FienDASH: a Norse-themed, swarm-hacking whatchamacallit

[Nandrew]

Okay, this year's been weird for me. And in the middle of everything, I somehow managed to become very hermitised and out of touch with The Greater Internet Community. Well, no more!

Now, I'd hate to be one of those guys who leaves a forum for ages, then one day tiptoes back in and posts a new game demanding attention and feedback, but, er ... well, crap, that's me. I promise I'll be more involved over the course of 2011.

I've been pretty busy for the past few days on a small project called FienDASH, just to give myself a break from the whole "game development for profit" thing. It's difficult to describe what the game is like, but I've settled on "procedurally-generated, turn-based, swarm-hacking puzzler" as a temporary description and can cite the Deadly Rooms of Death series as one of my inspiring factors. Hopefully that gives people some idea regarding what this is all about.


Typical Viking messiness. Gotta love it.

I don't know if this creation is going to go anywhere just yet, but if enough people like the prototype I may be persuaded to continue working on it over weekends and quieter evenings. Gotta keep my main focus on the Unity version of Desktop Dungeons, though!

Download the proto version 3 from QCF Design (Updated 6 Jan, now with wave undo option).

PRESS SPACEBAR AT ANY TIME TO RESTART THE CURRENT WAVE. It doesn't generate new random seeds or anything, but it DOES allow you to take back particularly ugly mistakes here and there, or just redo a particular section better. Should help make things easier for new players.

PLEASE NOTE: This is still a rough draft of the game. It doesn't have a proper tutorial and I have reason to suspect that new players will find it very challenging. The QCF Design website has a slightly outdated beginner's guide if you need help, but you can also experiment with the in-game SIMPLE MODE and HINTS OPTIONS to help you learn the system. :)

[Nandrew]

Okay, first post updated with beginner's guide! That should relieve new players a little, and I feel more comfortable letting people try this out.

[Gazza_N]

I quite like the concept - it's like a stripped-down DD meets Horde Mode. It was a little difficult to wrap my head around the turn-based format at first, but a few sessions gave me the general idea. General enough to not die horrendously in the first three wave turns, at least. :P

I enjoyed the enemies and their individual strengths, weaknesses, and erratic movement patterns, as well as the myriad awesome spells. The kill-for-piety mechanic works well too, I think.

This is such a silly nitpick, but it wasn't obvious that clicking the tiles adjacent to the avatar was what made him move, and I found myself wondering why he didn't inch his way towards a far-off destination tile that I clicked (which was my initial assumption). I also found myself moving into tiles I didn't want to be in, because the tiles are relatively small and my cursor placement was a few pixels off. I'd suggest displaying a path to the tile the cursor's in and having the avatar move one step along that path on click, or perhaps just highlighting the surrounding tiles that the avatar can move to with a corresponding movement arrow overlaid on them (and a highlight effect so that the player is sure which tile they're moving into). Other than that, the controls worked well enough.

The only other issue I had was with visual feedback for attacks or attack resistance. I realise that you spell out whether a monster is immune to an attack type in their tooltip text, but some sort of cursor icon that says "lolno you can't hit me" would be a great help. A display of which monsters would be hit by an attack when you mouse over the relevant button would be great too.

Visual effects for the attacks themselves is a polish thing, I realise, but don't ye be forgettin' it. With blood. Lots of blood. ^______^

All minor things, though. Mechanically, the game's up to Nandrew standard, and looks to contain many potential funs once it's been balanced and polished .

[BlackShipsFillt]

Cleaving ghosts allows the player to stand inside a wall :) ... I was trying to find a way to abuse this, but the level filled up with nesting dwarves so none of the enemies could get to me.

I'm not 100% in love with the time-limit vibes, but I do like a good challenge, and this is certainly one of the toughest. (I once got 11 tuns away from wave 10 before dying, I haven't gotten any further than that)

The green troll guys in particular were game enders, if I got a lot of them coming in I would know it was over, and I couldn't seem to figure out a good way to defeat the fast two swordy-guys... they would deal me damage sometimes quite unexpectedly.

