Slime Salad

the bat launches a brutal assault! the bat hurls it's body into the foe! the bat bites hard! You show no mercy and end the zombie's existence!

Pizza enough for you, mogri?

I was referring to visual splendor, but yes, that works.



Not pictured: I decided just now to take the action log font size down a pixel as well.

The game is very nearly finished. All monster abilities except the gnome's should be implemented now, and the gnome is mostly missing because I haven't actually decided what he'll do.

What's left:

• Decide what the gnome does
• Make the gnome do that
• Level and mob definitions for the remaining dungeon levels
• Periodic monster spawning
• Ending
• Crapton of testing and rebalancing

My gut read is that the game is definitely on the easy side: there's a lot of stuff in the game that would be stupidly powerful in nearly any other roguelike. The gremlin and love potion are excellent examples. Like Brogue, though, the challenge generally comes not from single unique encounters but from large groups of ordinary monsters. I'll compensate by adding more (and higher-leveled -- like you, monsters can have increased health/attack) monsters if I need to. And if the game is still too easy... well, it's better than being hair-pullingly hard, especially in a competition setting, where judges are waiting to get to the next game.

Anyway, enough musing for now. If you'd like to play an early version of the game, it is available. Be advised that the game will crash to a halt if you try to descend below level 4, and it will possibly just crash for other reasons, since there's a lot in it I haven't yet tested. The game will be completely ready for testing tomorrow, and I strongly recommend waiting if you're interested in playing the game rather than just debugging it for me.

/refers to camp lazlo's episode of the jolly wood gnomes, since he couldn't find it on youtube, and he knows it's on netflix

Mogri wrote:The game will be completely ready for testing tomorrow, and I strongly recommend waiting if you're interested in playing the game rather than just debugging it for me.

Unwilling to wait, and willing to debug, I played for a while on hardest difficulty I was able to kill about 10 monsters, and only ever got down to 1 hp once. I got stuck when I clicked on a zombie who was one tile too far away for me to attack him. I saw the "That monster is too far for you to hit." message, but after that I could not click on anything. The selection highlight would still show where I was pointing, and the mouse-over pop-ups on monsters and items on the ground still worked, I just couldn't move and couldn't wait/rest. I played again, and was able to reproduce the bug again on the first monster I encountered.

I am using Firefox 27.0.1 on Linux

Suggested Gnome Abilities:
*Shoots lightning-bolts, fire-balls or maybe-both
*Dazes or dazzles enemies
*Alchemy, a chance to reuse any potion
*alchemy again, only it increases the effects of potions instead
*+2 to constitution
*They can walk through walls!
*Magic Hands, can grab any item on screen
*Lawn Gnome Form, can cast something like stone skin on itself that raises it's defense or something

Bob the Hamster wrote:I saw the "That monster is too far for you to hit." message, but after that I could not click on anything.

Fixed, thanks.

The first dungeon floor is (intentionally) extremely easy. If it weren't for emus, you could usually clear the floor without taking a single point of damage.

Regarding gnomes: I'm thinking they'll turn you into a pig or a frog, suppressing your abilities for a short period. I might still change my mind, but that's where I'm leaning.

Request: If you're killed by the monster in pig/frog form you become a pig/frog next.

Spoonweaver wrote:Request: If you're killed by the monster in pig/frog form you become a pig/frog next.

That might be amusing, but it would be inconsistent -- you take the unpolymorphed form of anything else that kills you.

Mogri wrote:

Spoonweaver wrote:Request: If you're killed by the monster in pig/frog form you become a pig/frog next.

That might be amusing, but it would be inconsistent -- you take the unpolymorphed form of anything else that kills you.

What would make more sense and be some what consistent, is after you are killed by the gnome, you are given the ability to polymorph monsters since you have become a gnome. Then if you polymorph a monster which in turn kills you, you become the polymorphed monster. This would be cool, especially because the chances of being defeated by a pig/frog would be super unlikely thus making this transformation as more of a secret.

It would almost be a slap in the face really. Like, "Ha! You were just slain by your own pitiful creation. Now you deserve to be a pig/frog..."

I like that, but I ended up going with another suggestion for the gnome.

The game is now finished, plus or minus a ton of testing, rebalancing, and bugfixing. I haven't played much since adding in mob spawns, but I can say that the game won't be as toothless as I originally anticipated. That said, on Easy or Easiest, any dedicated and patient player will win in time. More skilled players will probably find the harder difficulties manageable, if for no other reason than there's so much in this game that's ripe for abuse.

I look forward to your bug reports and/or ascension stories!

Mogri wrote:

Spoonweaver wrote:Request: If you're killed by the monster in pig/frog form you become a pig/frog next.

That might be amusing, but it would be inconsistent -- you take the unpolymorphed form of anything else that kills you.

Ah, you've both misunderstood me.

If you're killed by the monster in pig/frog form you become a pig/frog next.
If you're killed by the monster, in pig/frog form, you become a pig/frog next.

I was referring to the monster as being in big/frog form, not the player.
The point is moot now if you've finished it though. I'd love to give bug/reports. However, where can this game be found?





EDIT: oh and it seems we've begun to derail... so

digdogger! your eye! what happened to it?!

If you tried the game earlier this evening, there's a good chance you played a version where the monsters spawned at 400 times the rate they should. If the first floor of the dungeon seemed really crowded, give it another try.

I believe I found another bug. I got to the 3rd floor as a Rogue. I ate some chameleon meat. I shapeshifted into an Emu, and then a little while later I shapeshifted into an Imp, and then within just 2 or 3 turns it said that I returned to my original form and the "Shapeshifting" status was gone, but I remained and Imp rather than going back to being a Rogue

Then a Shade killed me like 5 turns after that :)