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DGM
15-03-2010, 07:12 AM
With regards to general issues about balance and tweaking: definitely taking this advice into account. The religion system, for one, looks like it's going to enjoy *another* revamp (trying to move a little further away from extremes / luck) and I want to try see about either buffing or entirely replacing the weaker glyphs: basically want to eliminate cases of "and you'd better hope you get item/god/glyph X" so that skilled players can find multiple ways of dealing with a given situation.

Have you checked out the brainstorming section of the wiki?

Stormy
15-03-2010, 09:21 AM
Oh gosh.. man I felt so lucky. Dodging the last boss 4 times with Rogue in the Crypt, where each hit could've meant the end. 20% base + 20% (shop) evasion is just great.

@Pumpkinburger: I really like those and got to be in the next version.. :>

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 11:42 AM
Hey, awesome new sprites! I don't know if I'll go as far as putting a male/female switch into future character selection (kinda liking the sex neutrality idea), but maybe I could randomly switch between the variants when players start a new dungeon. I'll consider making these a part of the default tileset in future, with your permission.

@DGM: The brainstorming section is a good source of inspiration, yes. It's also MUCH easier to look at than a whole bunch of forum pages. :P I check up there regularly, even if I don't comment on it. Really nice to see how quickly that wiki has grown, btw.

Also, next post has one or two important announcements which may affect quite a few of you. There will be capital letters and stuff.

Grumpf
15-03-2010, 11:50 AM
Can I make a feature request ?

A way to filter the classes who beat the dungeons in the main menu.
For example, when you move the mouse cursor to a dungeon (Normal, Snake Pit, etc), display something ("*", ...) next to the classes with whom you already beat it. It's a bit tedious to move the cursor on the classes and read "already completed" or "NOT completed").

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 12:14 PM
Okay, so here's two things that people need to know:

(1) One Noah Kantrowitz has built us a Desktop Dungeons version for Macs (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3962871/Desktop_Dungeons_OSX.zip). I can't actually test this out because I don't actually own a Mac. Could somebody give this a run and see that it doesn't crash / whine / make their computer blow up? Then I can list it as an official download.

(2) We've heard a recent announcement about the forum's domain name change (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/announcement.php?f=9&a=13), which could obviously shake things up a little in terms of hard links, bookmarks and other Internet wizardry. If this forum goes down for a few days, or you get a redirect message of some kind, you'll hopefully know what's going on. QCF doesn't control the NAG forums, but we'll be doing everything we can to make sure that this transition goes smoothly. In the meantime, make sure that your friends are aware of the potential shake-up, and keep in mind that the Wiki (www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php), the QCF website (www.qcfdesign.com) and the direct download link (http://www.box.net/shared/r0h0vfahdl) will all still maintain their integrity.

Ta.

fall_ark
15-03-2010, 12:29 PM
Actually I've misread....My bad.

// The box.net download link is out of bandwidth...

Ohoo! Nevermind the following post! All hail the official host! XD

__________________________________________________ ___
I've uploaded the file to several mirrors but they are mostly in Chinese... Here's one that has an English interface.

http://www.rayfile.com/en/files/3ce1759c-3023-11df-bbfd-0015c55db73d/
(Click "To Download Page" on the right hand side then the "Download" button in the next page)

Similarly...
http://www.brsbox.com/filebox/down/fc/7964f02b0ce6885650840b18ff9e55fe
(Click the button with the green arrow on the right hand side then the download icon in the next page)

http://d.namipan.com/d/86d520e8ed60844f7e9f4559f287a5a7d5c1cc7c6b9c2d00
(Click the link with "http" in it then the big blue button in the next page)

Not that you'll need all those, but anyway... :P

Grumpf
15-03-2010, 12:48 PM
Bug or intended feature (to stop stacking the good bonuses) ?
Warlord, below 50% HP (==> DETERMINED gave me +30% dmg on next attack), I used the +30% dmg rune, the dmg displayed did not change.

Pumpkinburger
15-03-2010, 12:50 PM
@iceblademush: the only other tile I've touched is the blood puddle, which I've made slightly transparent. It doesn't fit in as well with the 8-bit look, but it makes the blood tiles more subtle. I'm planning to try my hand at some more hero sprites and maybe the dungeon tiles. The monsters are fine the way they are I think, and it would get veteran players all confused if I changed them all around suddenly. :)

Aforementioned blood tile:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/Blood.png


Hey, awesome new sprites! I don't know if I'll go as far as putting a male/female switch into future character selection (kinda liking the sex neutrality idea), but maybe I could randomly switch between the variants when players start a new dungeon. I'll consider making these a part of the default tileset in future, with your permission.

Heck yes you have my permission! I posted those so people could use them, and that includes the game developer. XD

Shadow_Con
15-03-2010, 01:07 PM
Why is the mac version so big (32megs).
I might download it later to see how it looks though.

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 01:24 PM
@Shadow_Con: Not too sure, I reckon it's probably the Wine aspect. I've not actually had any hand in making it, so for now I'm just advertising the download for anybody who is desperate to play it on a Mac. :) I just wish that the GM for Macs project would come out of private beta and step into the market proper, t'would be most useful.

@Grumpf: Thanks, I'll investigate both points.

Also, yes! Box.net has hit its bandwidth limit for the month. EEK! Fortunately, QCF has decided to host the game on its own site, so grabbit here if needed: http://www.qcfdesign.com/Files/DesktopDungeons/DeskDungeons_0051.zip

iceblademush
15-03-2010, 01:28 PM
@iceblademush: the only other tile I've touched is the blood puddle, which I've made slightly transparent. It doesn't fit in as well with the 8-bit look, but it makes the blood tiles more subtle. I'm planning to try my hand at some more hero sprites and maybe the dungeon tiles. The monsters are fine the way they are I think, and it would get veteran players all confused if I changed them all around suddenly. :)




Hi, Yes i know what you mean, i tried to keep the monsters almost identical to the original original tile set. However i did start working on quite a different looking tileset that has shading and textures, i might finish work on it and just throw it out there to see what people think. :)

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 01:36 PM
@fall_ark: Just noticed the mirrors you've set up. Thanks for the assist, I'm trying to get the game up onto a few other mirrors (QCF, Dev.Mag) so that the bandwidth can be spread about while still keeping my version control and stat tracking luxuries. ;)

fall_ark
15-03-2010, 01:56 PM
@fall_ark: Just noticed the mirrors you've set up. Thanks for the assist, I'm trying to get the game up onto a few other mirrors (QCF, Dev.Mag) so that the bandwidth can be spread about while still keeping my version control and stat tracking luxuries. ;)

DD is a hit in the Chinese game community I dwell in too, and I feel good being the one introducing your fine game to them! :D

Some curious spectators do wish for a localized/translated version though... Shame I don't know better ways to promote the game than translating the wiki/writing introductions...><

Pumpkinburger
15-03-2010, 06:58 PM
I made some more hero sprites for anyone's use.

In order or appearance: knight, crusader, barbarian, monk, bald monk, sorcerer, mage

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroKnight.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroCrusader.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroBarbarian.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroAssassin.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroMonk2.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroMonk.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroSorcerer.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/Dragonchilde13/HeroMage.png

(edit: the ninja was so sneaky I even forgot to list him)

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 06:58 PM
Agreed, localisations would be pretty nice. I'll probably sort out translations *much* later down the line, when the project looks closer to completion. There's still too many things that will have to change at this stage. ;)

Also, thought I'd put in a quick mention here: The NAG forum will most likely be undergoing a move to a new domain soon. As a result, most direct links to this thread will break. Everybody please point directly to the game page at our site (http://www.qcfdesign.com/?cat=20) for all media-related mentions. Thanks. :D

Robsoie
15-03-2010, 08:45 PM
Many thanks for Desktop Dungeons that i only discovered 2 days ago.
Couldn't stop playing this awesome "coffee break" rogue-like, losing and retiring hundred of characters in just a few hours ;)

And of course some plead for help in face of this ingenious masterpiece :

Obviously with the random generation nature, there are lot of luck involved.
I have read many hints, the wiki and strategy help to try to beat at least one boss.
I managed to do that only with the human warrior after countless failures, and the boss was the wizard one (Aequitas), i was very happy when it occured and apparently unlocked by doing this some goodies and more monsters.

But to be honest it involved an insane amount of luck in regards to the dungeon layout and how the monsters were placed, and i only managed to beat it only after drinking all my heal (and mana for the fireball before attacking) potions, and the last hit was me surviving death (warrior trait).
I can't even imagine how it is possible to beat just that boss regularly with the other default characters.

And the one puzzling me the most is the "super meat man".
Tthis one is not hard, it is just absurdly impossible, how it is even possible to drain half of the huge stock of hit points ? there is not enough potions and black tiles to explore (or reveal with the glyph) to be able to take him down with the 900+ hit points it has.
Maybe after more unlock there may be some items helping there, but at the point i am i see absolutely no solution at all, is this a joke boss or is there really a way to defeat that kind of boss ?
I read on some strategy hint that you can petrify those bosses, but maybe that's the version i play (latest), but the petrify glyph does not work at all on them, only on the regular monsters (and unlike some hints i read i don't see my xp increasing when using it to destroy a monster).

Any help on how to defeat that kind of boss ? especially now that i notice that every boss hit points are all higher in the normal mode for some reasons, while my warrior is still the same, and the unlocked objects i saw (the poison immunity and the more than extremely rare -20% damage) are not really providing any solid help in that dungeon.

On the snake pit (where the poison immunity would be good, but never appeared at all for me yet), in my most extremely lucky and planned game i only managed to defeat the medusa on the snake pit with a berzerker, but i see no way it could defeat in the same game the Nidhogg considering to defeat the Medusa, already every life and mana potions were exhausted (and i tried to optimise as much as possible my leveling/tile revealing)

So any help to overcome, those to me impossible, obstacles are welcomed.

What an insanely addicting game, can't believe i played that much hours already :D

Tropico
15-03-2010, 09:19 PM
Hi, I also found this roguelike yesterday and have to say it is brilliant.

However, I have to pretty much agree with Robsoie above me with regards to the insane amount of luck needed to complete a level by killing a boss. It does feel like 8 out of 10 dungeons end with me saying "Well, I never even had a chance in hell to begin with, did I," and pressing Retire. I've also gotten to the point where if I see the super meat man I'll just Retire immediately because what's the point.

Oh well... maybe thats part of the addictiveness? Sort of like a gambling thing? Who knows.

Anyway, just a small request/suggestion if it's possible: Could you please have the game NOT immediately shutdown, quit, and spit you out to desktop without any confirmation upon pressing the escape key? It's happened to me a couple times and is irritating to say the least. Even if the escape key is meant to be the quit key (which I don't see why but whatever), would be nice to have an "Are you sure?" dialogue or something.

Thanks, and congratulations on a stellar game.

Stormy
15-03-2010, 09:52 PM
I guess the escape key is something like the boss key. But it happened to me too, pressing accidently pressing esc to terminate the message from the boss. This should be refined.

Nandrew
15-03-2010, 10:33 PM
Definitely points which should be considered. I've never really thought of the immediate escape key as a problem, but then again I always pressed it very deliberately to get out of the game quickly! :P Time for a change, I suppose.

I'd argue that the game at lower ranks is quite a bit less dependent on luck than some of the challenge dungeons (as far as I'm aware, veteran players are able to work through "normal" dungeons reasonably easily with most standard classes), but I will of course do my best to tweak the system to lessen the luck aspect over time. I hope to improve map generation, weight items properly and reward players with the ability to choose between as many effective choices as possible instead of hoping for the "prime" build only. The religion system, for example, will probably be re-addressed to make weaker gods more effective, and stronger gods less runaway-crazy. I'm also going to replace some of the weaker glyphs with stronger ones, so that people won't just be hoping for poison and CYDSTEPP all the time.

And if you're struggling, the wiki (http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php) definitely has some handy tips which, I hope, will be expanded over time ... particularly with individual class and character guides. Knowing all of the tips and tricks and quirks that the veterans exploit is definitely handy if you want to up your win ratio. :)

Tropico
15-03-2010, 10:55 PM
Definitely points which should be considered. I've never really thought of the immediate escape key as a problem, but then again I always pressed it very deliberately to get out of the game quickly! :P Time for a change, I suppose.


There's nothing wrong with an immediate exit per se... but you could make it be control-escape or something like that... just something that can't be tapped by accident or absentmindedly... the escape is so ubiquitous as a "close dialog" or "close current menu" that I can see a lot of people tapping it and doh!

Also I appreciate the balance issues and that the game is very young so really I don't hold that kind of thing too much against it. It's still fun :) (Although if certain gods or glyphs are unanimously known as game-winners then that may be an issue... I wouldn't know, yet).

dislekcia
15-03-2010, 11:37 PM
Hmm. Right now it looks like we need a good way to teach level buffering and going for bonus xp. You need to do both if you're planning to take down the Super Meat Man as your first boss kill. Just did it now though, so it is definitely possible guys :)

DGM
16-03-2010, 12:37 AM
@DGM: The brainstorming section is a good source of inspiration, yes. It's also MUCH easier to look at than a whole bunch of forum pages. :P I check up there regularly, even if I don't comment on it. Really nice to see how quickly that wiki has grown, btw.


Good to know, thanks. Since you're not answering there, let me repeat my questions here:

1) Will you be releasing the source code at any point?

2) Do you want the rest of my ideas on the Master/Apprentice glyph system I suggested, or are you going a different route?

Tropico
16-03-2010, 12:47 AM
Well, of course I only had to post about how I could never beat the Super Meat Man before I turned around and beat him!

Finally did it with a human rogue with the Ironshield god, using a combinaction of Byceps, Lemmisi, 5 health potions, 6 mana potions, a 124 attack rating (counting byceps), first strike and a whooollle lot o' dodge.

I was pretty much wiped out by the end of it... it literally took every single thing I had to finally take him down. Felt really good too :) I guess that's the way it should be!

fall_ark
16-03-2010, 02:19 AM
Well, of course I only had to post about how I could never beat the Super Meat Man before I turned around and beat him!

Finally did it with a human rogue with the Ironshield god, using a combinaction of Byceps, Lemmisi, 5 health potions, 6 mana potions, a 124 attack rating (counting byceps), first strike and a whooollle lot o' dodge.

I was pretty much wiped out by the end of it... it literally took every single thing I had to finally take him down. Felt really good too :) I guess that's the way it should be!

Good job! The Super Meat Man and Frank the Zombie are definitely more challenging bosses in the early stage of the game. Well done on defeating him with a not-so-crazy god! :D




- About Super Meat Man -

Any help on how to defeat that kind of boss ? especially now that i notice that every boss hit points are all higher in the normal mode for some reasons, while my warrior is still the same, and the unlocked objects i saw (the poison immunity and the more than extremely rare -20% damage) are not really providing any solid help in that dungeon.

On the snake pit (where the poison immunity would be good, but never appeared at all for me yet), in my most extremely lucky and planned game i only managed to defeat the medusa on the snake pit with a berzerker, but i see no way it could defeat in the same game the Nidhogg considering to defeat the Medusa, already every life and mana potions were exhausted (and i tried to optimise as much as possible my leveling/tile revealing)

So any help to overcome, those to me impossible, obstacles are welcomed.

What an insanely addicting game, can't believe i played that much hours already :D

As dislekcia mentioned, there are some general principles in a successful run. -- Level up quickly by killing high-level monsters, and carefully plan your boss fight so you might level up mid-fight to recover your HP/MP.
The "Gaining Levels" section on the wiki explains how the experience system works: http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php?title=Level

On a side note, snake pit is a challenge that is more oriented towards magic-heavy characters. With 2 fireballs you can easily take down a high-level gorgon, but the greatest benefits lie in the fact that you don't always have to suffer from poison and weaken effects. Berserker is definitely one of the harder classes to beat this level with, so don't lose heart!

http://i.imgur.com/n4bOG.png

Here's some advices regarding a berserker-snake pit run.
1. Even with a berserker you'll definitely need glyphs to beat the snake pit. Explore the map first and see what glyphs you can get your hands on and what items/gods you can get.
2. A human berserker gains additional damage bonus, but this also means that over time your class trait (+30% damage) becomes less and less useful.
3. It's definitely easier to have a poison immunity item, but it's doable without one (I've only bought a 10% physical resistance item and an extra 1 max HP per level item in this run). You could worship Tikki Tooki, for example, who removes the poison effect after each "perfect" kill. Or worship Dracul like I did so that you may recover health hitting mainly low-level monsters.
4. It's definitely easier to have a first strike glyph, but it's doable without one. Nagas are always painful and you should focus more on other enemies first. My berserker only has 74 on level 9 :(

Hope that helps :)

prestige
16-03-2010, 02:27 AM
Here's a modified tileset I made. My dungeon tiles are less textured and less contrasty than the default set, which I found a little visually distracting. I mostly use flat areas of color, which is why I call this tileset "plainer." Monster images have not been altered.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q117/cornprone/screen1.png
Below are samples of the snake pit and crypt.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q117/cornprone/screen2.png
Also changed in this tileset are the glyph images. They are all still recognizably the same icons from the default set, but I adjusted them a little to suit my aesthetics. And I added color coding to a couple: The two glyphs that the Glowing Guardian considers "evil" have red backgrounds, while the two glyphs that Jehora Jeheyu considers to be defensive spells have a blueish background.

Download link (http://cornjob.com/DD_plainer_tileset.zip)
Note: As of April 2, I updated the file. See this post (http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showpost.php?p=268663&postcount=616) for details.

Instructions: It should be as simple as putting the 'plainer' directory into the '/tilesets' directory, then setting the tileset to "plainer" in-game. Let me know if there are any problems!

Nandrew
16-03-2010, 03:59 AM
Thanks for the tileset, prestige! It looks like it set out to do what it wanted, or at least I see as much from the screenshots. Going to download it and have a look at the glyphs for myself.


Good to know, thanks. Since you're not answering there, let me repeat my questions here:

1) Will you be releasing the source code at any point?

2) Do you want the rest of my ideas on the Master/Apprentice glyph system I suggested, or are you going a different route?

Ah, yes, saw that glyph point. To be honest, I'd like to try continuing with the current glyph system for now by addressing imbalances and whatnot over the next few versions ... the M/A approach sounds interesting, but I'd like to see if I can keep the total variety of spells down and still pull things off elegantly.

And sorry, I missed the source code question. A few people have asked about it here and there, but I think that the source won't be released any time soon. I do have confidence, however, that it'll eventually go out.

Robsoie
16-03-2010, 06:50 AM
As dislekcia mentioned, there are some general principles in a successful run. -- Level up quickly by killing high-level monsters, and carefully plan your boss fight so you might level up mid-fight to recover your HP/MP.
The "Gaining Levels" section on the wiki explains how the experience system works: http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php?title=Level

Thank you for the tip.
I have been able to complete the normal mod dungeon with rogue and the wizard tonight using that method (though it has involved lot of luck).

The choice of the deity has a big impact on how possible or impossible this can be.

The thief was able to beat the goblin boss with a mix of fireballs, 2 extremely lucky dodges (Tikki Tooki deity) that if one missed would certainly not have allowed the victory.

The level gaining guide that left lots of lvl 1 an lvl 2 monsters to be killed in 1 hit by my higher leveled thief helped to increase the dodge a bit more than usual.

And the wizard managed to defeat the zombie boss to my own surprise (as it had more than 600 hitpoints) thanks to The Pactmaker and the more than very usefull LEMMISI, he was level 9 with tons of mana potions.
But every of those mana potions had been used in the battle and the wizard was able to kill the boss thanks to the few last healing potion i managed to keep.

But that said, i can't defeat that Super meat man despite several high level characters attempts. It is the only basic boss none of my heroes have been able to defeat.
The nearest breaking point was a warrior that managed to get it down at +/- 120 hitpoints, but was then out of health, potions, glyph and mana to have any chances to finish him.

I hope now with more of the unlock from tonight sessions, there will be some items that will help.
I begin to believe this specific boss monster does not like me at all :D



On a side note, snake pit is a challenge that is more oriented towards magic-heavy characters. With 2 fireballs you can easily take down a high-level gorgon, but the greatest benefits lie in the fact that you don't always have to suffer from poison and weaken effects. Berserker is definitely one of the harder classes to beat this level with, so don't lose heart!

Yes, i noticed the Berserker is litterally shining in magical environment :
I tried the Library i just unlocked with the Berserker and to my own surprise (and always using the levelling suggestions, leaving low level monsters for after being higher one myself), i managed to beat both bosses in my 1st try.
Looking at the Berserker traits, it does not seem to be a surprise, because every enemy is using magical attack, only the Imp did not, but again certainly a lucky day, none of the Imps present on this dungeon were a high level enough threat.

Fantastic superb addictive game, it has been a very long time i had not played gaming sessions that entertaining. Lucky for me i only play at night, i would not dare to try during daytime in the fear i would have to quit my job to unlock even more of the DD content ;)

Thank you so much Nandrew and every other contributors, that's a masterpiece.

