Exploration in weird worlds

 This is a genre. If nobody else has made it into one, I hereby do. I just played some hours of Babbdi. I've had nightmares pretty much exactly like this: Brutalist architecture, hostile to humans within. Deep shadows. You got to find a way out but there may be none. The game populates the place with depressed potatohead-people you can talk to but won't get much out of.

This makes the city look prettier than it is from the inside.

It doesn't look like it but mechanically this is a parcours-game with a bit of metroidvania sprinkled into it. There are well hidden places you can only reach with specific items. Some of them make you feel like you're on the cusp of getting something about the mystery of this place but never quite get there. It's like a book by Jeff Vandermeer. It teases you. It will not reveal its secrets to you.

If you've ever dreamt of exploring brutalist architecture and post-soviet decay, this (free!) game is awesome. The dreary atmosphere has the greyness of the city, its sickly-looking people (even the sewer-rave looks desperate) and the inscrutable world that you can only leave with a train ticket that is no longer being sold. It's all a bit Kafka. I love it.

To prove that this is actually a bit of a niche genre, I will show at least one more game like this soon.

Sir, You Are NOT Being Hunted part 2

 So I decided that I need some gaming to relax my mind. Like, really relax it. That got me an idea: What if I take an old favourite of mine, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, and turn it into a walking simulator? No threat. Just the moody, gloomy, but ultimately pretty and relaxing British countryside and the need to eat every once in a while? The game certainly makes that possible, without having to be modded or anything. Here's part two:

The pier of the North Island greets me in gloomy weather. It's the industrial island, which in this mode is a paradise for urban explorers. I'm just a hiker though, so I decide to spend as little time in this gloom as possible.

With my binoculars I spy a church in the fog. I decide to go there first and check it out.

I get drunk on mess wine found in said church and enjoy the sunrise.

The next larger structure that lures me closer with its bulk is an old warehouse, I assume. I decide to see what's up in there.

Dynamite! Lot's of it. While there are not enemies to speak of in this world, in real life a bunch of dynamite in a depopulated area means fun so I pocket as much as I can sensibly carry.

I arrive at the outskirts of the industrial town. It still feels like trespassing.

The place is a dump. Literally. I think I'm climbing over a junkyard to get into town.

I normally like waterside properties. I wouldn't want to live here though. But that may just be the weather.

I decide to follow a sprite I see. I don't want to stay on this island forever.

There we go. I don't know what route I took to get here but there are two telebits in somewhat close proximity to each other. In a regular game of Sir, this would be dangerous because you'd have to deal with at least two teams of hunters at the same time. Here it's a nice convenience.

I see the bog monster and toss a stick of dynamite at it. No idea if the explosion drove it off because I overshot by quite a bit. Next time I'll pepper the freaking thing with lots of explosives. Also I realize that the pier is right here – I must have walked around most of the island.

In the dark I use the flashlight to follow another sprite towards the last telebit of the island.

At a factory building I find even more dynamite. I can't carry any more so I do the sensible thing: I get utterly wasted on sherry and toss a bunch of dynamite sticks into the landscape. Blowing stuff up while drunk is the sort of irresponsible fun one can do when alone in post-apocalyptic Britain.

There's the last telebit. After restocking my dynamite stores somewhat, I go and get it.

The way back leads me past an ominous tower. It reminds me of the electric towers at the edges of some villages I know from middle Germany.

I go through a village with the funny name of Misty Cheating. Sounds like a porn starlett.

And discover the overgrown ruin of a factory.

It reminds me of two things: First, an old factory I urban explored on Rhodos. And then of an old monastery church somewhere by the Mosel where we pitched our tents and slept when I was a teenager and we were doing a long-distance tour with the school's rowing club.

When it gets light again, I reach the boat. Time to go back to prettier shores.

To be continued.

