Dungeon Rats - first impressions and general feedback

[PEACH]

Hearing you view it as a failed experiment is a shame but obviously (and very unfortunately) makes sense if it wasn't financially lucrative at the end of the day.

I fell in love with it after I blind bought it at release knowing nothing of AoD and while I ended up going back to AoD (7 times~) and really enjoying it, there's something so perfect about how to-the-point Dungeon Rats is that still makes it my favourite of the two. I guess I can see why people who expected AoD2 didn't enjoy it but for me the no-nonsense brevity of starting it up and immediately being thrown into a gauntlet of excellent battles with enjoyable character building + resource management without any frills is the biggest appeal.

I also completely disagree with any assertions that there's no replay value. Even just playing at high charisma vs. solo made a huge difference (and I got a real kick out of the ending slide for the high cha playthrough) not to mention all the other build opportunities that change the moment to moment gameplay and long-term-planning drastically.

Really wish we'd get more in the same vein but like Castozor said,

I 'm thankful you gave us this one spin-off at least.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Little to no story, back to back combat (and the combat is good, not sure why that one guy calls it rough, most likely he sucks at it), punishing difficulty.

Not sure about the 'no story' part but since it was always advertised as pure dungeon crawler, these negative reviews that say the game is not like AoD would be very frustrating to me, since it was never intended to be a full RPG like that. I guess its people who get the game blindly since they liked AoD. Its of course fair to prefer one style of game over another but its not fair to say you are disappointed by a game because it doesn't meet your false expectations.

Same goes for the complaints about difficulty. To my knowledge, AoD and DR have always been advertised as hard games. To whine about that in a review and at the same time refuse to, for example, simply play on a lower difficulty, like VDs says some reviewers do, seems very petty.

Anyway, sorry to hear that the game didn't sell that well. Really had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Perhaps too blunt of a question, but, do you regret Dungeon Rats, Vince?

Nope. Actually, I quite like it and I'm glad we made it (even if to gain experience with party-based combat and CHA-driven party size). We even made extensive plans for The New World tactical spin-off talking place during the mutiny (mission-based, more futuristic weapons, more droids, heavier focus on resources, etc)

In all seriousness I'm disappointed that there doesn't seem to be a market for combat-heavy/only games amongst the Iron Tower crowd because that means no more combat spin-offs for me. All the things that these people moan about are what makes me love the game. Little to no story, back to back combat (and the combat is good, not sure why that one guy calls it rough, most likely he sucks at it), punishing difficulty. I 'm thankful you gave us this one spin-off at least.

Glad you liked it. For the record, we haven't made any decision yet as making it now is pointless and premature. When The New World is released, then we'll consider it and how the New World is received will be as much of a factor as DR sales over the years.

"I like a challenging game but it needs to be fun, this was all challenge and not fun. I played for 90 minutes and was replaying the same 2 fights the whole time. Even after remaking the character min-maxed on one type of combat, and I was still getting killed off very easily. Personally I should not have to play a game with a massive penalty to the enemies just to make the challenge seem balanced. I play games to challenge myself and unwind from the stress of real life not cause me more stress then real life. This and Age of Decadence will be a first for games that had me requesting a refund. First time in 20+ years as a gamer I have seen "enemies weakened 25%" being the equivilent to "normal" mode."

The outrage!

PS. Here is a rant that the Hard mode is actually hard:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/531930/discussions/0/215439774856027685/

(RANT) Murderous Psychopath difficulty way to difficult
RANT ON. I have no idea how people can play the game on Psych difficulty enabled, there is little to no option to actually play the game and having fun, the option to create your own unique character and play with it somehow to the end is not there because you have to go a certain skillset or you have ZERO chance to beat it. Go 1 charisma or 2 charisma only char and then melee or go block or sword or similar builds and you will have no chance at all. That has nothing to do with clever use of ingame/infight mechanics or tactis or the min/mx use of your skillpoints/items you find. Its just "go exactly this build and pray your rng or play on lower "difficulty". Guys, thats not balanced at all, how could you really believe that this has to do anything with clever thought combat and using your everything in surving this, no its complete unfair unbalanced gameplay without any real option in "going your way through the game", do it the one way and pray to god or forget it, thats super bad. The lower difficulties are ok in terms of rng but the overall balance design is flawed and there is not much room for character development, in the end only a few weapon types + defense are viable at all. You want to play without alchemy? Good luck! And so on...no idea i thought the game would offer real option in character development and real option in combat to use your brain and not just hope for the gods of rng to give me a hit roll or die. RANT OVER.

