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Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

rogule.com

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Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#21
post #3

With the caveat that I do play a good amount of roguelikes, this one was far too easy. It needs better levels. You should add some algorithms that reject bad level generations. This one was beatable by killing the first two monsters and walking to the exit. Try generating levels until you get one where you need a strategy that is not that simple? Idk.

You can actually just walk straight to the exit, no need to fight anything.

Hah, I believed the instructions and collected all the mushrooms before exiting.

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#22

I've been playing this daily for a while. The issue I've found with it is that your health recharges every 100 steps. This creates a divergence between the fun way to play and the way most likely to win. The optimal strategy is to spend a long time button mashing between enemies, and to run back and forth for ages when facing a powerful enemy. I think it would be better if your health didn't recharge (with the enemie…

Isn't this a fairly central mechanic in many of the traditional roguelikes though? I know rogue and nethack both have this and it means that finding a safe place to rest for a while is an important part of your strategy. In nethack at least, there are more, faster enemies and you also have hunger to contend with so trying to rest to recharge your HP isn't an easy or boring way to play.

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#23

I've been playing this daily for a while. The issue I've found with it is that your health recharges every 100 steps. This creates a divergence between the fun way to play and the way most likely to win. The optimal strategy is to spend a long time button mashing between enemies, and to run back and forth for ages when facing a powerful enemy. I think it would be better if your health didn't recharge (with the enemie…

Isn't this a fairly central mechanic in many of the traditional roguelikes though? I know rogue and nethack both have this and it means that finding a safe place to rest for a while is an important part of your strategy. In nethack at least, there are more, faster enemies and you also have hunger to contend with so trying to rest to recharge your HP isn't an easy or boring way to play.

Sure, but in this version there's no hunger, and you can usually face the monsters one at a time.

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#24
post #8

This is the type of thing where I am staying up just to play it again. I would suggest a simple "how to" pop up, like a question mark button on the side.

4 hours later -- I see a question mark button on the upper left side. It shows a very brief but useful set of instructions.

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#26

I've been playing this daily for a while. The issue I've found with it is that your health recharges every 100 steps. This creates a divergence between the fun way to play and the way most likely to win. The optimal strategy is to spend a long time button mashing between enemies, and to run back and forth for ages when facing a powerful enemy. I think it would be better if your health didn't recharge (with the enemie…

They could also add a rest button? At least the 'proper' way wouldn't be too annoying then.

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#27

Clojure - cool, I haven’t seen this in the wild for ages! https://github.com/chr15m/rogule.com/tree/master/src/rogule

That is wild! I've always wondered with functional programming what it would actually look like to have a game written in it- guess this is my answer.

For a good look at what game programming can be when you fully abstract side effects away, check this out.

https://github.com/rofrol/elm-games

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This isn't quite like the classic roguelike in which it's a struggle to survive and a miracle to win. In fact it may be unrealistic to expect a "daily" game to have that. This is more about getting a high score and sharing with friends how you approached the same dungeon.

> This isn't quite like the classic roguelike in which it's a struggle to survive and a miracle to win. Most classic roguelikes are reasonably easy to win provided you know and follow the obscure, nearly impossible to find by yourself and very rigid optimal way to go. That’s why I like to call checkbox ticking games.

"Easy" is not the same as "easy after years of practise".

Re: Rogule: A dungeon a day keeps the Balrog away

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This isn't quite like the classic roguelike in which it's a struggle to survive and a miracle to win. In fact it may be unrealistic to expect a "daily" game to have that. This is more about getting a high score and sharing with friends how you approached the same dungeon.

> In fact it may be unrealistic to expect a "daily" game to have that. Why? Plenty of roguelikes and -lites have daily seeded runs. The genre is pretty much optimal for a "daily" format.

Apologies, I was being too brusque. I mean that this new "Wordle variant" kind of popular daily game which takes about ten minutes, is easily shared with friends and family, and requires hardly any practice/knowledge, is not that well-suited to rogue-likes. I feel that most people playing Wordle variants enjoy getting a daily sense of accomplishment after 10-15 minutes, from day 1. Perhaps I'm wrong!
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