Sir, You Are NOT Being Hunted part 1

So I decided that I need some gaming to relax my mind. Like, really relax it. That got me an idea: What if I take an old favourite of mine, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, and turn it into a walking simulator? No threat. Just the moody, gloomy, but ultimately pretty and relaxing British countryside and the need to eat every once in a while? The game certainly makes that possible, without having to be modded or anything. So I got to work:

No evil robots appearing with these settings. It'll be just me and some wildlife. Perhaps I can even hunt and cook a pheasant? Never done that in the game before, I was always too afraid of lighting a fire and didn't want to waste ammunition. I let the British Countryside Generator do its thing and then go into the game world.

After the short tutorial-steps that always start the game, I decide to head for the nearest village. Since I'm not a man on the run, I walk there leisurely and don't cross the field. Wouldn't want to trample someone's harvest. I make my way along the fence, through a small thicket and then reach Leafy Eating.

Despite the sign at the village entrance, the place is calm and quiet. As I need some supplies for the exploration to come, I go looting all the houses like I would in a regular game of Sir – albeit at a much slower pace. In real life I wouldn't run in this situation, so why should I do that here?

As night starts to fall, I head towards a ruined farm next to the village. I do something I never do in a regular game of Sir and switch on the flashlight I found in one of the houses.

This makes exploration a lot easier. I now feel a bit like I'm urban exploring. Nice.

I make my way along the road towards the next village. It's called Kings Burrow.

Since I'm starting to get thirsty/hungry, I chug down a bottle of sherry, to the usual effect. Drunkenly I stagger through the deserted village.

And then, sobering up, down the road towards Nimby Tweaking in-the-Wold.

I gather whatever the residents of Nimby Tweaking have left behind and seems useful to me. Then I tetris my inventory so it looks nice and ordered. I think I'm ready for a nice hike on one of the outlying islands.

The road going through Nimby Tweaking terminates around a large, dead tree. Where I'm from this would be the village oak.

I follow coast towards the first boat. I plan to collect the teleporter bits on the centre island last. So, next up: The North Island.

It's a calming experience to play this game like that. Birds are chirping. I met a hare. It's a bit like playing a homeless person in a post-apocalyptic Britain. But the nice kind of apocalypse, that left nature intact and only removed most people.

Free Release: The Swine Pit

 More than a year in the making, it's finally here: My very first roguelike made in Twine:

The Swine Pit

Play it in your browser - it's a Twine game after all. But it's very unlike any other thing I've ever seen made with Twine. Possibly, because it was a mad folly to create a roguelike with that platform, but it's the one I can code in so that's that.

Descent into a horrible dungeon full of swine-like monstrosities posessed by the demons of hell. Experience the harrowing story of one out of seven different character classes, who all have different abilities that make their playing experience radically different. Cast spells as the apprentice or the scholar, brew potions as the alchaemist, craft your own weapons and cook food as the huntsman, or survive by your brawn alone as the squire or the tribal. Or die horribly as the sacrifice.

Working on: A Rogulike. Made in Twine.

 So for the past year or so I've been (on and off, of course) working on a new roguelike. It's not my first foray into designing one: I've attempted to make them in the form of books (semi-successful: It's a good adventure-riddle but not roguelike beyond having a randomized labyrinth layout), board games (close. But better as a traditional board game co-op experience), text-adventure video games (that's more like it - but alas, I didn't do the coding) and low-resolution retro-games (not the roguest of roguelikes but also close - also a collaborative effort with my friend Niels). Now this time I've done everything myself, using the only platform I can do some coding in - Twine. Twine 1, that is.

Can one make a roguelike in Twine? With some limitations: Yes. I did it. It's pretty much finished, all I need to do is publish it on my Itch-site, which I plan on doing this weekend. Let's do a little post-mortem on the project.

Making a roguelike in Twine

Twine wasn't made for creating roguelikes, obviously. The main strength of the platform is that a layman such as myself, more interested in writing than in coding, can make a functioning piece of interactive fiction without much foreknowledge. Starting from relatively humble beginnings I learned to use more and more of the coding language features until I was able to make first a text-based survival-horror-game and then an hommage to Resident Evil. But creating my roguelike was a totall different beast. It started with a random maze, then I added parts of the combat- and inventory-system from Zombie Mansion, then I made a system for placing random monsters, loot and room features.

