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tonehack

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A member registered Mar 12, 2019

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Classic Unfair is actually my favorite game mode!  I find it to be challenging while remaining reasonably fair.  I recommend checking out some of the other game modes, Slice & Dice is a game where players often find their own favorite way to play through different game mode and difficulty combinations

Check your library under your itch.io profile, it should have the latest files available for download.

Another display bug, at 164/164 my MP bar is displayed as 99%

 Possible bug, on this screen the -1 ACC was reducing my ACC from 10 to 8.  Taking +2 ACC would increase it back to 10.  Also how does the rounding work if I have say, 20 in a stat and choose x14%?

 

Also, took me a while to upload it but I streamed my first playthroughs if you want some candid feedback.  Apologies if we jumped to conclusions too quickly about certain things being bugs or not, it's really hard to tell in this game! :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI-Tgd9XV-w

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Hey there! :)

I played the POSTJAM-1 version and encountered a crash, thought I'd share the log with you: https://pastebin.com/Xt3HmBP0

I had a lot of fun with this, do you plan on developing it further?  It's theme and art style really help it stand on its own, and I think it could be a very good "coffee-break" roguelike.

Oh wow, can't believe I missed the zoomed in telescope thing, that sounds great!  I admittedly wasn't paying very close attention to some of the messages and instructions in the bottom-right after I felt like I had a good feel of the game ':-)

I may have described it poorly but I actually don't consider turn-based gameplay a requirement of the traditional roguelike either (although I don't think I've played any yet that aren't turn-based).  It's subjective, but 1812 falls short of that definition for me more because it plays like a large-scale battle simulator than a roguelike.  And that's just in its current form, I could see a game like this becoming something that I'd personally consider a tradtional roguelike if it were expanded somewhat.  But that's all semantics to me anyways and I don't find it very interesting arguing about definitions -- all I know is that War of 1812 is a very neat game and I'm happy I got to play it!

I like that insight about removing the tactics from the game.  1812 definitely accomplishes that.  I didn't consciously pick up on that while playing, but it's certainly an interesting lens to view the gameplay experience through.

I really loved the concept of this game, and the scale and autonomy of everything and how it was all implemented -- nice job with this one  :-)

By the way I made a short video of the gameplay you might enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZNIEtacLfU

Hi!  Just wanted to point out a bug I ran into, when you are "revived" you can generate in a closed area and your game becomes unwinnable - see below.

Also I really like the tiles and art style, but the glitch effects are really disorienting once you get to the level where you "lose signal".  One of the effects even offsets the screen by an entire tile-width (also shown below).

Overall the game was pretty nice though, would be great to see it with more enemy types and overall variety :-)




I really loved this game  :-)

I was curious about the physics, is it modeled on the Newtonian laws of gravitation?

I ran into that bug, you can actually just enter a bunch of spaces or random characters to overflow the first line, and start your command on the next line and it will take only that line as the input ;)

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This is a fun take on the roguelite card game.  It has a number of unique mechanics going on.  It would be nice to be able to use cards on self without having to drag them, maybe a ctrl-click or other button + click command would be helpful.  It would also be helpful to be able to see unmodified stats at times, it can be difficult to weigh decisions on passives such as armor when you are wearing several pieces which are all modifying health, armor, and hunger stats.  I noticed that after defeating the boss, you can keep playing except the levels are not in order.

It seems that there isn't actually a deck, and you just have an equally random chance of drawing every card in your deck, regardless of whether it is in your hand already, and that there is no discard pile.  This completely changes the balance of a typical card game, and leads to some interesting consequences.  For instance, I was able to "break" the game by cutting down the deck to a single attack card (which I could draw as many copies of into my hand as I like), and then other cards which could be played freely outside of combat.  See the images below for an example.  This could have been done better with just Steak++, Health Potion++, and Amputate, I think.  It essentially creates a nearly-infinite health loop, going on until your hand fills with combat cards.  If enemies scaled more then this could be stopped, but that would probably punish "normal" decks moreso.  I eventually let my character die so I could end the game and see the stats, otherwise I'm pretty confidence that this could have gone on forever.

By the way, this game has enough cool and unique stuff going on, that I hope you would decide to change the "plot" to something more original if you continue development.  As I'm sure you are aware, it currently has nearly the exact same plot/story as Slay the Spire, being in a dream/nightmare and fighting a heart.  I think it's a nice homage to StS but this game could really stand on its own.




