. (Maybe a little more with tileset as an option)

 

[non]

I would love some input on a few ideas I have.

I'm about to implement some things to make the game more sneak-and-evade-oriented:
*Sneak skill - There is a certain chance that a monster do not become aware of you even if it has line of sight. This is re-rolled each turn until it becomes aware.
*Listening skill - You listen for footsteps or other idle monster sounds. This can give clues to what's behind a door for example. Maybe it can also print an 'X' on the map in the direction of the sound.
*Backstabbing (or something equivalent) - Attacking a monster in melee when it is not aware of you may give bonus to hit chance and damage.

To emphasize this new aspect even further, I am very tempted to change the way you gain new levels. The idea is to get rid of xp; instead you gain a level when you go to the next dungeon level.

This would mean that the player is rewarded as much for evading a monster as for killing it. You could build a sneaky character without feeling cheated of xp.

 

[Elwro]

All these ideas sound very nice, I'd love to see them implemented. Low Listening skill should sometimes give you false results (maybe low sanity could also have influence on this?).

 

[crazyirish]

All these ideas sound very nice, I'd love to see them implemented. Low Listening skill should sometimes give you false results (maybe low sanity could also have influence on this?).

That would be very cool. As you drift further and further into insanity, you start hearing monsters behind every door or around every corner. You could even go a step further and mis-perceive creatures or objects based on your sanity level.

 

[DwarvenFood]

lol yeah great idea that!

 

[hanssolo]

I wish people wouldn't fucking waste time making "Lovecraft-themed" games and would just make Lovecraft games. Call of Cthulu can suck my dick.

 

[non]

I wish people wouldn't fucking waste time making "Lovecraft-themed" games and would just make Lovecraft games. Call of Cthulu can suck my dick.

Congratulations on the most unconstructive criticism ever.

Edit: Wow, two pages before someone called the game a complete waste of time. :D

 

[hanssolo]

Congratulations on the most unconstructive criticism ever.

Edit: Wow, two pages before someone called the game a complete waste of time. :D

all games are a waste of time.

shit, it's not like I owe you decent crticism because I see a thread titled "An H.P. Lovecraft/Horror based roguelike" and am disappointed when the game is a convention roguelike with a vague Lovecraft theme. It seems like a waste of the setting, when playing a roguelike I do not give a shit about the difference between a 'd' and a 'Z' other than their interactions with the game mechanics.

 

[non]

Well, the game mechanics are more affected by the setting than just renaming the monsters. I've had many compliments on the atmosphere of the game (thanks to certain features).
Also, as you can see above I'm in the process of making the game more oriented towards stealth and awareness of the surroundings.

When/if sound effects and dark ambient music makes it into the game, it will add a lot to the atmosphere too.

At least its not another Roguelike with elves and dwarfs. (Nothing wrong with those but the genre needs variation).

 

[GarfunkeL]

There exists, somewhere in the murky depths of an early alpha version, such a multi-headed beast, complete with its attack message telling you it hit certain body parts.

Can it still be found? This is important!

The sneaking system sounds good.

 

[z3r'0']

I don't play roguelikes much, but I went and tried this.

Its fun! Ascii is good, so tilesets is not that important.

The game gives me a real "Blood" vibe. Crou Scurox!
I even named my char Caleb. Made it to DL 3, CHR LVL 3. On my first play, Rusty axe from Z. Lol!

The ambient sounds and fx would really add a lot.

Good stuff.

 

[Elwro]

Moar?