Cataclysm of Chaos V9 (Text Adventure)

[lordpalandus]

@Hooman;

What? One cannot take an honest look at ones work and be able say that they did a good job, even if it was rejected? I can understand some people calling crap a work of art, but I don't think my game is crap. I'm just pointing out that I found it very enjoyable and fair, and therefore I stand by it.

Typo. Meant to say that I now know there ISNT a market for it. Sorry.

Yep.

More pessimistic than I am, lol.

That's cryptic and unuseful.

Less fear of success, and honest realities.

Just calling it for what it is. That has been my experience with the engine. And if it is a justification, then its a justification. Whatever, stop fighting me on this; it's making me feel extremely defensive and hostile. Just leave it alone.

Perhaps, perhaps. Regardless, I've felt limited for a long time now, so it is what it is. Yes, reducing feature creep is important, but I'd argue that the options in the game offered greater depth and value to the experience, rather than took away from it. Sometimes people cut features, thinking it is a feature creep, but in reality it is a necessary feature. One needs the right balance in a game, rather than get too hung up on complexity or simplicity.

I prefer tutorials over the game gating off content and abilities, based on gameplay progress. One of the reasons I detest playing Far Cry 4 or other games built on the same formula, like Shadow of Mordor or Mad Max. Preferablly, I'd prefer a middle ground between tutorials and gating abilities, but haven't really seen that.

Well, I sent another reply asking for some deeper insights into their rejection, adding that I need the feedback even if it is negative, to become a better game developer. We shall see what they have to say.

Perhaps, but what else would you have me do? Give up? I agree with them that there is a good game idea there in Cataclysm of Chaos, perhaps a text adventure wasn't the ideal way to do it. Maybe an ASCII isn't either, but it will still give me valuable experience in handling various issues with larger open world games, which is still useful.

Yes, yes. To new beginnings!

=====

@Vagabond; There is about 200+ hours worth of game development left. Creating new sections, as well as monsters and bosses and loot takes a significant amount of time. I have a ton of lore to do and that always takes me a long time to do. I have spells that need creating, and testing. I have a trait system that needs to be rebuilt. There is a significant amount of work left to do to bring it to the point of being feature complete; and that not including any of the long list of feature creep that I have; that 200 hour figure is for all the crucial design elements.

I've actually moved on from its development, and have refocused my efforts in trying to determine the best way to go about making an ASCII/Tile-Based game. I have no more interest or drive in completing Cataclysm of Chaos; as I've said, I've learned all that I can foreseeable get from it and there is no real incentive to complete it anymore. But, I will be happy to provide updates on the ASCII progress as I have some.

Sorry if that wasn't the answer you were looking for.

[lordpalandus]

Well, I've managed to find a good engine that supports ASCII roguelikes or tile-based roguelikes, named T-Engine 4 (its the engine powering the steam purchaseable ToME). I talked to them and they said that I can definitely make a commercially viable game (assuming of course that I produce my own assets and sounds). So, once I get up to speed on creating a roguelike ASCII in T-Engine 4, I will give everyone here progress updates on the new and improved CoC. Just thought you guys might want to know.

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus,

Looking forward to hearing your experiences. What programming language does T-Engine 4 use?

There is about 200+ hours worth of game development left. . . . I've actually moved on from its development

Well, if you change your mind, I'd be happy to play it. It does sound like you have learned a lot about programming and game developement in general in the process.

I have seen roguelike games that store their data in .txt files so that it is easy to review/mod for fans. Like adding new artifacts, monsters, dungeon rooms, etc. Something to think about.

If you can separate the game logic from the render code, it should be fairly easy to start with ASCII characters and then later allow skinning all the objects as real graphics. I've seen several games do this sucessfully, where they now default to a tileset of sprites, but you can go in and select ASCII for play if you prefer/grew up on them.

You can either render all the ASCII characters as graphics or use the actual text. The benefit of using the text instead of graphics is that screen readers can read the map out. I've watch a podcast about people who are nearly or wholly blind using the screen reader to play some roguelikes. If you are interested, I'll try to dig up its URL.

Another thing to watch out for, is if you are using different colors of the same character to represent different items, depending on the type of color blindness someone has, they may not be able to distinguish between certain colors. I think red and green are tough in particular. Adding in a way to review what each character on the map is and/or avoiding certain color combinations would go a long way towards easing playbility.

-Brett

[lordpalandus]

T-Engine 4 uses LUA scripting language, and thus I should be able to create any gameplay mechanics that I wish to create. Provided I become sufficiently good with LUA.

I might at some point, but right now I'm focused on the ins and outs of T-Engine 4.

For T-Engine 4, as it does use LUA, modders or users could modify assets if they so desired. So that is entirely a possibility for the future.

Yep.

I don't know how most players play any kind of video game, if they were blind. A Braille reader only helps so far.

That can be tough, particularly if you have multiple subtypes of the same race and want to differentiate based on color. ie having 30 different kinds of kobolds. But it does make sense. I'll look into the feasibility of doing things.

[Hooman]

I have no more interest or drive in completing Cataclysm of Chaos

Just to be clear here, and to keep some perspective, how many people decided they didn't like your game?

[lordpalandus]

Dunno. Don't have stats on unique plays of the game, but no one that I know of hated or disliked my game.

As for the comment I made, I'll explain a bit further by what I mean:

1. There is no financial incentive to complete the game.
2. There is no contractual agreements in place that mandate I must complete it.
3. I've learned all I can from this title and as I want to continue to grow my skills and knowledge base, this is a good time to move on.
4. I've been wanting to develop an ASCII game for years now, and now I'm doing so and it is very exciting!
5. T Engine 4 is a flop, but found a python tutorial on how to build a roguelike and I'm understanding how things work and liking the Python language. To test my learning, I've been adding extra code and ideas to the code and manipulating the code existing to see what happens!
6. I'm focused on building an ASCII at the moment and that negates any possible interest in any other programming projects right now.

Hopefully be able to show off progress on the roguelike in a week or so, as I'm really grasping the concepts thrown at me in the tutorial.