Note of the outskirts - blobber by Cryptrat

[Strange Fellow]

At least there's no doubt that this game is the work of a man who enjoyed KotC 2

Are there hidden teleporter tiles in the starting area as well? I just had this weird thing where my party started in the upper left corner of the map, then got lost - and when it regain their bearing, they were in the upper right corner, even though they couldn't have walked that far.

This one got me too. You really do have to start mapping from the first. Doesn't help that unless you've got very high Swimming you have to pay an HP tax to get back to where you were, as far as I can tell.

 

[CryptRat]

At least there's no doubt that this game is the work of a man who enjoyed KotC 2

Unfair, I spent a lot of time to balance the combat so it takes several rounds at soon as you have at least some basic armor such as a breast plate.

 

[V_K]

so it takes several rounds

...most of which the party spends paralyzed or otherwise incapacitated.

 

[CryptRat]

This one got me too. You really do have to start mapping from the first. Doesn't help that unless you've got very high Swimming you have to pay an HP tax to get back to where you were, as far as I can tell.

Don't worry, everybody's hating me for this one, it had to be there though.

 

[Dorateen]

I never played a Dungeon Crawler before where I could wield a chainsaw. That has it's own charm.

Spoiler

I do need to go back and add another party member. Somehow I missed you can make seven characters, not just six. Agree that mapping by hand is a big part of the experience in the beginning, just to familiarize yourself with the surroundings.

 

[V_K]

Agree that mapping by hand is a big part of the experience in the beginning, just to familiarize yourself with the surroundings.

Doesn't help. The upper right corner that you get teleported to looks almost exactly like the starting area.

 

[Reinhardt]

2012+str damage

 

[V_K]

It's a D, 2D12. But yeah, the font doesn't make the distinction easy.

 

[Thac0]

I was under the impression you were working on To Hell with Guns mainly? So that is finished and in its final state now? Would you recommend to play that first if I havn't already?

Also Steam/GoG when? Looks more polished then some of the jank you see on there.
Or not worth the 100 bucks fee or whatever Steam takes nowadays?

 

[V_K]

nother small thing: "damaging trap" sounds rather awkward. Better call it a spike trap (would also better indicate that it causes bleeding).

Sure, thanks.

Speaking of bleeding, what do you cure it with? Going by the description of "First aid" skill - bandages - only there aren't any in the starting area. And while we're at it, the amount of antidotes for sale at the drug store is way too low given that there are 7 party members and several dozens poison traps around, not to mention poisoner enemies.

ou can spend your gold much better

I actually disagree. The default party comes with a fire extinguisher which I don't think you can buy in the starting area. And they start with 6 antidotes, and can buy more - whereas currently a new party has to make do with 3 available for sale.

 

[CryptRat]

I was under the impression you were working on To Hell with Guns mainly? So that is finished and in its final state now? Would you recommend to play that first if I havn't already?

To Hell With Guns is in the state it was 2 years ago, it would be a bit boring to fix now so since it's such a tiny game made for a gamejam I won't at least as long as there's some work to do on Note of the outskirts but there's one very specific bug, after character creation if you want to enter the dungeon with a character outside the party selected then it crashes (basically if you just delete all characters you don't want to use before entering the dungeon you're sure you won't get it), I think it's playable as long as you're aware of this one. As for as if you need to play it first, what's certain is that you don't have to. It's still somewhat a demo of what this game is, I guess, some things were not implemented yet, such as needing strength to throw weapons, combat overall is more limited, there are very few things and no interaction with environment (with doors, fire, water ... only doors are there anyway) and putting points to base stats during the game instead of rolling once and for all is a big thing, but many things are still appliable, now one important thing is I think all the players who enjoyed it enjoyed exactly for being a very small game where you have to draw your very own map, if you don't want to draw your own map then don't play To Hell With Guns.

Also Steam/GoG when? Looks more polished then some of the jank you see on there.
Or not worth the 100 bucks fee or whatever Steam takes nowadays?

Some assets in the game are not usable in commercial projects so I never wondered if it would be commercial or not, and if I'm not mistaking GoG does not have free games in the shop. I guess I may bother with Steam someday anyway but I'm not in a hurry to do so.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I do need to go back and add another party member. Somehow I missed you can make seven characters, not just six.

Me too In fact I only realised my mistake when the game got its official release and I looked at the store page blurb.

Speaking of bleeding, what do you cure it with? Going by the description of "First aid" skill - bandages - only there aren't any in the starting area.

There are, you just have to find them.

The default party comes with a fire extinguisher which I don't think you can buy in the starting area.

My party has a fire extinguisher, so this is definitely available as well, although you might have to find this too.

 

[V_K]

I do need to go back and add another party member. Somehow I missed you can make seven characters, not just six.

Me too In fact I only realized my mistake when the game got its official release and I looked at the store page blurb.

Speaking of bleeding, what do you cure it with? Going by the description of "First aid" skill - bandages - only there aren't any in the starting area.

There are, you just have to find them.

I meant for sale.
If that's the kind of game where you have to kill off your first 10 parties just to make note of where to find basic necessities in the starting area, I don't think it's for me. Which is a pity.

 

[CryptRat]

Speaking of bleeding, what do you cure it with? Going by the description of "First aid" skill - bandages - only there aren't any in the starting area. And while we're at it, the amount of antidotes for sale at the drug store is way too low given that there are 7 party members and several dozens poison traps around, not to mention poisoner enemies.
I actually disagree. The default party comes with a fire extinguisher which I don't think you can buy in the starting area. And they start with 6 antidotes, and can buy more - whereas currently a new party has to make do with 3 available for sale.