But I don't think I've quite figured out the strategy yet, I'm gonna give it another go tonight.

[Nandrew]

Great, thanks for the feedback!

I'm still trying to tweak the core systems a bit (the combo and spell scheme is actually enjoying a considerable revision right now), but I'd like to see about adding a few of the suggested conveniences before I release another version. :)

[Nandrew]

New prototype with a slightly more refined system to experiment with (additionally, clearer indicators on various things, an almost-tutorial mode and Batman). Hope people find this one a little easier to pick up, and a bit better in general.

[Nandrew]

D'oh! And how could I forget? This version has loads of extra blood!

[dislekcia]

New prototype with a slightly more refined system to experiment with (additionally, clearer indicators on various things, an almost-tutorial mode and Batman). Hope people find this one a little easier to pick up, and a bit better in general.

(additionally, clearer indicators on various things, an almost-tutorial mode and Batman).

and Batman

OMFG. Batman is awesome :D

[BlackShipsFillt]

I don't understand Batman... Maybe I actually don't understand this game at all... If I have four or more active enemies surrounding me, being Batman means I can kill two or three instead of one or two... so I still die? Is there something I'm doing horribly wrong? [edit: Does it have to be used with the shield perhaps?]

The green trolls seem essentially impossible now... lightning can only be cast on one troll.

I really don't want to be critical, but as this game stands it leaves me feeling rather impotent. I know it is meant to be difficult, but I don't find in it the catharsis that Desktop Dungeons has when you're able to clear out several enemies in a row without taking any damage. The closest thing to that is the Bezerker Rage... except those green trolls hard counter it.

Maybe it's partly because the combos are so unforgiving, and are often fairly useless now (eg. killing five enemies in a row to cast a blast at a time when you don't need it), but mostly because the player has very little control over the battle. The player can only move at the same speed as the enemies and so the opportunity for clever maneuvering often simply isn't there. The classes that offer control mostly do it at the expense of actually being able to kill stuff.

I get the impression that maybe I'm just not into this sort of game (I don't like feeling progressively more vulnerable and under pressure)... So it's really hard for me to judge. Perhaps I'm missing the strength of the experience entirely. Maybe if I play the game incredibly patiently and plan many moves ahead, taking into account the behaviours of all the nearest enemies, it would be more rewarding. Maybe I'm just impatient. I have a strong desire to beat the game, so I feel there must be something I'm missing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, I think its very interesting that the mechanics in this game gamify matyrdom, but I think I'm not really the audience for this.

[Nandrew]

An interesting set of feedback, and duly noted (though did you know that the trolls explode and kill surrounding enemies? Catch them in clusters and there's lots of bloody chain reactions :P ).

I've realised that the game is almost impossible for anyone who doesn't know quite all the rules and details (I can predict AI pathing perfectly, for example :P ) and several changes have been suggested elsewhere that may assist this: for example, implementing a way to undo to the beginning of a wave whenever unsatisfactory results have been had. :P

I'm still weighing up whether to continue this project or abandon it in favour of a new idea (said idea already boiling in my skull and impatiently yearning to be put on the workbench :P ), but maybe if I'm only required to make a few smaller changes that will genuinely ease the difficulty of the game without throwing out balance, I'll do one more version and see if it's more enjoyable that way.

[edg3]

Hmm, it is horribly difficult but at the same time I keep trying to finish more than 3 waves! It seems like my attempts are hit and miss strategy wise, although there isnt a clear cut method that seems to just work with different enemies (hence not getting far).

[ZoRPA]

It seems interesting, I will try it a little later.

As a point of interest, what tools did you use for the tiles and what language did you create it in?

[edg3]

It is made in Game Maker, and Nandrew probably used the built in sprites editor or good old MS Paint

[Nandrew]

Right, made one more small update, after which I'll basically decide whether or not the game should go through with polish.

Breakable walls have been ditched, but a new UNDO WAVE option exists: hit <SPACE> at any time to restart a wave. I think it'll become a friend to many.

