I signed up to tip you all on a very dredmore-y roguelike with sci-fi theme looking for some funding. My understanding is that this will be released anyways so it's more of a preorder kind of deal, especially since the funding will go through even if the goal is not met. Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with these guys in any way except for being a fan, although that might surprise somepeople in kerberos forums.
It looks alright, but somewhat lacking in depth. (No visible stats besides health and mana/stamina/whatever that other one is.)
On seeing this in the thread list, my initial thought was that someone had made a game based on this.
I love Sword of the Stars, and I love Rogue-likes, so this seems like it will be a natural fit for me. I just hope it's good. Simplicity isn't ALWAYS a bad thing. There's a concept called 'elegance', where something which is very simple on the inside, can lead to complex, or at least, surprising results. But that's something that takes a combination of originality and genius to accomplish, both of which are rare commodities.
in the description they say that game length is expected to be from ten minutes to three hours, so I guess it is much simpler in scale than Rogue or Dredmor. The art style reminds me a lot of 100 Rogues, which was a lot of fun but had tons of release problems with persistent bugs and some balance issues.
They've released an alpha build/demo of the game -- you can only play an engineer class, and can only play the tutorial and the first 5 levels of the game. I've tried it and ended up getting killed on level one by a deranged medbot (guy was tough). The UI is just 'ok'. I'd like to see a few changes to it. Game is also just 'ok' so far. Problem I have with it is that monsters move too quickly and they come after you from off the map (in other words, there's not so much of the maneuvering, etc. of Rogue, Dredmor, and so on). I did pick up a few items that I have no idea what they do (died before I decided I probably should have played with them). Anyway, I like it enough that I'm going to play with it for a bit (but I'm heading out the door shortly so that may be later tonight or tomorrow). Here are some links where you can download it, and keep in mind that it's an alpha:
I've played a bit more of the game and I need to revise some of what I said (first impressions aren't always correct). The game, although (at this time) flawed, is more tactical than I thought it was. When I figured that out, I managed to survive a bit longer (actually survived to the end of the demo on my last game). It still needs some tuning, but I actually have been enjoying the game (to a point, but I'll get to that). Creatures have different behaviors and move at different speeds, etc. So once you figure that out, the game feels a bit more involved. Some creatures, like the med-bot I mentioned, move slowly and don't have ranged attacks, so if you have the room, you can kite them. Others seem to be immobile, but do have ranged attacks. I still have an issue that you can get attacked from off-screen (fortunately, you can also hit creatures that are off screen with your own ranged attacks, but still, it's an annoying bug(?). Furthermore, you can sometimes see critters at the bottom of the screen, below/under the hotkey bar. However, you can't attack anything there. So that's inconsistent with the fact that you can attack critters to the left or right, that aren't visible at all. The UI issues that I mentioned -- there are 4 hotkeys, and you can assign items to the hotkeys. However, it's totally unnecessary to put a weapon on a hotkey, since tab will automatically cycle through your available weapons without passing any time. Furthermore, other items, such as healing kits, food, etc., while you can also assign to hotkeys, do not actually work unless you open your inventory, right-click on them and select 'eat'. I consider these very minor issues, since the inventory is small, so finding anything you need is not horrible. Still, the ability to sort your inventory by consumables, etc. would be nice. Another UI issue -- I can't tell how many heals I have left. I haven't figured out yet how that works -- even if it's not a bug, it should be a bit more intuitive, imho. Also, items, once you've used them, it would be nice if they let you know for the future what the food/healing value is of them. Some items, even after using, I'm not exactly sure what they do (eg. vitamins only indicate that they increase your food by 1(!!!), which makes them seem kind of useless compared with, for example meat, etc. If there's no indication as to whether an item is actually helping you in a noticeable way, most people will decide to simply drop them, or just use them as you get them. Traps -- I've yet to actually see a trap, but I've certainly stepped in one. I have no idea what to do about them. On the other hand, none of them have been particularly dangerous (worst thing that has happened is that I've gotten slowed for 30 rounds, which might make a difference if I were in trouble). Some of them actually help you (which is an odd concept). Maybe I need to increase my trap skill a bit more and see if that makes any difference. But since traps seem so innocuous (so far) I don't actually see an upside to doing that, since other skills are much have more concrete advantages to them. There are some balance issues (or it may just be that I got lucky -- I can't tell with the demo). Once I found an auto-pistol, the game felt really easy. I had ammo up the wazoo and there was no reason to ever use a melee attack (which may differ with other classes, but we'll see). When I first got it, I thought it was a really cool weapon -- it had better penetration than the default pistol, would fire up to twice at a time at a target (if the first shot killed the target, you'd save the ammo on the second shot). Also, it held 10 rounds instead of 6, like the default pistol. So essentially, it more than doubled my killing power in one fell swoop. The worst dangers were a) finding myself surrounded (probably only could happen when changing levels, but I can't swear to that), and the stationary bots with the really bad ranged attacks (though moving out of range would give you enough time to do anything you want with little risk, including healing, reloading, etc.) So once I got that weapon, it really felt like I was playing on easy-mode. Some hints: 1. If you find yourself on level 5, don't try to go down to the next level, because that ends the demo (unless that's what you want). I found the ladder to the next level before I had explored most of level 5. 