FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD44 → The Necromancer Saga: Endless Dungeons

The Necromancer Saga: Endless Dungeons

By frankitox16 and Fran198

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6943.3022
Fun6273.2022
Innovation7752.9022
Theme5613.3522
Audio6062.7222
Mood3963.4722

Comments

dxk2294 2019-04-30 03:05

Love the concept! The camera angle is a wee bit awkward, and it's a little too dark, but I had fun amassing a skeleton army.

kmazzio 2019-04-30 03:18

I like the overall feel of the game, though the camera angle is kinda awkward. The music fits the game really well :)

longbowrocks 2019-04-30 03:19

Wow, good job on this one!

frankitox16 2019-04-30 03:30

@kmazzio @dxk2294 Ouch! Forgot to write the camera controls in the game description! Thanks for the feedback, many more would have missed it...

chelc 2019-04-30 05:37

Good job!! Game... hard... Could use some feedback on when you're hitting the enemy. They're too strong! Had fun playing, though. Really cool that you made a procedural dungeon!!

rhoka 2019-04-30 08:27

Great job! Necromancy is a classic take on getting power at the cost of your own life. Enjoyed playing through it! Couple things; you used unity so as far as the lighting goes it looks like you just used the default light that comes in the scene maybe and didn't generate lighting to get ambient bounce light. the shadows in our scenes were also pitch black before generating lighting. Also the skeletons got in my way a bit when trying to run away from guards or get through tight spaces, but it was enjoyable just having an army of skeletons! good job again!

frankitox16 2019-04-30 13:49

@chelc thanks! The big issue was time, as I originally intended the fireballs to also play some particles when destroyed, but couldn't make it without going overdue (the main menu itself is another example of this). As for the enemies, they were supposed to be hard at first, but easier to deal with when getting your first skeletons, as long as you kite them a bit. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

frankitox16 2019-04-30 13:56

@rhoka Thanks for the amazing feedback! Indeed lighting is quite crappy, dungeon rooms were originally supposed to have some props in them (like torches, bones, etc) and each get their own lights, making it possible to darken the scene a little bit, but having the room lit by themselves. As for the skeletons, I agree... I couldn't playtest the game enough to see that become an actual problem later in the game, and probably will patch it up sometime soon.

Once again, thanks for the feedback, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

waldinx 2019-04-30 23:59

Very tough, but I like the concept. Nicely done

cheebz 2019-05-01 00:06

Tough to get the hang of, but I like the concept. Camera took a bit of time to get used to. Overall a nice game and an interesting theme! Keep up the good work :)

mironx 2019-05-01 00:57

It seems that some times we get wrong level in adventure mode. For example I had once 0-3-1-2-3-4 and then I died.

I reakky love your animations, controls and idea. But I really hate your ambient. I think it's just too annoying and loud. May be if it was more quiet it would be less hateful.

I really think the necromancer and guards are cute. Thank you for the game. But sorry for silencing it and downvoting your audio score.

dexfrost89 2019-05-01 00:58

It was really fun to play. Once the summon didn't work at all, but after the refresh i could summon again:) Nice idea. I also liked the graphics.

derek-volker 2019-05-02 14:18

While the concept of endless dungeon its nice, the game quickly becomes repetitive due to the existence of only one type of enemy (well, until level 5 i found only one and then the game crashed entering level 6, with the camera flicking uncontrollable).

The dungeon generator is nice. Sometimes it spawns the portal in the room right next to me while a long corridor with enemies is generated in the other direction, but is interesting that level by level it increases in size and complexity.

Also, congrats on opting out of graphics category and respecting the rules of the jam.

Good job!

julien-noel 2019-05-02 14:23

I liked it, and not only because I've always been a fan of necromancers. It has a great "golden age RPG" vibe, so I would love to get a bit of narrative content in this nice scenery. But the simple fact it runs so smoothly and naturally builds up in difficulty is already very impressive !

trevor-shoe 2019-05-05 00:54

Cute and clever. Nice work! Your concept is fairly similar to my game, actually. I like the individual models, although the dungeon itself feels bland. Props and some local lightsources would have helped. Nice work on the level generator.

I would suggest bringing down the field of view on your camera, so there's not as much perspective; it feels odd seeing far off into the distance. It will feel more like a dungeon crawler when the world gets flattened out a bit. SFX would really help the actions feel more responsive; so would VFX. Time constraints though, I understand.

Some fog might have been cool too, to constrain that view distance and make it feel more atmospheric.

avsc 2019-05-05 01:59

Good job with the dungeon generator, it can be improved but I get the time constraints.

I only played after Update 1 so I can't say what it was before but the enemies are very easy now. It is because of how OP the fireball is, the infinite range and ammo allow you to kill effortlessy any enemy if you get it on your line of sight. The only ones who are a threat are the ones you can't kill with this trick (when they are positioned in a place that won't be in your line of sight without getting too close to alert them), but even in this case, you can just throw a skeleton on them and it tanks the damage for you.

I took some time to get the hang of the controls, having to use the mouse for both moving and shooting was not convenient for me. Take Realm of The Mad God as an reference, your controls are already a bit similar, but the movement is on the arrow / WASD keys. That game is a permadeath bullet hell. Just take a look in what the players handle with it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1yw0qYi0Jw

frankitox16 2019-05-05 03:03

@trevor-shoe Thanks for your suggestions about the camera! The only problem with it is that without a minimap (and proper level generation) you would get lost a bit. VFX and SFX were something to add if I had time back then. With these updates I want to keep it as close as it was when released (the game was supposed to be done in 72 hours, no more. I could add more, and probably will do so when play+rate ends, but until then, it wouldn't be fair to keep adding things).

@avsc Thanks for the feedback at the enemies! Indeed they get quite easy later into the game, I might add some scaling or something, apart form moving the spawnpoints of the enemies...

As for both suggestions on the Dungeon Generator, I might make a post on how it works and why does it feel so monotonous. To make a long story short, I made some prefabs of rooms that should appear in the dungeon, and "stick their exits" togehter. The biggest downside of this, is that the rooms sometimes collide with eachother, and Unity's collision system doesn't exactly work until runtime. So, in order to not waste more time, I went the quick route and designed a few simple rooms (which are the ones that keep repeating there). I would add props/lights/etc to it later, if I had the time (which I sure didn't). In the end, I will add all these details, but for now, it will remain as is...

josh-mcmillan 2019-05-05 03:14

I enjoyed the game! The graphics and music were well made, though I would have liked to see/here more feedback on attacks. Room generation also occasionally doubled up rooms and made some areas of maps impossible to reach (happened every five maps or so).

A really fun approach, though the AI can be a bit easy now in some cases with placement.

fear-games 2019-05-05 09:38

Nice dungeon crawler, I liked the graphics. and well done on a procedural generator :D

gecco-xyz 2019-05-08 11:31

I love the concept, but after a while it starts to get repetitive. I like how your life is actively usable as a currency in exchange for skeletons. But they make the game a bit to easy. Also "sniping" the enemies without them running towards you is possible.

eddensoft 2019-05-08 12:48

Nice dungeon crawler, graphics i very nice, but game start to get repetitive after a while....

mrjoshuamclean 2019-05-21 15:50

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/427560061?t=01h58m20s