Tropico
16-03-2010, 08:03 AM
Woot, well I've now finished Normal mode with Fighter, Berserker, Thief, Rogue, Priest Monk and Wizard! Each boss fight has been a photo-finish thing where I almost didn't make it but then did. I know the Rogue beat the Meatman, the Monk beat the Medusa and the Wizard beat the Serpent, but I can't really remember any of the other ones :/

Which brings me to another small suggestion: How about a graveyard?

You know what I mean... that local record of dead characters that Crawl and every other roguelike has, where each character gets a single line summarizing their accomplishments.

Something like:

25010 Tropico the Lv 9 Elven Wizard beat the Medusa in the Normal dungeon.
15200 Tropico the Lv 3 Human Priest was killed by a Warlock in the Normal dungeon.
12310 Tropico the Lv 4 Human Rogue was killed by the Super Meat Man in the Normal dungeon.

and so on.... every time you retire in addition to seeing your summary you can also see the graveyard and where you placed on it. The only weird thing is that they would all have the same name, but, it's a minor detail.

I only mention this because the graveyard is one of my favorite parts of roguelikes in general and I think it would be a good addition to this one too! :)

I do realize you probably already have your hands more than full with the game itself, but it's something to think about for the future.

Miguelito
16-03-2010, 02:20 PM
This game is a masterpiece. Thank you!

Are you happy with the graphics as they are or would you like people to try and come up with nice tilesets?


Edit: Oh, after reading the last few pages it appears that the tileset turf is plenty covered :*(
Ah well, thanks anyway for the nice game. I might be able to do any other missing graphical elements, should the need arise (and possibly do a few heroes just for kicks).

Robsoie
16-03-2010, 04:56 PM
Which brings me to another small suggestion: How about a graveyard?

You know what I mean... that local record of dead characters that Crawl and every other roguelike has, where each character gets a single line summarizing their accomplishments.

Something like:

25010 Tropico the Lv 9 Elven Wizard beat the Medusa in the Normal dungeon.
15200 Tropico the Lv 3 Human Priest was killed by a Warlock in the Normal dungeon.
12310 Tropico the Lv 4 Human Rogue was killed by the Super Meat Man in the Normal dungeon.

and so on.... every time you retire in addition to seeing your summary you can also see the graveyard and where you placed on it. The only weird thing is that they would all have the same name, but, it's a minor detail.

I only mention this because the graveyard is one of my favorite parts of roguelikes in general and I think it would be a good addition to this one too! :)

Yes, a local/offline graveyard listing would be a very appreciated feature for possible future versions, in my old rogue-like gaming sessions i liked to compare my various character fate (more their sad doomed fate than real achievements he he).

The Dash
16-03-2010, 04:59 PM
Yes, a local/offline graveyard listing would be a very appreciated feature for possible future versions, in my old rogue-like gaming sessions i liked to compare my various character fate (more their sad doomed fate than real achievements he he).

Personally i'd like a small stats page.

EG


In your xxx number of dungeon quests, you have died x times, retired x times. And slain xxxx bosses!

You have killed:
xxx goats
xx medusa's
...

Tropico
16-03-2010, 05:23 PM
Ok, so I unlocked the sidestep and poison glyphs. Wow.

I'm not going to pass judgment on whether these two glyphs are "imbalanced" or not... not really qualified for that... but I can tell you one thing: they are GAME CHANGERS.

Before, I used to struggle to consistently kill monsters my own level without using up all my resources. Now? Now I won't even LOOK at a monster unless it's at LEAST 2 levels above me. With any class.

Sidestep especially is devastating in its effects. All I need to do is see whether the monster's life is under twice my damage. Whatever else it can do, it will go down. Which means medusas, goats, serpents, warlocks, wratihs, etc. will all eat it from heroes 2 and 3 levels under them.

Which makes it easy to get to level 9 with ample potions to spare, which makes the bosses, well I'm not gonna say easy, but, very doable at least.

So, people who are struggling in the Normal levels: concentrate on getting/beating Warlord and Assassin. It gets better after that :)

Delvin
16-03-2010, 05:29 PM
Since we're talking about stats,

I'd like an easier way to see which characters have completed each of the levels. Currently I can only view them one at a time via the "this character has/has not completed the selected level" text in the main menu.

A few possible improvements:

1) Hovering the mouse on one of the game modes highlights all characters which have completed that mode. Possibly mouseovering a character highlights all game modes it has cleared.

2) Score screen with a column for each game mode and a row for each character. In the intersections you could put a tick if the character has completed that game mode. Alternatively you could replace the tick with the best score for that character / game mode combination.

fall_ark
16-03-2010, 05:54 PM
Ok, so I unlocked the sidestep and poison glyphs. Wow.

I'm not going to pass judgment on whether these two glyphs are "imbalanced" or not... not really qualified for that... but I can tell you one thing: they are GAME CHANGERS.

Before, I used to struggle to consistently kill monsters my own level without using up all my resources. Now? Now I won't even LOOK at a monster unless it's at LEAST 2 levels above me. With any class.

Sidestep especially is devastating in its effects. All I need to do is see whether the monster's life is under twice my damage. Whatever else it can do, it will go down. Which means medusas, goats, serpents, warlocks, wratihs, etc. will all eat it from heroes 2 and 3 levels under them.

Which makes it easy to get to level 9 with ample potions to spare, which makes the bosses, well I'm not gonna say easy, but, very doable at least.

So, people who are struggling in the Normal levels: concentrate on getting/beating Warlord and Assassin. It gets better after that :)

Congratulations on the big breakthrough! Onwards to the factory....with a wizard!
Still since you don't always get the specific glyphs (bar fireball and LEMMISI) each game or get them early enough to utilize, there's still great variation in games.
And speak of luck....
Once I have a wizard with Poison, Fireball, LEMMISI and HALPMEH at level 1.
Once I have a warlord with CYDESTEP, Fireball and Firststrike at level 2.
Needless to say, those two games were won very quickly :P

Grumpf
16-03-2010, 08:50 PM
The thing is that if you want to kill 2 bosses on a map, you have to level (very) fast. To do that, you have to kill higher level monsters than you quite a few times, and to do that, you need to be somehow lucky:
- CYDDSTEP to have 1 more hit
- Fireball (and have 12+ mana)
- Poison spell (or poison sword)
- be very lucky with +Attack runes runes (or god's blessings) and have heal

Pumpkinburger
16-03-2010, 09:21 PM
I'm terrible at playing monk and sorcerer, does anyone have any tips and strategies?

The only advanced rune I have access to so far is the poison one, though I have managed to unlock warlord.

Nandrew
17-03-2010, 01:19 AM
The graveyard / stat suggestions are interesting. But I'm going to sort out online leaderboards and score balance before I even look at those sort of things (though I suppose a local highscore board would be pretty cool too).


This game is a masterpiece. Thank you!

Are you happy with the graphics as they are or would you like people to try and come up with nice tilesets?


Edit: Oh, after reading the last few pages it appears that the tileset turf is plenty covered :*(
Ah well, thanks anyway for the nice game. I might be able to do any other missing graphical elements, should the need arise (and possibly do a few heroes just for kicks).

You know, I AM looking for someone to do a "Rogue classic" tileset if people are interested. It would be cool if various tiles were replaced by graphical representations of ASCII characters and stuff. :)

Speusippus
17-03-2010, 02:29 AM
If I have an attack value of 76 and the final boss has 31 HP, and if he has an attack of 112 and I have only 1HP left, what is supposed to happen?

I thought that killing the boss at the same time he kills you was supposed to mean victory, but in my last game this apparently wasn't the case--I died without winning. (I have a screenshot, though I don't really have anywhere to post it.)

Is this working as designed?

fall_ark
17-03-2010, 02:30 AM
The thing is that if you want to kill 2 bosses on a map, you have to level (very) fast. To do that, you have to kill higher level monsters than you quite a few times, and to do that, you need to be somehow lucky:
- CYDDSTEP to have 1 more hit
- Fireball (and have 12+ mana)
- Poison spell (or poison sword)
- be very lucky with +Attack runes runes (or god's blessings) and have heal

Well, after a while you become to realize that most challenges can be beaten with careful planning and patience -- luck of course still plays a great role, but not always needed.

Snake pit: Magic-friendly as all monsters have special effects. Medusa is killable by about level 7, and with some luck you don't have to suffer many weaken attacks from the nagas. The difficulties often lies in the fact that you can only safely deal with gorgons, while snakes and nagas block your exploration.

Library: Warlocks and dragons have high attack so this could be a little problem. Imps are annoying but since they are not very weak it's in fact quite convenient that you can fireball those who block the roads and they'll go away.

Crypt: Explore explore and explore some more so that the vampires wouldn't have too much life and since you couldn't use the poison glyph. Mana burn could be a bit tricky so you are not always going to earn high exps. I feel this level would require some luck as the zombie boss is quite tough.

Factory: I think we all have a love-hate relationship with animated armours...



I'm terrible at playing monk and sorcerer, does anyone have any tips and strategies?

The only advanced rune I have access to so far is the poison one, though I have managed to unlock warlord.

With monks you definitely want to choose a human. They benefit the most from damage bonuses because of their starting -50% penalty. I would say explore a bit and try to find bonuses and glyphs to convert. Remember that you only suffer half damage (and rounded down) from any monster and you are good to go. Generally after your first level you should be able to deal with monsters about 2 level higher than you with fireballs and/or battle of attrition.

Sorcerers are a curious bunch. You could go Mystera Annur and blast the dungeon like a wizard, but melee is fine too. Of course you would need some glyphs to properly utilize the class traits. Just remember two things: Attack deals additional "your level" damage, and you heal when using a spell. With the starting 15 mana you can heal 20~30 health any fight. Very useful especially in low levels.
Also, you can play with the priest type first and gain a very helpful glyph by completing Paladin...

fall_ark
17-03-2010, 02:33 AM
If I have an attack value of 76 and the final boss has 31 HP, and if he has an attack of 112 and I have only 1HP left, what is supposed to happen?

I thought that killing the boss at the same time he kills you was supposed to mean victory, but in my last game this apparently wasn't the case--I died without winning. (I have a screenshot, though I don't really have anywhere to post it.)

Is this working as designed?

Since bosses most usually have higher levels than you do, they got first strike. And even if you are level 10 they still go first.

Don't worry though. Unlock the Crusader class and have fun -- "I'm going down with you" is like the whole concept of the class. :P

Nandrew
17-03-2010, 02:59 AM
If I have an attack value of 76 and the final boss has 31 HP, and if he has an attack of 112 and I have only 1HP left, what is supposed to happen?

I thought that killing the boss at the same time he kills you was supposed to mean victory, but in my last game this apparently wasn't the case--I died without winning. (I have a screenshot, though I don't really have anywhere to post it.)

Is this working as designed?

Prior to 0.051, you'd always get a final opportunity to attack the boss upon death. This has since been corrected (at least, if I coded it correctly): strike order now matters, and only the Crusader can benefit from a dying blow.

fall_ark
17-03-2010, 03:18 AM
I just figured out what happened when you approach the altar of Dracul being a priest/monk/paladin.

Player: Die monster! You don't belong in this world!
Dracul: It is not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was brought here by humans who wish to pay me tribute.
Player: Tribute? You steal mens' souls and make them your slaves!
Dracul: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...
Player: Your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a savior such as you.
Dracul: What is a man?
[tosses goblet, which breaks]
Dracul: A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!
Player: [was hit/killed by the thrown goblet] [MAX HP -30]

Sorry, couldn't resist. :P

Still. Would be nice if you can destroy an altar (with punishment, of course) and gain favour from an opposing deity.

Another thought is more challenge levels...Goo blobs and/or goats and/or goblins would be a killer combination!

dislekcia
17-03-2010, 03:31 AM
With monks you definitely want to choose a human. They benefit the most from damage bonuses because of their starting -50% penalty.

Dwarves are also good Monks. 10 points for why :)


I just figured out what happened when you approach the altar of Dracul being a priest/monk/paladin.

Player: Die monster! You don't belong in this world!
Dracul: It is not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was brought here by humans who wish to pay me tribute.
Player: Tribute? You steal mens' souls and make them your slaves!
Dracul: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...
Player: Your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a savior such as you.
Dracul: What is a man?
[tosses goblet, which breaks]
Dracul: A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!
Player: [was hit/killed by the thrown goblet] [MAX HP -30]

Sorry, couldn't resist. :P

I believe that's our very first fan-fic, congrats! :)


Still. Would be nice if you can destroy an altar (with punishment, of course) and gain favour from an opposing deity.

... I'm actually flabbergasted. What a killer idea!

Almost
17-03-2010, 05:01 AM
I'm terrible at playing monk and sorcerer, does anyone have any tips and strategies?

Play human monk that converts every glyph immediately and worships Taurog and you will feel powerful. Also, any shop that sells damage resistance items will make you nigh invincible.

Sorcerers attack, fireball (which will heal them) and attack again. They should have both good attack and good mana.

Bob the Gnome
17-03-2010, 08:17 AM
Dwarves are also good Monks. 10 points for why :)

Because when you have 50% Resistance, every glyph you convert is functions as twice as much HP?

DMT
17-03-2010, 09:15 AM
I just figured out what happened when you approach the altar of Dracul being a priest/monk/paladin.

Player: Die monster! You don't belong in this world!
Dracul: It is not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was brought here by humans who wish to pay me tribute.
Player: Tribute? You steal mens' souls and make them your slaves!
Dracul: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...
Player: Your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a savior such as you.
Dracul: What is a man?
[tosses goblet, which breaks]
Dracul: A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!
Player: [was hit/killed by the thrown goblet] [MAX HP -30]

Sorry, couldn't resist. :P

Still. Would be nice if you can destroy an altar (with punishment, of course) and gain favour from an opposing deity.

Another thought is more challenge levels...Goo blobs and/or goats and/or goblins would be a killer combination!

Off topic, but I am, as well as being a fan of Desktop Dungeons, also The Guy.

(Hard, 5:30:40 time. 1559 Deaths)

On topic:

Is there any way/plans to allow movement via the numpad or arrow keys (As seen in, for example Crawl?). I much prefer tappidy-tap to scrolly-scroll click. Also Y/N working on the shop and god messages would be awesome too.

fall_ark
17-03-2010, 09:25 AM
Dwarves are also good Monks. 10 points for why :)



Because when you have 50% Resistance, every glyph you convert is functions as twice as much HP?

I dunno... Having 150+ HP (effectively 300+ with monk's resistance) at level 9 without any other buff is impressive, but the benefits really only kick in when you gain a level, because regeneration via exploration only depends on your current level. The monk is strong because he heals faster than a higher-level monster does, so having a higher max HP doesn't really help the strategy. Higher damage, on the other hand, decides how quickly you can kill a higher-level monster, and thus saving unexplored tiles for future fights.

And of course, although both Dwarf and Human gives 10% bonus with glyph conversion, a Human Monk benefits an effectively 20% damage rise because he starts with -50%. So being Human has a much higher return.

Unless you worship Taurog....but then again that only makes a Dwarf monk marginally better because it negates the gnome/elf's conversion. It doesn't change the fact that being a Dwarf doesn't help a monk very much. You might as well pop a potion now and then.



... I'm actually flabbergasted. What a killer idea!

Glad you like it. It does have an epic vibe...:D

fall_ark
18-03-2010, 06:54 PM
The forum transition's over? Great!

For those that haven't noticed, Derek Yu has composed an entire new tileset:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11688.0

Good stuff! :P

dislekcia
18-03-2010, 08:00 PM
The forum transition's over? Great!

For those that haven't noticed, Derek Yu has composed an entire new tileset:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11688.0

Good stuff! :P

Don't know what's going on with the forums... Don't think the transition's over, this URL was supposed to stop working. Maybe it was aborted/postponed? We don't get told much ;)

dammit
18-03-2010, 08:05 PM
Don't know what's going on with the forums... Don't think the transition's over, this URL was supposed to stop working. Maybe it was aborted/postponed? We don't get told much ;)

:P There was a global announcement. You should have seen it when you opened up the forums. They're having problems apparently. No surprises there.

faranv
18-03-2010, 09:57 PM
Hi there,
Like so many people, I registered on this board to sing praises about this game. Love it. Funny thing is, a few weeks ago I found it, but because I'm a mac user I didn't bother trying to get it to work with Crossover (it is very finnicky). Anyway, somehow I stumbled on the game again a few days ago and noticed that someone had compiled a Mac version of it using Wine. Well, I've tried it and it works (I had to tweak a few of the Wine settings, but maybe that was just my system). I'm running it on a macbook pro and it definitely does not run as smoothly as on the PC (for example, when exploring new terrain, the mana/health bubbles obscure my view for a good second or so because they take so long to dissipate). A minor nuisance which I have gotten over (until I see someone playing it on a PC). Keep up the good work!!

shaqfu
18-03-2010, 10:13 PM
You know, I AM looking for someone to do a "Rogue classic" tileset if people are interested. It would be cool if various tiles were replaced by graphical representations of ASCII characters and stuff. :)

Funny you mention that; I've been working on one for a day or two. It's nothing to get thrilled for - I took 10x20 UTF terminal fonts, appropriately colored them, and filled out the rest with black. It definitely has the feel of playing an ASCII rougelike, but without the hassle of memorizing the stats of red Ds and if your +5 ) will damage it. ;) Replacing the glyphs was hell, though - I originally wanted to use + (like Nethack spellbooks), but there's simply too many of them to reasonably differentiate with color (like I did with the power-ups). I ended up using letters ((F)ireball, (H)eal, First(S)trike, etc.) and giving them the same cyan as the mana pot--I mean, mana !, and the Wizard classes.

I did run into a snag, though - I can't seem to edit the brick tile that's over the right side of the screen. I tried replacing Wall2.png (which AFAIK is the same tile), but that didn't accomplish anything. If there's some way to replace that with a 20x20 black tile, it'd be wonderful; everything looks really awkward now thanks to the ASCII-on-black contrasting against Wall2.png.

Chippit
18-03-2010, 10:27 PM
Funny you mention that; I've been working on one for a day or two. It's nothing to get thrilled for - I took 10x20 UTF terminal fonts, appropriately colored them, and filled out the rest with black. It definitely has the feel of playing an ASCII rougelike, but without the hassle of memorizing the stats of red Ds and if your +5 ) will damage it. ;) Replacing the glyphs was hell, though - I originally wanted to use + (like Nethack spellbooks), but there's simply too many of them to reasonably differentiate with color (like I did with the power-ups). I ended up using letters ((F)ireball, (H)eal, First(S)trike, etc.) and giving them the same cyan as the mana pot--I mean, mana !, and the Wizard classes.

I did run into a snag, though - I can't seem to edit the brick tile that's over the right side of the screen. I tried replacing Wall2.png (which AFAIK is the same tile), but that didn't accomplish anything. If there's some way to replace that with a 20x20 black tile, it'd be wonderful; everything looks really awkward now thanks to the ASCII-on-black contrasting against Wall2.png.

Yeah, Nandrew made a post a bit earlier mentioning that Wall2.png isn't actually loaded by the game, but is static. There were aesthetic reasons for that. I think he'll change this in the next version, though.

shaqfu
18-03-2010, 10:31 PM
Yeah, Nandrew made a post a bit earlier mentioning that Wall2.png isn't actually loaded by the game, but is static. There were aesthetic reasons for that. I think he'll change this in the next version, though.

That's distressing; I guess I'll have to work around it as best I can (circles+transparencies for glyphs/boosts), and even then it won't look quite as I had imagined it.

Nandrew
18-03-2010, 10:39 PM
I just figured out what happened when you approach the altar of Dracul being a priest/monk/paladin.

Player: Die monster! You don't belong in this world!
Dracul: It is not by my hand that I am once again given flesh. I was brought here by humans who wish to pay me tribute.
Player: Tribute? You steal mens' souls and make them your slaves!
Dracul: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions...
Player: Your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a savior such as you.
Dracul: What is a man?
[tosses goblet, which breaks]
Dracul: A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!
Player: [was hit/killed by the thrown goblet] [MAX HP -30]


+10 points for awesome Castlevania reference!


Is there any way/plans to allow movement via the numpad or arrow keys (As seen in, for example Crawl?). I much prefer tappidy-tap to scrolly-scroll click. Also Y/N working on the shop and god messages would be awesome too.

Probably going to try this at some point, just depends how far down the dev queue it's going to be slotted ...


For those that haven't noticed, Derek Yu has composed an entire new tileset:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11688.0

Checked and commented. It kicks ass.


Hi there,
Like so many people, I registered on this board to sing praises about this game. Love it. Funny thing is, a few weeks ago I found it, but because I'm a mac user I didn't bother trying to get it to work with Crossover (it is very finnicky). Anyway, somehow I stumbled on the game again a few days ago and noticed that someone had compiled a Mac version of it using Wine. Well, I've tried it and it works (I had to tweak a few of the Wine settings, but maybe that was just my system). I'm running it on a macbook pro and it definitely does not run as smoothly as on the PC (for example, when exploring new terrain, the mana/health bubbles obscure my view for a good second or so because they take so long to dissipate). A minor nuisance which I have gotten over (until I see someone playing it on a PC). Keep up the good work!!