[herman.tulleken]

OK, I think I am finally starting to get it, and now it is becoming much more fun.

What initially threw me off was that I assumed that I could learn as I go on, but the way it is structured, you almost have to know everything to be able to play.

The way I see it, there are "levels" of strategy:

1. Simple avoidance, direct attacks, leading enemies into traps.
2. Using spells.
3. Using the pickups strategically.
4. Using gods strategically (I am not on this level yet, so I don't know how this works).

(The order is not strict, just rough).

The main problem seems is that you don't get to learn any level properly, before needing the rest.
Also, there is not a way to learn how to defend against particular enemies (because there is not enough "time" to explore their behaviour, new enemies come in too soon).

I played quite a few games in easy mode, and I started off with green trolls in a quite a few (3 of my first games, and a large proportion thereafter). At first I thought this was a terrible flaw, until I accidentally got one into a trap, and *bling* oh...that's what you have to do! A similar repeated experience with other enemy types (the fast ones, in particular) would probably be just as helpful.

(The spacebar feature was also very helpful in analysing behaviour and strategy, but while learning the game, I am almost thinking it is still not enough).

So my main suggestion would be to have a "campaign" type mode, which releases enemies in a particular order, perhaps even repeatedly, in such a way that the player can learn the levels of strategy (not necessarily as I have listed them above with my limited knowledge of the game).

After a player has gone through this, he will be equipped to play the full-blown mode (where you can still introduce new enemies / pickups and stuff - but then they will only be a fraction of known enemies, and so will be manageable by the player. (I don't think the other mode will be played by experienced players at all; I just think it is a way to _get_ them to the point where they can have the most joy out of the game.)

One minor thing - I kept dying for no apparent reason. Then I figured out that it would happen if I try to pick up something that should kill all enemies (magic fire), but it seems that the enemy gets in a blow before the magic takes effect. I am not sure whether this is intentional, but it was puzzling and unexpected.

My 2c.

ht

[Nandrew]

Thanks for the notes, if it hits polish phase I'll be putting in a more carefully constructed tutorial along the lines you described.

The "kill everything" problem that you've been mentioning is intentional: you get injured every time you use one of those runes (should be in the mouseover description). Basically, the fact that it eliminates all enemies is offset by the fact that you lose health. It makes it less useful, but still far handier in some situations than simply taking a hit would be.

[herman.tulleken]

Oops, sorry about that; it makes a lot of sense now! One other question (sorry if it is blatantly stated somewhere :S), what is the web thingy over the player that sometimes appear?

[BlackShipsFillt]

That's the mad haired women effect... when those women are on the screen they will charge up that web whenever you stand still... and after the web goes critical you get hurt, but you can reset the web if you move.

[NoiTaTuM]

Hi I'm new in the forums, I like Desktop Dungeons, and i like this game too.
I'm a Fan of Drod Series, I completed the three official releases of Drod, and this game doesn't reminds me to Drod (except the turn-based system) because in Drod you have to kill everything in your way and doesn't matters if you have a complete army of creatures in front of you, with your sword and a good position you can kill'em all, it's more like a Action Turn Based Game... this game is more like a Strategy Turn Based Game. Yes, I know that almost any creature in this game can get killed by only one hit, and you have seeds like Roach Eggs in Drod that spawns a creature in 10 turns, but I think it's more like to Desktop dungeons than Drod.
That doesn't mean "I don't like your game" I like this game, and how it works, it's fun to get the combo multipliers and use the gods power, and if you use only one power the other gods get jealous and they doesn't offer their help to you anymore.
Maybe I could reach Wave 10 if Hel wasn't angry with me:


I hope you will continue developing this game :). I Found a lot of bugs relating to missing Variables, I don't know where I can post those bugs.

PD: Sorry for my BAD English I'm Argentinian, I don't know if all of you understand what i'm saying (Including this XD)

[herman.tulleken]

@BlackShipsFillt Thanks...I guess I better read all the stuff in the pane before asking more stupid questions...

@NoiTaTuM Welcome!