A's have ranged attacks (Archers?).  You and the G enemies (melee-only) have health progression from blue (lowest), green, red, to purple (highest I've seen).  The D on the right is your remaining arrows and follows the same progression scheme.  Yellow symbols (except for the stairs) are items/power-ups (be careful because the Archers will shoot over them).  q for ammo (quiver?), p is a life-up (power?), l hurts all the enemies on your line.  

The only decision that you can ever make is whether you want to shoot or not, so just look at the lines that have ammo and figure out if you want to shoot that turn or move forward.

I'm pretty sure it means that whatever it is just got shot by a ranged attack.

This game really made me want to keep going once I got into it  :-)

The whole aesthetic was very nice and fit the game well.  I think the game could really benefit from a map of some sort.  I noticed a lot of dead end corridors, it would probably be more interesting for them to end in rooms.  

A few bugs you might be interested in:  At a few times enemies had gotten "stuck" in furniture, where I couldn't attack them and they didn't attack or chase me.  If you go downstairs and re-enter a level, it is possible to enter on the same tile as an enemy.  Also at one point the caps at the ends of a wall didn't generate (see below).

A fun game overall but the beginning felt slow so I wasn't eager to jump right back into it after dying deeper in the dungeon.  If you decide to continue development then I think some added variety would easily solve this and elevate the game.


Hi!  You've made a neat game, it's fun to play a stealth-oriented roguelike every once in a while  :-) 

There was a real sense of suspense at times, as if I was actually hiding around a corner while being hunted.  I also liked the ending quite a bit although I did accidentally skip past the very last screen.  

By the way, I think I may have found an exploit?  If you walk straight into a guard that is tracking you, you can trade positions with them a few times until you eventually subdue them.  It seems repeatable although I don't think it works if another guard sees you both.

I also ran into some odd situations at times.  I think one is expected where a guard will just watch the stairs or a corridor without moving.  But the really odd one is on the pink level below, where the three guards with "no vision" are just standing there not moving.  I noticed similar affects near the single-tile walls, I wander if it messes up their pathing?  Or maybe it's working as intended... figured I'd let you know either way.

Anyways I enjoyed the game, thanks for making it  :-)



Fun game, it brought back my nostalgia from playing SkiFree on Windows as a kid (especially the part where I would quickly get eaten by an abominable snowman every game...).  I was in one situation where on the last level I couldn't use my bandages anymore (they were on C in my inventory), not sure what caused that.  Fortunately I had a few first aid kits.  I think there may have been a situation I came across a few times where after breaking if you move laterally it would go more than one square?  I never had a chance to reproduce, I could be wrong about that.  I came across a very annoying situation  during one of my early games:  since the yeti can attack diagonally, you can get caught in situations that are inescapable -- see below.  I did try to move back and circle around it on those four squares but it just moved into the tile the player is standing on in the image, blocking the exit as it mercilessly hit me for 10 damage per turn.

The art is excellent and feels so fitting for the game, and I loved the @ that represents the skier's head.  A fun game overall and I'm glad I eventually managed to get a win  :-)


I'm glad you like it!  Honored to be included in your game description as an introduction to the game  :-)

I uploaded my video highlighting your game today.  Came one point shy of my previous score, but I think I could definitely do better with some item placement luck  :-)

I enjoyed this games of yours.  It felt at times that you had to take a chance and may end up in a poor situation due to randomness outside of your control, but I may just need to learn the game better because as I played I was able to reduce these instances.  I did have times where I would spawn on a level with no choice but to take damage, which can be frustrating and seems entirely out of the player's control (see screenshot below).  It took a while to figure out all of the mechanics while dying along the way, a quick tutorial (even written) could go a long way for player retention.  

I think it would be helpful if the player was given a little more information, particularly map boundaries, tiles that don't exist but are in your vision, and for QoL to reveal the tile under a wraith since it can be deduced from their threatened tiles already.

One thing I couldn't quite figure out is how new monster generation works, and also what it means for a tile to have the double wall around it (it seemed like this would show up after stepping onto a tile for the second time?).  I guess there is still more for me to learn here.

