Karradash (Roguelike RPG) I need your feedbacks

Hi!

My name is Federico and this is my first post

I am working on my first game made with Construct 2, an Action Roguelike RPG, and I really need your feedbacks and suggestions.

I have already developed and published other games (you can read a review of my latest game, "Mazes of Karradash 2", on TouchArcade http://toucharcade.com/2016/05/27/mazes-of-karradash-2-review/), but I've always worked with other tools so I have to start from scratch with Construct 2.

The graphic of my game is quite poor and there is a lot more stuff to fix, I know, but consider that I am primarily trying to learn something about Construct 2. Also, I've used a lot of plugins that I have found in this forum (like the Cooldown and Roguelike Plugins), so thank you

Anyway, this is the link for Karradash - The Lost Dungeons http://68k.prisma-comunicazione.it/karradash_tld/index.html

The game is still in development and this version is limited to Level 10 (after the first boss).

Some commands:

WASD: move

Left Mouse Button: shoot

Middle Mouse Button: dig

Right Mouse Button: Skill 1

Q: Skill 2

E: Skill 3

Z: Novablast Scroll

X: Teleport Scroll

Y: Find Exit Scroll

I: Inventory (use the inventory to equip weapons, drink potions and select skills)

M: Map

Esc: pause

SHIFT: Run

I need your help specially about Enemies behavior and character's movement (sometimes it get stuck, but I don't know how to fix this issue), and any other comments is welcome.

Thank You!

Wow- This is great! I just played for a half hour.

I think the ability icons are fantastic and work well. The actual game art I think will limit your potential a bit- if you could get a better tile set and maybe an actual character instead of a ball with an symbol it would work well for you. The gameplay itself is fantastic- easy to get lost in and play for a while. I love the rouge-like elements and the always working towards a more powerful starting setup. Overall great game.

The UI felt a little confusing at times. The line of site was a little frustrating at times too- when a guy was just outside of it shooting at you and you are shooting back but you cant tell what your range is or if you are hitting him or not.

The mining was a fun surprise too- i liked that aspect of the game. you did a lot of work here! the game play is really polished and fluid. Do you eventually get to find different boss types? Progression feels really slow too. I would maybe lower the price of a couple of upgrades to make you feel like you could buy something after the first playthrough or two- i didnt get 1000 gold till a little later when I got a feel for everything.

Also potions I think should show bottom of the screen so you can use them without going into the inventory.

Thats my two cents / First impressions of the game. Overall - I am very impressed I wish you the best of luck and success with it!

The game is really fun, I hope that in the future be placed animations in character.

I missed regain HP.

Thank you for your feedbacks

haddy22: about the potions...you are right, I think that I can use the keys 1-6 to drink potions from the main screen.

About the digging: thank you for your words and consider that there are different kind of ore to mine, but you will find them only in later levels (or maybe earlier if you have an high value of "Diamond Hunter" skill) and only if you dig far away from rooms and corridors.

To obtain more gold/xp and speed up the progression, you can try to achieve an high score while completing levels. To do this, you have to kill a lot of enemies in the level (more than 70%), collect gold and gems, reaching high combo bonus and other stuff Anyway, consider that this game is a marathon, and you need a lot of character to complete it.

guimaraf: I still have to balance the game, so I can't exclude that I will add some other ways to regain HP (beside what is in game now that are potions, skills like Vampirism or Regeneration and artefacts)

Update, ver 0.9.2 (same link http://68k.prisma-comunicazione.it/karra_roguelike/index.html )

* I've tried some new graphics for enemies. It's a little more "dark" now, so I've added some more blood

* You can now use potions from the main screen, but I'm not sure that the hud for the potions in the bottom-right corner works fine...

any other feedbacks?

I've been playing the game and I liked it a lot. I have beaten the level 10 (after losing some characters) and then I started again. Now I can give you some ideas that I think they could improve your game, maybe some of them are usefull for you:

• HUD

The HUD messes with the gameplay when your character explores the edges of the map. To avoid this, you could:

· Generate the unbreakable bricks some pixels away from the borders of your layout. You can start your map on Y = 100 and finish it on Y = (max Y) - 100, and move the info about the enemies remaining to the center of the screen.

· Make an event to set invisible some specific info in the HUD when the player aproaches an edge. You can make a smooth transition by reducing and increasing its opacity if the character gets closer or farther, for example.