 

[Darth Roxor]

To whine about that in a review and at the same time refuse to, for example, simply play on a lower difficulty, like VDs says some reviewers do, seems very petty.

i would like to inform you that i finished dark souls (the most difficult game ever) over 7 times so if i fail at your game its clearly your game's fault

 

[Castozor]

"I like a challenging game but it needs to be fun, this was all challenge and not fun. I played for 90 minutes and was replaying the same 2 fights the whole time. Even after remaking the character min-maxed on one type of combat, and I was still getting killed off very easily. Personally I should not have to play a game with a massive penalty to the enemies just to make the challenge seem balanced. I play games to challenge myself and unwind from the stress of real life not cause me more stress then real life. This and Age of Decadence will be a first for games that had me requesting a refund. First time in 20+ years as a gamer I have seen "enemies weakened 25%" being the equivilent to "normal" mode."

The outrage!

Thanks for the responses Vince and nice to hear your verdict on spin-offs isn't final yet. As for the above it's pure , even on Murderous Psychopath the first few fights with a focused build are easily doable with nothing but fast-attack spam, how can someone be inept enough to fail at that. I guess reading the intro text telling you to pick one defensive and one offensive skill is all challenge and no fun .

 

[Darth Roxor]

First time in 20+ years as a gamer I have seen "enemies weakened 25%" being the equivilent to "normal" mode.

fascinating

hard = enemies are 25% tougher -> such gud difficulty balancung

normal = enemies are 25% weaker -> wow dis is totally unheard of

 

[boot]

Nope. It was planned as 'under $10' game from day and was priced at $8.99. Of course we sell the most during various sale events so the avg price is about $5. We've earned about 120k (before taxes) for a year of work. Considering that the core team is 5 people, that's not a lot so I think we can file it under 'failed experiment' at this point. Our original plan was to support our full scale RPGs with these tactical spin-offs but it doesn't seem to be working. We can't spend more than 12 months (10 months development, 2 months testing) on these games and we can't do more in 10 months than what we did with Dungeon Rats. Might as well kill this idea and stick with full scale RPGs from now on.

This is really sad. 1 year of work to make a great game, which you're then forced to sell for peanuts (5$ for a game this well made is insane, I don't think that is what this product is worth, I don't understand how anyone can sell a game they made at this price.) to retards who leave whiny steam reviews.

I'd like to see another Dungeon Rats style game from ITS. I don't know anything about making money, but I'd pay much more than 5$ to see another.

edit: currently, Dungeon Rats is bundled with AoD, costing about $1.75 total.

Is there a thread I can read where people explain how this happened and how this came to be the standard? Does this really make you more money?

 

[agris]

Vault Dweller did you ever consider a mobile/tablet release? DR’s limited scope may have lended itself to porting. I would never have suggested this, except that I recently started playing Templar Battleforce, a squad tactics tb game on my phone. It has by far the deepest mechanics of any mobile game I’ve ever played, and gives me hope that a game like DR could generate ITS significant revenue if ported.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Never thought about it. I don't know the market, don't know what's involved, what kind of problems we'd run into, what kind of issues it would cause and whether or not we'd be able to solve these issues in a timely manner or at all. I do know that chasing money (i.e. port because the grass is greener on the other side) is rarely a good idea and I don't want to get sidetracked and waste resources (programming man-hours).

