I made a roguelike - Into the Darkness

[TJS]

Neat. Idea is great. Love how simple, yet complex it is, and feel very underpowered very soon when everyone has 2/1 or 2/2, I start expending more cards than I gain. (Made it to level 2 twice.)

Actually I'm surprised about this, as I only really played the game once through to test at the end of the week and I managed to win without any problems. I thought it was too easy and was going to make it harder but just stopped myself.

Metagame is combinations that kill multiple enemies at once, making it feasible in cards / kill?

That was the idea, but I think picking monsters off individually is probably a lot easier at the moment (unless you have a handful of cards that help fight multiple monsters). I'm going to rebalance so that taking on groups of monsters is a viable proposition.

Lootable cards in the dungeon would be neat.

Yes I think the collectables would be nice and it needs some sort of feeling of progression somehow too. It's difficult though since a new card in a pack of 50 isn't really that amazing and any permanent stat boosts would probably wreck the balance of the game.

Also, a way to read about opponents abilities if you don't yet know them.

Good point, I'll hope to add that in future versions.

Nice, I've been wondering about how to do an MtG inspired roguelike for a while but this is way neater than anything I came up with

Thanks. Actually I've never played any card battler games before. I had a look at some of the types of cards in a few games like MtG and Hearthstone when I was short of ideas and I was surprised at how unsuitable they all were. I was thinking about calling them runes or spells instead of cards to avoid the comparison, but ran out of time at the end.

Alright, finally got the Hydra with a reversal/joker/flamestrike. Maybe that was overkill, but I got tired of examining all the possible card combinations! Speaking of that, this game takes me some serious time.

Nice one! I thought I might be onto something when I added the first 4 cards and managed to combine them in ways I hadn't thought of when designing them.

Another question, if you please. What does the card, 'maximise' do? "takes maximum of yours and your opponents attack and defense values during a battle". I don't understand what that is trying to tell me.

It means that if your defence or attack is lower than the monster you are attacking then they get raised to their value.

eg. your att 1 def 1 monster att 3 def 2
Maximise raises yours to att 3 and def 2 the same as the monster

[HallucinationMushroom]

Ah, thanks for the info on maximise.

Well, once I got past my level 2 blues I was able to make it all the way to Ariel! I didn't win though, but I learned a lot on that run. At one point I had 32 cards, I think around the middle of level 3. I lost because I burned my card advantage replacing one card at a time instead of just re-shuffling.

I had a nice set of cards that could've killed Ariel but I had to burn them just to get to him. I had 15 cards versus Ariel and nothing that could win. I tried to reshuffle but didn't get lucky.

Some thoughts on individual cards.

Reversal is an amazing card. Reversal plus any other damage booster pretty much one-shots everything. I used reversal combos to kill all the 4 bosses leading up to Ariel. Now that I know what maximize does then I would say maximize is also really good. I enjoyed lance attack and dragonstrike, for the area-attacks. I never had a chance to use axe or greatsword.

I really enjoyed your game! Well done, cool idea. I will try and beat it one day but i'm pretty swamped for the next few weeks with work.

[TJS]

Paralysis for opponents is somewhat overpowered, you never wake up again.

Monsters who paralyse you have to hit you twice in succession (or two at the same time) because initially their attack isn't high enough to beat your 1 defence. However they can make you vulnerable so they can get you the next turn instead. You can walk away from them and the turn after they won't be able to affect you.

It's only Phatoms and Ghasts that have paralyse and not dark knights (you must have been fighting two monsters at once). Look out for red monsters.

Ah, thanks for the info on maximise.

Well, once I got past my level 2 blues I was able to make it all the way to Ariel! I didn't win though, but I learned a lot on that run. At one point I had 32 cards, I think around the middle of level 3. I lost because I burned my card advantage replacing one card at a time instead of just re-shuffling.

I had a nice set of cards that could've killed Ariel but I had to burn them just to get to him. I had 15 cards versus Ariel and nothing that could win. I tried to reshuffle but didn't get lucky.

Excellent sounds like a good run

I agree that some cards don't offer you much, I'm going to go through and boost, change or remove some of the less useful cards.

Reversal is an amazing card. Reversal plus any other damage booster pretty much one-shots everything. I used reversal combos to kill all the 4 bosses leading up to Ariel.

Yes I agree reversal is totally overpowered, not only does it mean you get the higher values of the monster you're attacking but you also reduce their attack and defence to 1 (or less) meaning that you can do loads of damage without having to worry about taking any yourself.