That's great news! I'll prolly add it properly to the downloads list once I establish a mirror on QCF.


That's distressing; I guess I'll have to work around it as best I can (circles+transparencies for glyphs/boosts), and even then it won't look quite as I had imagined it.

Yeah, sorry about that. A bit of an awful oversight there. It'll automatically click into place once I get the next version out, though.

Credge
19-03-2010, 03:50 AM
Awesome game! Everybody I've shown this game has been pretty addicted to it.

However, I seem to be getting some sort of bug every now and again. I'll try and get a screenshot of it the next time it happens.

Anyway, it seems that, randomly, I get stuck on a certain level and, when I kill a monster that would get me enough experience to reach the next level, it instead makes my "Experience to next level" go to negative.

I'm not talking about when you hit level 10 either. This generally happens from level 3 to 6 on the crypt level when using the side step rune (CYDSTEPP?) but has also happened to me on other levels without that rune.

fall_ark
19-03-2010, 04:06 AM
Someone in the Chinese gaming community just found out that Sorcerer's Mana Shield damage qualifies for Mystera Annur's rewards. -- Awesome design!
Normal attack that deals magical damage (e.g. Half-dragon), however, doesn't count... WAD? :P

Robsoie
19-03-2010, 07:13 AM
Anyway, it seems that, randomly, I get stuck on a certain level and, when I kill a monster that would get me enough experience to reach the next level, it instead makes my "Experience to next level" go to negative.
This happened to me with the Paladin (i don't remember which race though or which glyph i had, i think i had the Glowing Guardian deity) in the Crypt gamemode.

At some point, the experience needed for the next level began to go negative instead of letting my character gain a level.

I encountered this problem only once in hundred of games in 0.051. Though i have not played much with the Paladin as i just unlocked it today.

Miguelito
19-03-2010, 11:03 AM
As this is going to be a total newb’s opinion on the game in its current built (12 hours playtime, unlocked all standard classes, beat the challenges once), please take it with a grain of salt and expect things that potentially have been stated before.

The game is an absolute marvel and I’m seriously addicted to it. The game is structured extremely well, generous and masterfully condensed.
Some things are making me think a bit though, and possibly they could be revised:

The most notable of these would be RNG swing for non-melee classes. Playing as a warrior, or monk or what have you, always leaves you with a solid basic attack, even when your monster or dungeon setup sucks. Playing as a rogue or (especially) caster however means that you need to find yourself an altar of Tikki Tooki (as it more or less quadruples your chances of success) or a combat glyph to do anything other than killing low-level monsters and eating up valuable exploration squares.
I’m sure the idea of starter kits has been discussed already - these could possibly alleviate the problem (e.g. in the form of a fourth choice on the menu screen). Alternatives for the mage would be finding a non-casting way of dealing damage (a whack with the wand that charges with exploration?), or simply more variety in attack spells.
RNG shaftage is a vital and enjoying part of Roguelikes, but I’ve more than once felt the need to simply retire when I had explored half the map without any good attack options...

One of the big reasons for me clearing all the normal classes was the Poison glyph. So yeah, I love that the game is generous and rewarding and straightforward, but that might be worth another look, simply because abusing poison is so extremely optimal that it often invalidates pretty much every other strategy.

TL; DR I noob I say things

Thanks again for this marvelous game :)

fall_ark
19-03-2010, 12:03 PM
-About RNG affects non-melee classes more-

With the exception of Rogue and Wizard, I would say that there are generally no difference between a fighter and a sorcerer/bloodmage/thief/assassin concerning melee ability. Sure Fighter has a one time death protection and gain more exp but that's about it. Thief has 30% damage bonus on first strike, sorcerer deals one extra damage per level per attack, and even if you don't use the starting glyph with assassin/bloodmage, that's at least one glyph converted. Not shabby at all.

(I used to convert always convert those two glyphs at the beginning...oh those days are long gone!)

That being said, I've found out that I AM a more attack-minded/powergaming player...I've almost always chosen human as race (though some wizard/sorcerer runs done with Elf) and never care much about dodge. High dodge might be very useful, but constructing your run based on a random factor just isn't satisfying enough for me. -- Getting to know players with different styles is awesome though, a Chinese player said that he plays as a rogue, worships Tikki Tooki and uses the WONAFYT glyph from the very beginning to one hit kill monsters. When fighting the boss he got above 50% dodge. I would have never thought of that! :D

Unclesporky
19-03-2010, 02:00 PM
I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has already been discussed.

I've noticed that picking up an attack bonus seems to have a much bigger effect at higher levels compared to lower ones. In fact sometimes at level 1, you don't get any extra attack at all. Mana bonuses seem to always give you one point though, and I don't know about health.

Is this true, or do their bonuses continue to apply as you level up, giving you the same attack at level 9 whether you pick them up early or late? Because I've been avoiding them until very late in the game and I don't want to be gimping myself unnecessarily.

Similarly a human converting runes to attack seems to get more of a bonus from it late game than early, but I don't know if this is true (the dwarf, from what I read, who gets the same HP regardless of when you convert).

Can this info be put in the wiki somewhere? I would be so relieved if I could just pick up bonuses whenever I see them without waiting.

fall_ark
19-03-2010, 02:32 PM
I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has already been discussed.

I've noticed that picking up an attack bonus seems to have a much bigger effect at higher levels compared to lower ones. In fact sometimes at level 1, you don't get any extra attack at all. Mana bonuses seem to always give you one point though, and I don't know about health.

Is this true, or do their bonuses continue to apply as you level up, giving you the same attack at level 9 whether you pick them up early or late? Because I've been avoiding them until very late in the game and I don't want to be gimping myself unnecessarily.

Similarly a human converting runes to attack seems to get more of a bonus from it late game than early, but I don't know if this is true (the dwarf, from what I read, who gets the same HP regardless of when you convert).

Can this info be put in the wiki somewhere? I would be so relieved if I could just pick up bonuses whenever I see them without waiting.

Hi. The damage bonus and the HP bonus all scale with your level. The damage one can be easily viewed via hovering your mouse cursor on your character's damage icon. Each one (including Human glyph conversion bonus) grants +10% bonus, so on first level you need 2 bonuses to make an impact (base damage 5 * 20% = 1).
The HP bonus is a little subtle....you can compare your max HP between level-ups to observe the effect. Dwarf glyph conversion is the same bonus, one max HP per level (also scales)


I agree this info should be in game. Hm. Actually a "manual" style screenshot should suffice...

Unclesporky
19-03-2010, 02:41 PM
I never even noticed I could hover over that!

So I should use and convert every bonus I come across then. That'll make the game significantly easier than it has been...

dislekcia
19-03-2010, 02:46 PM
I never even noticed I could hover over that!

So I should use and convert every bonus I come across then. That'll make the game significantly easier than it has been...

Don't worry, I did exactly the same thing for a while until Nandrew slapped me upside the head for being silly ;) We'll try to convey the bonus taking effect a little better in later versions (we're already past the next version's todo list I'm afraid).

Nandrew
19-03-2010, 03:00 PM
Thanks for bug notices, they've been jotted in the ol' to-do list. (It's getting quite big!)

And interesting point about RNG swing. I think I'd say something similar to what fall_ark points out, however: the "non-combat" classes in Desktop Dungeons are surprisingly capable combatants when compared to "non-combat" classes in most other roguelikes. Health is similar between classes, there's no "miss chance" to contend with, and classes are overall considerably more versatile in their roles. Even a wizard may find it appropriate to swipe at a monster from time to time while using heal glyphs instead of fireball.

You can see a similar idea in play with warrior classes using spells: even the most magically handicapped, the Berserker, still makes use of glyphs on reasonably regular occasion. :)

dammit
19-03-2010, 05:06 PM
Btw, are you planning on doing an overhaul on the deities?

Vandal
19-03-2010, 07:45 PM
I'm dying waiting for the next release, nandrew :)

Argueros
19-03-2010, 07:57 PM
Really cool game, but can I request to please add a confirmation before quiting when you press the ESC key? More than once I have lost all my progress because I instinctively press ESC to cancel a spell.

Tropico
20-03-2010, 12:15 AM
Anyway, it seems that, randomly, I get stuck on a certain level and, when I kill a monster that would get me enough experience to reach the next level, it instead makes my "Experience to next level" go to negative.


This has happened to me several times, always when activating the "Protection from killing blow" benefit (ie dying and being resurrected through it) and gaining a level while being mana-burned at the same time.

This happens to be my preferred way of dealing with wraiths so I see it a lot... doesn't matter if you get the prot4ection from Glowing Guardian, CYDSTEPP, or that Badge of whatever it is that gives it... if you have "Protection from Killing Blow" on you, it kicks in.

You can cure it by drinking a mana potion (therefore curing the mana burn) and getting the exp you would have needed to get to the next level; you will then pass level normally without having lost any exp.

dislekcia
20-03-2010, 12:30 AM
This has happened to me several times, always when activating the "Protection from killing blow" benefit (ie dying and being resurrected through it) and gaining a level while being mana-burned at the same time.

This happens to be my preferred way of dealing with wraiths so I see it a lot... doesn't matter if you get the prot4ection from Glowing Guardian, CYDSTEPP, or that Badge of whatever it is that gives it... if you have "Protection from Killing Blow" on you, it kicks in.

You can cure it by drinking a mana potion (therefore curing the mana burn) and getting the exp you would have needed to get to the next level; you will then pass level normally without having lost any exp.

This is a known bug in the current version. We got a ton of reports on it a few pages back in the thread - sorry, it's difficult to keep the information current here on the forum, that's why we set up the wiki :)

All flavors of the negative xp bug should be killed by the next version.

Chippit
20-03-2010, 12:38 AM
This is a known bug in the current version. We got a ton of reports on it a few pages back in the thread - sorry, it's difficult to keep the information current here on the forum, that's why we set up the wiki :)

All flavors of the negative xp bug should be killed by the next version.

Clearly the wiki needs a moderated 'known issues' page. :P

dislekcia
20-03-2010, 12:57 AM
Clearly the wiki needs a moderated 'known issues' page. :P

I thought there was one? You mean there isn't?

Tropico
20-03-2010, 01:18 AM
Well, I was just answering the concern of a couple people a bit higher up who didn't seem to have found that page in the wiki yet.

Wikis are awesome for storing reference information but they don't replace that "Ask a question, get an answer, discuss, give thanks" interaction that forums do.

What you guys should think of doing IMO is to set up an actual forum/subforum for the game instead of a single massive thread. Cause clearly the new players are still coming in and will be for a while :)

dislekcia
20-03-2010, 02:13 AM
What you guys should think of doing IMO is to set up an actual forum/subforum for the game instead of a single massive thread. Cause clearly the new players are still coming in and will be for a while :)

Oh definitely: When we release a full version it'll have it's own forum, site, etc. We're still prototyping and testing what works/doesn't work at the moment ;)

Once we get the contract game we're working on at the moment finished, we'll have time to get out a new version and see how you guys all react to the changes. This is the best testing a dev could have!

Robsoie
20-03-2010, 03:07 AM
I have said it already, but can only say it again as i continue to have plenty of fun.
This game is incredibly addictive and i can't say thank you enough for all the entertainement it provided me and continue to deliver.

After unlocking all the game modes and all the regular tier 1/2/3 classes, i finally managed to unlock my first "secret" class, the Transmuter. Now that's again a new kind of take on the mechanics.
It is very impressive how much gameplay Desktop Dungeon features once you begin to stick with it.
After the original contact, certainly there are lot of luck involved but not more than in any other roguelike, there is also planning and "ahead thinking" making some sessions a bit similar to a mix between a puzzle and a rogue in which you need to solve it in order to optimise your character so it has a chance to take out the dungeon boss.

And those unlocks plus various game modes are really a pure genious addition that really add to the replayability by the completely different tactics you must use with each classes and races.

Desktop Dungeons mouse driven interface (great for once in a rogue, out of Falcon/Vulture Eye, to be able to play without having to reach the keyboard), no random insta-death out of the player hands, no "starving to death each 10 minutes" etc... are also great design ingredient that are part of this great success in my eyes and make this very different that an usual roguelike game.

I hope more and more people will notice that real jewel.
It is not usual that a game, "coffee breaker" or not, has me "i'll just play 10 minutes" then looking at the watch and say "wow that's already a hour !". For me that says a lot about how good it is.

Desktop Dungeon is a real masterpiece.

iceblademush
20-03-2010, 10:15 AM
Some more Random idea:

Other Offensive spells (Difficult to implement, because the fireball is pretty well balanced at the moment)
Have 1 off glyphs that can be cast once, so a big Fireball explosion, maybe 12 damage per level for example?

Have an offensive spell that either ties in with Max Mana, or your attack Power...?

A spell like poison, maybe "STASIS" that binds the enemy and as you explore the dungeon it loses health. Although this would be like poison, maybe to balance it you lose health as well?

Attack Ideas:

Make a class like a thief or ranger, that does ranged damage. How i see this working would be 1 "free" attack before the monster retaliates and fights back. Conversely some monsters could have the "Cover or Awareness" ability that counters this.

Class ideas:

There are classes that only use the health stat and not mana, how about the other way around? SO only mana? Maybe an Angel, or Elemental? Also for these classes have them do something usefull with the Mana or Health potions/Power ups..

Other random ideas:

Wildmage: When you use a mana potion you get a random effect.

iceblademush
20-03-2010, 10:36 AM
While im at it:

How about some extra bonus scores for choosing difficult class combos, like a Gnome Monk?

iceblademush
20-03-2010, 10:46 AM
Lastly:

Different Conversion Glyphs, maybe each character has 2 instead of 1 ability...???

salejemaster
21-03-2010, 04:58 PM
FINALLY COMPLETED FACTORY WITH THE WIZARD YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

dammit
21-03-2010, 10:17 PM
Why isn't there any bonus score for clearing the entire dungeon of monsters?

Chippit
22-03-2010, 02:44 AM
Why isn't there any bonus score for clearing the entire dungeon of monsters?

There is, but you can't petrify any high-level monsters if you want to get it.

fall_ark
22-03-2010, 04:30 AM
More bonuses will always be awesome though. Adds to the flavour. :P
Plus, I think some class features warrant after-game recognition, like killing the boss with a Crusader's last blow. It'll be nice to show a special line or something...

WELL, HAVE A COOKIE: Slay the dungeon boss before reaching level 6.
TOUCH ME AND YOU DIE: Slay the dungeon boss with Sorcerer's mana shield.
MINE, MINE!: Got all coins and spent none. (With a Tinker?)
SHOPAHOLIC: Buy all items. (With a Tinker?)
FINGER OF DEATH / PROD: Slay the dungeon boss using normal attack while worshipping Mystera Annur.
BURN BABY BURN: Slay the Iron Man with a fireball.
CONVERTED: Worship two different gods before slaying the boss.
YOU WEAR BOTH?: Bought Platemail and Mage Plate.
WEAPON MASTER: Bought 3 or more weapons.
CRAZY PREPARED: Bought Viper Ward, Stone Sigil and Soul Orb.
NIRVANA: Bought Talisman of rebirth and Sign of the spirits.
OPEN HEART QUARTET: Bought Troll heart, Stone heart and Fire heart.
etc. etc. ...

And some random ideas about new classes...

1. A class that deals more damage with the fireball glyph. A class that BURNS. Could it be... A witch? A WITCH! BURN HER! Burn h...Ahem. Sorry.
Could go well with a duck enemy.

2. A class that deals half magical damage with normal attacks and half physical damage with fireball glyphs. The first part is very similar to the Sorcerer's mana shield though....

3. A class that gains damage bonuses after using a teleport spell. Call him a Shadowdancer maybe?

4. A class who gets a random damage bonus/penalty (maybe from -20% to +20%) every attack. And once in a blue moon turn into a werewolf? Um, or something else.

etc. etc. ...

dammit
22-03-2010, 10:48 AM
There is, but you can't petrify any high-level monsters if you want to get it.

I didn't. There's a bonus point thing for clearing level 8s and higher without the petrifying spell, but there's no bonus for clearing the entire dungeon.

fall_ark
22-03-2010, 12:44 PM
I didn't. There's a bonus point thing for clearing level 8s and higher without the petrifying spell, but there's no bonus for clearing the entire dungeon.

Clearing the entire dungeon is also a requirement to get that award. It's never mentioned in the game, but it's there. So technically that is a "clearing the entire dungeon" award...

dammit
22-03-2010, 01:27 PM
Clearing the entire dungeon is also a requirement to get that award. It's never mentioned in the game, but it's there. So technically that is a "clearing the entire dungeon" award...

Oh I see. Heh, it wasn't that clear, but hey! at least it's there :)

Unclesporky
22-03-2010, 01:45 PM
FINALLY COMPLETED FACTORY WITH THE WIZARD YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've been trying this but I couldn't even beat the Meat Man, let alone the Iron Man. How in the heck do you do it?

It really is the easiest place to level a character if you can get a fireball early and a level 9 animated armor.

fall_ark
22-03-2010, 02:10 PM
I've been trying this but I couldn't even beat the Meat Man, let alone the Iron Man. How in the heck do you do it?

It really is the easiest place to level a character if you can get a fireball early and a level 9 animated armor.

The cheapest way to go is Human+Dracul. If you can find useful glyphs or damage boosting items then the Meat Man should be a walk in the park. Leave some low level monsters for you to drain life during the boss fights and there shouldn't be too much problem. If you plan to worship Dracul, do not fireball 1~3 level animated armors as they can be used to heal you later on.

Otherwise, I'd suggest you wait for good items & glyph combinations. You probably want to beat the Library challenge with more classes so that you have access to better items. Damage +5, Max Health +10, Attack+20%, First Strike, Poison Strike. These could be very very helpful.

TheLionsInnards
22-03-2010, 07:19 PM
RPS on Desktop Dungeons. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/22/scratching-the-surface-desktop-dungeons/)

Robsoie
22-03-2010, 09:19 PM
To complete factory with the Wizard, a very good thing in the Factory is actually the Animated Armors, whatever the level they are, they have 1 hit point.

So if you find a level 9 animated armor and the fireball glyph early and get a good deity for your wizard, it is heaven, as you can attack it while being only level 1, each fireball will destroy 1 death protection, so you can then just regenerate by revealing tiles it does not regenerate the death protections that the animated armor lost.

Then in few time you will have destroyed a level 9 animated armor and got a huge boost in leveling.

So using this trick you can get very high in mana and level, enough to be able in the end to kill both bosses, providing you have enough mana potion to help too, and hopefully some items from the stores.

dislekcia
22-03-2010, 09:39 PM
RPS on Desktop Dungeons. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/22/scratching-the-surface-desktop-dungeons/)

Eeeeee! :)

Miguelito
22-03-2010, 10:58 PM
So I was trying my hand at a tileset for the game, but I need some Word of God/general consensus here...

What the hell creature is a Tinker? Is it, like, something codified in D&D/whichever RPG canon? Or is it essentially just something made up for the game?

I went with the latter option for the time being, but if anyone could clarify, I'd appreciate it :)

Robsoie
23-03-2010, 12:57 AM
All i know about "Tinker" is that it was a Gnome class of character of the AD&D Dragonlance modules from the end of the eighties/beginning of the nineties.

I don't know if it was present in the original novels, having only played the role playing game in that time, and i don't have information about them as none ever roleplayed a gnome during the few years we were on AD&D and its modules.

dislekcia
23-03-2010, 01:39 AM
A tinker is someone that repairs broken things and/or invents gadgets. Hence the phrase "to tinker with something". Tinkers had a knack for making a profit out of any odd garbage people left laying around, in many fantasy settings, gypsies and tinkers go hand in hand.

Miguelito
23-03-2010, 01:49 AM
OK, so it's not a race per se, as I had figured. Thanks :)

Speusippus
23-03-2010, 05:39 AM
Give it goggles and you're golden.

Lekon
23-03-2010, 08:05 AM
Give it goggles and you're golden.

Do the goggles do something?

fall_ark
23-03-2010, 10:44 AM
The wiki has suffered from many spam attempts these few days. Maybe Nandrew or dislekcia or someone with admin rights should go block a few ips?

dislekcia
23-03-2010, 12:35 PM
The wiki has suffered from many spam attempts these few days. Maybe Nandrew or dislekcia or someone with admin rights should go block a few ips?

Unfortunately I'm a wiki-nub, but I'll raise the flag and see what we can do. Thanks.

Miguelito
23-03-2010, 03:13 PM
A little preview (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nTOzpyCgaFM/S6i-Gzi3wyI/AAAAAAAAAGo/QAlQRHlOKWs/s400/prev.bmp) of the four tier 3 classes (warlord, assassin, paladin, blood mage), human. Hope the link works!

