ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So my 7DRL didn't work out, but I've been working on it since and gotten it to a decent state. Here's the Windows build:

http://gruesomegames.com/games/roguerage-alpha2.zip

Or the standalone mod:

http://gruesomegames.com/games/roguerage-alpha2-mod.zip

Rogue Rage is about tactical positioning. You have various stances with various effects. Each turn you unleash a passive attack based on your stances, and you may bump into enemies to trigger special attacks (also stance-based). You have a Rage meter that, when filed, switches you to Rage mode where your attacks become immensely powerful, but it doesn't last long. There are 4 dungeons with their own theme and enemy mix. Every enemy type has unique abilities apart from the lower case ones, which are windshield kills used to increase Rage.

Right now I could do with some testers, if anyone's interested. I think it's quite fairly balanced at the moment, but it's hard to tell. I'm also fairly sure it's bug free, but that's also hard to tell. I could do with specific feedback on the enemy/area difficulties, boss difficulties and stance comparisons.

Things I have still to do:
- sound effects and music (I'll be using some free classical stuff)
- final boss abilities
- story text (only needs a light touch)
- cosmetic map changes on boss death
- in-game instructions
- cope with different screen resolutions better
- Endless Death mode, with random bosses on each level

Any feedback appreciated, even if it's just small impressions.

I just beat my first boss (the one in the south), and gained Shadow Stance. I played mostly in rouge stance, switching to Temple when there were no adjacent enemies, and my HP was low.

One interesting thing that I wasn't expecting is how attacking enemies wasn't always the best move. It costs rage and often you can kill lower case enemies with just passives, getting a small profit.

I'll play around with it a bit more, then give a more complete impression.

Oh man! I went to rest, and I instead RAGED! The graphics on the rage are crazy cool.

The two stances are pretty neat, and are explained okay by hovering over the meters, but maybe if you talked about it on a splash screen? It is a really cool, never been seen before device.

It's hard, too! Less hard now that I know rage and temple stance heal you, though.

It is a crazy cool game!

Thanks! Crazy cool is very much the objective :) That and reforming melee combat, so that you can have interesting effects just from moving around an bumping into enemies in different stances.

Any comments on balance and ideas for improvement are greatly appreciated.

Also, the T-Engine rules for making these sorts of graphical effects. It has so much potential that even a game as extensive as ToME4 doesn't tap into its full power. More people should be making T-Engine games!

I have been playing a bit more, and I can now consistently clear the southern dungeon and get Shadow Stance. I'm not sure if it's intended, but I have been maintaining Rage straight from the middle of the first level to killing the boss there a couple of times.

And, treants can move when they can't see you. This may be intended, but I was just running past them through the Eastern forest, and I quickly got a swarm of 20+ treants following me.

Fun and simple to play, but loaded with tactics. Really cool. I was confused on a few points, especially just in figuring out the mechanics. A help screen would be swell, even though I know I can see the mechanics by hovering over the relevant interface object. Health/Rage could really use some giant meters so I can see what they are without having to parse the numbers. It'd also be nice to see a cheat-sheet of the stance effects. Rage mode made it hard to see the stairs in the Shadow Temple, causing me to stumble out of the second level and then out of the first level onto the world map. Also, are enemies unlimited, or am I just getting swamped by shadows from master lurkers? I like to know if I need to suppress completionist tendencies.

lukep wrote:I have been playing a bit more, and I can now consistently clear the southern dungeon and get Shadow Stance. I'm not sure if it's intended, but I have been maintaining Rage straight from the middle of the first level to killing the boss there a couple of times.

And, treants can move when they can't see you. This may be intended, but I was just running past them through the Eastern forest, and I quickly got a swarm of 20+ treants following me.

The treant moving is completely intended. The idea is meant to be that each stance unlock can help you in the other dungeons, so you end up having to choose which order you'd like to do them in. Kinda Mega Man style.

Maintaining rage is not intended, but a planned change is to make you unrage on level change.

bricks wrote:Also, are enemies unlimited, or am I just getting swamped by shadows from master lurkers? I like to know if I need to suppress completionist tendencies.

They come from the Master Lurkers, there are no unlimited enemies. It deliberately set up that each zone has summoners so if need be you can farm the weaker summons to build up rage. Just remember that there's no reward for killing enemies, no experience system or anything like that, so satisfying your completionist urges may be rather futile!

Thanks a lot for the feedback from everyone - I'll get to work on some improvements.