WIP - Demons of Dex

[Mayhem]

I'll try to give it a whirl this week if I can

[randolph.pickle]

I finally had a chance to sit down with this game. I beat it on my first try. My final score was 6660. I think you did a fantastic job! The sound effects, music, animations, varying level themes... All of it was awesome! Those mages on the finally level were a pain in the butt. Sadly, I don't have time right now to get this on the real hardware, but I didn't find any bugs in VICE.

Good job!

[phvic]

I finally had a chance to sit down with this game. I beat it on my first try. My final score was 6660. I think you did a fantastic job! The sound effects, music, animations, varying level themes... All of it was awesome! Those mages on the finally level were a pain in the butt. Sadly, I don't have time right now to get this on the real hardware, but I didn't find any bugs in VICE.

Awesome, thanks! I spent about 100 hours on the code (most of the time trying to shave off bytes) so that I could put all the features I wanted in the game.

Since you beat it on first attempt, do you think the game was too easy? If so, what aspects should be rebalanced (e.g. amount of loot dropped, fights being too easy)? I imagine you used the staff, right?

[randolph.pickle]

Since you beat it on first attempt, do you think the game was too easy?

Well... To tell you the truth I'm not sure. There was a period of several years in my life where I played nothing but roguelikes, so I've had a lot of practice. Your game was not excessively unfair (like the original Rogue), extremely long, leaving me more chances to mess up (like most "modern" roguelikes), nor did it have any unusual mechanics (like a lot of 7DRLs). I thought it was very fun, but I guess it could have been more challenging.

If so, what aspects should be rebalanced (e.g. amount of loot dropped, fights being too easy)? I imagine you used the staff, right?

Instead of trying to come up with ways of making the game harder for me, I instead have attached a recording I made in VICE of me beating it again. It does not represent my best playing by far (I was a bit camera shy), but I think watching it will tell you more than I can describe here in words.

Keep up the good work!

[Mayhem]

That's a great idea, should give the programmer a good idea about strategies, and where to make improvements in tweaking the difficulty curve etc.

[phvic]

Well... To tell you the truth I'm not sure. There was a period of several years in my life where I played nothing but roguelikes, so I've had a lot of practice. Your game was not excessively unfair (like the original Rogue), extremely long, leaving me more chances to mess up (like most "modern" roguelikes), nor did it have any unusual mechanics (like a lot of 7DRLs). I thought it was very fun, but I guess it could have been more challenging.

Instead of trying to come up with ways of making the game harder for me, I instead have attached a recording I made in VICE of me beating it again. It does not represent my best playing by far (I was a bit camera shy), but I think watching it will tell you more than I can describe here in words.

Many thanks for the feedback! I'm having problems loading the recording into vice. I'm getting "error loading start snapshot file". Maybe the OS X version of VICE does not support loading history files from the Windows version?

Anyway, since you are a seasoned roguelike player I think the challenge might be okay for new players. And as you said you were having fun, which is what really matters

[randolph.pickle]

I'm getting "error loading start snapshot file".

I'm still a new to VICE, but I found that if the current video standard in VICE does not match the video standard of the recording, I get that error. I recorded with the video standard set to NTSC. Maybe that's the problem.

[phvic]

Thanks for the help, the game has now been released (it's identical to the beta version)!

[aeb]

Great game! ^_^

[phvic]

Thank you! Judging from the amount of feedback I got so far, I think there seems to be only a few vic-20 users interested in roguelikes, so it's nice to get any feedback at all.

[darkatx]

Hi, played it a few times already and its very addictive! My last score was 2860. By the way, is there anyway to restart the game without literally reloading it? Could be my settings in my emulator... :/
Still well done!

[pjwhoopie]

Thank you! Judging from the amount of feedback I got so far, I think there seems to be only a few vic-20 users interested in roguelikes, so it's nice to get any feedback at all.

Add one more to the list of VIC-20 users who like roguelikes.

[malcontent]

Sorry I have yet to respond, but I haven't have time to try the finished product. If you are interested in more feedback, maybe make a post over at the Temple of the Roguelike forum. You'll at least get some raised eyebrows.

[darkatx]

It's a fun game but sometimes its easy when it gives you multiple potions other times its suicide. Frustratingly addictive!

[malcontent]

This game has all of the flavor of a rogue-like in 5k, very nicely done. As darkatx says, the random loot is very often the deciding factor, but that's pretty true to rogue in general. I think the enemies could attempt a move in a random direction if they are blocked to prevent some of the pile ups, and to prevent the player from exploiting their motion as much. It's too easy to manipulate a swarm of monsters into coming at you one at a time, given the right terrain.
A brutal ways to die: stepping into the line of sight of two mages at the same time!

The "boss" levels are a nice touch too.