And as for the tinker, I think I'll make him a robot, or say a family of robots. It would be sweet to have him look custom-built for every class, i.e. a brawlerbot for the assassin or a teslabot for mages :)
Out of canon, I know!

dislekcia
23-03-2010, 03:57 PM
A little preview (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nTOzpyCgaFM/S6i-Gzi3wyI/AAAAAAAAAGo/QAlQRHlOKWs/s400/prev.bmp) of the four tier 3 classes (warlord, assassin, paladin, blood mage), human. Hope the link works!

And as for the tinker, I think I'll make him a robot, or say a family of robots. It would be sweet to have him look custom-built for every class, i.e. a brawlerbot for the assassin or a teslabot for mages :)
Out of canon, I know!

Looking good :)

The Tinker's a class, btw, not a race.

Miguelito
23-03-2010, 04:17 PM
Ohhhh, that makes sense! So, goblin rather than tinker.

(This makes me itch to create a weird tileset with hippies, robots, bears and penguins as classes...)

fall_ark
23-03-2010, 05:20 PM
A little preview (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nTOzpyCgaFM/S6i-Gzi3wyI/AAAAAAAAAGo/QAlQRHlOKWs/s400/prev.bmp) of the four tier 3 classes (warlord, assassin, paladin, blood mage), human. Hope the link works!

And as for the tinker, I think I'll make him a robot, or say a family of robots. It would be sweet to have him look custom-built for every class, i.e. a brawlerbot for the assassin or a teslabot for mages :)
Out of canon, I know!

Love the skull mask. Possibly hinting his ability of cheating death? XD

Alas. 'Tis times like this that I have to lament my total lack of talent in areas such as drawing and design. I can only conjure up crude similarities of what I have in mind...:(
http://i.imgur.com/xapO7l.png
Still, I would very much love to see a goo blob drawn that way!

Speusippus
23-03-2010, 07:32 PM
Do the goggles do something?

He's a tinker. Tinkers make things. Those who make things wear goggles.

I mean, to me, the word "tinker" all by itself implies goggle-wearing, but maybe the above explicates the reason for that.

Here's one take on the "tinker" concept: http://img88.imageshack.us/i/fafnir2ig5.jpg/

I've never thought of them as so brawny, but I can see it working.

DMT
24-03-2010, 04:37 AM
Okay guys, any ideas on how the 77,878 score was achieved?

I'm having real trouble getting to 60,000 points. I'm really not sure how to break it, but then to add another 17,000 points on top!?

I've ruled out time bonus, I've managed to kill the boss in about 2 minutes and any faster than that seems unrealistic and wouldn't get you enough anyway.

I'm sure that it has to be through damage score. Recently I've been trying a new tactic with Vampire and fireball, burning as many monsters down to low health as I can before exploring so they heal back up, using saved low levels as health packs and repeating. I can get about 20,000 points of damage this way, but that still only gets me to roughly 60,000.

But this was done with the half-dragon, so no fireball. I feel sure that it was accomplished by knocking a tough, weak enemy like a meat man into another enemy repeatedly to obtain obscene damage, but so far I've been unable to get great results trying this.

I've tried killing off all but two monsters with a half-dragon, saving a level 1 iron man and a monster behind him, then converting to Mystera Annur to reduce my attack power to one. My theory was that by hitting an iron man with 1 damage, it would be halved to 0 and I could hit him about a hundred times and cause knockback damage to the guy behind him, drinking potions to squeeze out even more. Unfortunately the knockback damage is shared so he died in one hit...

But then the same guy got almost 70,000 with a gorgon. He must have some secret...

So yeah, I'm not sure how to do it. Just an incredibly lucky run?

Nandrew
24-03-2010, 04:57 PM
I've been wondering about that score myself. Perhaps it *was* just a very generous run. I see that you've got a few impressive ones on that list. ;)

Either way, the score system will hopefully be changing soon. The monolithic list containing all classes is a little ... unpleasant, and I think it has outgrown a system like GMH. I'm mainly observing it as a way of checking class balance (it helped me pick out the vampire problem quite early) and needless to say, I'm rather interested in investigating the gorgon for any particular oversights. :P

With regards to the wiki spam ... hmm. Looks like we'll need to appoint some moderators and give them IP banning privileges. I'm glad that the feedback/bug report pages seem to be filled with mostly useful info there. I don't really chat much on the wiki, but I do pay attention to it. Nicely summarises some of the issues brought up in this thread. :)

dislekcia
24-03-2010, 05:57 PM
I'm glad that the feedback/bug report pages seem to be filled with mostly useful info there. I don't really chat much on the wiki, but I do pay attention to it. Nicely summarises some of the issues brought up in this thread. :)

Translation:

Nandrew last night: "Aaagh! How do people still keep talking about clicking on altars in the blackness? There's code to explicitly prevent that! Are they clicking multiple times when they explore, whaaat?! How is this, I don't even-"

Nandrew this morningafternoon: "Oh, it happens when already standing on an altar. I guess that makes sense. Thanks Wiki!"

Robsoie
24-03-2010, 09:18 PM
Seems the guy/spambot is busy reposting all of his/its spam in the wiki front page.
In the edit history lots of people are undoing his/its spam , but the guy/bot always repost them.
Can someone at least ban the IP (that's the same IP doing that since few days) or prevent unregistered users to edit the wiki.

That's really very bad if one point a new users to the Dungeon Desktop wiki only for him to see various kind of spam defacing the main page.

Nandrew
25-03-2010, 02:29 AM
Offending IP has been banned, and I'm going to see about appointing some wiki watchdogs and stuff to make sure that this sort of thing is dealt with more efficiently in future. :)

Twinge
25-03-2010, 09:48 AM
Nandrew this morningafternoon: "Oh, it happens when already standing on an altar. I guess that makes sense. Thanks Wiki!"

Haha nice, glad my time spent starting a few games and systematically clicking through the darkness paid off =)



A Mantis page could be considered to track bugs/feature requests, though I'm not sure if it ends up being any easier for a small project like this that isn't currently open-source.


The wiki could require registrations which is helpful against spammers though also may reduce feedback somewhat. I imagine it should also be possible to perhaps make specific pages require registration and not others, so perhaps the front page could at least require it to reduce spam assaults on the most important part?


I like the Crawl references, by the way. I call the gods by their Crawl names, even if TGG is a lot more forgiving than TSO is ;)


Also, should I continue posting my ideas for game balance (reducing unwinnables, tweaking gold system, etc.) on the wiki alone or should I also post them here?

Nandrew
25-03-2010, 02:36 PM
Haha nice, glad my time spent starting a few games and systematically clicking through the darkness paid off =)



A Mantis page could be considered to track bugs/feature requests, though I'm not sure if it ends up being any easier for a small project like this that isn't currently open-source.


The wiki could require registrations which is helpful against spammers though also may reduce feedback somewhat. I imagine it should also be possible to perhaps make specific pages require registration and not others, so perhaps the front page could at least require it to reduce spam assaults on the most important part?


I like the Crawl references, by the way. I call the gods by their Crawl names, even if TGG is a lot more forgiving than TSO is ;)


Also, should I continue posting my ideas for game balance (reducing unwinnables, tweaking gold system, etc.) on the wiki alone or should I also post them here?

Haha, yeah, that piece of feedback was golden. I was struggling with the reports of altar clicking until I found that one tucked into the wiki feedback.

With regards to where you want to post feedback ... do it either on the wiki or the forums, your choice. :P I check both, even if I don't always respond to things: it's becoming quite cumbersome to comment on everything recently, and I've noticed an alarming tendency over these past few weeks to spend more time on correspondence, admin and checkups than actual game development! I'm trying to cut this down and manage my time properly.

I'll probably adopt a "wait and see" attitude with regards to sorting out wiki problems -- right now, the community is only big enough to suffer from one isolated spammer case, and user registration hasn't proven necessary yet. Over time, if more problems emerge, more restrictions can be put into place and whatnot. :P

At the very least, I'm trying to appoint volunteers as admins to make sure that problems are responded to more quickly.

And yeah, even I keep referring to TGG as TSO on occasion. :P I'm considering throwing in Sigmund at some point for funsies ...

The Dash
01-04-2010, 07:35 AM
Been waiting forever to post this =P

http://i42.tinypic.com/r85s8h.png

Played in Desktop Dungeons v.05 - tileset : Plainer
Elf Warlord
Factory

A completed dungeon showing mouse movement. The circles are where the mouse spend time stationary - The bigger the circle, the longer the time. Notice how some circles are around bloodpools. These would be things like high level Magical Armour and the bosses

Credit:
Mouse movement overlay provided by iographica.com/

Nandrew
01-04-2010, 01:46 PM
Hah! Neato!

Pretty interesting seeing a player's game session "recorded" in that way. :D

And hooray! Return of the forums! Just watch your step and mind the April Fool's-day-ness.

nostrich
01-04-2010, 02:48 PM
Hi. You can count me among the legions that signed up just to talk about this game.

Absolutely love the game, obviously. It's everything I like about roguelikes, without everything I don't like about them. I don't think I could ask for a game that better suits my interests. And the difficulty level seems just right, albeit a little too reliant on random luck with some of the later classes (good luck if there's no fireball nearby when you're a wizard, for example).

That said: Any plans to release a native OS X build? I've been using the Wine-packaged one posted here back around page 21, and it's awfully slow. It takes forever to load, the mouse (due to the sprite, I guess) moves sluggishly, and the red and blue bubbles released as you explore move so slowly -- if I happen to uncover a monster, the bubbles obscure its level for a good second or so before getting out of the way. I'm using a pretty old Macbook (although I have the same issues on a 2-year-old Dell netbook running Windows), so I can't speak for the Mac community at large, but I'm inclined to think the bubbles and sprite mouse cursor are kind of overkill regardless.

And just out of interest: when's the next update? Anything good in it?

neongrey
01-04-2010, 07:34 PM
So, Gorgons. I am just not getting how to be any good with them and it is driving me nuts. They're my last class on the Library (and I understand they're naturally going to have a harder time there due to all the magic damage) but I haven't had luck with them on any of the other dungeons, either.

What am I missing? What ought to I be doing to be successful with them?

dislekcia
02-04-2010, 03:09 AM
Hi. You can count me among the legions that signed up just to talk about this game.

Absolutely love the game, obviously. It's everything I like about roguelikes, without everything I don't like about them. I don't think I could ask for a game that better suits my interests. And the difficulty level seems just right, albeit a little too reliant on random luck with some of the later classes (good luck if there's no fireball nearby when you're a wizard, for example).

That said: Any plans to release a native OS X build? I've been using the Wine-packaged one posted here back around page 21, and it's awfully slow. It takes forever to load, the mouse (due to the sprite, I guess) moves sluggishly, and the red and blue bubbles released as you explore move so slowly -- if I happen to uncover a monster, the bubbles obscure its level for a good second or so before getting out of the way. I'm using a pretty old Macbook (although I have the same issues on a 2-year-old Dell netbook running Windows), so I can't speak for the Mac community at large, but I'm inclined to think the bubbles and sprite mouse cursor are kind of overkill regardless.

And just out of interest: when's the next update? Anything good in it?

Welcome :)

The Mac "solution" right now is strictly temporary, set up by a helpful player like yourself. We're about to start working on the full game in Unity so that we can get it out to Mac and Windows users at the same time. Remember, this is just the prototype... As for the next version: We'll release at least one more Game Maker version and are currently working on that. Nandrew's got some neat changes up his sleeve and we'll probably manage to re-work the interface as much as we can.

I'm not too sure what we can do about speeding the game up when emulated, we're not really doing all that much that could be optimised, but it's something we'll look into to try and keep the play experience as non-frustrating as possible. Right now we're mostly focusing on figuring out what works and what's the most fun though...


So, Gorgons. I am just not getting how to be any good with them and it is driving me nuts. They're my last class on the Library (and I understand they're naturally going to have a harder time there due to all the magic damage) but I haven't had luck with them on any of the other dungeons, either.

What am I missing? What ought to I be doing to be successful with them?

Gorgons are tricky, but I find them quite a lot of fun. General advice is don't try to kill things with fireball alone, use your deathgaze bonuses as much as you can. Don't be afraid to spend your cash on items that are going to keep you alive longer. Remember that the more health a monster has, the more relative health you don't have to remove with deathgaze :)

prestige
02-04-2010, 11:23 AM
Hey, I threw together a new version of the Plainer tileset. The background tiles are the same as the previous version, but I've made new item and glyph icons.

I included Derek Yu's monster graphics, because I like them with this set, and I don't plan to redraw the monsters myself. So credit goes to him for the monsters.

Download it here (http://cornjob.com/DD_plainer_tileset.zip)

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q117/cornprone/plain2-screenshot.gif

Suho
02-04-2010, 01:18 PM
Hello. Yet another new user who has signed up just to post about Desktop Dungeons.

I think it was about a week ago that I discovered this game. A few days ago I started following links in the readme file, and over the past few days I have read through this entire thread. Wow. That's a lot of posts. All very interesting stuff, though.

So, what can I say that hasn't already been said? This is an amazing game. I can't even remember how I found it now, but I do remember thinking, "A roguelike I can play in ten minutes? Yes, please!" So I downloaded the game, glanced briefly at the readme, and then started a new game--to find myself as a level one fighter surrounded on three sides by enemies at least six levels higher than me. My eyes bugged out of my head. Then I realized that the enemies didn't move, and I was a little confused. "Hey, I thought this game was supposed to be hard!" Of course, then I realized that you only regained health and mana when moving through unexplored squares, and it all clicked. "Oh, this is actually a puzzle. Awesome!"

And awesome it was. I had one heck of a week this week, and DD was there for me when I needed a little break from the stress of life. One by one I got the hang of the different classes, unlocking higher tiers and introducing new monsters into the dungeons. Fantastic! For the longest time I thought the wizard was broken because I couldn't figure out how to play it. After all, you don't gain mana when you level up like you gain health and attack points. How was I supposed to defeat all these big bad monsters with this wimpy little dude? Eventually I figured it out and beat the dungeon with the wizard (I am perversely proud to say that I have never worshiped Mystera Annura (sp?) as a wizard) and unlocked the sorceror--which I beat on my very first try. And after a few false starts with the bloodmage, I soon beat that, too. I have to tell you, the feeling of power, of fireballs sizzling on my fingertips, was intoxicating.

Most of my initial play was done on my own, without any reference to the forums or the wiki. (I actually did try to visit the forum, but apparently you guys were moving house at the time--I'm glad I checked back!) Part of the puzzle was just trying to figure out what everything did (I had my own file on all of the deities, which sadly became obsolete as soon as I discovered the wiki). Once I found the forum and the wiki, though, I realized just how much I didn't know. I had figured out the level catapulting (ah, there was another term you used for it, but I forgot what it was), but there were a lot of strategies and tricks that I had never even considered (like Lemmisi, which I always converted as soon as I found it). There was so much depth in such a "little" game! It amazes me, especially when you consider that the game is only on version 0.051!

Earlier today I finally unlocked the ranked dungeon and played my first game there--getting pretty handily beaten in the process. I could have been a bit luckier with items and deities, etc., but it's obvious that I'm going to have to step up my game if I want to win even once. But I'm hooked, and I'll keep at it until I succeed. And I'm looking forward to whatever changes there may be in the future. The changes to the deity system sound nice, since at the moment some deities are very useful, while others (Earthmother, I'm looking at you!) are not.

Oh, and I also downloaded a bunch of tilesets yesterday. I like "plainer" for being, well, plainer than the original set, but when I downloaded Derek Yu's new tileset, it was love at first sight. No offense to the original artist, who did a great job as well, but Derek's tileset kicks the game up a notch for me.

While I'm on the subject of tilesets, I'd like to make my first suggestion. It's a relatively minor issue compared to gameplay and balance issues, but I was wondering if it would be possible in the future to have the game detect tilesets in the tileset directory and then let you just choose from a drop-down menu, rather than having to type in the tileset name. I know it's not that big of a deal, but it would be a nice little bit of polish.

I have a couple of other suggestions, one which is fairly easy. What about the addition of a new spell? We have fireballs, what about an ice spell or something along those lines? It could cause no damage but would prevent monsters from using offensive effects (poison, mana burn, death gaze, etc.) for the next combat turn. i don't know, just an idea

The other suggestion, well, I'm a little hesitant to mention it, because I know it would be a lot of work. I've noticed that in a lot (if not most) of my games, there end up being a large number of long, straight corridors. There are some open spaces, and the player of course always starts in a large room, but a lot of times it really does feel very linear. It would be great to have maps with a number of small rooms scattered about, connected by a maze of twisty passages (not necessarily all alike). I've never programmed a maze-drawing program, but I imagine it would be a ton of work to do. Maybe something to think about for the future?

And along those lines, I don't know if this would go against one of the fundamental principles of roguelikes (i.e., randomly-generated levels), but today I started thinking about the possibility of user-created levels with a map editor, where you could place all the walls, monsters, items, altars, and shops, even choosing which deities would be represented and which items would be sold in the shops. Then you could have a place where people shared their levels with everyone else. Again, this may depart completely from the spirit of the game, but it was just an idea I had.

OK, I think I've rambled on long enough. Sorry for posting such a long first post, but I really love this game, and after reading through this entire thread, I just had a lot to say! Thank you again for the wonderful experience!

(Ah, I just noticed that a new "plainer" tileset has been created. Thank you for that, prestige! I'll have to download it and give it a try.)

agentgray
02-04-2010, 09:04 PM
I've been lurking for a month now, and I about panicked when the site was moving.

However, this is a great game and I've not been able to preach it enough to my friends. I just got my second victory 2-3 days ago and since then I've been unlocking stuff like mad. (It's been a chore as well to not read all the posts here and spoil it.)

Quick question. I just unlocked a Warlord and I notice he gets a buff for every mana used. Can I play as a gnome and stack the buff say on the end boss? I turn all the glyphs into mana and then just keep drinking them. Also, id the buff on your base attack or your final attack.

For example:

Base 10 + 30% = 13
drink mana
Is it plus another three or is it 30% of 13?

As you can see this can exponentially ramp up.

Twinge
02-04-2010, 09:51 PM
Can I play as a gnome and stack the buff say on the end boss?
For example:

Base 10 + 30% = 13
drink mana
Is it plus another three or is it 30% of 13?

As you can see this can exponentially ramp up.

All bonuses are additive in DD, not multiplicative. This means if you have 10 +30%, and add another 30%, it becomes 10 + 60%. This is why base damage boosts (as opposed to the percentage boosts which is what most things give) tend to be very strong (e.g. the Fire Sword, which is extremely powerful).

Suho
03-04-2010, 06:47 AM
Wow, I did it! I beat my first ranked game! :D

After unlocking ranked games, I was a bit surprised at first at how much harder it was. I knew that monsters would have more health and damage, but in my first few games I didn't even come close to where I needed to be to beat the boss. I didn't think I was ever going to be able to do it, but I did! Wow. I feel a bit silly for being so excited over a game, but there you have it.

http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww48/Suho1004_photos/desktop_dungeons/first_ranked_win.gif

There's my final screen. The Assassin's poison skill coupled with the Dwarf's extra health turned out to be a really good combination (and I think I got an item that increased health, too). With poison, all you need to do is survive the first hit, so the more health you have the higher level monsters you can fight--I think I was up to level 9 when I finally decided to take on the Super Meat Man. It felt like carving up a monolith (a la 2001) of Spam with a butter knife, but I kept hacking away. I converted the fireball glyph once I was ready to take on the boss and ended up with poison, bysseps, and lemmisi, the last of which was of course a life saver (literally). I did run across cydstepp, but I was following Jehora Jeheyu, so with a slight twinge of regret I converted it for more health. But I didn't have enough mana to make it worthwhile against the boss anyway.

I missed out on the time bonus because I tend to be very methodical--I've been burned one too many times by a careless click. 28,220 points isn't going to win any prizes, but it is pretty cool to see my name on the leader board. I was a bit surprised to see that Dwarf Assassin isn't that popular a combination--of the 324 people above me, only four played that combination. Then again, I haven't unlocked some of the more powerful races/classes yet (actually, I haven't unlocked any of them yet).

Well, sorry for the gushing. I'll stop now. One little piece of feedback, though: I know this (or something similar) has been mentioned before, but I wonder if it would be possible to see on the main screen which classes we've already won ranked games with. It's a fairly minor thing, but maybe the outline could turn red or something--or maybe that's saved for something else?

Nandrew
06-04-2010, 03:23 PM
I'll definitely be taking some of the suggestions into account. :) Glad you're enjoying the game, you've offered a pretty interesting description of your early experiences.

Also, Twinge has described the damage system pretty well. You can usually tell where a bonus applies by the language used: if it's a solid number, it goes onto base damage. If it's percentage, it's added to bonus %.

Graal
06-04-2010, 08:06 PM
I'm enjoying the new look, but I still suck at this. :p

Aramon
07-04-2010, 06:50 PM
Might I just ask what genre this is

Miktar
07-04-2010, 06:53 PM
Mixed.

Roguelike/Puzzle

DukeOFprunes
07-04-2010, 06:54 PM
Might I just ask what genre this is

I guess you somehow missed the very first post.