2. In the demo, many items are kind of useless -- I'm assuming a lot of them are for crafting. Just drop them. 3. I don't know if it's just me, but I've yet to find any weapon other than the autopistol. So shotgun and rifle ammo, you may also want to drop (but remember where you left it. 4. Food -- if you are close to leveling, don't bother eating, because leveling resets your hunger meter. Food doesn't really fill much of your hunger meter, so (at least in the demo) hunger is not much of an issue. 5. Locked doors -- you should try to open up every locked door, even if it seems unnecessary due to other entrances/exits. You get free exp from it, plus those lockpicks only serve to give you a lockpick bonus (in other words, using them up is not something to fret about). If you run out of lockpicks, keep trying. 6. Special actions -- repairs, reloading, healing lockpicking, prying open containers, searching, etc. cause the timer to tick down. Anything that is off screen and sees you will likely try to attack you while that is happening. Fortunately, getting hit will interrupt the action. Since that part is in real-time, I'm NOT exactly sure if you can manually interrupt your action though. So before you start doing something like that, it would be advisable to make sure you are alone (that's not always viable, but still). Anyway, I'm liking the game more. It's good for an alpha, for sure. It's very playable and it's actually starting to grow on me from my first, less than positive impression.
I also had a less than positive first impression. It felt 'clunky' (I got an email with download link from Kerberus themselves). I will try it again when it's further along I suppose.
Klunky is a good word for it. I also take back what I said about traps being innocuous. I did encounter one damage trap since then. Also, one REALLY nasty trap that I encountered twice. There's no message on the screen, but there's a fast graphic that looks like you dropped something in a doorway. Well, doorways block view, so I went over to pick it up, and got the graphic again. First I lost my blade, second, I lost my armor. The second time it happened, I was very careful not to not step on the same spot twice. That's worse than Dredmor's dread corruption traps, especially since they don't get marked on the map.
I signed my NDA and because I'm a supporter, I just got access to the closed beta for "Sword of the Stars : The Pit" (downloading as I type this). According to Kerberos, I am permitted to discuss the game, just not to share access, screenshots, video, etc. So I'll be playing it shortly and I'll certainly let you know what I think.
My first impressions (for this version): The game definitely looks a little prettier due to changes in the color scheme. It also has gotten much more difficult. I'm not sure if these are the only reasons, but ammo and healing is now a lot harder to come by, and your food meter no longer resets when you level (the latter has not been an issue, but the shortage of ammo and healing certainly does make the game more challenging). The beta unlocked the Marine class, but Pilot is still locked. The marine gives you some nice starting equipment: a blade, as well as an assault rifle and auto pistol, and 3 different kinds of grenades. But you don't get the healing kit and other utility gear of the Engineer, unfortunately. All of the guns are really nice but they chew up ammo like no one's business. So I used the blade a lot more. Eventually, on level 3, I had no choice in the matter, as I would occasionally get into situations with 3 to 5 or so enemies. Anyway, I have to say that the game is more fun with the greater difficulty imposed by the limitations, and playing the marine is also much fun. I'm not sure if they've maybe lowered the drop rate of items a bit too much though. It doesn't look like the changes have been drastic, yet it still feels like a much better game. Crafting is now implemented but I haven't had a chance to use it yet.
The game is shaping up just fine, based on the latest build. That said, I did die in a most painfully unavoidable way. A robot surgeon (or whatever it was called) knocked me unconscious(!) and killed me after about 4 or so hits. Stuns and sleep and other attacks are perfectly acceptable in rogue-likes, but being hit 4 times in a row without any recourse is kinda painful. Then again, this was the first time I'd encountered this particular enemy in good while, so next time I won't let it get within melee distance. My weapons and armor are holding up a bit better to wear and tear, but then again, I'm not messing with any traps that I detect -- my prior experience (at least with earlier builds) was that the damage that traps do to you is irrelevant as compared with what they can do to your gear. Now, you are limited to 3 attempts at opening a locked door -- on the third attempt, the door becomes irrecoverably jammed, and alarms blare which attract nearby enemies. I like this change. Previously, you could keep trying to pick the lock, which meant that there was no consequence for failing to train up lockpick skills, other than wasted time on failed attempts. Previously, you could change facing without taking any time to do so. Well, technically, you can still do that, except that some creatures will now grab you, making it impossible to change your facing. FAcing is important because it determines what you can attack (you can't attack directly behind you, for example). If you get grabbed from behind (as happened to me) then you have to figure out how to deal with that, because the creature doing the grabbing isn't going to be targetable. So overall, my impressions are getting better and better with each release. It's actually a fun game to play.
