Hey there folks! This is "smuttlewerk interactive" talking. We are very proud to announce our little jewel to the gaming world. Companions is a "Party-Dungeon-Crawler-RPG-Action-Tactics" Game , where you lead a party of four brave warriors into combat against the false god "Detexx" and "The Hordes of Nether"! Be prepared for a campaign mode and a single-map experience, packed with achievments and leaderboards (OpenFeint & Gamecenter). The game will be released in May 2011. More information on how the game is played will be added soon. For now, have fun with the first teaser/trailer: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Please share your thoughts with us! Questions will be answered ASAP! I forgot to mention: watch the trailer in HD on your iPad in fullscreen-mode and you get a good feeling how the actual game looks like! Edit: here is me myself trying to explain the tactical pause in Companions: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Looking good! -- and always happy to see a new dungeon crawl/roguelike RPG on the platform. Can you tell us more about the skills (spells?) and items (inventory?) on the bottom of the UI? What kind of character development/leveling/customization will the game include?
@simulated: the max number of skills for each class is 5 (there are three classes for each of the four races). three of them are basic skills which can be upgraded through experience. the other two skills are skills that are bound to special items. the inventory: you have one weapon slot, two equip slots (armor, rings, etc.) and 21 storage slots (potions and other stuff). You only have three "quick" slots, the other 18 are integrated in the character window. @ojtitus: you always play with the four different races, but each race has three classes, each one with unique skills Minotaur: Berserker, Gladiator, Bull Elf: Assassin, Archer, Ranger Dwarf: Engineer, Draftsman, Miner Human: Light, Matter, Void
hey fellas, I currently finish a map and I ask myself: is this bossfight to difficult for the average player to master? I can do it (and in my view I am an experienced player) and I think it's fun, but the first two times my party lost the fight and I had to reload. My position on the difficulty of games is that you have to have a hard time for the game to be fun. If it's to easy you could let the game play itself... What do you think?
I do agree with you about that, but I would like to add that if it is way too difficult, then a lot of players might give up on the game too soon.
I prefer games to be difficult but not arbitrarily so (impossible puzzles which require trial an error to solve, battles which require pure luck to survive, etc.). If you are concerned about it being too difficult, why not implement a difficulty setting? Then the gameplay should appeal to a larger audience. Just be certain the difficulty level is consistent. The one thing that made Dragon Age: Origins no fun at all for me was the erratic difficulty. I was constantly having to change the difficulty level from hard to easy and back again in order to progress. It was easily the worst game I'd ever played in that regard. Occasionally a battle would totally destroy me ten tries in a row. I'd switch the difficulty one step down and I'd waltz through the same battle unscathed, turn it back up and move on. Sooo tedious...
Indeed. The one thing I don't want is the players to be frustrated. We will implement a difficulty setting, at least for the campaign. You already have save points at crucial points on each map. It's really hard to be unbiased when you design a game and know all the little tricks etc. I start to follow routines that are obvious to me and speed up my testing of certain features, but I do my best to avoid linear playtesting.
I think you've hit on one of the big challenges in game balance, and that there probably isn't one right answer. That said, one complaint I had about the first Dungeon Hunter game was that I never felt challenged, so after a while, I just quit. No risk means no sense of achievement, and (for me at least) no fun. At the same time, if something feels impossible or like an unnecessary grind.. no fun in there either. This applies more widely than boss fights Psychologists like Csikszentmihalyi have researched this dynamic more generally, and found that you really do need challenges and skill level to be optimally matched for individuals to be engrossed in any given performance-related activity, to achieve a flow state. In the context of your game.. personally, I'd rather have you tilt slightly harder than easier, as long as I can restart from a save. Though part of that also depends on your overall design decisions for the game. If you're framing the game via a story-based campaign, part of the satisfaction will be seeing the story unfold, and different boss battles might need to be easier/harder depending on their role in the story. If you're going more for a repeated play rogue-like, where the point is more to see if you can get a bit further than last time, you might want the boss battles to be more challenging (or more random in their difficulty). Some more good discussion of this issue up on Jeff Vogel's RPG design blog at: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/02/three-rules-for-difficulty-in-rpgs.html
That's probably a strong argument for beta-testing the gameplay with people who are removed from the design process.
simulated, thanks for the input. I am completly with the psychologist you mentioned, the one with the freaky name . another point for making the game more challenging is: you learn things better when you're under stress. which in turn gives you a better play experience once you've mastered the game, but, and that's a big but: if you get frustrated before you can enjoy the depth of a game, well...most peolple just stop playing in this case. Guess I have to trust on my intuition. as for playtesters: sure thing. we will have a few beta testers. thanks for the blog post. I enjoyed the read.
Just wanted to show you guys the beauty of the new character window. You should have seen it 1 week ago, it was but a shadow of this one. --------------------------------------------------------- Hey guys! Here's an update on the minotaur skills. Feel free to ask whatever question comes to your mind! --------------------------------------------------------- The Minotaurs were humans from the north before Detexx treachery turned them into what they are today. They rely mainly on physical prowess to achieve their goals. The three classes: Berserker - the damage dealer Basic Skills: Fury - enhances your HitsPerSecond (HPS) Battle Cry - enhances the attack value of your companions Bloodthirst - enhances your chance of inflicting critical damage Gladiator - the skilled warrior Basic Skills: Sweeping Blow - attack all adjacent enemies at once Derwish - enhance your HPS and gives a chance to evade ememy attacks Pounce - a mighty jump which deals bonus damage on the target Bull - the tank Basic Skills: Shield Wall - enhances your armor value Hold the Line - enhances the defensive value of your companions Taunt - make enemies ignore the others and attack you; also lowers the enemies armor value --------------------------------------- The Elf skills will be added soon!
sry for the late response. we currently have our hands full making this game enjoyable for you guys. the values shown: sword - attack value shield - defence value boot - movement speed red cross - hitpoints bow - range sword in motion - hits per second the smaller ones below the sword and the shield are bonusses that are class specific. in order of appearance: Undead Demons Humanoids Elementals Insectoids Insects won't make it in the release, but are planned in follow up maps/campaigns. Here's another screenshot of an elven maid in trouble. Check out our Blog. The Elf skills will be posted today.
thx for the info! I've got one more question: the hour glass at the top of the screen, what it's all about? can you freeze time or what?
This seems to have a nice oldschool vibe to it. Kind of reminds me of Gauntlet. Any chance for multiplayer?
hey! again sorry for the late response. I've made a little video explaining the tactical pause. Hope you don't mind my stuttering, I myself do not mind! Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel @Scarface81: no, multiplayer is not planned. but we will port the game to iPhone/iPod and mac when time and resources allow for it. as to the oldschool thing: well, both of us were kids in the C64 era, and believe it or not: we hadn't gauntlet in mind when we started the game. the plan was a turn based space-hulk like game and that turned into a real time fantasy-themed game that reminds many people of gauntlet, hehe. perhaps at a later stage we do a multiplayer game in the same universe as companions, but that will be a totally new game.
