The Daily Click

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Author:	Pixelthief	Submitted:	30th July, 2007	Favourites:	0
Genre:	Role Playing Game	Downloads:	265
Rated:

Pixelthief Presents: A Shameless Diablo Clone!

Har har har. This be a demo of one of my upcoming games, GridQuest. The demo will take you through a full dungeon, spanning 3 levels and a full-out boss!

Gridquest is a diablo-style'd RPG, which takes place entirely locked into a 9x9 grid. If the screenshots are self-explanatory; the game features dungeon-scrolling goodness, with tons of different items, spells, and monsters to be dealt with. All dungeons are randomly generated at the start of the game, creating entirely new mazes to explore each time through. You can carry up to 14 different items in your inventory, and theres 3000 different possible items to collect!

Mostly, I'd like to get some feedback from this demo. I'd like to know what people thought, but ALSO, I'd like some ideas. For one, my game has no plot or story in mind, yet. I could really use some ideas For two, I still have one un-programmed spell (holy magic level 4), and ran out of ideas for what it should do. Give me some!

GAME WAS PRODUCED ENTIRELY IN TGF. IN ORDER TO REDUCE CHANCES OF CRASHING, ACTIVATE WINDOWS 95 COMPATABILITY MODE ON THE .EXE FILE

For Mouse Controls:
Left Click= Move, pick up/drop items, use objects, attack monsters
Right Click = Cast Spells, equip items in inventory

For Keyboard Controls:
Control= Attack
Shift= Cast Spell
Enter= Pick up items, strafe, use inventory (hold enter, and press 1 through = # keys to use an inventory spot. Either press once to drop, or hold it to equip)

Review This Download

http://claniraq.googlepages.com/GridQuestDemo.zip (1.24 mb )

Posted by Pixelthief

30th July, 2007

Remember, you can play through the entire game with just mouse controls. I recommend it.

So anyone got any ideas for a plot? X_X

Posted by Joe.H

31st July, 2007

a minimap would be quite a nice feature.

Posted by Fragasnap

31st July, 2007

I'll say the obvious:
Seems sort of random

It wasn't that unfairly random though, since the healing magic was easy to use repeatedly.
My main complaint was that I seemed to start the game with a lot better equipment than I generally found in the dungeon.

I'm horrible with plots. Maybe you could randomly generate a plot by piecing together: a thing\person, a villain, a place, and a reward, or something like that

Posted by Pixelthief

31st July, 2007

Yeah I actually gave you somewhat better equipment then you'd be able to find on levels 1,2,3, since otherwise being a demo it might be a little... hard

You know, piecing together a random plot might actually work

And no-go on a minimap; tgf doesn't spare too much AO's >.>

Posted by Quadralien

31st July, 2007

Overall, quite a nice engine - I did occasionally end up wandering into the same square as a monster, but I could easily walk out again and continue hacking away at it.

One point about when the character takes damage repeatedly over a short time - Your subliminal message isn't going away fast enough.

Good luck with the rest of it - I sadly can't think of a good plotline at the moment, but searching for the Amulet of Yendor's always there if you truly can't think of anything.

Posted by Hempuli

31st July, 2007

Really nice!
I've created a plot generator, you may use it

Posted by Pixelthief

31st July, 2007

Yeah, I actually really like the idea of a random plot; it might be more worthwhile for me to make a custom one, and use it to actually pre-seed the level indexes, so that I could even have completely different final bosses, areas travelled, ect. Its not very to say change it from being an underground adventure in caves and a river of blood to lakes and glaciers, when all I have to do is draw a 24x24 sprite and run my level generator

And I'll actually take a look into the extensions list, and see if theres anything that could possibly be used to make a minimap; I could possibly create an mini-image as a seperate file while creating the levels, and save it externally.

Oh, and unban phizzy.

Posted by Del Duio

31st July, 2007

Oh, and unban phizzy.

Seconded. Good job, Pixelthief! I like these sort of games.

Posted by Fanotherpg

31st July, 2007

It's a pity that there's no info about betatesters or authors..

Posted by Fragasnap

31st July, 2007

I noticed that unban Phizzy thing...
Did anyone else?

Posted by Pixelthief

31st July, 2007

Well, theres no real need to put credits on a demo >.>, even if someone managed to decompile it into the source and release it as their own they'd have to write an entire game to go with it ;P

But Ill put you and everyone else on the finished game

Posted by Pixelthief

31st July, 2007

Holy balls I never knew TGF had a picture object O_O

I could use that for a minimap if it had SOME way of exporting and altering images; I plan on doing this one entirely in TGF, for the retro points

Posted by waffleton

31st July, 2007

Yupyup, It does have a picture object. Its really buggy though and has barely any useful features. But good luck with the minimap.