Was anyone else disappointed when this showed up in new threads and WASN'T an adaption of the Gaslamp Games Pit? Edit: For reference,
Well, not me, but that's due to the fact that I was following this game over on the Kerberos forums beforehand.
This is the only other Pit game that I was previously aware of: http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves...es&ie=UTF8&qid=1359882213&sr=1-2&keywords=pit
It's a bit hard. I tried it this morning and I found, annoyingly, that rats can often be quite hard to hit.
They vary by what level you encounter them on. They get harder the deeper you go. At least with my marine, I didn't have major problems with them -- they did 'wear me down' a bit, but only in the accumulative sense, did I need to use any kind of healing. I'd imagine that an engineer would have greater difficulty, though, so ymmv. I am planning on taking the engineer for a spin next chance I get. Has anyone been able to use a console to decode anything yet? I've gotten experience boosts from using a security console, so I'm Assuming that means I was succesfull. But the message I get is invariably gobbledygook. I'm pretty sure that there's actually two rolls involved, one to use the console, and the other to decode the information, and my thick-headed marine apparently can't make heads nor tails from anything. I'm HOPING that the type of info that is encoded would be something like recipes, but I'm not sure. Perhaps my Engineer will be more successful (if he can survive long enough to actually find a console).
I actually just had my best run yet (level 6 engineer died on Level 6 to a disease that just kept getting worse). As in previous runs, I ran out of weapons and was punching everything. For future reference, it may be a good idea to invest some points in melee, although the skill was apparently improving through use. Disease can be nasty -- if left untreated, it's possible that it will progress in stages. It usually starts at stage 1. At around stage 3 or so, I had (thankfully temporary) blindness, at 4 I had hysteria (?), at 5 the blindness returned, and it eventually killed me while I was trying to fight off one of those flying creatures (not the white bat-like thing, but the other one). I can't show you a screen shot of it due to the NDA, but the decoding process looks like it gives you miscellaneous messages that are only partially decrypted. I can see words here and there, but so far nothing useful. I have a feeling that you need to increase your decryption skill a whole lot to read an entire message. One message looked like it could have included (among other things) verbal instructions on crafting something, another referred to an autopsy or something like that on a specific alien. Anyway, as I said, I'm only getting fragments, and nothing actually useful. The good news is that the messages are numbered (there's at least 50 different possible messages I believe, since 50 was the highest number among the messages I found). The game IS definitely hard. But I do have some very basic tips 1. Conserve ammo for the tougher enemies, use blade or knife for the easier ones. 2. Don't worry so much about healing damage early on -- you'll really need those healing items so much more desperately later. 3. If you spring a trap during your travels, and it's not marked on the map -- it really is still there. I've .not seen (At least a negative trap) go away after being sprung. So make a mental note of it (I'm not sure if the absence of a mark on the map or the screen is purposeful or not). 4. I mentioned something else about traps earlier, and it turns out I was right -- Don't bother trying to remove traps, just avoid them. It's not worth the risk of setting it off, and possibly losing important gear. I think the BEST percentage I've had so far of successfully removing a trap was 52%. Unless they will reward you with a zillion and one experience for removing it just leave it be. 5. Always make sure that you are positioned and facing in a direction that you want to be facing before you do anything that is likely to take a few turns. (Shift+A, S,D, or W changes your facing at no turn cost). The reason why I mention this is that at any time, one of those rat-like critters can grab you and screw you up. Keeping your back to the wall is ideal. Keeping your back to an open doorway while you try to repair a station of some kind or open a locked box or cabinet, and so on, can be bad for your health. BTW, I THINK there's a recipe with meat,cheese, and bread(?) in a cooker -- when I tried that as a recipe, it said that the recipe was good, but it failed, consuming all of the ingredients. I've not yet been able to retry that recipe and I'm not sure what skill governs successful crafting of food. It failed on my marine, btw, so it says nothing about the difficulty of crafting a cheeseburger, or whatever that would have turned into had I been successful. I'm guessing that engineers would be better suited for crafting of just about everything.
You must be playing with the alpha build -- I contributed enough to the kickstarter to gain beta access. The game has changed a lot since alpha.