 

[agris]

That's all reasonable - your lack of knowledge re: the business and work required for porting makes it a non-issue since you can't run the numbers. I also don't know if Torque is inherently platform agnostic or not (my guess is no).

 

[Whisper]

I like Dungeon rats more than AoD.

And 5 or 10 $ is too low price for such game. I usualy ignore games less than 10$, usually its 100% indie or trash (which are 90% games on steam if you check New Releases).

 

[Darth Roxor]

i ignore all games that aren't free

 

[Infinitron]

Never thought about it. I don't know the market, don't know what's involved, what kind of problems we'd run into, what kind of issues it would cause and whether or not we'd be able to solve these issues in a timely manner or at all. I do know that chasing money (i.e. port because the grass is greener on the other side) is rarely a good idea and I don't want to get sidetracked and waste resources (programming man-hours).

I think in a case like yours, one would typically license the port job to an external dev. Give him a % of profits in exchange for the work or something.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Such things are a major headache when you're lacking experience (like everything else, I suppose) and I've got all the headaches I can handle as it is. Besides, I'm not convinced that it will do well so we'll stick with what we know.

 

[Fenix]

Still, you can contct with someone who have experience in mobile games industry, and get some info.
If it's not a Sisyphean task then it can bring money, which is good.

Don't get me wrong that I ADVISE you, you should remember that English isn't my native language. )

 

[Vault Dweller]

Contacting someone is easy, managing and dealing with problems down the road (while it's tempting to think otherwise, there are always problems down the road) could be very time-consuming and painful. Obviously, anyone we contact will assure us that they have the experience, skills, time, and desire to do it. It's what comes next that's completely unpredictable. Nothing you can't manage given time, of course, but I don't want to become a project manager / administrator.

 

[Vault Dweller]

New review, negative:

Co bolo na The Age of Decadence dobre, tu chybalo. Viac menej cistokrvna combat tahovka. 99% percent sa len treba posuvat dalej a zabijat vsetko, na co hrdina narazi.

What was good at The Age of Decadence was wrong. More less pure blood fight. 99% of the percentage needs to be shuffled and killed everything the hero finds.​

I assume nobody reads the description on the store page anymore.

 

[Darth Roxor]

never trust a pepik

 

[Trashos]

I assume nobody reads the description on the store page anymore.

Since there is a "Notable changes from AoD" section on the description, I am thinking that they may have expected some emphasis there on the things DR does not offer. Nobody would expect that from a major studio, but maybe they expect so from a smaller one?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Meanwhile AoD gets a thumb-down because you can't play as a fighter:

Age of Decadence is the RPG to play if you want to roleplay a merchant, or a politician, and not a soldier or other combat class.

Most good RPG's are a little difficult (if you want to simply tear through hordes of enemy, you can play a hack n slash after all). However, Age of Decadence takes this to the extreme. There are several starter quests (in the starting option I chose) where you are basically forced into combat (you MAY get lucky and succeed in the persuasion options if you have forgone all combat skills and dumped everything into the correct persuasion option) but those fights are basically impossible. (Ie. me and 2 AI allies against 4 enemy, and all 3 of us got killed with only 1 enemy casualty).

Then it swings greatly in the opposite direction, with a fight solo against four enemy where they were able to kill me in 1 round.

 

[Fenix]

You can see all kinds of imbeciles in reviews...
50 grades of mental retardation...

 

[Old One]

There's something about AoD that brings out the frustration in a certain kind of dopey reviewer. The game doesn't allow them to succeed while playing mindlessly, and they get so aggravated they feel compelled to complain about how not-easy it is.

 

[PlanHex]

Maybe someone should rub his face in that build where someone killed nearly everything without putting any points in combat skills other than CS

 

[Vault Dweller]

Another satisfied customer:

It's not like Age of Decadence;
no charme - only slightly unfair fights and a shallow story.
Maybe get it in a bundle with AoD, or not at all - it's too repetitive and annoying to be fun.

 

[Polydeuces]

Are people just being obtuse?