I could double check, but I think the tool store sells several fire extinguishers (you should could have missed the shop but since you have the mapper you didn't), and there is one in the upper right area, and you will be cured from burning from entering water (or at least one of these statements should be true, or there's really something wrong ). Note that the drug dealer in upper right is a douchebag, it's not the pharmacy, which is upper left.

 

[V_K]

I could double check, but I think the tool store sells several fire extinguishers (you should could have missed the shop but since you have the mapper you didn't),

Yeah, that's my bad.

Note that the drug dealer in upper right is a douchebag, it's not the pharmacy, which is upper left.

...which I have never even found prior to now. That teleporter is utter bullshit. I give up.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I'm interested enough to keep playing, but if these starting encounters are "not too hard", well, we'll see. Nothing wrong with an expert level scenario, but I'm not sure I'm expert level.

One other thing, about Haggling: I will never use it. I'd be curious to know if anyone does.

 

[Dorateen]

One other thing, about Haggling: I will never use it. I'd be curious to know if anyone does.

Tried to haggle, and got thrown out of a shop. Waiting another 20 hours to get back in.

 

[V_K]

but if these starting encounters are "not too hard", well, we'll see.

I've actually managed to win a couple of fights with the default party but it might be because they're level 2. I'm tempted to give it one last try, now that I know where exactly the fucking teleporter is.

One other thing, about Haggling: I will never use it. I'd be curious to know if anyone does.

Tried to haggle, and got thrown out of a shop. Waiting another 20 hours to get back in.

Yep, same experience. Something like half a dozen attempts ended in critical failure like this, and only one, in regular failure (i.e. prices stayed the same but at least I didn't get thrown out).

 

[V_K]

By the way, invisible walls - also a feature or a bug?

 

[CryptRat]

I'm interested enough to keep playing, but if these starting encounters are "not too hard", well, we'll see. Nothing wrong with an expert level scenario, but I'm not sure I'm expert level.

As you get boots, helmets, gas masks, all these junkies, losers and other cowards should become a joke, while stronger enemies like raiders you will be very happy to encounter in very low number if it ever happens. As a rule you should rather not bother to fight against robots unless they are blocking your way since they are hard to deal much damage to with basic weapons and there's no reward except for the few xps. From enemies which you can encounter early sentinels (not to mix with low quality sentinels) are a pain in the ass.

Characters with bad stats should probably rather use machine guns (Assault rifles or SMGs) so they can (E)mpty barrel (they need 2 in logic) when they really want to kill an enemy (most human enemies will die to such an attack).

Grenades can be worth their price because enemies don't have a lot of HPs in the beginning (many have 8) and impact damages are generally better than other kinds.

I hope you enjoy it, I expected the level design to be despised, in this aspect the game is really not for everyone (although' automap makes a difference, or so I guess) but I really think that the combat part, at least in the beginning, is not insane. In the later parts it may become, and I'll gladly take feedbacks about it (I have no feedback about these very last parts yet, heavy tanks, metamorphs, jellyfishes ...).

Also if you think I should add an option for easier random encounters overall I can add it.

By the way, invisible walls - also a feature or a bug?

A feature. You can use a smoke bomb to reveal those for a while.

 

[V_K]

(I have about no feedback about these parts yet).

I wonder why would that be

 

[Strange Fellow]

Yeah, I'm still figuring out how combat works, not sure how to go about it yet. Melee weapons seem powerful, but hard to use since enemies are almost never in range, while SMGs and assault rifles do piddling damage unless you spray and pray which eats through ammo like crazy. Energy weapons might be OK, but it's hard to tell what works and what doesn't when it's rare that a character is A) not unconscious or incapacitated, B) not putting out fires, bandaging wounds or administering antidotes, and C) hitting the mark. I had a look at the pregens and overall my combat stats are better than theirs. I'll keep experimenting. Right now, finding a doable combat encounter without getting blown up by traps is challenge enough.

Oh, and for those others playing: Hacking works wonders against the low sentinels if you've got a decently skilled hacker.

Yep, same experience. Something like half a dozen attempts ended in critical failure like this, and only one, in regular failure (i.e. prices stayed the same but at least I didn't get thrown out).

I only had to fail once to know that I'll never do it again.

 

[CryptRat]

(I have about no feedback about these parts yet).

I wonder why would that be

No, it's more complicated, we're only talking about 2 players who are actively playing the game, they're not playing a lot, and they turned around quite a bit in the very beginning, during the advertised 10 hours (probably a little less) they barely completed the first map, but from their short adventure into the few next floors when they stumbled upon a fixed encounter in these few next floors they still managed to get through it more than often. They're both level 3 in second floor with a decent, not amazing equipment (what you'll get during the fixed encounters of first floor, more or less, although' a bit better, having both killed a few raiders for metal armors from random encounters for example) so it's quite representative, and it's very faithful to my own experience. Last floors I think are hard, but it seems that the players won't necessarily get there with a weaker party than mine (for example they may have more bombs that I presume and test with) and by this time probably won't play worse than me either, so it's possible that they'll do it. But possibly not, in which case I may dumb down quite a bit those very ending encounters, I'll really have no problem doing so based on feedbacks from people here or elsewhere. However the beginning of the game was already balanced.

 

[CryptRat]

I prefer my blobbers set in fantasy.

Coward.

 

[Reinhardt]

I prefer my blobbers set in fantasy.

Coward.

Next screen - your party is dead.