This is a pretty nice game ^^ Impressive for being made in TGF.

Posted by Milo

31st July, 2007

Ehhh... why if you press space do you become lvl 14 adventurer on the second dungeon?

Posted by Pixelthief

31st July, 2007

The first area is just a playtest area, like what the very first level of the game would resemble. It doesn't have an entrance or exit.

When you press space, its just loading a pre-saved character at a different save point, in a sense. Like the first area is just so you can figure out the controls, and the second area is a dungeon that you can play through.

In the real game, space won't do anything. I just put that in there for testing

Posted by waffleton

31st July, 2007

Btw, holy magic level 4 should summon jesus!

Posted by alastair john jack

1st August, 2007

Bahumut!

Posted by Beau

1st August, 2007

High level magic is pretty mean. If you find either one fire tomb or one ice tomb, you can pretty much kick the shit out of the game no problem. Might I recommend making higher level magic cost much more mana. Like 50-100 for a spell. Heal ends up costing way more than Fire4 or even the ice beam. Both of which pretty much make you invincible

Great start, though. I really hope you finish it.

Posted by Fanotherpg

1st August, 2007

Pixelthief I just was wondering who was helping cause there's no bugs no

Posted by Pixelthief

1st August, 2007

Yeah I've barely even started to balance the spells yet

I can get your help for that, fan, but it would be pretty futile until I actually have the *real* game laid down

Posted by Pixelthief

1st August, 2007

Actually if you want to just look, hes a nice little breakdown that I've been tweaking:
(power = (character level + equipment bonus))

Red:
#1: Flare
Damage: (power * 2 + 5) to (power * 3 + 5)
(25-35 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 3

#2: Inferno
Damage: (power * 3 + 8 ) to (power * 5 + 8 )
(38-58 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 7

#3: Fireball
Damage: (power * 4 + 20) to (power * 6 + 20)
(1/2 damage in the aoe, also)
(60-80 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 10

#4: Supernova
Damage: (power * 4 + 15) to (power * 6 + 15)
(full aoe damage)
(55-75 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 25

Blue:
#5: Doesnt matter (Force)
#6: Doesnt matter (Teleport)

#7: Chill Ray
Duration: (power * 0.2 + 0.4) Seconds
(2.4 seconds @ 10)
Mana Cost: 7

#8: Freeze Nova
Duration: (power * 0.12 + 0.5) Seconds
(1.7 seconds @ 10)
Mana Cost: 20

Green:
#9: Thorns
Damage: 2-4
Mana Cost: 1

#10: Doesnt matter (Oak Armor)
#11: Doesnt matter (Bramble Wall)
#12: Doesnt matter (Leaf Blade)

White:
#13: Purify
Damage: (power * 1 + 4) to (power * 1.5 + 4)
(14-19 @ 10)
Heal: (power * 0.5 + 1)
(6 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 4

#14: Heal
Heal: (power * 2 + 2)
(22 @ 10)
Mana Cost: (power * 2 + 2)
(22 @ 10)

#15: Doesnt matter (deflection shield)
#16: Doesn't exist, lol

Black:
#17: Afflict
Damage: (power * 3 + 6) to (power * 4.5 + 6)
(36-51 @ 10)
Mana Cost: 4
HP Cost: (power * 0.5 + 1)
(6 @ 10)

#18: Doesn't matter (vampiricism)
#19: Doesn't matter (unholy haste)

#20: Death Nova
Damage: 50% of enemy HP
Mana Cost: (100 - power * 4)
HP Cost: 25% of your HP
(60 @ 10)

Thats some pretty epic copy/paste action
I wrote that so I could balance my spells, later. Heres what I'm thinking:

Raise mana costs on flare/inferno/fireball/nova, chillray/frostnova, and maybe a little more mana cost on death nova. Meanwhile, I think I can keep the damage EXACTLY how it is, although aoe spells (inferno/fireball/nova) are no longer allowed to hit a target more then once.

Posted by Fragasnap

1st August, 2007

I found a glitch I think...
If you get killed in a dungeon after you've opened some chests, the chests remain opened (and empty) if you play again using the same dungeon.

Posted by Pixelthief

1st August, 2007

Don't worry thats not a glitch; the save/load system I'm going to use will save the level data into a specific folder for each save file, and hold the current ones in limbo in the runtime folder. Right now its just generating them in the runtime folder, so modifications done to them will be permanent until you generate a new dungeon.