Suho
09-04-2010, 04:02 AM
A few more suggestions, mostly related to the interface:


Why does the final screen for unranked dungeons have a submit button? It is not possible to submit scores for unranked dungeons, so I don't understand why it's there. I suppose you might want to tell the player that they can only submit scores for ranked dungeons, but couldn't that be done elsewhere? Displaying an option only to say, "Sorry, you can't do that" when the player clicks on it seems a little odd. Or maybe just have it grayed out?
For ranked dungeons, can we move the submit button to the more prominent position (left) or make it a little bigger than the retired button? I only suggest this because I finally beat a ranked dungeon with a warlord, and I accidentally clicked "retire" instead of "submit." My bad, I know, but I think the interface could be a little friendlier.
Finally, since I have not quite beaten this dead horse into a jelly, could we have some sort of distinction between ranked dungeons and unranked dungeons? What I mean by this is that maybe on the dungeon screen itself (on the right) it could say "Ranked" somewhere. After playing normal dungeons for so long, I've found it difficult to get into the habit of clicking on "ranked" in the main menu, and every now and then I will click on "normal," go through the dungeon, wonder at how awesome I am doing, and then be disappointed when I try to click "submit" at the end. Having some indicator that I am playing a ranked dungeon or normal dungeon before the very end would be nice.


So that's my little list of nitpicks. I am still loving the game, of course, and looking forward to all of the awesome new changes in upcoming versions. In the meantime, the dungeon beckons...

[Edit: Actually, I was just looking at the main menu again, and when you hover over the normal dungeon button, it says right there that you can't submit scores.]

[Edit2: OK, I feel better now--just went back and beat the ranked dungeon with a warlord again, for my highest ranked score yet (and remembered to hit the submit button!). Feels good to beat the ranked dungeon without poison--that always feels kind of like cheating to me.]

travcm
09-04-2010, 09:15 AM
Good suggestions. I'm not sure if these pretty obvious things have been suggested, but here they are:

1. hot keys for potions and picking up runes
2. arrow controls
3. way to exit out of text pop-ups without the mouse
4. don't factor redone damage into score

dislekcia
09-04-2010, 03:34 PM
Thanks for the suggestions you two, it's good to see that we're starting to get more focus on interface and menu structures from players: Means the game itself is shaping up smoothly. Still got a few things we want to try before we really start taking apart the menus, so you might have to bear with us a little bit longer, but we are collecting all the menu feedback and using it to design something better for the front-end :)

@travcm: Could you explain point 4 please? Do you mean damage to an enemy that's regenerated health? Also, potion hot-keys are go, Y/N shortcuts to exit popups might make it in or not (although the popups for worship are changing quite a lot). Not too sure about arrow controls... Diagonal movement is pretty useful in the game and often players zip from one side of the screen to the other, that's a lot of redundant key-presses just to move around.

The Dash
09-04-2010, 03:55 PM
\ Not too sure about arrow controls... Diagonal movement is pretty useful in the game and often players zip from one side of the screen to the other, that's a lot of redundant key-presses just to move around.

*cough* numpad *cough* *cough*

;)

dislekcia
09-04-2010, 04:12 PM
*cough* numpad *cough* *cough*

;)

Yeah. Doesn't solve the moving all the way across the screen thing though. Not convinced, especially given Nandrew's frequent use of auto-explore in Crawl... We're trying to streamline actions and make them all relevant, not add huge amounts of superfluous tapping ;)

The Dash
09-04-2010, 06:37 PM
Yeah. Doesn't solve the moving all the way across the screen thing though. Not convinced, especially given Nandrew's frequent use of auto-explore in Crawl... We're trying to streamline actions and make them all relevant, not add huge amounts of superfluous tapping ;)

Holding down the key would move the player until a black block is uncovered, or stop the player just before a block is uncovered. Im sure people who want to use the keyboard are willing to accept the consequences :p

Suho
10-04-2010, 05:26 AM
Personally, I love the ease of using the mouse, but I could see how some people might want the keyboard option as well. I doubt I would ever use it, though. Whipping from one side of the screen to the other with the mouse, as dislekcia said, is just so much easier than using the keyboard.

By the way, I hope my comments above didn't sound too petty and whiny. I wrote them right after I finally finished a ranked dungeon with a warlord and then accidentally hit "retire," so I suppose I wasn't in the happiest of moods. Strangely enough, the very next run I made it through. I hope that's a sign that I'm getting better, and not just that I was lucky.

:)

I'll probably be back with more comments from time to time. Hopefully some of them will be useful.

travcm
10-04-2010, 08:01 AM
@dislekcia: yes, I mean if an enemy has 130 health, then you cannot gain more than 130 damage from it. Also, I don't agree with how killing a 1 HP enemy with a 100 damage blow will still cause the extra 99 to count as damage dealt. So no more tedious regen endgames when going for high scores. Also, I initially was unaware that the timer stopped at the point in which you beat the boss, so I was rushing to finish the dungeon. Maybe have that factor in score. An extra scalable bonus for clearing all black that is walkable and all enemies.

I have no interest in moving via arrows; I just thought others might. I'd like to be able to handle everything with the mouse, but without having to move it to click on boxes and drag drop. Maybe incorporate left/right/middle click functions into the game so things can be quicker.

prestige
10-04-2010, 02:18 PM
I'd also like to be able to move with arrow keys/numpad. Obviously, if I'm moving across already-explored areas, I'll use the mouse. However, the arrow keys would be useful when exploring new parts of the map, because in that case, I would rather tap keys (roguelike style) than have click on every single square I want to step on.

Syrion
10-04-2010, 08:15 PM
I think the mouse controls for moving in unexplored areas could easily be improved if it was possible to point anywhere into the "fog" and click to move in that direction, but still only move to 1 unexplored tile per click. For example, if you are standing in a straight corridor that leads east and has several unexplored tiles, you could just move the mouse cursor all the way to the east over any of those unexplored tiles, and the character would still move 1 step in that direction per click. The red line which shows the way you can move should be enough to make it clear for the player that the character still won't walk through several unexplored tiles, but only one at a time.

Since the mouse is integral for the controls of the game, especially looking up the enemies' stats, I also think that maybe it would really be a better design choice to entirely leave out keyboard controls for anything other than hotkeys.


Another little suggestion I have is about using spells and potions with the mouse. Compared to using keyboard hotkeys, it is a little bit uncomfortable to always have to move the mouse cursor all the way to the right side of the screen to use a spell or potion. Still, I'd like to be able to use the mouse for everything efficiently, without even having the need for hotkeys.
I think it would be nice if instead you could right click on enemies and the icons of all "offensive" skills would pop up around the enemy, as a little context-sensitive menu. You could then left click on one of them to directly use it on the enemy, or right click to close the menu again. Similarly, potions and for example healing spells or buffs could be used by right clicking on your own character, thus a menu with those would appear around him. Not to forget right clicking walls for that one spell ;)
This way, you wouldn't have to click any more than you already do, but the need for mouse movement would be minimized.

Tell me if any of this is unclear, I could provide a mock-up of what it could look like.

dislekcia
10-04-2010, 09:55 PM
I think the mouse controls for moving in unexplored areas could easily be improved if it was possible to point anywhere into the "fog" and click to move in that direction, but still only move to 1 unexplored tile per click. For example, if you are standing in a straight corridor that leads east and has several unexplored tiles, you could just move the mouse cursor all the way to the east over any of those unexplored tiles, and the character would still move 1 step in that direction per click. The red line which shows the way you can move should be enough to make it clear for the player that the character still won't walk through several unexplored tiles, but only one at a time.

This is an interesting idea... Will poke Nandrew to see if we can test it out. Thanks!


Another little suggestion I have is about using spells and potions with the mouse. Compared to using keyboard hotkeys, it is a little bit uncomfortable to always have to move the mouse cursor all the way to the right side of the screen to use a spell or potion. Still, I'd like to be able to use the mouse for everything efficiently, without even having the need for hotkeys.
I think it would be nice if instead you could right click on enemies and the icons of all "offensive" skills would pop up around the enemy, as a little context-sensitive menu. You could then left click on one of them to directly use it on the enemy, or right click to close the menu again. Similarly, potions and for example healing spells or buffs could be used by right clicking on your own character, thus a menu with those would appear around him. Not to forget right clicking walls for that one spell ;)
This way, you wouldn't have to click any more than you already do, but the need for mouse movement would be minimized.

We've been toying with concepts for a right-click menu for spellcasting and other actions for the full version. It's an idea that makes a lot of sense, especially from a smoothness of play perspective :)

dislekcia
11-04-2010, 12:05 AM
@dislekcia: yes, I mean if an enemy has 130 health, then you cannot gain more than 130 damage from it. Also, I don't agree with how killing a 1 HP enemy with a 100 damage blow will still cause the extra 99 to count as damage dealt. So no more tedious regen endgames when going for high scores. Also, I initially was unaware that the timer stopped at the point in which you beat the boss, so I was rushing to finish the dungeon. Maybe have that factor in score. An extra scalable bonus for clearing all black that is walkable and all enemies.

Hang on... I didn't know the timer stopped when you killed the boss. Hmmm. So is that how people are getting the crazy high scores we're seeing? Killing the boss and then bouncing damage really high?

Lekon
11-04-2010, 06:09 AM
Hang on... I didn't know the timer stopped when you killed the boss. Hmmm. So is that how people are getting the crazy high scores we're seeing? Killing the boss and then bouncing damage really high?

Thats how I've been doing my highest scores, especially with vampire. Kill the boss in under 3 minutes (Depending on the boss.) Then just go around mopping up the minions in my own sweet time. Much easier that way. I half figured that the timer stopping on boss kill was done on purpose.

Suho
11-04-2010, 06:16 AM
Wow, Syrion had a lot of good suggestions up there, especially this one:


I think it would be nice if instead you could right click on enemies and the icons of all "offensive" skills would pop up around the enemy, as a little context-sensitive menu. You could then left click on one of them to directly use it on the enemy, or right click to close the menu again. Similarly, potions and for example healing spells or buffs could be used by right clicking on your own character, thus a menu with those would appear around him.

I like this both for the ease-of-use factor, and also because I cannot tell you how many times I have thought I clicked on the fireball icon only to find out after clicking on the monster (and dying) that I had not. True, I could use the keyboard shortcuts, but it would be so nice to have a fully mouse-drive interface that wouldn't require you to have to move the mouse over to the right side of the screen.

Along those same lines, if you do try implementing the pop-up menus, maybe you could also have a pop-up menu for glyphs. For example, if you are standing over a glyph, right-clicking on your character could give you the option to either pick up the glyph or convert it (in addition to the usual options).

While we're on the subject, how about using the current patron deity space as a general pop-up/message center? It seems a bit large to simply be used for the deity-related stuff, and most of the time it is empty. The current patron deity indicator could be moved elsewhere (and wouldn't have to be very big), and that space could be used for all messages, including monster info pop-ups, store pop-ups, and altar pop-ups. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not too fond of how the pop-ups overlay the dungeon and obscure everything, and I think I could get used to having all my info in one easy-to-locate place. This would have the added benefit of reserving on-screen pop-ups for the right-click actions.

Another minor interface suggestion: I don't know if "look online" is the most intuitive name for a button that brings up the high scores in your browser. I understand that you want to have "online" in there to let the user know that they will be connecting to the internet, but maybe having something like "online high scores" would also work? And it would be nice to have this button on the ending stats screen for ranked dungeons, too, so we can submit our scores and then immediately go see them in the rankings (for those of us who need that instant gratification :) ).

As for the timer stopping when you kill the boss... I always thought that was intentional. Your overall goal is to kill the boss, so it would make sense that you would be rewarded for doing this quickly. That being said, I could see also having a reward for finishing the dungeon as a whole in a certain amount of time. Currently, you get 30 points per second faster than 15:00 for killing the boss. Maybe we could have an additional bonus of 10 points per second for finishing the dungeon. So, for example, if you kill the boss in 12:00 and finish the dungeon at 14:00 minutes, you would get 5,400 points for the boss bonus and 600 points for the dungeon bonus. Or, you know, use whatever ratio seems proper. It could be 20 points per second for the boss and 10 pps for the dungeon as a whole.

The current system does indeed leave room for exploitation, but I don't think that the timer is the fundamental cause here. Instead, I think it's the fact that we have two similar scoring metrics: monsters killed and damage dealt. While it's true that they are not quite the same thing, since you get credit for killing a monster through stoning, but you wouldn't get credit for any damage, I think this is a little flawed, too. Why? Because you already get points for stoning monsters--we don't need an additional bonus for that.

If I were to revamp the scoring system, I would take out the "damage dealt" category entirely, and I would change the "monsters killed" category so you got points based on how powerful each monster was. For example, a level 1 monster would be worth 100 points, a level 2 monster would be worth 200 points, etc. These values could be changed for overall balance, but you should get more points for killing a level 9 monster than a level 1 monster. If this is reflected, there's no need for the damage metric, and you won't have people "farming" monsters for points.

Not that it bothers me terribly--I haven't gotten to the level where I'm really concerned about maximizing my score--but since the subject was brought up, I thought I'd pitch in my two cents.

travcm
11-04-2010, 08:13 AM
Curious about the top 2 scores. They seem hacked, considering those players have no other scores on the list. Also, they are unobtainable, unless there is some exploit that I'm unaware of?

Lekon
11-04-2010, 08:56 AM
Curious about the top 2 scores. They seem hacked, considering those players have no other scores on the list. Also, they are unobtainable, unless there is some exploit that I'm unaware of?

It's pretty possible they were hacked. In the last version before the scoreboard was reset, the same thing happened. One guy had a score almost 5 times what the next highest was.

Nandrew
12-04-2010, 03:14 PM
If there's a score that looks like it really isn't possible, your intuitions are probably correct. :P

Thanks for all the interesting interface info. It's definitely something that needs work. The "timer stopping with boss kill" thing actually is intentional: I just hadn't mentioned it to my colleagues when I put it in. :P Of course, the score system isn't entirely satisfactory yet and I've received a few complaints about the emphasis of time, so this will almost certainly be revised in some manner.

How about a very small time bonus for killing a boss quickly, but the opportunity to unlock a considerably higher score bonus for clearing the entire dungeon quickly?

Also, with regards to mouse / key interface ... we're discussing that right now to see what would be the best for all parties. I don't think that loads of keyboard controls in a game like this would necessarily be optimal, but I suppose it'll be more comfortable for veteran roguelike players, so it'll be good to test the option. :)

prestige
13-04-2010, 06:53 AM
Also, with regards to mouse / key interface ... we're discussing that right now to see what would be the best for all parties. I don't think that loads of keyboard controls in a game like this would necessarily be optimal, but I suppose it'll be more comfortable for veteran roguelike players, so it'll be good to test the option. :)

Thanks, I'd appreciate more keyboard commands. As long as they remain optional, adding them wouldn't hurt anything in my opinion.

Suho
13-04-2010, 09:04 AM
How about a very small time bonus for killing a boss quickly, but the opportunity to unlock a considerably higher score bonus for clearing the entire dungeon quickly?

Personally, I don't mind having the lion's share of the bonus be for killing the boss--after all, that's the goal and that's the standard by which it is determined if you have beaten a dungeon or not. So I really don't have a problem with the way it is now, although I suppose it would be nice to have some incentive to complete the whole dungeon quickly.

Then again, I'm not really married to any particular scoring scheme, and will probably be just fine with whatever you come up with. I'm never going to be at the top of the high score lists anyway.

:)

Darth
13-04-2010, 02:22 PM
Hey Guys.. I've made a few sprites. I've basically just edited the plains tiles changing everything but the enemies. My only problem is that none of it is transparent.

Can you please tell me why they aren't popping up transparent. If you want I can send someone the sprites to change it for me.

Lets just say my sprites make the game more cute and fluffy :P

dislekcia
13-04-2010, 03:05 PM
Hey Guys.. I've made a few sprites. I've basically just edited the plains tiles changing everything but the enemies. My only problem is that none of it is transparent.

Can you please tell me why they aren't popping up transparent. If you want I can send someone the sprites to change it for me.

Lets just say my sprites make the game more cute and fluffy :P

You have to save the sprites with transparency. That means 24-bit png format and no background.

Chippit
13-04-2010, 03:55 PM
The "timer stopping with boss kill" thing actually is intentional: I just hadn't mentioned it to my colleagues when I put it in.

Nandrew's such a team player.

Darth
13-04-2010, 04:06 PM
You have to save the sprites with transparency. That means 24-bit png format and no background.

Excuse my noobiness.. what can i use to save it like that ?

its saved as a png but i don't know how to make it have no background.

dislekcia
13-04-2010, 04:45 PM
Excuse my noobiness.. what can i use to save it like that ?

its saved as a png but i don't know how to make it have no background.

Depends entirely on which program you're using.

Darth
13-04-2010, 04:47 PM
Depends entirely on which program you're using.

For arguements sake.. lets just say i'm using paint... cause i am :D

Fengol
13-04-2010, 04:54 PM
lets just say i'm using paint... cause i am :D

So use Paint.NET cause it's free, small and does transparency/alpha well, saves to .PNG and keeps the MSPaint feel while adding lots of nice, new features

fall_ark
13-04-2010, 04:58 PM
Okay. Here's my attempt at fan-fiction. I have no idea how it becomes so wordy...

Disclaimer: The following fanfiction is written by a non-native speaker who has little familiarity with the cultural references contained in the game and thus would most likely depict the monsters and characters differently from how you perceive them to be. Oh, and it probably sucks. Please read at your own discretion.



Story of the Human Fighter

My head rings. Blood flows profusely from my wounds. My trusty tower shield lies shattered on the ground in front of me. I am not dead.

But that statement will soon become meaningless, as the red-eyed monstrosity standing across the corridor has no intention to miss its target next time, and I don't have any confidence to survive.

When you have seen as much battle as I do, it becomes natural to foresee how a fight might end after merely one or two rounds. That usually works in your favour, but in this particular case, just adds to the desperation of the situation. A bitter smile floats across my face, but is soon held back because of the pains. This is no good, no good at all.

Oh, I could flee now and bandage up my wounds. Overwhelming as the situation may be, the endless tunnels and corridors of this thrice-cursed dungeon will no doubt cover my trails, preventing the horrifying monster from getting me, but that would only lead to another dead end.

A literal dead end. Whoever cruel enough to design the self-shutting trapdoor made the damn key as a pendant for the aforementioned monster, so that he didn't have to care about its safety, as the abomination neither sleeps nor eats, and attacks pretty any moving thing in sight.

Well at least I hope that thing doesn't feed. I don't quite relish the thought of being eaten alive by a 10 feet tall monster goat, you see.

It's a good thing that the monster's master didn't put up that much a fight. After battling through a horde of exotic monsters and ghosts, I had very little supply to face the notorious warlock. -- Poisonous serpents dangling from the ceilings, partially incorporate wraiths wandering the dark corridors... and the horrifying gorgons set gazes upon less fortunate advernturers. In the end I was left with only one bottle of health potion even after all those digging and scouring. The warlock had a way with his spells, but a well-timed charge in addition to a surprising fireball proved enough to shove that stupid beard of his into oblivion. That expensive rune-covered plate mail probably helped as well.

But before his death he gave of a wicked, wicked smile that haunts me till now... for I finally realized that he was not the most dangerous opponent I would face in this dungeon, and all those reckless charging and adventurous imbibement of potions were indeed, too reckless and adventurous for my own good.

My heart sunk, and the threat of death looms clearer and clearer as the yet-to-appear terrifying monster clawed at my mind. A short trip back to the entrance verified the warlock's words about the locking, and the only way to return lies in the unknown darkness. Would the monster be more than a match for me? Would I have enough strength to come back here after battling with it, assuming that I should survive? Brooding as I gradually recover from wounds suffered in the fight with the warlock, I stumbled upon the gargantuan goat.

It didn't notice me. In fact I was right staring at its back. Thoughts swarmed my head. Should I charge? Should I use magic? Sweat gathered, and the aforementioned fear of death had made me cautious, maybe too cautious, as if to compensate my early recklessness. I decided to use the fireball glyph first, and try to hide from the monster before further actions, which should give me more options in the battle, thus maximizing the possibility of my survival.

It didn't go as well as I have planned, for the goat seemed to react to the spell before the burning magical energy even left my hands. It turned and that set of nightmarish crimson eyes were immediately fixed on me. It didn't even try to avoid the fireball, but ran directly at me before I could move, nevermind hide.
And it ran toward me like there was nothing else in the world, letting out a deafening cry when the sphere of flames made contact but did not slow down... It was fast, way too fast for my liking, and in a split second I was facing a second decision.

Should I blast it with spell again, convert the remaining glyphs (save the first strike glyph, of course), and wait for a perfect strike? Or should I give up damaging it in the distance, turning all my remaining strength to the blade that I was holding?

