[7DRL] Blood Arbiter

[edge2054]

It was a great idea though yufra but yeah, it could definitely be implemented better.

For instance, a check could be put on the ready weapon talent itself and if the character has never used it successfully the following emote could periodically trigger while in the arena, "I need to get to a weapon and 'ready' it if I'm to stand a chance."

[Grey]

I like the emotes for hints on tactics, but basic commands should be given up front, in either a welcome text box or a readme file (or both). With 7DRLs a lot of people will play the game exactly once, and to try and get them more than that you have to be very up front indeed.

Also you should comment out all the key commands that won't get used in the game from Game.lua, otherwise the Escape menu key reassignment screen shows a lot of useless shortcuts.

Love the music and sound effects atmosphere :)

[yufra]

I like the emotes for hints on tactics, but basic commands should be given up front, in either a welcome text box or a readme file (or both). With 7DRLs a lot of people will play the game exactly once, and to try and get them more than that you have to be very up front indeed.

Also you should comment out all the key commands that won't get used in the game from Game.lua, otherwise the Escape menu key reassignment screen shows a lot of useless shortcuts.

Thanks for the suggestions. Like all good ones they are obvious when pointed out, and I'll have to work on making them obvious beforehand for my next 7DRL (or RL, or...).

Love the music and sound effects atmosphere

That turned out to be one of the most fun things to do. I hadn't even considered adding music or sound effects before the challenge, but then tiger_eye sent me the arena and death music, and I really started searching hard for sound to help set the ambiance. I want to do more with that, and maybe next year I will try a survival/horror type of game, Amnesia the Roguelike? I only played the demo of Amnesia, but taking away your weapons and tossing you into a creepy place... delicious.

[edge2054]

I like the emotes for hints on tactics, but basic commands should be given up front, in either a welcome text box or a readme file (or both). With 7DRLs a lot of people will play the game exactly once, and to try and get them more than that you have to be very up front indeed.

This is a difference of design philosophy as well as game-play philosophy. Many people don't like to read help files or text boxes and the give the player commands as they need them is a very prevalent design philosophy that works well in my opinion and can be executed non-obtrusively with T-Engine very easily with emotes (though I think gamelog feedback on emotes should be paired with it in case the player misses an emote).

Personally, I prefer learning a game (even basic commands) through a context sensitive hint feature. I find it doesn't overload me with information I'm not ready for and doesn't force my (limited) attention span to move away to much from the game and on to a dialogue box.

That said, easily findable (escape and ? are good for roguelikes) and more in-depth help files as well as a read me are appreciated. I'm not saying emotes are a substitute for that but I am saying welcome text boxes can be annoying, especially if they try to teach me to many things at once.

[yufra]

There is a limited "?" help, too. I thought about having the first guard emote something like that, but that it would break the third wall too much. I should have let the player know that existed, though.

[Grey]

I noticed the ? screen but didn't find it all that useful. It could do with some descriptions of the talents, I guess.

[marvalis]

I killed all the trainers and soldiers, none seemed to fight back.

Can't seem to get an arena match going though..

Trying to attack the representatives gave an error.

[yufra]

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to be picking this back up in the next few weeks.