The Wizard's Bomb

camdog · Post by **camdog** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:36 pm

My second entry in the gameathon!

All the gooey goodness of a standard rpg, distilled into a most concentrated form. We've all saved the world from the big bad guy many times, but can you do it in just 15 minutes? Lot's of secrets to explore and lots of abilities to find and use.

This is a more traditional fantasy than my other entry, so not as many tiebreaker rules were implemented, but it does include six brand new songs, all composed in 30 minutes or less. Everything about this game is fast!

Get it here:

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 5109#15109

Post by **Mogri** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:03 am

I'm trying so hard to love this game, but on my best run yet I got to the wizard with some great equipment and a good level. He stunned me on the first round, getting in four or five turns in which he killed me before I could act. If there's an item that prevents stun, I never found it.

A lot of the quests seem useless in light of more easily obtainable alternatives; e.g. Thief Shoes vs Amulet. Also, I spent a lot of runs dying before I could reach level 2 -- then I figured out...

The Hermit's house and the other town. Getting the easy 500g and buying the steel armor makes the game much easier to start with. Also, the Ancient Sword, but that's just a bonus since the Steel Sword is about as good.

Don't get me wrong: I like that you have to discover these things, but it might be a better idea to put an easier cave on the island where you start. (I'm not sure what's in there: I had meant to explore it on my last run, but I was out of time. The cave on the other island ended up being worthless, though, another example of better stuff acquired elsewhere.

I really like the idea behind this one, and it's a toss-up which is better between this and Long Journey Home.

camdog · Post by **camdog** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:42 pm

Yeah, I'm starting to realize that tuning difficulty is one of the most difficult aspects of game design. For the record, it is very beatable; my best run had over 7 minutes left on the clock.

Some helpful tips:

As far as stun goes, there is a ring which grants stun immunity, and it can be found on the starting island. I realize in a game like this there is great temptation to blow through text boxes, but there is an npc who offers a clue to its location.

Additionally, the stun can miss based on target willpower, and there are plenty of willpower boosting items strewn about the game. Getting that stat high enough should make you effectively immune to stun.

Finally, I'm beginning to realize that this too might be easily missed if a player is spacing though text boxes as quickly as possible, but you can hire additional party members in the second town, which not only ameliorate the effects of a stun attack, but also make the game as a whole much, much easier. (This also makes the "redundant" items much less redundant.)

I'm beginning to think maybe a stun attack is just a bad idea in general for a game where it's definitely possible to complete with only one character, but I do think you got pretty unlucky when the last boss opened with a stun attack. Only one of his 5 attacks chain to stun, and even then the chain only happens 25% of the time, so you have a base chance of only 5% to see a stun attack per boss turn, and that's not even taking into account the possibility that it will miss.

Anyway, the main idea was that the player would spend the first few runs familiarizing themselves with the world before they made a serious attempt at winning (though I'd hoped it would at least be possible on your first try if you got lucky.)

I'd be interested to know what your strategy was. Did you level up against high value enemies? Make a bee-line for the best loot? Focus on magic or strength? etc.

Post by **Mogri** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:55 pm

My strategy is Hermit -> Ancient Sword -> Silver Armor -> mountain (fight my first enemies here, get the Amulet) -> ??? -> VICTORY.

I had noticed the mercenaries, but I completely forgot about them by the time I could afford them. My endgame equips included the Ancient Sword, Cape, and Amulet -- I forget if I ever found any other equipment to replace the rest of the Silver set. Magic seemed pretty useless to me, since it was more efficient to hold down the spacebar and Heal was way less effective than potions.

It's nice to know that I was unlucky with the stun. Now that I realize that I could've had helpers, I don't feel like this was such a cheap shot -- but we'll see how it works out in my next play. I'm not entirely sure that helpers wouldn't undermine my experience gains.

I'll definitely be replaying this game: it fills a niche unexplored by pretty much any game I've seen. Strong emphasis on exploration, wide variety of possible strategies, pleasantly challenging. Thinking of reviewing it for Hamsterspeak.

Post by **Mogri** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:07 am

Beat the game...

The last boss is disappointingly fragile, hardly any beefier than the apprentices leading up to him. Had I not been stunned on my previous run, I would have won in a round or two more.

I ended up with three characters: two Lv11s, one Lv6ish. The Lv11 helper was going to be a support caster, the Lv6 helper was going to be a Flash/Heal caster, and the main was going to stick to physical attacks. This was, of course, completely overkill.