Normally, this would be a non-question, as battle after battle one rule held true: hurt the enemy as hard as you can while avoid being hit at all cost. It was a golden rule that had saved from countless predicaments. This monstrosity, however... doesn't seem to be fazed much by the fireball cast at it. It WAS hurt, as I could hear the pain in all that grunting and roaring, but its eyes were filled with pure hatred rather than fear or doubt, and that made me uneasy. I was too frightened of death to make use of all the resources at my disposal when the battle had just begun. I decided to withhold my glyphs for the next round, to see how the battle would go and keep my options open.

It was not until the last moment of the contact when I sensed something wrong. The goat-rush was stronger, far too stronger than my imagination. I was trying to take a swing at its head after stopping its charge with my tower-shield. That naive thought was broken before the shield...as the monster easily sent this plate-covered human-being flying through mid-air...

To where I am now. Barely alive, short on time, and no back-up plan at all. I gathered up all my strength to stand up, almost leaning all my weight on my freshly blood-stained sword. So...huh, I didn't miss after all? That, at least, is some relief...

As my vision slowly clears up, the goat was again in my sight. I got a solid hit on the monster's neck. It's bleeding and, from its furious expression, hurt quite a lot. Ah, at least I hit it good...

Curious. It seems that dying soon has lift up my spirits a bit. "Well. Face it, chap." I chuckled to myself, "you should already be dead from that charge...oh my, did your plate mail break a bit as well? That was quite a hit... Heh, a housecat could probably kill you now, not to say another goat-rush..."

And suddenly a thought strikes me. What was I trying to do when the goat came? What was my original plan? Keep something open... Options... Glyphs...
I still have all my glyphs left including that one which would make me strike first! Taking a deep breath of the cold, damp air around sobers me up. I still got a chance...if luck and time permit. A quick glance at the monster shows that it probably won't attack in a good thirty or forty seconds. I have to plan quickly and faultlessly before its second charge. With my combat instincts and experiences that should be possible. There is still hope, still...

Or not. Excitement fades away as cold calculations set in. The situation is grim. I couldn't quite remember how much the goat was hurt by the fireball, and didn't see how I hit it with my blade. There are too many uncertainties. What are my options again? Three glyphs. Excluding the energy required to cast the first strike spell (without which I would never even lay a strike on the monster), I still have enough mana to cast another fireball... Or buff up my power with the strengthening glyph and give it a good smack, but since I get, at best, one strike against the goat, that would seem a waste. If only I could know exactly how much I hurt that goat with my sword or my magic...Damn. It seems to be readying a charge again. I have to choose, now.

I close my eyes, trying to depict how the fight would turn out if I go with the seemingly more preferable fireball choice. I recall the scorching marks on the goat's thick coat, mentally comparing it to its outlook before the fireball hit and after the charge. I think and calculate and predict... and it would not be enough. A win would never be achievable with that route.

I open my eyes. Only a few seconds before its charge now. I could feel the coming of the clash. No more thinking, time for decision. I draw another breath, steady my hand on the sword-hilt, and focus my mind to the glyphs.

And with a few murmuring words, a reddish light starts glowing from the sharp, cold steel in my hand. Two glyphs disappear, their energy dissipates into the blade. I only had time to guess the outcome of the fireball route, and since that didn't end well, there is only one route left. I could still die -- It's a slim hope after all -- but picking a known dead end would not suffice. That is my final decision.

The goat taps its hoof on the ground, its bloody eyes staring. My left hand grasps at the last glyph and feels my body absorb its power. Heartbeats become faster, breath shorter, muscle twitches. The time is now.

As the towering beast starts its charge, I let out a battlecry and leap forward, sword held firmly over my head. -- It's now or never. -- Either I kill it with this mighty blow, or it punctures two holes in my body. As we draw near to each other, even time seems to have slowed down.

And in that blink of an eye, I get another vision. -- No, it will not be enough. The beast will survive the strike, and I will not. A sense of desperation starts to rise, or is that just a bitterness in my throat? Well. I've done so much. That's just not fair.

Then I realize that the final glyph is still in my left hand, now held against both my right fist and the hilt. I forgot that I can channel its energy into my strike as well.

The steel falls faster than a meteor in the sky. And as the blade contacts the monster's horned head, the glyph's grey power sparks in the edge of the sword.
I survived.

Half of the goat's face is gone as blood almost splatters out from its wound. The not quite dead body still charges forward, but without a mind behind the charge, it just bumps into my plate and falls sideways. And for the first time I see the little metal box tied around the monster's now lifeless neck.

The key must be in there. Ain't I glad that I did not cut it into two halves as well.

But that's too much for now... I have mustered all my strength in the pounce, and can for the moment lift not even my own finger.

Have I made the right choice though? Would I survive if I chose to blast it with fireball and do the same with the last glyph? That I do not know. Hm. A win is a win. No need to dwell on the past when you still have a future to live, right?

I lied on the ground, hearing my heartbeats getting louder and louder as the surroundings gradually quietened down. Well, I think I can afford play dead for a while, and get out this stupid dungeon to the sunshine outside.

It's good to be alive.



Note:
Level 9 Human Fighter, base damage 52 with 40% damage bonus and 15 mana (worships Binlor Ironshield at Level 2, missed one glyph or one attack bonus, bought Pendant of Mana, Mage Plate and Tower Shield). In a Ranked dungeon, this happens:

Gharbad, HP 190, Damage 270 (damage doesn't matter...)

1 Round, BURNDAYRAZ + normal melee damage = 14 + 52 * 1.4 = 86.
2 Round, if use BURNDAYRAZ then convert all glyphs: 14 + 52 * 1.7 = 102, 102 + 86 = 188 < 190
2 Round, if use BICEPS then convert all glyphs: 52 * 2.0 = 104, 104 + 86 = 190.

So, yeah...

The Dash
13-04-2010, 07:45 PM
Heh, just thought of doing the same today, but it seems you beat me to it.

Disclaimer: The following fanfiction is written by a person who has little familiarity with the cultural references contained in the game and thus would most likely depict the monsters and characters differently from how you perceive them to be. Oh, and it probably sucks. Please read at your own discretion.



The Gnome who wasn't enough

The villagers (those who had been brave enough to accompany me thus far) quickly shoved me down the steps into the darkness, before slamming the trap door behind me.

I still remember the recruitment poster: Be a hero! Go from village to village slaying evil! See the world!
All I’d seen so far was a whole bunch of crotches. Being a gnome paladin was hard sometimes. Well I told them I was a paladin. I’m actually a thief, not that it matters to them. As soon as I got to the part about me being a hero they shoved me in here.

I scrabbled in my pack until I found a torch. The feeble flame barely showed me anything. In fact, I couldn’t see the walls. At least I couldn’t see what was making all that groaning, which I suppose was an upside.

I tentatively took a step forward and my torch illuminated my first monster. I just about ****ed in my pants. To be honest I wasn't much of a hero, most towns don’t have dungeons full of stuff to be slain, but they do have plenty of stuff to steal.

The light seemed to burn it, because it emitted a loud shriek and took a swipe at me.

I quickly swung my sword at the pale blue shimmering creature. My sword seemed to glide right through its substance, with most of the blue gob sticking to my sword. I found that I had enough of it stuck for it to disappear, leaving behind a small pool of blood. Which I found amusing.

I thought I had gotten away relatively easy, but I soon noticed I was bleeding from a small scratch on my arm. It seems the bastard must have gotten me. I think it must have some sort of poison, because I can feel my soul draining away, although my life-force is still almost full.

And so went most of my dungeon exploring. It seems that this is some sort of crypt, populated with a juxtaposition of angry souls and the soulless. This crypt must be for the wealthy, because I keep finding all kinds of riches, simply strewn on the floor, even gold pieces and scrolls for spells at times.

I feel like I’ve explored most of the crypt - There have been many dead ends and many dead monsters (whose blood I keep having to wipe off my lovely new Elven boots (those elves make quality clothing), but I have still not found anything that would cause the villagers to be as frightened as they were.

Suddenly I turned a corner and found something interesting. It was a ghost like the first that I fought. But this one had something special about it. It was busy scratching something into the wall so I had time to observe it. Its matter was so thick it looked like I could touch it, its ethereal claws so sharp they were gliding through the stone-leaving deep tracks.

Slowly it became aware of my presence and turned to regard me coldly with its glowing red eyes. I thought I’d play it safe. I'd found a scroll detailing how to cast a fireball, and my backpack was full of potions I’d found (they'd fetch a pretty penny at market, but then again the villagers wouldn’t let me out if I didn't slay this thing)

So I did what came naturally. Cast fireballs at it and run away screaming when it got too close. Each fireball seemed to evaporate a bit of its substance, until I had to squint to make out its outline. Rather than waste another potion I decided it was time to finish this. I read over the first strike spell once or twice, cast it and took a mighty swing at the creature.

After doodling in its blood (Hero was here) I went and examined what it had scraped into the wall. It was the same thing over and over- "bored". Well that was to be expected, I’d also get bored stuck standing in one place waiting for something to happen.

I noticed the corridor behind it stretched into darkness. That’s where the real danger lay. The villagers kept muttering something about Frank. I know that there’s a legend in this region about a man called Frank who was really strong, and then there was a part about cupcakes, which I never understood.

I finally found him. Typical jock- all brawn and no brains. He was just standing there with a stupid expression on his face when I almost walked into him. He's built like a wall. This is going to be a tough battle.

Well, I finally killed him. I’m bleeding all over, and I’m sure my arm isn't meant to bend like that. Lets hope those villagers know some first aid, 'cause I sure as hell don’t have any more health potions.

It’s been two weeks. When I'd finally made it back to the trap door, and banged on it with all my remaining power, those damn villagers wouldn't open. They keep saying something about "completing the run". But I’m finished. I have no more potions, my limbs are still broken, and are infected. My meager supplies have run out. I must attempt to kill anything remaining down here. Maybe then they'll let me out.

The little gnome thief was never heard from again. The villagers assumed the crypt monsters had been too much for his little body, and quickly sealed over the door with concrete to stop anything escaping. When they realized they could have done this in the first place, everyone looked a bit embarrassed but ultimately just shrugged their shoulders and continued with their villager work.

dislekcia
13-04-2010, 11:28 PM
Wow guys, it's raining DD stories! Awesome :)

@Fall_ark: Thanks for the story, I like the way the final fight is totally possible! Based on a run you had, I take it? I kept trying to figure out how Garbad didn't just kill the hero on the first hit, till I remembered fighters' death protection!

@The_Dash: Poor gnome paladin... I mean thief. The crotch line had me laughing :)

fall_ark
14-04-2010, 02:48 AM
Heh, just thought of doing the same today, but it seems you beat me to it.


Aww! A midget thief is a guarantee for a good story! The ending is both hilarious and sad... I wish a lovable gnome like that had survived.



Wow guys, it's raining DD stories! Awesome :)

@Fall_ark: Thanks for the story, I like the way the final fight is totally possible! Based on a run you had, I take it? I kept trying to figure out how Garbad didn't just kill the hero on the first hit, till I remembered fighters' death protection!


Actually I just like making things up. :D I chose Gharbad exactly because the fighter has a one-time innate death-protection. (Otherwise you need a dwarf monk or paladin to survive that in a ranked dungeon...) And it's easier to work in how you can foresee the outcome of a battle.

DD has so much potential for stories though. An Orc Berserker might be conventional, but killing warlocks and dragons in a library sure is not. A Goblin Paladin, on the other hand, is awesome in and of itself. Add some class features and the already hilarious items, and you've got a great fan-fic waiting to be written!

DMT
14-04-2010, 06:53 PM
First person to write fanfiction about a goblin priest with a wicked guitar gets a prize :)

JJ10DMAN
15-04-2010, 10:26 AM
Just upgraded from 004 to 0051, and I wanted to add my two cents:

I don't think Taurog, the hack n slash god, should get mad at the use of WONAFYT. Without the use of other spells, it has absolutely no purpose except to facilitate the efficient pummeling of things - what better use for all that sissy mana!

EDIT: regarding any balance concerns, I'm sure you can think of something. This is a stylistic suggestion.

Darth
15-04-2010, 08:51 PM
Hi guys.

My fluffy tile set is sort of coming along. I've used paint.net (thanks :P) and its working fine. I thought I would just share my file set that I've been using with you until my fluffy one (cute bunny-rabbits and all) is ready.

Its really simple and I use it cause of the simplicity. Wasn't designed to look special and I only spent like 2 hours on it. I use the monsters and characters from the plainer set.

Enjoy.. or not... depends on your taste I guess.

http://www.box.net/signup/collablink/d_40869924/35b4d23dfeb39

ZoRPA
16-04-2010, 08:29 AM
I'm enjoying the new look, but I still suck at this. :p

Ek sukkel ook my gat af met die game!

This game reminds me of a text based game I used to play, called The Legend of the Green Dragon.

Chainsaw
16-04-2010, 08:01 PM
Okay, I give up. Any tips on finishing Assassin Crypt?

fall_ark
17-04-2010, 03:55 AM
Okay, I give up. Any tips on finishing Assassin Crypt?

Just go human and wait for the Glowing Guardian. Human gives you % damage bonus, Glowing Guardian gives you base damage bonus. With a bit luck (get fireball early on) it should become a breeze.
And don't forget the usual trick of leveling up fast and leaving some monsters for level-ups in boss-fights.

Squid
17-04-2010, 04:42 PM
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/73/forestdungeon.jpg


Forset Tileset (http://www.box.net/shared/px6953bz2x)

And yes, your attack is a bowl of fruit.

Shadow_Con
18-04-2010, 12:48 AM
yay, desktop forests.

Twinge
18-04-2010, 07:56 PM
Curious about the top 2 scores. They seem hacked, considering those players have no other scores on the list. Also, they are unobtainable, unless there is some exploit that I'm unaware of?

I remember running some numbers to estimate highest realistically possible scores, and I came up with a number lower than those 2. The scores are either hacked in some fashion or there is a very abuseable way to wrack up a lot of extra score somehow (probably damage dealt if anything). Editing the score isn't entirely trivial (I've tried editing the amount in memory to see if the game would be so easily fooled -- there is already protection against that), but I imagine it is still possible.

Nandrew
20-04-2010, 12:32 PM
Hah, *love* the fanfics and tilesets! Community contributions rock. :)

DukeOFprunes
20-04-2010, 12:41 PM
And yes, your attack is a bowl of fruit.

That's so unexpectedly great it deserves some kind of reward. Beaming some awe your way now.

EDIT: For the whole tileset, not just that comment. Doh.

TenMinuteLurker
22-04-2010, 03:24 PM
Hello Nandrew... great game!

I am at 18/18 completion on all the dungeons and even have a few high-ranked scores. When is the next version coming out? What changes can we expect?

Daz
22-04-2010, 08:10 PM
So, I found this game on TIGsource, and Ive been playing it way too much the past few weeks, and felt I should sign up and post.

First off (if not obvious) I love the game.

Secondly, at the risk of seeming somewhat egotistical, I seem to have gotten rather good at the game, so I thought Id post some "handy hints" and the like. Im aware theres a wiki, but Id rather codify my thoughts into a single doc, rather than trying to spread it over the wiki as fact. Other people can review it and wiki it, if so desired.

Thirdly, I thought Id offer some criticism for Nandrew, which he can take or leave as he pleases:

The transferring money between runs thing is really annoying. It just means I have to grind between every serious attempt: and thats not really a good thing. Also, it pretty much renders goblin pointless, other than for grinding. Please remove the gold cap, and start the character on X gold (+Y for completeing snake pit).
Thank you.


Anyway, without further ado...




First off, Ive uploaded a video to youtube demonstrating a sample high score run. In this case, I came 26th, which isnt fantastic, but I screwed up a bit. You can view the run here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4aXqIWQsAE

The video is a bit rough, but hopefully you can see whats going on.

Brief commentary:
Im going for a high score. For this, I roll as vampire. The reason for this is simple: vampire is hugely overpowered, if played properly. If you dont know why, the reasons will quickly become evident.

For a high score, you want to defeat the boss as quickly as possible. This means running around like a madman and not giving yourself time to consider options: this requires a little practise, otherwise the snap decisions you make will likely get you killed. About 50% of my scoreboard runs result in me not noticing my health dwindling as I walk around, or hitting an enemy that I shouldnt.

I start off by looking for fireball. If I dont find fireball before I need a health potion, I restart. On this particular instance, it took about 7 or 8 restarts (cut from the video) to find fireball nearby.

With fireball in hand (or slot), I attack a level 3 wraith. It takes 2 health potions to defeat: thats fine, vampire gets easier the more you level.
Im now level 2. I attack a level 4 wraith. It dies without too much fuss - no health potions required.
Im level 3. I attack a level 7 snake. It needs my last health potion, but no fuss.
Im level 4. I have plenty health now, so i can afford to start exploring. As I do, i happen across an altar to tiki: thats fantastic, a free health potion is always useful. I normally avoid shops and altars (because they throw up popups that take valuable seconds to close), but sometimes you need to cross em.
As I wander, I hit any monsters that get in my way. Im looking to find the boss: the sooner I find him, the better my score. I could be wrong, but bosses seem to exist in the central-ish area, so I aim towards there.
I find the boss at 1:10, and he dies at 1:21. It takes a little longer than it shouldve, but thats because I panicked I didnt have the health to kill him. Stupid, really.
Now the boss is dead, I can take my sweet time: all thats left is to clean up. I try and hit higher level enemies when possible, so I can be sure to get to level 10. I use lemmisi to up my exploration bonus, and get the two lemmisi bonuses.

I couldve got the Spellcaster and Tooth and Freaking Nail achievements if I had remembered, but I was trying to rush through it. Silly mistake really, but its incidental.
The main points are really: get fireball, level to 6/7 as quickly as possible, kill boss. Thats pretty much it.



There, I hope that isnt too extensive. If people find it useful, I was thinking about posting videos for completing challenges - in particular, the difficult unlock challenges.

DMT
22-04-2010, 10:40 PM
Nice guide Daz, and good run.

The only thing I would add is that once the boss is dead asap, the rest of the game should be focused on getting as much damage as possible on the final scoreboard. I managed to score 58,000ish despite killing the boss in about 3:00, combined with your 1:21 run you'd of broken 60,000.

The way to go about it is to damage as many monsters as you can see to as low as they can get before dying, and then exploring till they heal up. It's kinda an inverse of normal tile/hp management, each tile explored represents more potential damage (and thus score) that you can put out.

Beat the boss at as low a level as possible, as each level is your full heal. Get your exp count low enough so that you can level with one hit on a low level monster, and proceed to dish out as much damage as you can. Then level and explore until they are all healed and repeat.

It's pretty easy to get 20,000 points of damage with this technique, which is about 10,000 more than you normally get clearing a dungeon.

Twinge
22-04-2010, 11:05 PM
I feel I should also point out that Vampire isn't overpowered merely because of casting Fireball from HP -- making that weaker will not sufficiently nerf Vampire, not by a long shot. My current Vampire high score of about ~54000 didn't use Fireball whatsoever, and I didn't really give it very many tries (I know I could at least pull 56k easily, which is another 10 ranks or so).

Maybe the truly highest scores up there (1.5 minute game scoring 70k, etc.) need it, but you can run a solid 3-4 minute game following Dracul, Trog, or Jiyva and just wrecking face with massive damage, and its still far too easy compared to other classes.

travcm
23-04-2010, 02:12 AM
Here are a few other advanced tips to get optimal runs with the Vampire:

Obviously you need to kill the boss and hopefully get Dracul asap without exploring much map.

After that, it becomes a different game. Your big source of points will be damage dealt. Do not kill or explore anything. First, visit every visible shop and buy any available damage resistance, scouting orb, stone of seekers, and vampiric sword. Based on your situation, you might also want to buy more max health, health potions, or damage (spoon/fine sword). Second, convert any glyph you have is that's visible, except for Fireball, Bysseps, and Lemmisi. You will need the life steal.

Taking less damage at this point is actually more important than doing more damage, since you don't want to be able to kill enemies with 1 blow; you want to almost kill them. That's your next job. Almost kill every visible enemy on the screen. If your life is low, you can occasionally take out level 1-2 enemies for health (and extra life steal if you worship Dracul). Do not explore blackness. Make sure you're aware of the formulas, since you must also calculate whether it's more health effective to Fireball or hit an enemy (also factoring in Bysseps, if you have it). IE If striking for 42 damage will net you -9 health and you are level 6 (24 damage fireball), then you should strike. You may need potions or blood to do this, which is fine. It's very difficult to do this after boss part of the game perfectly, but you have the time to make the calculations to optimize your score.

After everything visible is almost dead, explore small amounts of darkness at a time, while never allowing your existing enemies to regenerate fully. You are losing out on points if they do. Try to explore towards more enemies if you were able to purchase scouting orb or stone of seekers.

Keep all existing and newly uncovered enemies at minimum health. Only kill something if you are about to die and have no potions/blood. Only kill enemies that can be defeated in one strike or fireball, since they are not renewable sources of points. Do not level up unless you have no other outs. Keep exploring and repeating this process. It's tedious.