Overall quite an enjoyable game, thanks for making it  :-)


A really great looking game you've made here!  The pixel art is really well done, and I *love* the music track, although it got repetitive after a while.  Is there any difference between the characters?  

The UI seems to take up too much of the screen, hiding enemies in the corners.  I larger vision in general would be very nice because the game could be played faster if you didn't have to worry about a new monster appearing a few tiles away after every move.  I do realize that the screen is the size it is for balance reasons though, since enemies aggro when they enter the screen.

Maybe I didn't get deep enough, but I had a feeling of "aimlessness" wondering if I'd hit the end at some point or if the dungeon just went on forever.  I have a feeling it actually does end here, but even a one-line message at the begging to shed some light on the plot/goals could go a long way.  Also a floor indicator would be very nice.

Was the lack of health drops a balance decision?  Mistakes are very punishing but I assume that is by design, especially with the deterministic combat system.

Is there are reason there are no combo pieces for left and right movement?  Or did I just get really unlucky with finding them?

It would be nice to start with a few combo pieces or get a few guaranteed on the first map.  It was confusing to figure out how the system worked, especially because most games don't seem to find a piece on the first map.  Maybe even just an indication on the combo edit screen that tells you to find more pieces first  :-)

Overall, a great looking and well-polished game, but I'd love to see a little more to give the player a sense of purpose instead of just dropping them into the dungeon.

By the way, I got the starting map below which was very annoying.  You can use a combo to escape the spikes, but if you don't have the pieces or if the other side is blocked by the wrong combination of enemies, then you will probably take a decent chunk of damage.


Actually, I first played this on twitch if you want to see a player's first reactions and commentary as I figure the game out  :-)
(I wouldn't link this to the high scores list, just thought you might like to see it.)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/396112426?t=3h3m55s

I was already planning on doing a video for RunToTheStairs, I'll let you know when I upload it  :-)

This is a very cool concept for a roguelike!  I loved the use of momentum mechanics.  I do think that the game begs to be played in real-time and it felt very "slow" if I tried to play it more like a traditional turn-based game.  It would be neat to see a version of this with a little more micromanagement, where the game is played on more of a room-by-room basis.

I see the gauntlet has been thrown  :-)

Don't worry, I'll be giving RunToTheStairs another go soon.  That score was only my second game, after all  ;-)

> I did not discover if there's any way to return you to No'hanz' form.

You can morph back with the morph trap.  The trap in general feels like too much of a gamble though, since it seemed relatively rare during my games.

> I left the game with one big wish: that there was some means to get information about the different monsters - HP, attacks, special properties, other than just smacking into them.

There's some information in the "Spoilers" (click "Tips" then "Spoilers"), but it doesn't include full details.  The game could really benefit from a farlook/examine command which gives the same information in-game.

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> My idea was to make the profiler more useful when overwhelmed, since the time penalty is so huge that the duration difference between the printf() and the profiler becomes negligible. 

I thought this might be the advantage, but my roguelike instincts told me not to get overwhelmed in the first place ;)  The profiler definitely gets better as delay increases... It wouldn't be too difficult to crunch some numbers and determine the break even point.

> By the way, I reworked the confusion mechanism. Previously, missed attacks with a paradoxical weapon had 50% chance of confusing the enemy, which made the paradoxical hack and its 100% accuracy useless.

This explains a lot!  I assumed that it always checked on hit and thought my paradoxical hack was going to be awesome!  I was wondering what was going on with that.  The confusion effect wearing off with my giant time penalty explains why it appeared to not work during the boss fight.  The new system sounds like a good improvement.  The confusion effect would still be somewhat strong for stunning an enemy then switching targets (the stunned enemy essentially becomes a barrier for you).

> Finally, I would like to say a big THANK YOU for helping me enhance the game and increasing its visibility!

No problem, I wouldn't have done any of that if it weren't enjoyable to play!  I'll have to try some of these new features now :)

I enjoyed this game so much that I decided to highlight it on my YouTube channel.  The video is below.  

A few additional thoughts since my last comment/review:  

I *think* if bugs are generated under a certain feature type (like self-referenced), and you switch that feature (to Tolkienesque or whatever), then the bugs generated by the self-referenced feature will now have the weaknesses of the Tolkienesque-generated bugs.  I don't know if this was a deliberate decision or not but wanted to point it out.  It is a little inconsistent but probably not worth changing because it works nicer with the UI like this.

