Descend RPG

[meril]

Here my final impressions:

Pro
+ 3d grafic environment / lightning effects are really good
+ steering and movement
+ the most foes looks fine

Cons
- No automap
- No ambient sound (for me a big loss)
- random encounters, so the levels feels empty and sterile
- the battles are a litte bit boring
- No save slot (i did make a mistake at chapter 13. After dead, inadventently i've choosed "new game" instead of "continue" with the result, that i'ved lost my complete progress)
- if you look around, every turn of 90 degree is also a round in the game. This means, you get hungry for only looking around or can be attacked by an enemy. In my opinion, it's better, only a step would be a round in the game, like in "undercroft"
- no options

Bottomline:
I love first person dungeon crawlers. So it's a shame to see, that this game have potential, but need more or less of polish. In this state, the game has no appeal to me.

[Demiath]

Originally Posted by geppetto

Was doing my best to make that sound almost exactly like the audio used in "Dungeon Master" when the characters hit a wall, like a little tribute... Maybe I missed the mark there!

Well, at least the reference wasn't lost on me. That simple little sound clip made my brain time travel all the way back to 1995 when I first played Dungeon Master 2...Thanks for the ride, man!

[ric456]

The game was somewhat frustrating because I retry to get it solved finally for quite some tries, which is a good sign IMHO

I think the "static" Items is a bad design choice because this means that there is only a limited number of "steps" one can do in the game world and it forces the player to go on: it is not possible to grind a level to get "up to pace" with the enemies.
It also means that one death, which normally occurs after using lots of the items basically means the game has to be played again.
Also I used the "meal" items for healing, which they probably were not intended for and that means, I am always needing "more".

There is a certain "economic" in the dungeon crawlers: the "fight" should toughen up the character but also allow to "restock" most times it is a logarithmic scale, somewhat of
Level 1 Monster give one xp and drop 1 gold coin
Level 2 Monster give 10 xp and drop 10 gold coins
gold coins are then converted to health/mana/whatever and if a level is "too hard" one can go to an easier area and stock up/grind on lower level enemies which takes some time.

But in Descend, Money is only used for xp and reviving: that means, every fight "costs" energy (health/mana/hunger) of which a precise limited amount is available. So every fight is necessary to earn xp but It also "costs" unrecoverable "stuff"

I think there should be *some* way to recover items that heal/give mana to allow a player to get back one level, grind, and then take on the next level.
One idea would be a "Storage" room that gets available when a certain number of monsters have been killed ("Piran finds a key with the label 'Beds'") and which stocks an infinite number of low-level items like strawberries or a room in which one can rest and awake fully restored (Health,Mana,Hunger) but still I think some resupply is necessary for a balanced Game.
Maybe a vendor could convert the dropped gold into items?
Finally I think, maybe there should be dedicated Items: if "meals" get eaten in mass for their health benefit, it throws the game out of balance.

I still think the game is great and I WANT to get the story!

[macatron]

Originally Posted by ric456

The game was somewhat frustrating because I retry to get it solved finally for quite some tries, which is a good sign IMHO

I think the "static" Items is a bad design choice because this means that there is only a limited number of "steps" one can do in the game world and it forces the player to go on: it is not possible to grind a level to get "up to pace" with the enemies.
It also means that one death, which normally occurs after using lots of the items basically means the game has to be played again.
Also I used the "meal" items for healing, which they probably were not intended for and that means, I am always needing "more".

There is a certain "economic" in the dungeon crawlers: the "fight" should toughen up the character but also allow to "restock" most times it is a logarithmic scale, somewhat of
Level 1 Monster give one xp and drop 1 gold coin
Level 2 Monster give 10 xp and drop 10 gold coins
gold coins are then converted to health/mana/whatever and if a level is "too hard" one can go to an easier area and stock up/grind on lower level enemies which takes some time.

But in Descend, Money is only used for xp and reviving: that means, every fight "costs" energy (health/mana/hunger) of which a precise limited amount is available. So every fight is necessary to earn xp but It also "costs" unrecoverable "stuff"

I think there should be *some* way to recover items that heal/give mana to allow a player to get back one level, grind, and then take on the next level.
One idea would be a "Storage" room that gets available when a certain number of monsters have been killed ("Piran finds a key with the label 'Beds'") and which stocks an infinite number of low-level items like strawberries or a room in which one can rest and awake fully restored (Health,Mana,Hunger) but still I think some resupply is necessary for a balanced Game.
Maybe a vendor could convert the dropped gold into items?
Finally I think, maybe there should be dedicated Items: if "meals" get eaten in mass for their health benefit, it throws the game out of balance.

I still think the game is great and I WANT to get the story!

I agree with everything you just said! :-) I really hope that the dev implements some of those features in an update because I'd really love to try this game out, but it doesn't sound like I'd enjoy it in its current form.

[LazyGamer]

Ugh...that touchgen review was the last push not to get this, sorry, Gepetto.

Grunt sounds and damage when walking into walls, that was probably the worst idea in Dungeon Master, at least it was pretty subtle there.

I say let this rest and start from scratch with a new game working on all the criticism. The engine is there, that's a good starting point.

[Quickmix]

This Game is exactly my Style.
Dungeon Master and so on......

[geppetto]

Descend v1.2 is out with performance enhancements, and initial set of Game Center Achievements, and a couple of new mechanics to address some difficulties that players were reporting, particularly in continuing after death.

...oh, and the game is now free.


It might not be on every store immediately - if you can't see v1.2 right away or the new pricing, just check back every hour or so until it's updated.

Enjoy!

[syntheticvoid]

woot! Thank you for the GC achievements! =oD

[Muppetteer]

Agree with a lot of what has been said in this thread. I just got this as a freebie and have been playing it on and off the past few days.

Re the daggers...

Originally Posted by geppetto

For just that reason - the discovery of it I wanted players to explore the first level, given that it's tiny - certainly the smallest level in the game. The daggers were originally in the first room you enter, but just handing them to the characters seemed cheap, there's no sense of discovery in that.

The mistake you have made is that the player must go through a 1 way teleport that puts you right next to the experience well thing where you can trade gold for xp. If you missed the daggers like I did, there is no way to go back and get them from what I can see. I was well into the 2nd level down thinking why on earth doesn't this game have weapons when I was killed and restarted and found them this time.

Some other random feedback:

It has been said before obviously but random encounters + a limited amount of preset food + hunger mechanic = an unbalanced game. The hunger mechanic might be realistic but the potentially unlimited encounters (totally unrealistic) combined with the limited food ruin it.

Again on the realism thing - walking into walls and making the ouch sound might be a tribute to DM but penalising the player by removing some hit points is a bit masochistic, especially since its easy to make a fat finger error on an iphone.

One of the most unfun games I ever had the misfortune of playing was called Realms of Arkania Star Trail (?). It had a hunger mechanic, but not only that your party had to have boots and a coat and a sleeping bag otherwise every time you went outside you would catch a cold and they would slowly die. And the boots wore out quickly, so you always had to carry a spare pair. It was tedious micromanagement in the extreme and it was obvious the developers mistook realism for fun. This game is nowhere near that bad, but its a good thing to remember that its a game you're building, not a life simulator.

The game desperately needs an auto map. If you're playing on the go you can't carry a pen and graph paper everywhere.

Despite all this I am actually enjoying the game. It looks great and is fun to play. It could have been so much better.

[geppetto]

v1.3 is out with a fix for the Game Center Achievements problem.