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A jam submission

Rogue ElementsView game page

Environmental Roguelike
Submitted by Toma — 4 days, 16 hours before the deadline
Rated by 8 people so far
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Ai Usage

Human made

Genre

RPG

JRPG | CRPG | MMO| RPG

Strategy

Turn-based | Card Games | RTS | 4X

Sim

Dating | Farm | Colony | City Building

Rating

Family Friendly

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Comments

Jam Host

Hey! With FQ9 ending soon, I wanted to let you know that I won't be able to cover your game until after the event. If you're okay with waiting, just keep the game on the event and I'll be getting around to it over the next couple of months or so. :)

Developer

Heya, gladly :) Not in a rush. I'll gladly jump on the stream when you do and let me know beforehand and i am still adding more features every 2 weeks. 

Submitted

I couldn't play it much... but I definitely want to give it a shot when I get the time. The complexity really appeals to me, and I hope the tutorial gets better. Eagerly waiting!

Submitted

I have played this game for a few hours and i do love ASCII games.

It is a true roguelike as in like rogue, nethack etc. As required for the genere it has its own spin. It interacts a lot with the environment, like burning grass etc. So it is a bit of a brougelike.

I like how it looks and i do like the 10 level limit. I suck at the game as a player though, but i'm not good at true roguelikes in general.

Developer

Thanks for the kind words :) But yeah, its a bit of a passion project and hope that people can see it when they try to engage with the mechanics deeply.

Submitted

After completing a couple runs of the first 3-floor dungeon (and dying on floor 1 at least 3 more times in between) I can say this game is quite addictive. It's also very, very random, and there seem to be few guardrails preventing the character from becoming horrendously underpowered or overpowered, depending on what rolls you get. For the genre, it's "fine". OP is fun, and if you get bodied in the first 30 seconds, you can just reroll.

ASCII Terrain gets some getting used to, even with the text legend that says what each tile is. Incidentally, the icon for Mist doesn't match the actual tile on the map. Icons themselves are well done for the style, despite not being my taste, and I like most of the music tracks but some of them are grating, particularly when the dynamic stuff happens (low HP and status ailments for example can get quite manic sounding).

I do wish for some quality of life stuff:

  • Controller support please!!
  • It took me a while to find the "I" key for inventory. I wouldn't assume players know this is standard practice for these games, since even with some prior experience I forgot to try this until halfway through the second floor. I could have done the tutorial but I had assumed that would be more about explaining mechanics than explaining controls.
  • Holding the move key down makes stuff go extremely fast. Unintentionally so, especially in combat. It would be nice to be able to move quickly, while also not "fast forwarding" through turns, though I am not sure how this could be implemented.
  • I second the suggestion made below to give the player an overhead HP bar.
  • Damage dealt to players and damage dealt by players should be different colors in the combat log. Heck, an option for damage pop-ups would be nice, if it's feasible.

A couple gameplay notes:

  • Ice effect stunlock is extremely powerful both against and by the player. Though in the latter case it's kind of annoying to break out of especially when it's a single ice archer and all they can do is stall you, with no other threats around to inflict damage.
  • Random teleport on equipment is super annoying, I wish there was a cooldown or something, haha.

I haven't used any of the Villager stuff yet and don't quite understand what it or the Upgrade orbs do. I assume that will be explained in time or I'll figure out on my own at some point.

All that being said, pretty solid game, I could see myself coming back to this to do a deeper dive once I've played all of the FQ9 games on my short list.

(2 edits)
  • Youtube Link / Twitch Link
  • Graphics : Fine , the newer 'ascii' tileset over the older one works much better and is easier on the eyes, the latter of which is certainly an important thing for me as doing pure ASCII games for me nowadays is a bit difficult.
  • GUI : Mostly fine, true to form for roguelikes or ASCII games, it can be a bit difficult to read or find certain information.
  • Performance : Fine
  • Music / Sfx : 
    • Music : Fine but might need some balancing. I also like that it seems to be dynamic.
      • How is it being done, midi tracks, generated?
    • SFX : Fine
    • Gameplay : Good, I didn't experiment much with interactions as much as I'd've liked (setting grass on fire, freezing water , etc, but I like that there is interactivity here.
  • Misc Issues : 
    • Had troubles capturing video for the stream.
    • Being set on fire by a tile of snow or water is certainly an experience.
  • Notes : 
    • Not keen on the lack of a dedicated wait, but with how combat is , it's a bit more intentional on timing and learning enemy attacks so it kind of works.
    • I feel like it'd be pretty possible to end up softlocked , I didn't encounter such a problem but it does make me wonder with how certain things are set up.
    • What's with the ASCII aquarium?
    • I didn't interact hardly at all with the meta-progression village but I like that it's there if people want to do so.
      • Same with mixing potions
    • Maybe the point deduction from steps taken should scale up at thresholds? 
    • It'd be nice if the one pot that acts are a general storage device would just act as a wearable backpack and increase inventory space, it's a bit fiddly to put things in and take it out. If putting things in and taking them out use up a turn, it could still be done but with QOL as the items inside are either in a separate but connected window you can scroll to, or just are highlighted to indicate them being in the pot.
    • Option for an HP bar above our character's head like how the enemies do would be nice.
    • Thrown weapons might do with a buff, it feels pretty weak a good chunk of the time.
    • Jagged rocks blend in , might do with a slight differentiation in colour
    • Never encountered a puzzle, I think these are only in certain dungeons , so I can't say on how well they were done.
  • Final Thoughts :  Overall I do like this , I like the various interactions with elements (per the name) in the environment and the potential growing hazards if left unchecked. There's also no qualms about your character being pulped within the first ten turns of some of the harder dungeons, for better or  worse but it certainly doesn't seem like it'll leave you wanting for a challenge.
Developer

Thanks for the impressions :) The midi tracks are from a musician called Ivanastan on Bandcamp, but I specifically picked midi, so I have more control over what to do with the music. You can speed up/change values in an mp3/wav as well, but a midi allows you to even remove entire instruments or only slow specific parts of a song, and I played around with that for different situations as a kind of "adaptive" music system.

Submitted

I appreciate the technique deepth of making such games, but it gives me a feeling of Nethack, so maybe you should consider whats the standout-point from the Nethack or similar dungeon games.

Developer

Heya, thanks for the headsup, I was hoping that the store page would already communicate it, but the environmental focus is very rare in the genre. That water can make grass grow, fire can burn stuff down and create vapor clouds with different effects. Its also balanced in a way to be immediately a challenge, where every step matters, instead of grinding out equipment and levels for a few levels as is often the case in these games.
Aside from that, I also added a village simulation, where you build up your own village over time for metaprogression updates with small emergent puzzles how to optimize it.

(+1)

I've been playing builds of this since Toma was 1st releasing prototype builds on his Drive...since then, this old-school ASCII-style roguelike has evolved into a deceptively complex game filled with a vast array of systems and modes to get lost in.

If you're a fan of or miss games in the vein of Nethack or Mystery Dungeon, this is definitely worth checking out!

Developer(+1)

Haha, thank you :) The new enemies and weapon types definitely felt like they elevated the game tactically to a level i am super happy with. Currently working on a mouse only accessibility mode, but that is... Tricky.