• Enemies

More than different graphics, it would be funnier to fight different skilled enemies. Some examples could be:

· Shielded enemy: unlikely an armored one, this reduces a lot the damage received from a certain angle. You can make him turn slowly so the player wants to move to its back to shoot it.

· Magic shielded enemy: this one could work in different ways.

* It has its shield active for some time, then it deactivates (just once, some times, forever).

* Its shield could absorb some damage, then it dissapears (and stuns the enemy, for example).

* An enemy is shielded by another static enemy, which just concentrates on shielding his ally and must be killed first.

* The shield could reflect the shoots from the player randomly, and maybe towards the player on higher levels.

· Warping enemy: it warps randomly to an adjacent tile (to avoid moving it to different rooms and making the player to initiate a boring chase). It could warp behind the player at higher levels.

· Explosive enemy: it explodes when killed (or when it attacks). It could even break adjacent bricks.

• Map

I like the way the player can interact with the map, but it's only ground and walls. You could add:

· Lava ground, to hurt (or instakill) the player. You can even make it hurt the enemies and add some enemies invulnerable to lava.

· Glue ground, to reduce the speed to anyone over it. You could make some hovering enemy inmune to this efect, and even an artifact for the player.

· Ice ground, to reduce deceleration to anyone over it. You could make fireballs to melt the ice (just delete the ice after some short animation).

• Chests

I haven't checked this, but I think a level can actually spawn more chests than keys. It's disgustin for a player to find a chest and not be able to open it even after exploring everything and killing everyone, so you could first spawn keys around the map (both on the ground and on enemies) and then spawn a random number of chests with a max value equal to the keys the player has plus the keys the map has. Buying more keys from the shop would increase the chance of finding more chests, changing its functionality.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks for your feedback

· Make an event to set invisible some specific info in the HUD when the player aproaches an edge. You can make a smooth transition by reducing and increasing its opacity if the character gets closer or farther, for example.

I think that this is a good idea.

[quote:3tfq3vqr]

• Enemies

More than different graphics, it would be funnier to fight different skilled enemies. Some examples could be:

· Shielded enemy: unlikely an armored one, this reduces a lot the damage received from a certain angle. You can make him turn slowly so the player wants to move to its back to shoot it.

· Magic shielded enemy: this one could work in different ways.

* It has its shield active for some time, then it deactivates (just once, some times, forever).

* Its shield could absorb some damage, then it dissapears (and stuns the enemy, for example).

* An enemy is shielded by another static enemy, which just concentrates on shielding his ally and must be killed first.

* The shield could reflect the shoots from the player randomly, and maybe towards the player on higher levels.

· Warping enemy: it warps randomly to an adjacent tile (to avoid moving it to different rooms and making the player to initiate a boring chase). It could warp behind the player at higher levels.

· Explosive enemy: it explodes when killed (or when it attacks). It could even break adjacent bricks.

I have already added some variety (like enemies that can poison, freeze or curse) and your suggestion are good, but consider that I still have a lot of thing to do about enemies and bosses.

But what do you think about the "basic" behavior of enemies? Do you think that they are too easy to kill?

[quote:3tfq3vqr]

• Map

I like the way the player can interact with the map, but it's only ground and walls. You could add:

· Lava ground, to hurt (or instakill) the player. You can even make it hurt the enemies and add some enemies invulnerable to lava.

· Glue ground, to reduce the speed to anyone over it. You could make some hovering enemy inmune to this efect, and even an artifact for the player.

· Ice ground, to reduce deceleration to anyone over it. You could make fireballs to melt the ice (just delete the ice after some short animation).

This is a really good idea

[quote:3tfq3vqr]

• Chests

I haven't checked this, but I think a level can actually spawn more chests than keys. It's disgustin for a player to find a chest and not be able to open it even after exploring everything and killing everyone, so you could first spawn keys around the map (both on the ground and on enemies) and then spawn a random number of chests with a max value equal to the keys the player has plus the keys the map has. Buying more keys from the shop would increase the chance of finding more chests, changing its functionality.

I hope this helps you.

It's definitely not balanced yet, you're right.

I also quite like this one, so much in fact that i had to check your mazes of karradash 2 and here too i'm impressed with your focussed and well executed efforts! What was that made in? Hope you'll bring this one to a comparable visual level!

I support the enemy behaviour suggestion, but I'd make sure that you focus on creating benefits for the player with these behaviours. As in make sure you create different challenges and evoke different playstyles rather than just having differnt ways to hurt the player (fire, poison,ice).