Profilers seem a little weak overall -- an equivalent printf() should always out-damage it (or apply more "hits" if you are looking for effects).  Although if there's a max number of hits that enemies can land on you between two actions (as you explained previously), then that seems to be the best time to make use of them since their slowness won't matter.

I may not understand the mechanic fully, but I was using a hack-type weapon during the final boss fight and it wasn't making my features less stable.  I was swapping features around so this may have had something to do with it.

Speaking of the final boss fight, there is a typo in the word "invokes".  (I don't want to give any more information than that to avoid spoilers...)


I really enjoyed this game.  The whole aesthetic with the grayscale hand-drawn tiles is fantastic!  Really clever way to handle the tile art and level generation.  Combat was also nice with the deterministic system, allowing the player to really strategize with no interference of that cruel RNG.  It also made stat upgrades interesting, because each one meant a concrete difference toward how the player could approach each encounter (e.g. a damage upgrade can cut the health lost to certain enemies in half by killing them a turn sooner).  Once you memorize which number applies to each stat, the UI is very easy to read at a glance.  The simple stat system works great with the deterministic combat system.  

The number pad controls were awkward for me, it's the first game I've played that uses a "telephone keypad" orientation instead of what I'm used to using on a computer keyboard or calculator.  I wasn't able to play with the number pad on my keyboard due to this.  Fortunately the expanded WASD controls were usable, but not ideal.  

When you re-enter a floor, all enemies respawn -- I don't know if this is intended or not (could very well be the spooky house you're in).  Either way, it does allow the player to re-roll the enemy layout by going back and forth between two floors (and I didn't check, but does this reset treasure chests?  could be used to farm if so).

So the biggest issue I came across is that monsters aren't visible on stairs (you can see their damage number but that's it).  I actually lost my game on level 8 because I thought combat was over and I started mashing the "wait" command to heal, but instead a bat that was hiding under the adjacent downstair poked me to death before I realized what was going on.

Overall this game was a very pleasant experience due to the hand-drawn aesthetic and the deterministic combat system  :)

Hi!  This looks like some solid groundwork for what could be a great game.  The tiles and animations look great, and the DCSS-like projectile mechanics were fun (although difficult to play around at times -- I'm sure this was by design though).  An option to use the number pad or arrow keys for movement would be very nice, I eventually resorted to using the WASD keys with my right hand.  Mouse movement wasn't ideal because movement continues after an enemy is spotted.  I came across what I assume is the "undead mage" crash that was supposed to be fixed (see image below, game was crashed there and wouldn't allow me to enter any input).  That was the only game-breaking bug, but I also ran into others: First floor is always the same (probably intentional?).  A corridor can lead to the edge of the map, instead of a wall bounding the floor (see image below).  You lose all memory of a floor's map if you leave the floor and re-enter -- this makes it difficult to go back to previous floors.  You can see monsters out of line of sight if the tile they are on was revealed previously.  At one point I leveled up and my hp went up to 58, then I picked up a healing potion and it dropped to 53 which is what my hp was supposed to be.  Damage numbers on screen don't always match message log.  Projectiles will be shown on top of the character but damage won't be applied until the following turn.  Monster movement is strange when adjacent to player: the monster will move to engage where the player *was*, on the same turn that the player moves to engage the monster (try this:  if you are diagonally adjacent to a monster, move up -> right -> down -> left -> up, etc., in a circle and you'll just keep chasing the monster in a circle).  The message log for some items implies an upgrade even if it's the same item you already had (this mostly happened with one of the shields).

Overall this game shows a lot of promise but the lack of polish and the crash bug deterred me from playing it further.  I'd love to see what it can become if you decide to continue developing it  :)



Neat little game you have here.  The "words" theme/story were pretty interesting, and the hop mechanic was a neat twist (although a little annoying to have to alternate hitting the space bar with movement keys... maybe hopping should be the default?).  The art/tiles are charming.  

Falling down a hole and dying immediately is really annoying, perhaps it should reset to your last position and lower your stress/health?  I noticed if you bump into certain enemies over pits that it resets you like this -- although I had a bug where if that happened and your last position was a moving platform, then you are placed where the platform *was* (but no longer is), and get an action but will die the next turn if you can't make it to solid ground.