Technically, you do the same floor over and over again: There are only 25 'rooms', wich get different walls/passages, features, treasure-items and monsters every time you descend to the next floor. The rules for filling the rooms change when you go deeper though - as do the stats of your character when you level up. The whole thing has a high level of complexity. Here are some stats of the Twine project:

• 160 Passages
• 424 Variables
• 21 Types of Monster
• 7 Character Classes
• 50+ Types of Item
• 12 Spells
• 6 Potions
• 25 Floors total
• 5 Curated floors with boss fights
• 4 Floors where there is a trader to do trade with

In the editor, the whole thing looks like this:

The character classes (on the left) all actually play very differently: You have fighty characters like the Squire, who just stabs enemys with his spear. You have casters like the Apprentice, who can learn spells from scrolls to use them many times. You have utility-classes like the Scholar who will fill her journal with lore about the dungeon when you go deeper - and can later scrounge for scrolls (which kind of makes her a caster class as well). Many items have multiple uses: You can use a thighbone you find for combat or sacrifice it at a firepit for a health-boon. Potions can be drank, hurled at enemies or poured onto things. The seven classes each have a specialty:

• Squire: Offense in combat
• Tribal: Defense in combat
• Apprentice: Magical spells
• Alchaemist: Potions
• Scholar: Lore and nerdery and some spells
• Sacrifice: None, this is the difficult class
• Huntsman: Crafting and cooking

The project started out as a generic dungeon in a medieval world. When I made more characters and enemies, the world started taking a more unique shape. The Swine Pit, the dungeon of the game, became a hellish hole in the ground filled with demon-posessed swine-creatures and their retainers. My fandom of Darkest Dungeon definetly shows in a lot of the descriptions.

I'm also quite proud that the majority of monsters have special moves that go beyond direct attacks: Some may beat your weapon out of your hands, some can destroy armour, some displace themselves, steal your mana or HP or regenerate or steal food from your pack. Same goes for bosses: At the very least they have special attacks and two of the boss fights can be outright avoided if you have the right tactics or items. Speaking of items: Some of them are incredibly powerful and once you master the game these are the ones you want to keep for specific situations such as boss fights. Even the final boss can be two-shotted with the right spell.

What doesn't work?

Twine is, as I said, not made for making a game like this. Besides the total lack of a visualized map (draw your own - the game does provide grid-coordinates in every room), monsters are mostly immobile. There are some exceptions: 

• The second boss enemy moves about in a specific area, a trick that I learned making Zombie Mansion. The process is too complex and unreliable to be used at scale with regular enemies though - especially when considering that the boss level is curated and walls and passages are always the same, unlike on regular floors that are totally randomized.
• The enemy types of Madman and Infected Madman sometimes just "run off into the darkness". I stayed vague on purpose: The game doesn't know how to respect walls in this instance and just places the creature and its HP in a random different room. Works for a creature that is insane and incoherent, but not for other enemies. It can also lower the total number of enemies on the floor because it will overwrite the monster in its target room - so I had to use this ability sparingly.
• There are some mobile monsters on the floor of the third boss but they are rather buggy and sometimes do not move at all.

Twine is also not the best for testing your software. I did make a test-character who can jump to the next level at will and has all possible items in his inventory but even then it's a chore to test, say the final boss fight on floor 25 multiple times. That means that the later stages tend to have more issues with them. As I wanted the boss fights to be special, it was difficult to do QA there.

You can't go back up to a floor you've finished. This is because the floors are randomized during transition. Story-wise I made it so that you actually jump down into the darkness every time and there is no way to climb back up. That takes away some of the tactical options a roguelike might have, such as going back to a trader. But it can't be helped.

There is no way to save the game. I am aware that other versions of Twine have features for that but to be honest, I can't be bothered to learn another programming language after putting all that work into regular vanilla Twine 1. I'm still angry with the makers of Twine 2 going "well, we made it and most of the codes work like programming language X so whatever go figure it out" when the target audience for Twinery is people who specifically cannot code. I got my start with a blog post by Anna Enthropy and learned from there but please, people, don't assume that you make this tool for other coders.

