Live data from Hacker News

Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

gridsagegames.com

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#11
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dev here. Yeah, that page turned into a mess compared to what it was originally designed to be, but at the current stage I'm actually trying to ward off impulse buyers. The game isn't even done yet! I mentioned in the post-mortem that I only want quality players right now who are very familiar with what they're getting into, and I haven't even been advertising the game to a general audience, only the primary target a…

I'm both an impulse buy and also (I think) your primary audience, as someone who's played Nethack, Dungeons of Dredmor, DCSS, Darkest Dungeon, FTL, Dwarf Fortress, Project Zomboid, The Escapists, Atom Zombie Smasher, etc. (forgive me for assuming I know what your audience is - I'm guessing). What I mean by impulse purchase is that, having made the decision to purchase it, I want to go quickly from making that decisio…

Yup, there's a full game in there. You can (if you're good enough =p) play all the way through to the end. We have only two known winners on record since the game's launch. It's hard.

What's missing is the mid/late-game optional branches that will add interactive story elements, multiple endings, and lots more robots and components (the latter objects are all complete, but you can't access them yet until the new maps are added).

And yeah you'd be the target audience; anyone who plays DCSS and DF would fall into that category :D.

There are absolutely the types of strategic differences you mention here, and wide spectrum of approaches. The good thing is it's not entirely based on luck--you can hunt down specific robots and take what you need; at the same time, if caught in the wrong place you could end up getting beat up and forced to switch strategies on the fly. This is a big part of the appeal I think. Comebacks from a partial defeat are commonplace, but not always in the way you intended.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#12

Been watching the development of this title for a while now - brilliant stuff. I'm so pleased the release has worked out well for you so far - even if only alpha. When I have the spare funds I'll be sure to pick up a copy!

Many thanks! And feel free to wait until the price drops next year if you need to :). I've got enough funds to see it through to completion, though I'd like to use any surplus to hire a professional composer for the OST.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#13
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30 leaves it out of the impulse buy category for me.

That's good. As you can read in the post-mortem impulse buyers aren't the target audience for early access :) Do come back when the game is on Steam next year!

May have missed it somewhere on your homepage, but are you planning a Mac version?

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#14
Regrettably, this is one of those posts that are extremely hard to read because of the eye-unfriendly color scheme. Light content on dark background is obviously hard to do well, so _please_ stick with what you're good at?

This is meant as sincere constructive critique, so feel free to downvote ad libitum.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#15

Regrettably, this is one of those posts that are extremely hard to read because of the eye-unfriendly color scheme. Light content on dark background is obviously hard to do well, so _please_ stick with what you're good at? This is meant as sincere constructive critique, so feel free to downvote ad libitum.

Think of it as fair warning: if you can't stand the post's color scheme, you're unlikely to like the game either.

http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/index.html

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#17
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good. As you can read in the post-mortem impulse buyers aren't the target audience for early access :) Do come back when the game is on Steam next year!

May have missed it somewhere on your homepage, but are you planning a Mac version?

[deleted]

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#18

Regrettably, this is one of those posts that are extremely hard to read because of the eye-unfriendly color scheme. Light content on dark background is obviously hard to do well, so _please_ stick with what you're good at? This is meant as sincere constructive critique, so feel free to downvote ad libitum.

Think of it as fair warning: if you can't stand the post's color scheme, you're unlikely to like the game either. http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/index.html

OK, I haven't checked that out yet :)

It's just that I haven't given up hope yet to make (at least some) authors of such blogs aware of this bar to reception. If the color scheme doesn't have a designed function to enhance the content, it's apt to become a liability.

Edit: I cheched it out now and must say, the Cogmind page is actually way better than the article in question. It makes less use of white and reduces contrast (mostly) to acceptable levels. As an aside, I like the game idea. My favourite roguelike still uses ascii graphics :)

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#19

Regrettably, this is one of those posts that are extremely hard to read because of the eye-unfriendly color scheme. Light content on dark background is obviously hard to do well, so _please_ stick with what you're good at? This is meant as sincere constructive critique, so feel free to downvote ad libitum.

On Desktop in Chrome, Inspect Element, find , add: background-color: white; color: #000; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 20px;

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#20
That game looks really great. I've played so many roguelikes and was instantly interested. Reading a good post mortem was another plus to check it out.

Then I remembered the general problem with commercial games.. went straight to the FAQ and searched for "linux".. bummer.. I guess somehow I expected a roguelike to work on Linux :)

I will observe the game and hopefully someday a Linux version will emerge. Good luck to your quest as indie dev!

Post reply on HN