Eventually, you'll have the map fully explored. Now start casting Lemmisi once at a time while keeping all enemies from hitting full health. Once the map is completely revealed (very lucky players will still be at level 7), convert Lemmisi and overkill your enemies as much as possible. What I mean is have them as close to 1 health as possible before you make the final strike (with Bysseps if you have it). Start with the highest levels first; that way you'll be able to do more overkill damage to more enemies while at level 9 or 10. Eventually everything will be dead and you can retire.

You can easily get 60,000 if you follow this strategy, even without Lemmisi or Dracul. The optimal run would include those 2, vampiric sword, keg o health, and many high level meat men early on. Meat Men are the best source of points and will regen your health with life steal. With that luck, you'll likely be in the neighborhood of 80,000. The scores beyond that are hacked unless there's an exploit that I'm unaware of.

Daz
23-04-2010, 10:19 AM
Many thanks for the critique all. Apparently Im not quite as pro as I thought :D

I was vaguely aware of the "damaging and healing enemies" trick, but I wasnt aware that it was significantly worthwhile.

I'll have a play around with these tactics, see if I can make a more optimal video which breaks the 80k mark.

dislekcia
23-04-2010, 11:18 AM
Finally, some insight into exactly how people are getting those hectic scores! Altho I'm still curious as to how people are getting non-vamp high scores. Vamps are hax, after all.

Also, it's really weird seeing the "old" interface in the game now ;)

Nandrew
23-04-2010, 01:32 PM
Hello Nandrew... great game!

I am at 18/18 completion on all the dungeons and even have a few high-ranked scores. When is the next version coming out? What changes can we expect?

Next version comes as soon as possible. :) I'm in a bit of a rut this week with juggling other commitments and a sudden, mysterious loss of ADSL, and I know that the other two QCF devs are also trying to put together an event structure for A Cool New Thing (TM), but we're still actively working on stuff.

As for content ... I've mentioned religion and interface a few times before, but I should also note that we regularly check up on the wiki to see what tactics, exploits and complaints players use. For example, we're working on adjusting the balance of characters like the vampire, and spells like the blood and poison glyphs. :)

Twinge
23-04-2010, 08:49 PM
Finally, some insight into exactly how people are getting those hectic scores! Altho I'm still curious as to how people are getting non-vamp high scores. Vamps are hax, after all.

Well, the current top 3 are almost definitely just hacked scores; I'm not sure of their method (I already tried the only method I know, which doesn't work -- I'm not exactly experienced at cheating at this stuff, but maybe someone else has some ideas of what might prevent it?). Moving on down, the next 3 are probably hacked too, as well as the 68k Gorgon.

Going down to Rogues and Monks (and Berserkers), the trick is basically to go quickly, get good equipment, and get a good god. Rogues show how strong damage is compared to health, especially paired with First Strike. Rogues can also be strong if luck swings your way - on average it won't, obviously, but with ranked games being 4-minute speed runs eventually they will.

Monks show the opposite - how string damage reduction can be, especially when Human or items can offset their damage reduction. As for items, Fire Sword is amazingly good, physical damage prevention is quite good, gauntlets are amazing, random glyphs turn into +10% for Humans, etc. (I haven't even seen the last 6 items in-game yet.)

Human is clearly the strongest normal race - getting damage high enough to kill something in 1 hit instead of 2 (or even 2 instead of 3, etc.) is huge. Dwarf is probably second strongest (I have a few of the Dwarf top scores); the HP can be quite nice, boosting Rogue high enough to survive 1 hit from the boss which is all it needs for example -- but to compete with Human it'd also need to heal more as you walk or something.

If you notice the tendencies, Rogue and Monk are definitely strong but Human can be strong with almost anything. The other special races (Half-dragon & Gorgon) are pretty strong, though nowhere near Vampire levels of course. Half-dragons can likely build up some fairly massive damage by smashing mobs into other mobs since they can't kill what they're smashing them into.

I've already gone into some detail about glyph balance and monster balance on the wiki, so I'll get into races and classes here a bit. Hmm, maybe I'll go ahead and make a tier list, and perhaps other experienced players can as well, to help indicate what's too strong and too weak:

Tier 0 (God Tier, gamebreaking)
Vampire (The whole concept needs to be reworked a bit for this guy -- just making it flat weaker overall will lead to more failed games, but it will still be too strong once it breaks past the early game with some good luck. A good final result might be a slightly strong early game and a significantly weaker endgame.)


Tier 0.5
Rogue (Damage is king)


Tier 1 (Strong)
Human (Dropping increase to 8% isn't neat and clean anymore, but would be a fine starting nerf if nothing else is in mind)
Monk (Quite possibly only Tier 2 when not paired with Human)
Berserker (Again, damage is king)
Sorcerer (Not as strong as the other T1 classes, but stronger than the T2s. Makes a quite strong hybrid character combining melee and magic.)
Half-dragon (Once you get the knockback damage high, can be quite strong, with enough HP to tank a lot of hits (but can run out of exploration); somewhat balanced by no Fireball.)


Tier 2 (Average)
Dwarf
Elf
Tinker (some items are VERY strong, but you'll get enough strong items for other classes every 2nd or 3rd game and they'll be paired with the class's natural abilities then, too.)
Assassin (Poison itself is definitely overpowered right now, but I think that's all that needs to be addressed.)
Crusader (Martyr doesn't seem to work for me at all, but assuming that's fixed they should be a solid T2 class)
Paladin (Undead-specific can make these 2 a bit swingy)
Priest
Warlord
Transmuter (Seems almost Tier 1, but I haven't played enough to say for sure. Abusing ****ing off the Earth Mother is too strong.)
Wizard (If you can start pulling off 3 Fireballs at a time, pretty strong. Haven't played a lot though.)
Gorgon (Maybe T1, but seems T2 from my limited plays of it.)


Tier 3 (Weak)
Halfling (Single potions for these is not strong enough as is, but 2 potions would probably be too strong. Hmm...)
Gnome
Orc (Loose idea I haven't really thought through - Instead of a flat +5, it could give +3 and +1 per PC level? {4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12})
Bloodmage (Glyph changes may fix this)
Fighter (1st ability is a weakish item, 3rd can be found via item/glyph/god and does NOT overlap currently (overlapping with other deathblow prevention might help); that mediocrity and the +1xp just isn't enough to make a strong class.)


Tier 4 (Garbage Tier, never worth using competitively)
Goblin (May be fixed with eventual gold system overhaul, may still need more buffing depending on how it is changed)



A bit rambling, as my posts are wont to be, but hopefully useful. Overall the game is pretty well balanced for how early in development it is - obviously there's still a lot of tweaks to be done, but a lot of game designers have a terrible sense of balance and would have 3 overpowered classes and 15 useless ones at this stage ;)

dislekcia
24-04-2010, 01:01 AM
Woot! Thanks for the great feedback, really appreciate it. It's interesting seeing how different players rate different classes, the more points of data we have, the better :)

Can you believe that pre-Vampire, Elf Wizards used to be the sheer hax class? They used to get 4 extra glyphs. I can tell you that we're going to be debating some possible fixes for runaway loops and the score exploits, that should make for some entertaining discussions!


A bit rambling, as my posts are wont to be, but hopefully useful. Overall the game is pretty well balanced for how early in development it is - obviously there's still a lot of tweaks to be done, but a lot of game designers have a terrible sense of balance and would have 3 overpowered classes and 15 useless ones at this stage ;)

I know. Nandrew's design sense is incredible. Don't tell him I said this, but I'm sorta afraid of him sometimes.

Suho
24-04-2010, 03:58 AM
After reading the above posts on "damage milking" (for lack of a better term), I think my previous idea of removing the "damage dealt" category entirely is a good thing. (http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showpost.php?p=270029&postcount=639)

I realize that people will always find ways to game the system, and that is in fact one aspect of the game, but... I don't know, it should make sense in terms of the game world itself. Hmm. I don't know if I'm explaining this right. I guess what I'm trying to say is that damage milking seems to run counter to the spirit of the game, the idea that you're in a dungeon that you're trying to clear out.

This is not, of course, a criticism of anyone who does this. They're smart people who have figured out the system and the best way to maximize their scores within the system. I just think the means to maximize your score should be consistent with your purported goals in game.

Take, for example, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I love that game. Played through two full times with different characters, and on my second run I made sure I completed every last quest in the game. But the leveling system was broken. Because monsters leveled up when you did, you had to be very careful how you leveled up, which meant that you had to be very careful about which skills you took as your major skills. For the vanilla game, a lot of people ended up choosing as major skills those that they were least likely to use, in order to control their leveling. This destroyed any sense of immersion or character for me--you get yanked out of the game and reminded that you are playing a system, not immersed in a fantasy world. (Thank goodness for mods, though.)

In DD, the problem isn't quite as pronounced, but I think damage milking is along the same lines. On the other hand, it only comes into play when you're trying to get a high score, so I suppose one could just choose to ignore it.

Hope this didn't come off the wrong way.

Daz
24-04-2010, 02:53 PM
I agree with Suho here. The whole "damage milking" is really just a form of gaming the system, rather than playing the game. It also favours some classes more than others.

Imo, I think the whole "points for speed" thing is bad as well. Once again, some classes suffer horribly (monk and gorgon seem to be the most obvious).

I realise the game is still very much a beta product, but I think the scoring system could use a bit of a rework. I like the "achievements" thing: perhaps that could be focused on.

Also, Lemmisi is a weird spell: I find it completely useless for 99% of runs, but invaluable for squeezing points out on a ranked game. This kinda seems backward to me.

I realise that this is early days, if there were some hypothetical magic way to make all classes eligable for serious leaderboard attempts, itd be nice.

dislekcia
24-04-2010, 08:28 PM
Yeah, the fact that people are playing this sort of meta-game to get scores sort of points the finger at us for not giving them enough to do ;)

We do want to split the score lists up into various categories though, that should make quite a big difference. I don't know what the timing is going to be like on that. Maybe we'll have to wait for the full version before we can really have a well structured leader board system.

Syrion
25-04-2010, 06:49 PM
It bothered me that the Desktop Dungeons window is so small, but when you maximize it, the aspect ratio gets messed up, making the game look somewhat distorted. Therefore, I made a little script which automatically runs Desktop Dungeons and then doubles the window size, so it has a "clean" doubled resolution :)

Just download this, put it in the Deskop Dungeons folder and run it: http://www.mediafire.com/?lzzmyztnmqm
Don't worry about the exe, it's just the compiled script and doesn't change anything at all about the game.


If you want to alter the script, here's the original file, although it requires AutoHotkey to be installed: http://www.mediafire.com/?jiz22onygt2

dislekcia
26-04-2010, 01:50 AM
It bothered me that the Desktop Dungeons window is so small, but when you maximize it, the aspect ratio gets messed up, making the game look somewhat distorted.

That's odd. The game should fullscreen and maintain its aspect ratio, filling in the unused areas of the screen with black bars. This works fine on my widescreen laptop and my 4:3 desktop. Any chance of a zipped screenshot so that I can try to see what the problem might be?

Also, I know what you mean about the window seeming really small at normal res. I can't play it that way ;)

Syrion
26-04-2010, 03:31 AM
That's odd. The game should fullscreen and maintain its aspect ratio, filling in the unused areas of the screen with black bars. This works fine on my widescreen laptop and my 4:3 desktop. Any chance of a zipped screenshot so that I can try to see what the problem might be?

Also, I know what you mean about the window seeming really small at normal res. I can't play it that way ;)
You're right, I actually used the wrong term. The aspect ratio is fine, but as the maximized window's resolution isn't necessarily a "natural" multiple of the default resolution, the scaling isn't quite right, making some "pixels" look bigger than others.
Here's a little part of a screen at twice the normal resolution and next to it what it looks like when I maximize the window on my 1280x1024 desktop:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/100426/f443ssm7.jpg http://s1.directupload.net/images/100426/9v5jalqj.jpg

Most noticably the eyes are uneven, as are the two bandits in general. That's what I ment by "distorted". It's not a huge issue and I played it like that for a while, but I really prefer it looking "clean" at exactly twice the normal size.

Suho
27-04-2010, 12:48 PM
Nice script, Syrion. Thanks. I've always played DD at the natural resolution for precisely the reason you mention.

(Still, it would be nice to have a higher resolution game--i.e., that the game's native resolution would be double what it is now, or at least maybe 50%. Don't know if that's in the cards, though. It would take a reworking of the entire graphics set, for one.)

dislekcia
27-04-2010, 04:27 PM
(Still, it would be nice to have a higher resolution game--i.e., that the game's native resolution would be double what it is now, or at least maybe 50%. Don't know if that's in the cards, though. It would take a reworking of the entire graphics set, for one.)

You'll be pleased to know that we've upped the res for the full version :)

Suho
28-04-2010, 02:03 AM
You'll be pleased to know that we've upped the res for the full version :)

Yay! I am most definitely pleased! :D

dislekcia
28-04-2010, 03:01 AM
Just a bit of a heads-up, some bad news has come up that means we're not at full capacity right now... We're not going anywhere and we're certainly not stopping dev on the game, we're just not 100% up to speed right now. So I'm afraid that the new version's going to be a little later than we expected.

Sorry about that. At least we didn't set a date that we could slip...

Almost
01-05-2010, 10:54 PM
Finally, some insight into exactly how people are getting those hectic scores! Altho I'm still curious as to how people are getting non-vamp high scores. Vamps are hax, after all.

It's been a while since I've played, but I had a couple of the high non vamp scores. After killing the boss as quickly as possible it comes down to doing as much damage as possible. This means attacking enemies but not quite killing them and then exploring to heal them. For maximizing damage, human is obviously the best class, and I usually went with either rogues or monks.

With the rogue you have a lot of attack, and so can get a lot of extra damage in that last hit. (If the enemy is at 1 health and you have 100 attack you get points for the full 100 damage)
With the human monk you do not initially have much attack, but after converting a few glyphs, worshipping taurog, and buying some items, you have a huge attack while also having 50+ % resistances and double regeneration. This means that you can attack lots of enemies without worrying about dieing (trying to not kill them, if you can help it) and you will heal enough from just a few tiles to continue doing this with a lot of different enemies at once.

GG Crono
02-05-2010, 08:11 PM
I have never been a big fan of Roguelikes, but man, I tried this and I absolutely love it. Good work! :D

(I even made a TVTropes article for it, because I am a huge dork.) (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DesktopDungeons)

Though, I have a question for the playerbase. Is it just me, or is IMAWAL kind of useless? I mean, you're depriving yourself of EXP and blocking off a path. I can't think of any scenario in which this would be a good idea.

Suho
03-05-2010, 02:55 AM
(I don't know if the following information might be considered "spoilers," but I couldn't find a spoiler tag or even any way to change the font color...)

Well, I suppose it might not be a completely bad idea for a Transmuter (which gets the wall-destroying glyph for free, can cast it for 1 mana, and regains HP for every wall destroyed). Having the Earthmother as your patron deity will also give you +1 HP to your max HP for every monster you petrify. Finally, there are also some scoring bonuses for petrifying monsters.

Whether or not any of these advantages make up for possibly blocking a path and missing out on XP, though, is another story. I used the IMAWAL glyph precisely once--the first time I picked it up--and then never touched it again.

GG Crono
03-05-2010, 03:09 AM
I used the IMAWAL glyph precisely once--the first time I picked it up--and then never touched it again.

Yeah, same. Even as a Transmuter or while worshiping Earthmother, I don't think either of those things outweigh getting EXP.

Suho
03-05-2010, 05:11 AM
Yeah, I expect (hope?) that this aspect of the game will get a facelift in the next version.

Nice TV Tropes article, by the way. :)

GG Crono
03-05-2010, 05:55 AM
Thank you! Feel free to add to it. :)

dislekcia
03-05-2010, 11:24 AM
Yeah, petrification is a problem at the moment... The changes to the worship system have meant that IMAWAL is now a more considered glyph instead of an almost instant-conversion.

There are other things we might do to it to balance it up a little, although you're right, there are few things we could give players that outweigh the exp-loss AND aren't super exploitable (like if it dropped a random attack/mana/hp bonus, for instance).

GG Crono
03-05-2010, 04:14 PM
Speaking just for myself, I would not be sad to just see it go and have the Earthmother's bonus changed altogether.

Maybe extra HP per level the way Binlor Ironshield gives extra attack? That would be a nice option. But I'm no developer, and I'm sure there's a delicate balance of...er...balance. I trust that the dude doing the tinkering knows what he's doing! ;)

shizak
06-05-2010, 02:44 AM
hey everybody,

i had to re-install my xp-pro-machine and since that i can't seem to get desktop dungeons running!
i also get the "Unexpected error occurred when running the game." message like squid did( http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showthread.php?p=237195#post237195 )

i extracted all the files, i also tried a fresh 'install' (i.e. fresh download without saves) but it's always the same: click on .exe ->loading image->error message

if you could only help me!! i am soooooo addicted!!


edit:
damn, the panic must have blinded me, since it was so obvious.... newly installed threatfire was the culprit. killed the processes with process hacker(since task manager is not able to) and now it works again!!
so if anybody else got this message, try killing the processes of your security software.

dislekcia
06-05-2010, 11:09 AM
damn, the panic must have blinded me, since it was so obvious.... newly installed threatfire was the culprit. killed the processes with process hacker(since task manager is not able to) and now it works again!!
so if anybody else got this message, try killing the processes of your security software.

Wow, that's pretty strange... Wonder what it was that the security software didn't like. Maybe the way GM loads sprites during runtime?

Chuluka
06-05-2010, 08:44 PM
Is the game going to receive an update or is the updated version going to have to be purchased?

dislekcia
06-05-2010, 11:08 PM
Is the game going to receive an update or is the updated version going to have to be purchased?

There will be at least one more freely downloadable version of the game. After that we're moving it over to a different codebase and where it goes from there depends on a whole host of factors.

Obviously we do want to sell a much expanded version of the game at some point :)

Suho
07-05-2010, 03:52 AM
I know it may be a premature question at this point, but where do you see DD going in the future? How do you expect the codebase change to affect the game? How will this "much-expanded version" compare to what we have at the moment? Is it going to be essentially the same game with a lot more features and polish, or will the underlying gameplay and concepts be changing?

I'll understand if you can't answer these questions now, but I can't help being curious.

dislekcia
07-05-2010, 12:57 PM
I know it may be a premature question at this point, but where do you see DD going in the future? How do you expect the codebase change to affect the game? How will this "much-expanded version" compare to what we have at the moment? Is it going to be essentially the same game with a lot more features and polish, or will the underlying gameplay and concepts be changing?

I'll understand if you can't answer these questions now, but I can't help being curious.

It's the same gameplay polished to as high a shine as we can get it. The underlying mechanics won't change (apart from maybe one or two features that we've intended for ages but haven't been able to wrangle into the GM version) so it'll still be the same quick-session roguelike puzzle hybrid, but we're adding meta-game elements and polishing the crap out of things like the interface and difficulty progression. You'll see echos of what I'm talking about in the next freeware release :)

The codebase change is mainly to allow us to implement new features and quests much faster (trying out new gods or character classes is quite hard in the current structure) and to get the game running on as many platforms as we can without spending ages working on compatibility issues.

Basically, the DD you know and love right now is a slightly more difficult to play subset of what we want the full game to be. We've been using this version to test concepts and see what works and what doesn't (scarily enough, it seems that most things Nandrew does work really well!) so we certainly won't be "rebooting" the game and turning it into an FPS. Unless Activision buys us out or something...

Suho
07-05-2010, 02:01 PM
Thank you for answering my questions. That sounds great!

I must admit that I am rather stuck on some of the special dungeons with certain classes at the moment, so in particular the idea of having a smoother difficulty progression appeals to me. It's probably due in large part to my lack of skill, but at the moment I seem to run smack into walls from time to time that take forever to get past.

I get the impression that Nandrew has something of a knack for this game development thing. I have Electric Zombies as well, and although I don't play it as much as DD, it's quite fun!

Slinius
13-05-2010, 07:28 PM
Having played moria / angband on and off since the late 80 and never finished one of the many versions. I recognize the feeling you describe. And now being able to play a quick dungeon with a fair chance of winning is just what i needed in this genre of games.

Good luck and I will be following this game.

Ps haven?t finished all characters / levels yet so a lot of (precious) spare time to kill.

dislekcia
13-05-2010, 07:54 PM
Having played moria / angband on and off since the late 80 and never finished one of the many versions. I recognize the feeling you describe. And now being able to play a quick dungeon with a fair chance of winning is just what i needed in this genre of games.

Good luck and I will be following this game.

Ps haven?t finished all characters / levels yet so a lot of (precious) spare time to kill.

It's interesting how many DD players are "lapsed" roguelike players who class DD as a similar genre. Current roguelike players (the ones who seem to win at things like Crawl, which I just can't do) keep insisting DD isn't a roguelike ;)

I'm not saying it is or isn't - it feels like it's own game to me - but I find the debates that pop up wherever DD gets mentioned fascinating!