I'm so eager to point his out because it was one of major challenges on my own project, and one of the most redeeming qualities about it. See this test version

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/action-ga ... type-10787

Besides the self promotion hats off to what you're doing there, keep us posted with progress!

But what do you think about the "basic" behavior of enemies? Do you think that they are too easy to kill?

Yes, they are too easy to kill.

As I have exerienced your game, the game is funnier when it's played quickly, going through any door doubtlessly and dancing with the enemies. It's risky, fast, makes you think how can you use your skills effectively... but you can also play carefully, which will make losing life extremely unlikely, but it decelerates the game experience and may result in getting less fun. It could be nice to think ways of making the player goes faster through the map. The combo damage is a good idea, but I find it mostly useless. Enemy groups aren't usually large, the bonus is just a 10% for enemy killed and I can kill them slower but less risky by shooting them while moving backwards.

I think a countdown top and centered may incite players to try to finish the level faster, wheter they die or just lose score, as an higher score gives higher rewards when moving to the next level.

But the worst thing about the enemies is how easyly they get stuck. It happens a lot when playing carefully, shooting them while moving backwards. They may get stuck touching other enemies, a wall, moving through corridors and suddenly, apparently from nothing. Sometimes they won't even move after being seen and shot.

A couple of ideas:

· Teleporting to a random position may move you to the same room you are, to any location already explored and farther away from an unexplored zone that your previous location and to a room full of monsters. I think it could be more interesting if the scroll teleports you to a random unexplored tile, giving it a nice functionality for exploring the level faster while mantaining its risk factor, and moving you right to the stairs if every ground tile has been explored.

· A two dimensional array could store names, surnames and/or nicknames, so you can assign them randonmly to a new generated character. This help them to have some identity, rather than just being characters, so the player may like them more (or hate them, if they randomly get their boss name ).

> But what do you think about the "basic" behavior of enemies? Do you think that they are too easy to kill?

>

I think a countdown top and centered may incite players to try to finish the level faster, wheter they die or just lose score, as an higher score gives higher rewards when moving to the next level.

The score is actually based on time. And there are some random events (I don't know if you have found them) that have a countdown (like: kill 50 enemies in 2 minutes, find the exit in 30" etc...)

I don't like games with a time limit, but I can give a clue about the score loss.

Tips on how can I avoid the "enemy stuck" issue?

Update 0.9.3

• Hud now disappears when the player get close to it.
• I'm trying to fix enemy's IA before creating new behaviors. Also, enemies can now flee when hit by player's bullets.
• I've changed the graphic for the player character, but I still have to fix it.
• Added some new events, like the "Room of Poison"

The score is actually based on time. And there are some random events (I don't know if you have found them) that have a countdown (like: kill 50 enemies in 2 minutes, find the exit in 30" etc...)

I haven't seen any events . How does the game inform about them?

Tips on how can I avoid the "enemy stuck" issue?

The best tips would come from knowing how have you made the enemy movement, to understand why it is failing. Without that, I can only talk about a generic trick, an event to check when an enemy is stuck to move him out of there. Something like:

Pick active enemy

Speed = 0

Not collision with player

And then you make some action to get it out of there. You could use the 8direction behavior, move it up, check if it's still stuck, move right, etc.

> The score is actually based on time. And there are some random events (I don't know if you have found them) that have a countdown (like: kill 50 enemies in 2 minutes, find the exit in 30" etc...)

>

I haven't seen any events . How does the game inform about them?

The music change, a message with the task appears and a timer starts. Special tasks are not very common (2% chance every level).

[quote:2ysrxwy8]

Tips on how can I avoid the "enemy stuck" issue?

The best tips would come from knowing how have you made the enemy movement, to understand why it is failing. Without that, I can only talk about a generic trick, an event to check when an enemy is stuck to move him out of there. Something like:

Pick active enemy

Speed = 0

Not collision with player

And then you make some action to get it out of there. You could use the 8direction behavior, move it up, check if it's still stuck, move right, etc.

I've changed a couple of things in the new version, I think that is a little better. Anyway, I'm using the find path behavior to move enemies and if they collide with other enemies or walls -> Push customMovemento out of solid(nearest)

I also quite like this one, so much in fact that i had to check your mazes of karradash 2 and here too i'm impressed with your focussed and well executed efforts! What was that made in? Hope you'll bring this one to a comparable visual level!

Thank you. I've used another engine to made Mazes of Karradash (but I don't know if I can write the name here )