Posted by DaVince

1st August, 2007

GEEZ! You used INI files for this? Why? If you use an array, you have 2 dimensions to work with, which is equal to... a map grid!

Pretty nice, though I accidentally pressed space in some occasions, making me have to restart the game if I still wanted to walk around in that first grassland place.

FEATURE SUGGESTIONS
- Towns and people to talk to, being able to buy stuff, accept quests etcetera.
- A 'still' mode, where enemies only move when you move. This can give a "Castle of the Winds" feel to the game, which I so adore.
- 2x windowed and fullscreen mode.
- White/healing magic? The white icon was ice magic, I believe.

Posted by DaVince

1st August, 2007

Oh and bring ctrl+P back

Posted by Zezard

1st August, 2007

Cool game, I'm looking forward to its completion. The best thing is that you are making it with TGF!

Posted by Knudde (Shab)

1st August, 2007

TGF = No array.

This is pure TGF awesomeness PixelThief.

Posted by Beau

1st August, 2007

Yeah, I would make the offensive magic spells just cost more or something. And I'd make heal cheaper or more powerful if you're going to keep it the same. I was dying faster than I could heal in someparts, so I just gave up on it

I need to try out the other spells, but I don't always end up with them. I volunteer for testing if you want someone seasoned

Posted by Pixelthief

1st August, 2007

Yeah I forgot to activate the pause button that I built it, its working now. I'm not sure what I can do with windowed modes; its using resize based on display, so u can either drag it or play it fullscreen.

I rebalanced alot of the offensive spells; alot of higher levels spells now cost quite a bit more mana, and heal a tiny bit less at higher levels.

I could post a version where all spellbooks are active, but it might spoil the fun when you get to play the *real* game

Posted by Del Duio

2nd August, 2007

Even when I make it Win95 compatible, the game crashes on me after about 30-45 seconds. I hear this sound that is sort of like white noise and radio signals mixed with ass.. Anyway, after that happens a bit it goes bye bye

But for the 29 seconds I can play this, it's a lot of fun- If that's any consolation!

Posted by Pixelthief

2nd August, 2007

Is it getting past the random level generation part? That can take a long time, but theres no DMC objects or any sort of music/sound controls in the game currently. The only audio stuff is the built in "play wav file" or "play midi file" in TGF, which shouldn't be crashing on its own....

Posted by ncsoftware

2nd August, 2007

A diablo-style'd RPG?????????????? That's a huge excaggeration, it doesn't even remotely look like it.

Posted by Del Duio

2nd August, 2007

Yeah, it gets past the creation part Pixelthief. I can go around for a little while and swing the stick +1 I start out with, but little else. This computer can play wavs and MIDIs no problem, Maybe because it's a TGF game?? I don't think I've ever played one at work before.

GameFun4U: It can be modeled after something and not look like it, necessarily. It's a hack / slash game where the guy is moved by clicking the mouse to attack your enemies, and a ton of magic items. That sounds similar to me.

Posted by Pixelthief

2nd August, 2007

It could be a problem with the CNCS232.dll file, if you're at work where youve never played a TGF game. Anyone who has tgf on their computer or has played another one already has the DLL file somewhere on their computer

Posted by DaVince

3rd August, 2007

Shab: not even an array extension?

Posted by maVado

3rd August, 2007

for a TGF game this is impressive. keep going

Posted by Del Duio

3rd August, 2007

Ah! I think it said something like a dll was missing so I had to use my cnc dll that's in a folder here, they're probably not compatible. You should probably include the dll in your game's folder when your full game is done, since there will be non-clickers who might download it and be unable to play it.

Posted by Sketchy

3rd August, 2007

Del Duio: I think I had exactly the same problem as you. For me, disabling samples with ctrl+s fixed it.

Pixelthief: As far as the game goes, it's ok. I get a lot of slow-down if it's maximized, but at normal size it's too small to see what's going on. Personally, I'd have liked it better if it had been more like Rogue, a forerunner to Diablo, which is only sort of realtime; but I guess that's just a matter of taste.

I hope you'll include some of the various monsters with special attacks - eg. vampires reduce your maximum health, aquators damage your armor etc.

Also, some of the different behaviours - some monsters stand still, some run towards nearest treasure when player approaches, some chase player, some wander randomly etc. I've had a Rogue-like (possibly Rogue-HeroQuest hybrid) on my to-do list for ages, so I've got quite a few ideas but I'm gonna keep some for myself though

Posted by alastair john jack

3rd August, 2007

This is a good roguelike

Posted by vampir kat

4th October, 2015