GG Crono
13-05-2010, 10:09 PM
Personally, I always had a hard time getting into roguelikes, so DD has been just my speed.

As for its purported genre, I usually describe it to friends as "a roguelike, or perhaps a puzzle game disguised as one".

Twinge
13-05-2010, 10:38 PM
By definition, it probably does count as a rogue-like: Randomly generated levels, turn-based gameplay, and permadeath are all present. In practice it 'feels' more like a puzzle. However you define it, it's a good cross-breed with some original ideas and a good amount of promise.

Miktar
13-05-2010, 10:42 PM
It'd be easier if people just listed DD's genre as 'Desktop Dungeons' :P

Aramon
15-05-2010, 07:06 PM
Great job


The addition of the game on the May NAG disk was great

dislekcia
15-05-2010, 09:35 PM
Great job


The addition of the game on the May NAG disk was great

Oh, neat!

Didn't actually know the game was going out on the NAG DVD. Ta to whoever did that :)

Apparently the game also got a mention in this month's EDGE magazine. I'm desperately trying to get a scan of what that looked like.

Aramon
15-05-2010, 09:55 PM
Oh, neat!

Didn't actually know the game was going out on the NAG DVD. Ta to whoever did that :)

Apparently the game also got a mention in this month's EDGE magazine. I'm desperately trying to get a scan of what that looked like.


Its to add to the rouge like RPG theme rodains wrote in his ariticle

DukeOFprunes
15-05-2010, 10:20 PM
Oh, neat!

Didn't actually know the game was going out on the NAG DVD. Ta to whoever did that :)

Apparently the game also got a mention in this month's EDGE magazine. I'm desperately trying to get a scan of what that looked like.

Saw it from the newsstand but I'll grab a copy tomorrow or so. Darn near took a photo :D

Aramon
16-05-2010, 01:08 PM
i REALLY WOULD LIKE SOMETHING OF THIS SORT! a desktop turned into a dungeon for computer viruses is just the sort of thing i nedd@! Huh? What!?!

If you have the May NAG then look under the extras folder

DukeOFprunes
16-05-2010, 01:38 PM
hey thanks i like pie does anyone know how to be allowed to post a new thread

Check the FAQs, and stop posting Stupid.

Here's the EDGE scan, DD is their internet game of the month.
It's almost 1MB. (http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/furp/Pics/edgeDDscan.jpg)

dislekcia
16-05-2010, 01:42 PM
Check the FAQs, and stop posting Stupid.

Here's the EDGE scan, DD is their internet game of the month.
It's almost 1MB. (http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/furp/Pics/edgeDDscan.jpg)

Woot! Many thanks :)

(And it just got slightly harder for el spammer to get to making threads)

Suho
17-05-2010, 06:06 AM
I don't know if I would classify DD as a pure roguelike. I think the main difference for me is that the monsters don't move. I would consider myself a lapsed roguelike player, one of those who liked the games and played them, but was never really all that good at them.

GG Crono
17-05-2010, 06:55 AM
I think something is hinky on the online high score table.

The highest score is a ten-digit number, which is suspect enough when #2 is only six. But when you also consider the fact that the first four digits of said number are 1337...yeah.

Is there any way to get that taken down?

dislekcia
17-05-2010, 11:34 AM
I don't know if I would classify DD as a pure roguelike. I think the main difference for me is that the monsters don't move. I would consider myself a lapsed roguelike player, one of those who liked the games and played them, but was never really all that good at them.

I'm a lapsed roguelike player too. For all the time I spent with ADOM and Nethack in highschool, I never finished once... Nandrew's much better at them than I am ;)


I think something is hinky on the online high score table.

The highest score is a ten-digit number, which is suspect enough when #2 is only six. But when you also consider the fact that the first four digits of said number are 1337...yeah.

Is there any way to get that taken down?

Yeah, the high score list looks like it's been compromised. To be honest, we knew that would happen - the high score system we're using is pretty basic and isn't anything we've written ourselves. The last list was hacked, so this list was going to be hacked too, it was only a matter of time...

We're looking at other systems for the next freeware release, ones where we might have more control and could start trying to stratify the high scores the way we want to for the full game. Obviously we're writing a proper solution for the full, when we get to the point where we're submitting scores ;)

Patashu
31-05-2010, 11:30 AM
I registered to say that I've picked this game up and been having a blast with it! It's got that great coffee-break-sized feel to it, and every time it starts to get a little samey I unlock a new class and new toys to play with - most of the selection screen is still blacked out! And throwing everything you have at the boss to just vanquish it is a great feeling - they're sufficiently intimidating, I think. :)

I've been kind of terrified to use the gods though, except for the few ones that are 'tame', like the one who likes it when you mine. I'm tempted to spoil myself on it!

dislekcia
31-05-2010, 08:02 PM
I registered to say that I've picked this game up and been having a blast with it! It's got that great coffee-break-sized feel to it, and every time it starts to get a little samey I unlock a new class and new toys to play with - most of the selection screen is still blacked out! And throwing everything you have at the boss to just vanquish it is a great feeling - they're sufficiently intimidating, I think. :)

I've been kind of terrified to use the gods though, except for the few ones that are 'tame', like the one who likes it when you mine. I'm tempted to spoil myself on it!

Glad you enjoy the game :)

The gods aren't too scary (well, apart from Dracul) most are rather benign (apart from Dracul) and are a little overpowered when you follow them early in the current version. We're working on a different system for god worship, one that lets you choose what you want to get as rewards.

Chainsaw
31-05-2010, 09:42 PM
Hurry up damn you. I'm getting starved off my Desktop Dungeons goodness!

Lekon
02-06-2010, 11:38 PM
Me too! Come on ye great gods of Desktop Dungeon. We need to "collect" verb more stuff!

At least another teaser image for us to salivate over?

Also, is the next one the last free one before you gents switch over to a pay based one built in your own engine? (Or use Unity for it?)

dislekcia
03-06-2010, 04:44 AM
Me too! Come on ye great gods of Desktop Dungeon. We need to "collect" verb more stuff!

At least another teaser image for us to salivate over?

Also, is the next one the last free one before you gents switch over to a pay based one built in your own engine? (Or use Unity for it?)

Rodain is working non-stop to get the next freeware version out. At least, we think he is. He's been making lots of funny noises recently...

As to whether the next version will be the last freeware one or not: We're not entirely sure. It's likely that it will be, mainly because it's taking longer and longer to add new features to the GM version for testing. Compared to the framework we've been building in Unity, it takes ages to make small changes or track down bugs resulting from those changes.

We might come up with something that we want to try out on players with the GM version, so there might be one more freeware release after this one, but that's rather unlikely. We want the full to be out ASAP, just like you guys do :)

Lekon
03-06-2010, 08:23 AM
Rodain is working non-stop to get the next freeware version out. At least, we think he is. He's been making lots of funny noises recently...

As to whether the next version will be the last freeware one or not: We're not entirely sure. It's likely that it will be, mainly because it's taking longer and longer to add new features to the GM version for testing. Compared to the framework we've been building in Unity, it takes ages to make small changes or track down bugs resulting from those changes.

We might come up with something that we want to try out on players with the GM version, so there might be one more freeware release after this one, but that's rather unlikely. We want the full to be out ASAP, just like you guys do :)

Spiffy. Woot. Awesomeness. Other happy noises!

Can't wait to throw some money at you either, once the pay version comes out. One of the few games out there I've thought "Damn, I really want these guys to make some money" instead of "They're ... charging for this?"

dislekcia
03-06-2010, 04:06 PM
Can't wait to throw some money at you either, once the pay version comes out. One of the few games out there I've thought "Damn, I really want these guys to make some money" instead of "They're ... charging for this?"

:D

Careful, we might start taking pre-orders or something if people keep saying stuff like that...

Nandrew
03-06-2010, 08:11 PM
Heh. Next version is slower than expected, but I'll confirm that I'm now working at full pace again after a rather long hiatus. Sorry for the inconvenience, a lot of people have been wondering about this next iteration. :P

GG Crono
04-06-2010, 05:18 PM
Careful, we might start taking pre-orders or something if people keep saying stuff like that...

*whips out checkbook* Name your price!

Patashu
05-06-2010, 08:18 AM
By the way, a possible oversight:
If you move onto an altar, and in the process reveal a boss monster, you see the altar's description for a split second before the boss monster's prompt overrides it. Or at least I think it was an altar.

Patashu
05-06-2010, 11:24 AM
Found another bug:
If I click a tile, but my cursor rapidly moves onto another tile with a monster on it, it'll count as though I hit that monster. I managed to trigger this with a monster who was two tiles away!

dislekcia
05-06-2010, 06:51 PM
By the way, a possible oversight:
If you move onto an altar, and in the process reveal a boss monster, you see the altar's description for a split second before the boss monster's prompt overrides it. Or at least I think it was an altar.

That's simply due to boss popups being higher priority than altar messages. After all, you can get the altar message again by moving off it and back on. This doesn't happen in the new version - altars and shops work differently in the interface now.


Found another bug:
If I click a tile, but my cursor rapidly moves onto another tile with a monster on it, it'll count as though I hit that monster. I managed to trigger this with a monster who was two tiles away!

That's because the action happens when you release the mouse button. Most applications behave this way :) Is it a problem?

Patashu
06-06-2010, 03:10 AM
Maybe you don't understand what I mean. I click on a tile A, but quickly move move my mouse to tile B. The game then performs TWO actions from one click: Moving me to tile A and attacking the monster at tile B. Even if tile A is two or more tiles away from tile B this can still happen.

Desktop Dungeons is a little laggy on my laptop, so maybe it's a lot easier for it to happen on my box than other people's.

dislekcia
06-06-2010, 08:05 PM
Maybe you don't understand what I mean. I click on a tile A, but quickly move move my mouse to tile B. The game then performs TWO actions from one click: Moving me to tile A and attacking the monster at tile B. Even if tile A is two or more tiles away from tile B this can still happen.

Desktop Dungeons is a little laggy on my laptop, so maybe it's a lot easier for it to happen on my box than other people's.

So you mean that you'll attack from a square that's not expressly next to the enemy you're attacking? If so, that's pretty odd. Can you do any other things that way, like attack enemies that haven't been revealed yet?

Patashu
07-06-2010, 04:28 AM
I'm not sure - I've only managed to trigger it randomly so far, what with the having-to-be-on-the-same-frame-or-so and all. It still does something that is unintuitive (performing two actions with one click, one of the actions not being something you intended) so it still counts as a bug to me.

Try using a slow-your-computer-down program like http://www.lazygame.com/speedgear/index.html . With luck you'll just have it happen by randomly playing.

Nandrew
15-06-2010, 08:54 PM
BUMPDATE!

Version 0.14 is available! (http://www.qcfdesign.com/?p=325)

Hit things!
Earn score!
Win games!
And have fun!

ortoslon
15-06-2010, 09:02 PM
now that damage is shown graphically, you should make BYSSEPS increase damage by a third rather than 30% since it's visually easier to cut a bar in thirds than to imagine three tenths

FuzzYspo0N
15-06-2010, 10:15 PM
but 5/4's of people cant do bar graphs!

Been playing new one, its rocking. Very cool update so far, no way to submit scores yet? or did i miss it?

dislekcia
15-06-2010, 10:45 PM
now that damage is shown graphically, you should make BYSSEPS increase damage by a third rather than 30% since it's visually easier to cut a bar in thirds than to imagine three tenths

Could be an idea, didn't want to change the number at the moment because it might mess up the balance a little too much (mana cost for possible reward is a big thing in the game, which is why the old Vamp was so overpowered).

Most people seem to just go "Oh, I need a little more damage!" when they see a sliver of health left on the enemy's damage prediction, that's what BYSSEPS is for ;) - Well, that and pre-casting.


but 5/4's of people cant do bar graphs!

Been playing new one, its rocking. Very cool update so far, no way to submit scores yet? or did i miss it?

You nearly gave me a heart attack, but I've just confirmed that you can submit ranked scores. We took the button out of non-ranked games because it was confusing having a button that basically only told you not to click it.

Lekon
15-06-2010, 11:59 PM
Only problem. I seem to have triggered a little crash. Lothlorian campaign, Rogue, with Earth Mother. Anytime I try to IMAWALL someone, it crashes with an invalid variable. Error message below. if I hit ignore, I received no piety, and the monster was stoned as normal.

Aside from this lil problem. I love the new system for gods. Very well done.


___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Mouse Event for Glob Left Released
for object Roomwatch:

In script RoomClick:
Error in code at line 657:
if (nu.kind != E_PLANT) {

at position 33: Unknown variable kind

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Mouse Event for Glob Left Released
for object Roomwatch:

In script RoomClick:
Error in code at line 657:
if (nu.kind != E_PLANT) {

at position 33: Unknown variable kind

dislekcia
16-06-2010, 12:45 AM
Just found that bug this side... Aeq had set up a nice little bloodgarden for the plants too!

Fixed (along with another bug where the Earthmother wasn't giving enough piety when you followed her late-game) and re-uploaded. Sorry about that.

Lekon
16-06-2010, 01:11 AM
Just found that bug this side... Aeq had set up a nice little bloodgarden for the plants too!

Fixed (along with another bug where the Earthmother wasn't giving enough piety when you followed her late-game) and re-uploaded. Sorry about that.

Think I've found another little bug. BludtoPowah. When you are standing on it without picking it up, it has the old description of life to mana conversion cost. When you pick it up, it has the new ability listed (Active/Inactive)

And just to say it: Love the change to the glyph.

Edit: Bug or Balance change? APHEELSIK's poison goes away if you fireball the guy you just poisoned.

dislekcia
16-06-2010, 01:57 AM
Think I've found another little bug. BludtoPowah. When you are standing on it without picking it up, it has the old description of life to mana conversion cost. When you pick it up, it has the new ability listed (Active/Inactive)

And just to say it: Love the change to the glyph.

Edit: Bug or Balance change? APHEELSIK's poison goes away if you fireball the guy you just poisoned.

Fixed the Bludtopowah text. Will re-upload shortly. That's the last of the quick changes, unless something really showstopping rocks up. There are going to be some text misalignments and stuff in the new interface. We'll deal with those in one big lump.

Apheelsik's been re-balanced. As soon as you deal any damage, poison wears off. It's still effective, but shouldn't allow high level kills too easily.

Lekon
16-06-2010, 02:33 AM
Fixed the Bludtopowah text. Will re-upload shortly. That's the last of the quick changes, unless something really showstopping rocks up. There are going to be some text misalignments and stuff in the new interface. We'll deal with those in one big lump.

Apheelsik's been re-balanced. As soon as you deal any damage, poison wears off. It's still effective, but shouldn't allow high level kills too easily.

Ahhh. So you have to keep recasting it each time you hit someone. I don't like that personally... but I can see the balance in it. Makes sense. Now we just need a "OMGANUKE" spell for AOE fun and the game's perfect!

Space Butler
16-06-2010, 05:04 AM
Yay update :D

Haven't played for too long but it seems like you really have gone for more depth when it comes to the new deity system.
It's really going to be fun figureing this system out, but thats going to play more tomorrow... getting alittle too late now.
Anyways, great job you guys.

Also: found a nasty exploit involving BLUDTUPOWA and Mystera Annur...

fall_ark
16-06-2010, 11:17 AM
Hurray!
Just one quick suggestion: Now that we have visual aids for your hp/mp and enemy's hp in combat, why not do the same for xp? And how about hp/mp recovery while exploring? That would be very helpful!

Squid
16-06-2010, 12:50 PM
Yeeeeeeeeesssssss...

Daz
16-06-2010, 02:44 PM
Well, mixed feelings about the new version.

My main hope - that gold-grinding between games would be removed - hasnt happened.

The new campaign looks great in theory, but kinda falls apart when you realise that (unless someone can prove me wrong) its pretty much impossible.

The new altar system is quite nice, although I often find myself losing piety unexpectedly. I expect Ill grow used to it more as I play it.

The tutorial is pretty nice, although I dont think the way to defeat the final goat boss is very obvious. Perhaps a hint? (I suspect theres 3 different "solutions": fireball, explore, fireball, attack ; fireball, glyph convert, attack; fireball, levelup, fireball, attack. ) For a first time player, Im not sure any of these would be immediately obvious (its not obvious you're playing a human who can glyph convert for damage, for example)

The glyph changes look good.

At any rate, good work on the game, hope it continues to improve over time.

Lekon
16-06-2010, 03:09 PM
Well, mixed feelings about the new version.
The new campaign looks great in theory, but kinda falls apart when you realise that (unless someone can prove me wrong) its pretty much impossible.


At any rate, good work on the game, hope it continues to improve over time.

I can beat the first part of campaign easily enough. But that second part is insanity. Wizzard vs a guy with almost 1000 hitpoints. Can't use Mysteria (Not enough mana in the world :P) and unless you got exactly right shops, items, drops etc, yeah, pretty much boned there. Scared to think what the third "round" is.

Little quirks I've found: Good luck getting 100 piety with Glowing Guardian if you don't find a Heal Glyph.

EarthMom is much better if you get her early, and she loves goats now, so try to not stab them. (Just stone them. She's okay with stoned goats.) And she sees what you did there.

Pactmaker went from my least favorite to my go to guy god wise. He's a really versatile fellow now. Kudos on that. Of all the gods currently, I think he's the niftiest.

Delvin
16-06-2010, 03:55 PM
My main hope - that gold-grinding between games would be removed - hasnt happened
Well.. at least you can roll a goblin wizard and you can max gold in two minutes.

I got to the third level in the campaign on my first try but the goat wasn't beatable because there were no items or glyphs that allowed me live a hit, other than up to 30% of dodge which for obvious reasons is not a viable approach. Better luck next time...

Daz
16-06-2010, 05:18 PM
I can beat the first part of campaign easily enough. But that second part is insanity. Wizzard vs a guy with almost 1000 hitpoints. Can't use Mysteria (Not enough mana in the world :P) and unless you got exactly right shops, items, drops etc, yeah, pretty much boned there. Scared to think what the third "round" is.

The first round is fairly straightforward. A slightly "tougher" than average game.
The second round is incredibly difficult. Its possible, but you need to know what your getting into, good look, and probably poison.
The third round is... equivelent to trying to stop a runaway train with your face.

Spoiler for those of you who like surprises: (highlight to read)


The last enemy is a demon goat. He blinks, which means you cant rely on poison or hit-heal tactics.
He hits for ~250 a whack. You would need around 50% physical reduction to even think about taking him on in melee, so you'd better have some nifty spells.
You play as a beserker, so spells suck.
Oh, and the goat has 60% magic damage reduction.

The only way I can even think about doing it is maxing dodge massively, then going in with the save-vs-death glyph (forget its name offhand), and hoping he misses you a lot. In that case, with perfect luck, you *might* just be able to make it.





Well.. at least you can roll a goblin wizard and you can max gold in two minutes.

True, but not really the point. Ive actually just set up a batch file to delete the active save data, and copy a maxed gold save file into its place. Its hacky, but it saves me wasting time grinding away.

coendou
16-06-2010, 07:17 PM
Hey, back from being gone a loooong time, i've just seen you updated it again, i totally forgot about this game cause it was hidden somewhere deep in my hard drive. But i just wanna say, what you did to it makes it even more awesome then it is, i predict a whole lot more hours i'll waste on it again ;)

sagittary
16-06-2010, 10:25 PM
Been a while since I've gotten to play but got the new update. Some really nice changes - my colorblind eyes thank you for the numbers! Some text still has some bad contrast but it's non-critical, non-common text so it's a minor issue. Not sure if some of the monster placement changed but first playthrough I beat the boss and cleared the dungeon (though I was also doing the math a bit more and using advanced tricks); seemed like there were less ridiculously high monsters near the start and more mostly hard/need to think types (could have just been that run - writing this before starting a new playthrough). The new god system is interesting; it's clearer and has more options which is nice. I look forward to more updates and especially a switch to Unity.

dislekcia
16-06-2010, 11:35 PM
True, but not really the point. Ive actually just set up a batch file to delete the active save data, and copy a maxed gold save file into its place. Its hacky, but it saves me wasting time grinding away.

It's players like you that led directly to the ideas for Insurance and Betting that might (or might not) make it into the full game. I think you'll like them ;)


Been a while since I've gotten to play but got the new update. Some really nice changes - my colorblind eyes thank you for the numbers! Some text still has some bad contrast but it's non-critical, non-common text so it's a minor issue. Not sure if some of the monster placement changed but first playthrough I beat the boss and cleared the dungeon (though I was also doing the math a bit more and using advanced tricks); seemed like there were less ridiculously high monsters near the start and more mostly hard/need to think types (could have just been that run - writing this before starting a new playthrough). The new god system is interesting; it's clearer and has more options which is nice. I look forward to more updates and especially a switch to Unity.

That's good to hear! Your initial posts about certain things being hard to see at times was a major influence on my thinking around the interface redesign. Do the combat health-loss visualisations help much? I'm guessing the low-contrast text is on some of the popups when you mouse-over interface elements?