I'm thinking of making it only reverse the defensive or attacking values (maybe split into two cards).

Now that I know what maximize does then I would say maximize is also really good.

Yes I might do the same for this one, although this isn't quite as good as it doesn't reduce your opponents defence at the same time.

I enjoyed lance attack and dragonstrike, for the area-attacks. I never had a chance to use axe or greatsword.

The opportunity to use the multiple hit cards doesn't seem to happen as often as I expected. I'm going to change a few things to make them more viable.

I really enjoyed your game! Well done, cool idea. I will try and beat it one day but i'm pretty swamped for the next few weeks with work.

Thank you! I'm going to continue to work on it and make more of the basic idea, so maybe when you come back it will be even harder

[wobbly]

A small convenience thing, I miss the run command. Doesn't matter too much in such a small dungeon, just a nice to have.

[TJS]

A small convenience thing, I miss the run command. Doesn't matter too much in such a small dungeon, just a nice to have.

Yes it needs some more convenience functions in there. I'm going to do a UI rewrite and tidy up so hope to implement it then.

[taptap]

Made it. Unlike the last game I was down to 12 cards in midgame, but finished between 40-50. Ariel ended a one shot kill w/ the right combination at hand.

There seems to be a bug with slash, it doesn't compute with the post armour effects (flame strike) afaik. Once I got used to the mechanism it got somewhat easy, I guess you can't avoid a non-random game becoming a puzzle of sorts. My favourite card is spiked armour.

[TJS]

Made it. Unlike the last game I was down to 12 cards in midgame, but finished between 40-50. Ariel ended a one shot kill w/ the right combination at hand.

There seems to be a bug with slash, it doesn't compute with the post armour effects (flame strike) afaik. Once I got used to the mechanism it got somewhat easy, I guess you can't avoid a non-random game becoming a puzzle of sorts. My favourite card is spiked armour.

Well done

There's a few bugs with some combinations of cards at the moment. The way effects are applied needs a bit of a rewrite.

So what did you think overall? Do you think that there's enough in the idea to extend to a more complex roguelike?

[taptap]

Well done

There's a few bugs with some combinations of cards at the moment. The way effects are applied needs a bit of a rewrite.

So what did you think overall? Do you think that there's enough in the idea to extend to a more complex roguelike?

I do like it. I am not sure the idea is served well by expanding relying exclusively on it, as is you have small numbers / no randomness / thus puzzle-like, somewhat boardgamey feel. I don't think you can come up with enough cards or meaningful classes to expand much, but I can well imagine it as one major system in a larger roguelike.

E.g. I instantly thought that it would make a great interface for Sil songs (currently you select them like wielding items, taking turns to start, stop, switching themes). Or you could implement fighting "stances" that way, either with persistent "cards" or "cards" only showing up with previous actions (defensive stances when retreating from opponent or waiting, charge when moving to them...). Allowing for an ability-free, deep tactical combat system. Or "simply" run a card / shuffle system as substitute magic system.

(Downstairs is weirdly "." on my keyboard.)

[TJS]

I do like it. I am not sure the idea is served well by expanding relying exclusively on it, as is you have small numbers / no randomness / thus puzzle-like, somewhat boardgamey feel. I don't think you can come up with enough cards or meaningful classes to expand much, but I can well imagine it as one major system in a larger roguelike.

E.g. I instantly thought that it would make a great interface for Sil songs (currently you select them like wielding items, taking turns to start, stop, switching themes). Or you could implement fighting "stances" that way, either with persistent "cards" or "cards" only showing up with previous actions (defensive stances when retreating from opponent or waiting, charge when moving to them...). Allowing for an ability-free, deep tactical combat system. Or "simply" run a card / shuffle system as substitute magic system.

(Downstairs is weirdly "." on my keyboard.)

I think you might be right, it's a cool idea but maybe not enough for a full game based completely on it.

I'm thinking that instead of attack and defence resolving to an absolute value (attack - defence) it instead adds bonuses or penalties to damage. So +1 attack gives you a 50% bonus perhaps and -1 a 50% penalty. So it is still important, but other stuff like weapons that cause more damage are still important. Also it means you can still damage monsters when you don't have exactly the right cards to hand.

I'm also thinking of removing the attack patterns from the cards and using another mechanic with them instead (it was rare that you had the cards at the right time to use them). Perhaps particular weapons can have the ability to hit multiple tiles or something along those lines instead.