My strategy was Hermit -> Ancient Sword -> Helper1 + Silver Armor -> Amulet -> miniquest stuff (Cape, etc.) -> starting continent cave -> Helper2 -> wizard's castle. I had 2 minutes on the clock when I engaged the wizard.

I'd recommend boosting the wizard's HP to anywhere from 300% to 500%. Seriously. I don't think he even managed to hurt me in this run.

I stand by magic being useless. It would be more useful if there were a spell that targeted all enemies or a more damaging attack spell.

Despite my misgivings about the last boss, this is my favorite Gameathon entry so far, and only Tightfloss Maiden remains with the possibility of dethroning that.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:25 am

after my first couple of runs I got kinda of mad at the game and figured there was no real balance at all. Since then I've explored more and was actually able to do some stuff, of course then time ran out. I do like the replay-ability in this game.
Though, I think some sort of highscore keeper would be nice for this game so your score doesn't just disappear like the long journey home.
unless there is one that only appears once you've beatin it. Is there one, now that I'm writing this I'm not even sure about the long journey home.... slime it I guess i'm going to go play long journey home again...........................

camdog · Post by **camdog** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:45 pm

Glad everyone's enjoying this one. I think the idea to increase the boss's hp is a good one, and will probably go into the next release. I also will probably reduce stun time, to make it an annoyance and not a game-ender for single character runs. Maybe I should also put the stun ring in a more obvious place? The second cave perhaps? People seem to think that's a useless location currently...

I definitely plan to include a high score list. I would've on this release, but ran out of time. Of course, when I was working on it, I had forgotten about the import/export globals commands. It should be pretty easy to add that in, for both this and The Long Journey Home.

I'm surprised most people found magic useless; I used it almost every run. Flash does ~200% int damage, which is especially powerful if you have buffed that stat. It's also the only way to hit the cac'tuus on the northwestern island. I did never use heal or the stat buffs though, so those maybe are useless, but perhaps they will become more relevant when the last boss gets more hp.

What I'd really like to do is expand this game into a series of levels, hopefully with increasing difficulty and different optimal strategies, with this being the first (or perhaps the second after some kind of tutorial level). The game could keep track of best time and level for each stage, and it could open with a level select screen that would unlock a new level every time you beat the last unlocked level... It would be a really neat trick to tie it all together with some kind of cohesive story, but I don't have any ideas for that yet...

Post by **Mogri** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:27 pm

camdog wrote:What I'd really like to do is expand this game into a series of levels, hopefully with increasing difficulty and different optimal strategies, with this being the first (or perhaps the second after some kind of tutorial level). The game could keep track of best time and level for each stage, and it could open with a level select screen that would unlock a new level every time you beat the last unlocked level... It would be a really neat trick to tie it all together with some kind of cohesive story, but I don't have any ideas for that yet...

This would be incredible. Do it.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:34 pm

I grinded in the forest, went through the cave to get Ultimate Armor, hired some goons, won the game.

Really fun game. I am going to try exploring more possibilities now.

EDIT: My fastest time so far..

I've been trying to optimize, but a lot of luck based factors kill many runs.

camdog · Post by **camdog** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:46 pm

Nice job! That's a better score than I've ever gotten, time-wise.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:13 am

I believe The Mad Cacti managed to get a faster time than me.

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:17 am

Camdog, I finally finished this game last night. I died quite a few times in the beginning, but then I found the hermit and everything fell into place after that. My first finished run left me at Lvl. 11 and with a few seconds to spare. I had two teammates and a crapload of good weapons when the wizard met his fate.

This was a great surprise. I don't think I enjoyed an OHR game this much since Jailbreak or Catacombs. I appreciate how much you crammed into the game for such a short stint. As I mentioned in my Quest for the Bone review (another fun game if you give it a chance), I love a game that encourages exploration, and this certainly fits the bill.

I was, however, disappointed that the tiny islands didn't hide anything special. I could almost see this game resembling Wind Waker in terms of exploration. But you definitely gave us a worthy start to something I hope you'll make a genre out of.

And if you ever make the larger twenty- or thirty-minute edition with multiple islands, landscapes, etc., I'll look forward to that, too.

I liked the Long Journey Home, as well. Reminded me a bit of that PC game I like a lot called Space Rangers. I still haven't gotten very far in that one. But these are great games. Well done.

Post by **Mogri** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:29 am

Pepsi:

One of the small islands is randomly chosen to hold a treasure.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:43 am

I echo the sentiment that having different "levels" with different world maps and scenarios and end bosses would really add to the game by keeping its replayability but also adding freshness.