I have another Twine game in the works - a sequel to Zombie Mansion. As the platform is what I've become proficient with, I will likely keep using it as a creative outlet. Also, I'll keep making (more professionally coded) games with Niels. We do totally need an artist though - our pixel art doesn't cut it in the long run.

Free Release: Zombie Mansion

 A new fully-fledged release by your truly: I've been slaving away what little spare time I have next to two kids and my day-job in order to delve deep into the bowels of what Twine can do. I present to you:

This is my idea of what a text-adventure-version of Resident Evil is like. I made my own story with my own main character for it but the beats are there: A mansion full of zombies. Combat that always puts you at risk of injury. A handgun, a shotgun, a close-combat-weapon and the almighty magnum for weaponry. Inventory-juggling. Finding secret items and keys. Lots of optional content.

If you play, do so mindfully: It's unlikely, you'll make it on the first attempt. There are several routes one might go and they are centered around what weapon you get second. There is also a speedrun you could try, killing only a few zombies. It is risky though. I recommend, methodically killing nearly alls zombies. You do not have to fight the bosses though. Avoid if possible. Draw a map. Study movement patterns of said bosses. Be smart. And

Have fun!

Current video game project and Darkest Dungeon

Niels and I have been working on our latest video game. We've successfully collaborated before: I still love Choose Your Own CaveVenture and Low Res Dungeoneer was nice considering the short time we had during that game jam. What we're currently working on still doesn't have a title (CyoCV didn't have one until rather late either). When I first made up the mechanics, I jokingly called it Martest Dungeon, because it is my own take on Darkest Dungeon's excellent design and theme. I do hope, the joke-title doesn't stick though. Red Hook Studios might have something bad or lawyery to say about that.

Anyway, some thoughts on the design. First of all, I like the feel of Darkest Dungeon a lot, specifically the cast of vaguely historic badasses. When I read that some fan at some event asked the devs, what time the game was set in, I thought "What a fool! It's The Past, obviously!" You have a crusader, a dude with a flintlock pistol, a musketeer and a beak-masked plague doctor all fighting alongside. And it works. So I made up my own cast of vaguely historic badasses (although I did copy the plague doctor – you don't get around their iconic masks when going this route).

As my dungeon project started it conceptual life as a solo card game, characters are more simple than those in Darkest Dungeon. Every one of them has a maximum of three *things* about them. As combat is done by the party as a whole (same for groups of monsters), some characters have one of their things being that they add one point to the overall attack value. Roll a D6 on or under that attack value and the enemy party receives a point of damage. Base damage for the heroes is 1.

The party always acts as one: You get a pool of attack points and you distribute damage to whoever you want. You can generally only use one special skill in an action (although there is a character who changes that). Yet, characters interact in interesting ways, a well-composed party will be able to do tremendous effects both offensively as well as defensively.

Every hero only has 1 HP - lose  that and they are wounded. That means they are still part of the group but cannot use any of their attributes. They can, however, be healed in several ways, some of them coming from other party members, some from rooms of the dungeon. Also you can heal a wounded character in the village after you return. Some characters have mana points to fuel special abilities, some have special abilities to refill those for other characters.

In Darkest Dungeon there are a lot of ressources to balance while exploring the dungeon: Health, stress, money, light, firewood, food, experience and some less essential ones as well. Thinking about a card game I simplyfied things for my game: There is health, mana and monster tokens (effectively money). Exploration is linear, there are no branches but you can go back if need be. There is no escaping the dungeon once you entered: You need to make it out on the other end of nine rooms/encounters. There you can decide to go home or go deeper. Do the latter and you get another nine rooms

We currently have a working prototype with some features active, others have yet to be implemented. I do have the problem of graphic assets to solve. If anyone is interested in drawing tons of gothic badasses and creepy locations: Feel free to contact me.

In the pipeline

The year had ended. I have been busy with new responsibilities at work and two kids at home. But yet there is the spark of creativity that creates needs that must be fulfilled. I have crafted some things for my older son but those are of no consequence for this blog. What is however is, what I have in the pipeline: A new video game and the third piece for my cardboard arcade.

On Catacomb Kids

Sometimes you find a game that just clicks with you. I like me a good roguelike (or -lite or whatever definition you personally think should be universally applicable for the term) and last month I bought the early access version of Catacomb Kids. I love it.