I think the game should provide some sort of indication as to where to go, maybe a compass or mini-map of sorts would be helpful?  At times I felt like I was wandering around with no idea of where I should be going or if I was going the right way.

Most maps reset if you leave and return.  This is very exploitable as you can just skirt the edges and wait for a map you like to generate, or leave and return to reset enemy positions if they get too close to you.

Is there a way to kill enemies?  I couldn't figure it out and just ran from them all the time.  The few I tried to hop onto just hurt me so I stopped trying.  Maybe it's a word that I never received.

If you move diagonally onto a new screen, you can land on a tile that you can't normally land (like a wall or tree).  If you keep moving diagonally between two screens, you can go *deep* into areas you shouldn't be.  See the screenshot below.  I was also able to get to the east desert area from the starting screen like this, before the opening appeared.

I wasn't a fan of how meta-progression was incorporated here.  The character feels too weak in the early lives until you learn some words.  It isn't very welcoming to new players and I think player retention would be better if the early-game didn't feel so harsh.

I did get to the end and beat the final boss and rid the lands of the Unnamed though.  Overall this was a neat game but could use some refining.


Nice game you have here!  It's more of a defense game than a roguelike, but as a concept I'd say that the defense genre incorporating more roguelike elements could lead to some very fun games.  I really loved the tiles/art here, and the movement and gameplay felt very fluid.  The "!" spot signals and other symbols over units to indicate confusion, enrage, etc., made the current situation very easy to "read" and navigate at a glance -- very user friendly.

I got a single-player win with each faction.  Maybe the Lich/Demon King should come with a small party.  The necro/shadowmancers seemed very overpowered.  Once I figured that out, the wins became very easy.  A way to drop or swap items would be nice, if it doesn't exist already.  Collecting gold between rounds was kind of annoying, there wasn't much time to run to the front lines, grab gold, then run back to make new summons, *then* run to the new summoning circle to set it to follow if needed -- doing this once can last a whole round.  That may very well be intended though.  

I'd love to see what this could become if you continued to develop it.

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Single player, dismissed a 2x Bonelings summoning circle with 2 dead bonelings between rounds and this happened.  Windows 10, Java 8 Update 181.  Can't seem to reproduce, but wanted to give you a heads up.  Nice game so far  :)


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This game is a real joy to play.  The story/theme is unique and very charming.  Lot's of interesting dynamics between item properties, monster generation, damage and resistances.  Tying health into time was also a neat twist that opened up a lot of strategic options.  The UI is very well done with colors being tied to item type, monster type, damage type, etc. -- very easy to read at a glance.  

The only thing that wasn't straightforward for me at first was monster damage since there is no message log for it, but after realizing that is was shown by the modifier next to the timer, I quite liked the simplicity of it.  I'm still not quite sure how much "damage" the enemies deal or how the resistances impact that, so I'll have to pay attention to that next game. 

I died at the last boss, but now that I understand the mechanics a little better I'm looking forward to giving it another shot!  By the way, is confusion disabled for the final boss fight?  I couldn't seem to get my paradox weapon to do its thing (even against the bugs).

Confusion effects seemed a little strong in general.  Also being able to swap between equipped weapons at no penalty felt exploitable (wander around with a mythical weapon active for speed, swap to telepathic to occasionally to check for bugs at no cost, swap to damage-appropriate weapon for combat, etc.), but I have a feeling that you purposely balanced it like that (since it is somewhat restrictive by only allowing the player to equip one of each weapon type at once).

I think a nice QoL improvement would be able to hover over out-of-sight items that you've seen before and see the name.  Since your inventory is small, you have to leave a lot of stuff on the ground, but due to how the synergies work sometimes you want to go back for an item which can be difficult if you don't remember what every item is.  Another nice QoL feature would be some way to see what's on the ground in your vision without having to use the mouse.  Every time you enter a new room you have to inspect any new items with the mouse.  A list off to the side that displayed everything in sight would be pretty cool  ;)

Thanks again, I had a lot of fun with this one.  Definitely one of my favorites so far.  Looking forward to seeing your next project  :)

Fun game!  Made it to Dungeon Level 18 and Score 118 but in the end the other racers were too fast!

Bug Report:  Game appears to crash if you attack the starting stairs (Windows).

I love the art style you've used here, the game aesthetics are beautiful  :)