7DRL Success: FireTail

[Grey]

I've made another T-Engine roguelike in 7 days! Woo!! Though in truth if it wasn't for DarkGod it would have been a mess of non-code :-/ Thanks again, DG!

The game is called FireTail and you can find it here:

http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=484

FireTail is a hex-based roguelike where as you move around you leave a trail of fire, and this trail gives you all sorts of special powers based on how you position yourself. This leads to some interesting and fun tactics!

It's also the prettiest game I've ever made:



Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Especially if you find bugs ;)

[Mex]

Spinning on the same 3 squares gives you infinite attacks in a 1 range aoe as enemies do not get a turn.

Otherwise pretty cool for a game made in a week!

[Effigy]

The graphics are very attractive. I'll try it out.

EDIT: It's quite good overall. Just a few issues I noticed:
- Sometimes the main menu doesn't appear when you start the game. This seemed to happen at random. I'm using the Windows version.
- The video options don't seem to work. The screen resolution and such can be changed temporarily, but it doesn't persist if you restart. When I chose the "apply changes and restart" option, the game was just a blank white screen after the auto-restart.
- Some of the menus can't be accepted with keyboard input (e.g., Space, Enter). The death screen is one example.

[Grey]

Spinning on the same 3 squares gives you infinite attacks in a 1 range aoe as enemies do not get a turn.

I presume you mean if you take the dazzle power at level 2? You certainly can abuse that, but it only works in the local area - once you want to move ahead the cycle breaks. Later enemies also have ways of disrupting this cycle.

I'm thinking of making the levels shorter though so it doesn't feel as repetitive.

EDIT: It's quite good overall. Just a few issues I noticed:

Thanks, I'll see about fixing these! No idea about the random not starting though :-/

[0player]

Can't get past level 3 so far, because damn elementals (I suppose you HAVE to one-shot them? or are they invincible?) but having tons of fun.
It looks to me like enemies cannot step onto the tail, but elementals somehow can. Am I correct?

[Grey]

Yes, elementals can fly. They're slow though, so you can just ignore them. And you don't need to one shot them, but timing is important.

[0player]

I'd suggest that more in-depth tooltips for enemies would make for a nice postmortem update.
Currently you can get severely screwed over when witnessing an enemy for the first time, like with elementals (which you cannot dance off on several squares) or giants (which can just throw you amidst a frozen waste)

[Grey]

Thanks, I'll do just that :)

What do you think of the level sizes and number of enemies? Someone suggested I should reduce them significantly, but more opinions would be welcome.

[0player]

I'm... not sure.
The amount of enemies on level 2 certainly feels irrelevant, as you can dance them off on 2 hexes with a sequence of move-attack-move-attack, moving into any new breather space instead of attack if you're able to. While the feeling of invincibility as you weasel your way to an ice fae through hordes of wolves is awesome, it also quite tedious and creates "lazy gameplay", in your terms, ie you're repetitevely repeating the same, slightly varied, pattern to achieve your goal.
Maybe the problem is not the amount of enemies or space (reducing one without another will shift the balance, reducing both will take away some of the breathing space, I feel), but that many starting enemies feel very samey. While your own dance ebbs and flows different ways each time, many enemies in the beginning are just an ice shield, and you're slowly pushing through a homogenous wall of ice. It's this way up until titans appeared and that's when I felt truly screwed.
I feel like adding more unique mechanics to early enemies would go a long way. Not sure you take suggestions, but... get rid of hounds entirely, maybe. The second level can be just ice cubes and snowflakes. Make snowflakes freeze the ground under when they die, conjure a similar "stop punching the ice" effect on ice cubes, but make ice fae spawn less stuff at once. That way, that particular level can be made about avoiding punching the snow wall.
The elemental level felt entirely fine, as I was not rewarded for taking my time with all those sorcerers and elementals. I was able to assassinate mega elemental by repeatedly running up to it and punching it, but it felt satisfying because I had to earn the simplicity of that act first.
The titan level felt kind of unfair/frightening. Most enemies, except for those actually close to you, don't even really matter, but they certainly set the mood: "this whole level is filled up, I cannot effectively kill them, and that jerk keeps summoning more". My poor understanding of their usage of ice breath only added to the creeping sense of futility. Maybe once I'm better at predicting them, I'll feel that level better.

[0player]

Uh, also taking Burn instead of Dazzle at level 1 is literally useless since bumping with Dazzle does the same damage.

[Grey]

I've done a few updates to the game, and put it on itch.io for increased visibility:

http://darrengrey.itch.io/firetail

Changes:
- Clearer instructions in level up dialogue
- Hopefully fixed the video options / resolution setting bugs
- Decreased the power of Dazzle and Aura, and increased their minimum level
- Made Dazzle, Aura, Hide and Blaze require skipping a turn to activate - no more infinite spamming of them!
- A few rare bugs fixed and other minor changes

I intend to keep working on and polishing this. I might even try to make something commercial out of it. Any feedback and testing in the lead-up is hugely welcome! In particular what things you think would help make it feel like a more polished, complete game.

[darkgod]

Yay !!

Do not forget to upload it on te4.org too