The game itself plays like a more rogue-ish version of Spelunky (which I loved as well, at least the original free version, which I beat more often than my schedule these days would ever allow for). You jump and run through an often very vertical level in an old-school side-view. Unlike Spelunky, Catacomb Kids has a lot of different weapons, many of them magical, with random stats. Also there is the roguelike tradition of unidentified potions. And spells – a lot of them.

Combat can get frantic and intense but also slow and stand-off-ish. When a grumbul and you are facing each other across a pit with spikes, waiting for the other to move, that's where the true drama comes in. The fact that these enemies operate on the same rules as you and will flee the level if injured too badly makes things more immersive. And I always prefered games where even a single enemy is of consequence and a credible threat. I do, however, usually die to some trap combined with my lack of youthful reflexes.

I really enjoy the short sessions this game allows for: I rarely have more than half an hour of game-time a piece since we had our second kid. As I am not yet very good at Catacomb Kids, I rarely last more than ten minutes per run. The only problem is resisting the urge to do just one more try several times in a row.

Now the game is far from finished and I have some performance issues on my old computer here. Still, it's one of my favorite experiences in video gaming in the past ten months or so. I recommend anyone who likes a good action-oriented roguelike to try it out.

Free Release: Cup Quest

Made another Twine-Game that is large enough to be called a full release. Cup Quest takes place in a maze (that isn't randomly generated for a change – although the original map was made rolling dice). It's suitable for even the youngest players if they can read. I suggest you draw a map of the maze if you want to have any chance of beating the game.

Play Cup Quest in your browser.

Free Release: The Dare

It's been a while but I made another game. This one is a Twine-game so it's text-only but don't let that fool you: You will have a scary ghost-story, elements of survival-horror and some riddles that differ every time you play this thing. I'll write more about my learnings when it comes to using Twine in another blog post – perhaps even make a bit of a tutorial. Being a gamepunk, I like the accessibility of the tool but dislike the somewhat confusing repository of information and documentation online (which the release of Twine 2 has only made worse). Anyhow, enjoy The Dare!

A Let's Play!

So, Choose your own CaveVenture got its first let's play. The guy was kind enough to tell me so in a comment on the release-posting. If you want to see someone go into the cave blind (so to speak), enjoy this:

I shall repeat my statement I made in the video comments: I'm totally willing to do a co-commentary on any play of my game via Skype or something.

Results!

So, after the release of The Lair of the Voidbeast comes the results of the One Page Dungeon Contest. I made it into the Penultimate Winners Circle, which I am somewhat proud of. You should all definetly check out the contest entries, as they are all diverse and interesting.

In other news, a YouTuber named Jupiter Hadley (if that's her real name, her parents are incredibly cool!) has tasked herself with playing ALL the entries of the Low Res Jam 2016. In episode 22 she gets around playing a minute of our offering, Low Res Dungeoneer.


I might enter a nice press snippet with

"I wish I knew what I was doing" - Jupiter Hadley

on the itch.io-page. Cheers!

Free Release: Low Res Dungeoneer

So, Niels and I did it again. After Choose Your Own CaveVenture we collaborated on another game project. It was another game-jam as well, the #LowRezJam2016. Only rule was that the resulting game should not exceed 64 by 64 pixels.

We did what we do best: A roguelike. I whipped up a quick design doc outlining everything and then made the Pixel Art. Niels, as usual, did the coding. See for yourselves, it's playable in your browser if you have a functioning Unity Web Player and there is a downloadable Windows-Version if you don't:

Here you go!

Bacon Game Jam: GunMaker 4: Gold Edition

So, hi blog, long time no see... I've been part of a team of guys participating in the Bacon Game Jam over the weekend. The result of our work is GunMaker 4: Gold Edition, a title that I am proud to announce is totally overselling the finished product. But finish we did and the result can also be a fun tool to create weapons for any cyberpunk-RPG. I even released the graphics as CC3.0 so you can do pretty much whatever with them, as long as you mention me. Check it out and come back to read about my experience with this particular game jam after the jump.

