7DRL

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:21 pm

I find those ugly asteroids rather appealing... (mmmm marshmallows!)

I am excited to see what is in store for enemy ships

Post by **Mogri** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:50 am

Today's snapshot: http://www.slimesalad.com/misc/snapshot ... 6b/rs.html

You can now interact with the asteroids: shoot them dead (not especially viable except in the heavy fighter) or crash into them (not especially viable, period). You can die and restart.

Before EOD tomorrow, I need to add enemy ships (including mines) and a HUD. Ideally, I'll also put in an ending. NO PROMISES.

Post by **Mogri** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:06 am

I've added a HUD and enemy ships! They pick their moves completely randomly right now, which means they spend a lot of time running into asteroids/each other. Speaking of which, try to avoid running into things. Collisions are resolved by dealing damage to each object until one of them dies.

The game strongly resembles the final product at this point, although it's not especially fun at the moment. It's much simpler than I wanted (I will probably have to throw out missiles, which is a real shame), but it will be a "finished" product in some sense of the word by the end of tomorrow.

Snapshot with ships here.

Post by **Mogri** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 5:53 am

This is it: the final 7DRL product for this year. Give Rogue Sector a try.

I'm not entirely satisfied with this game, and that sapped my motivation today, but I have to say that it really shaped up in the 90 minutes of polishing I could muster today. While that doesn't make it the game I wanted, it does make it a game worth 10 minutes of your time, and although I don't expect to place as highly this year, I'm happy enough to have a second 7DRL under my belt.

Some notes on actually playing the game:

The Dart feels like easymode, if there is one. Sure, it folds like a wet paper towel, but you really don't want to stick and fight, and the increased mobility counts for a lot. The Cobra might edge out the Blade just because of the rear shot, but it also has the advantage of ramming being totally viable against enemy Darts.

If you've been playing the snapshots, there are a few surprises here -- Mines and elites (enemy ships with full health -- regular enemies have half hull/shields).The biggest surprise, of course, is that the game went from kind of pointless to really hard. I have a tough time getting past sector 3. Let me know how well you can do!

sheamkennedy · Post by **sheamkennedy** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 3:50 pm

@Mogri: Cool. Sector 6 was hard for me, I haven't been able to get passed it.

Post by **Mogri** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:45 pm

Yes, that's as far as I've made it, too. I've gotten there with all three ships. I still think the Dart is the easiest -- and the most fun, since it's a blast to run circles around the enemy while they blow themselves to pieces -- but sector 6 is just swarming with them, and one false move is game over with the Dart.

sheamkennedy · Post by **sheamkennedy** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 5:34 pm

Mogri wrote:Yes, that's as far as I've made it, too. I've gotten there with all three ships. I still think the Dart is the easiest -- and the most fun, since it's a blast to run circles around the enemy while they blow themselves to pieces -- but sector 6 is just swarming with them, and one false move is game over with the Dart.

Yeah I did it in the Dart. My favourite part about the game is making the enemies shoot each other haha.

Post by **Mogri** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 6:19 am

I've finished with all three ships after back-to-back Cobra and Blade victories tonight. The game has quite the learning curve: I started out thinking that the game was too hard and the ships were wildly imbalanced, and now I suspect it could be too easy and I've realized that the ships are extremely well-balanced.

The key to victory is evasive maneuvering, even with the Cobra. Figuring this out was an enjoyable journey, and I think the game really nails the "dogfights in space" feel when you're playing it right.

I had such a low opinion of this game on Wednesday night (before ship AI had been added -- snapshot here) that I considered abandoning it. I ended up putting about three more hours of work into it, and my opinion of the game has risen steadily as I play it. Is it a better game than Succession? Probably not -- but it's a great game on its own, and ironically, I think that the added complexity I had planned for the game would have detracted from the tense tactical maneuvering that is really the heart of this game anyway.