When you only have 48 hours, cloning graphics is your best friend...

New Release: Choose your own CaveVenture 1.1

Just a quick heads-up: Choose your own CaveVenture has gotten a new release, version 1.1. It features rest-until-healed as a function, configurable keys, as well as monster-status messages. Also, Linux-version.

Go get it.

There will be more later. The game is only about halfway-done. Stay tuned.

Release: Choose your own CaveVenture

It is done! Choose your own CaveVenture, our first actual PC game, is now available on itch.io!

It's free, so if you're on a Windows-machine, go try out this crossbreed of choose-your-own-adventure and roguelike. Unlike many of the more complicated roguelikes, CyoCV plays using an interface that anyone who reads English can understand and play: Text tells you what the situation is, then you get options what to do. Pick an option, hit the key it says on the screen, enter and the game tells you what happens.

The title-screen ASCII-art - all the graphics in the game.

The Baumannshöhle, my inspiration for the game's cave. Picture is public domain via Wikipedia.

Go, check it out, leave any feedback in the comments on this post.

Thanks!

How to beat a Roguelike: Pixel Dungeon part 2

A lot of modern roguelikes (and I use that term in a very broad manner - once again screw the Berlin interpretation!) have nice graphics and easy-to-learn interfaces that make them accessible for more and more players - who then run against a wall of difficulty. Don't despair, in this series of posts I shall shine some light on those that I have played and beaten and give some tips regarding strategy and practice on each individual game.

Last time I wrote about the first two bosses of Pixel Dungeon, how to get there and how to beat them. This time we'll delve further into the depths, seeing what we can do about the other three bosses and their minions. After you beat the Tengu, the game curves up a little, getting more difficult. If you have beaten the Tengu, however, you get a book that lets you specialize your character class further - and that is something you get for every future play-through on that class. What to do to get through the caves though? Read on!

How to beat a Roguelike: Pixel Dungeon part 1

A lot of modern roguelikes (and I use that term in a very broad manner - once again screw the Berlin interpretation!) have nice graphics and easy-to-learn interfaces that make them accessible for more and more players - who then run against a wall of difficulty. Don't despair, in this series of posts I shall shine some light on those that I have played and beaten and give some tips regarding strategy and practice on each individual game.

Let's start this out with Pixel Dungeon. The game is made for Android-devices and is a classic random-generated, turn-based dungeon-crawl with an interface optimized for touch-screen use. It is also well-enough programmed to run on my old cellphone and doesn't mind a small screen. Plus you can zoom in and out and other nice touches. Pixel Dungeon is notoriously difficult and even the comments on the Play Store speak about how much is dependent on pure luck when playing this game. This is partially true but let me tell you what you CAN do to get ahead and beat this roguelike.

Choose your own CaveVenture: Announcement!

Okay, here it comes: The roguelike we've been working on for quite a while, with me leaking some thoughts on the design process every now and then, will, baring a disaster of civilizaton-destroying force, be released this coming Sunday, January 12th 2014. Let's talk about what the game does, shall we?

Choose your own CaveVenture, which was the work-in-progress title but kinda stuck, is a roguelike with the classical theme of exploring an underground cave, but with the interface of a choose your own adventure. That means that instead of traditional top-down ASCII-graphics and/or tilesets or a 3D-enine, the entirety of the game will work with descriptions of the player's surroundings and what happens, while the controls offer you options of what you can (attempt to) do.

This may seem like a very primitive way of doing things at first but it does have some advantages over the classical roguelike:

-You do not need to memorize half your keyboard worth of functions. What you can do will be, with some exceptions of general things, always visible on the interface. This makes the game extremely easy to learn, even for non-gamers.

-As description and game-view are the same, you do not so easily miss things like descriptions of audio and such, as may happen in other roguelikes.

-Accessibility. The game can be played by the visually impaired with a screen-reader as those programs are designed to read lines of text.

All you'll need to play the release version of the game will be a Python 2 compatible decompiler, which can be got here (make sure to get a Python 2 version, as Python 3 is not backwards-compatible).

Anyways, come back on Sunday to get the game, while we put some finishing touches on version 1.0!