100 Rogues (Universal App) v3.0

[WesPaugh]

*crickets*

Update is going live! At least, I've just released this version. We'll see if it goes any quicker WHEN I'M IN CONTROL LOLOLOL.

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by WesPaugh

...TROL LOLO...

Youtube link | Pop Up


So, when can we expect to see the Trololo IAP?!?

Of course this guy would start singing, the monsters would either run for their lives or join dancing in formation Rodgers & Hammerstein style.

Better yet: if they get affected by your song, they follow you conga-line-style and stay as such until you end up breaking the line by crossing it/teleporting/attacking someone after which they all break loose and go back to normal...

[jsrco]

Originally Posted by WesPaugh

*crickets*

Update is going live! At least, I've just released this version. We'll see if it goes any quicker WHEN I'M IN CONTROL LOLOLOL.

Would say winning but it just doesn't have the same effect anymore.

[WesPaugh]

Reason #1027 I should have been fired by now: unintentionally included in 2.9.5 is a sneak preview of our upcoming new game that wasn't culled out of the build as it ought to have been.

The working title is '100 Trials of 100 Rogues' (possibly just '100 Trials' as it will appear on the App Store, or maybe '100 Rogues: Trials', although that may be too long). Its an expansion of 100 Rogues' Challenge Mode into its own, linear series of 100 Rogues' levels. I guess I may as well now call 2.9.5 our 'beta' version, which exists in this update only as a much, much longer list of challenges.

At the start of the new set of challenges is a set of 25 starring a new player class, complete with hideous placeholder art, that should be making its way into 100 Rogues soon, as well, The Dungeoneer! This PC specializes in traps and gadgetry (currently his challenges only use two of his skills: Cloaking Device and Trap Hammer).

There are also 15 new challenges for each of the Crusader and Wizard classes (all with their own unique balance issues in this update), and two Tourist challenges.

100 Trials (or 100 Rogues: Trials, or whatever we decide on) satisfies a request we've gotten from players for ages: a longer, more linear version of 100 Rogues. At the moment (on my end, not in the update), it places players in a series of overworlds / hubs from which they can select and complete challenges as they like, still unlocking a new set for each 5 completed challenges. Each challenge will be scored based on the number of turns you take, how efficiently you use skills, how many monsters you kill, etc..

The game serves as something of a middle ground for people that crave challenging combat 'puzzles' that are still significantly random and replayable, and people that crave a linear experience in a game that can be, in some sense, 'completed', which 100 Rogues chose not to be.

So, cat's out of the bag. Enjoy! Please leave feedback, if you're able. A lot of work went into the challenges since that update went out that balance many of the challenges, so that feedback may not be of particular interest to me. However! I would love to hear which challenges, conceptually, you like; some are short, some have only one solution, some have a plethora of skills, some require you to find and use items, one even has hidden items! I would love to hear your thoughts.

[MissDjax]

Bought this game a while ago but never went into it till yesterday... I'm so freaking hooked and this game is so hard >_<
I can't play "easy" mode, usually I play every game on hardest lvl possible but I figured out, that normal is hard enough, maybe too hard for me
I never got past lvl11 yet...
A few minutes ago I had a pretty nice run with a +2 leather armor and a +2 vim tap (which is my favorite weapon), I was running around with this stone cat and I suddenly went into a blind alley... Since the cat was behind me I had to restart a new game, raaaaaah!!! I was so confident getting pretty far this time >_<

[MissDjax]

wow I'm just in front of Satan now O_o
I have only one HP pot and no SP pot left though... I'm pretty much dead
Hell 3 was so freaking hard compared to Hell 1 and 2 that I used all my consumables...

edit: I survived pretty damn long, making around 600 damage to Satan in total, I thought it wight be enough but it didn't
Next time I'll try to save a purify item for Satan and then it should be easy.
I went pure tank since I was lucky by finding a +2 vampire sword pretty early in game (turned it to +4 during the game). Nice game, but one dungeon more would be awesome

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by WesPaugh

Reason #1027 I should have been fired by now: unintentionally included in 2.9.5 is a sneak preview of our upcoming new game that wasn't culled out of the build as it ought to have been.

The working title is '100 Trials of 100 Rogues' (possibly just '100 Trials' as it will appear on the App Store, or maybe '100 Rogues: Trials', although that may be too long). Its an expansion of 100 Rogues' Challenge Mode into its own, linear series of 100 Rogues' levels. I guess I may as well now call 2.9.5 our 'beta' version, which exists in this update only as a much, much longer list of challenges.

At the start of the new set of challenges is a set of 25 starring a new player class, complete with hideous placeholder art, that should be making its way into 100 Rogues soon, as well, The Dungeoneer! This PC specializes in traps and gadgetry (currently his challenges only use two of his skills: Cloaking Device and Trap Hammer).

There are also 15 new challenges for each of the Crusader and Wizard classes (all with their own unique balance issues in this update), and two Tourist challenges.

100 Trials (or 100 Rogues: Trials, or whatever we decide on) satisfies a request we've gotten from players for ages: a longer, more linear version of 100 Rogues. At the moment (on my end, not in the update), it places players in a series of overworlds / hubs from which they can select and complete challenges as they like, still unlocking a new set for each 5 completed challenges. Each challenge will be scored based on the number of turns you take, how efficiently you use skills, how many monsters you kill, etc..

The game serves as something of a middle ground for people that crave challenging combat 'puzzles' that are still significantly random and replayable, and people that crave a linear experience in a game that can be, in some sense, 'completed', which 100 Rogues chose not to be.

So, cat's out of the bag. Enjoy! Please leave feedback, if you're able. A lot of work went into the challenges since that update went out that balance many of the challenges, so that feedback may not be of particular interest to me. However! I would love to hear which challenges, conceptually, you like; some are short, some have only one solution, some have a plethora of skills, some require you to find and use items, one even has hidden items! I would love to hear your thoughts.

So will these bonus Challenges have randomized content and actually record our best results once fully cooked?

[WesPaugh]

That is the question, isn't it? It has been a big dilemma figuring out how to balance replayability with high-score mechanism; I don't want the randomness to mean you have to play the challenge 10,000 to get the right conditions for the highest score possible.

I also want people to be able to go back to challenges after beating them to find new and better ways to approach them.

But yes, I am working on the scoring algorithms this week, and I've been adjusting the levels I've got so far to try to make them as fair, interesting and replayable as possible. What I'm playing with now factors in how many turns you took compared to a 'par' score for the challenge, the number of difficulty of monsters you kill during the challenge, as well as how efficiently you use skills. Pinning a target to a wall with Whack of Glory for a crit will earn bonus points, for example.

The better challenges I've done so far have all been fairly long and complex, with lots of decisions to make en route. 'Number 10' was used as a baseline for the absolute minimum complexity of the challenges at the heart of the game. Apart from a few early tutorial challenges, most are quite long and involved.

In an ideal world, the random elements within each challenge (does a rat spawn or a bandit? how much damage does it do?) would average out over a long period of time. They might sometimes guide you down a different path, but always with the same likelihood of achieving a max score. At that point, the number of significant paths through a challenge provide the cap on replayability, I realize, but one of the agreements in deciding to do this was that the goal would be giving players a goal state of being able to 'complete' a game with 100 Rogues' mechanics, since many players seem to want that.

One of my fears, and I worry that the presence of this Beta within a 100 Rogues update hurts in this regard, is that we're giving off the impression of slapping together another quick game without putting any thought or care into it. In addition to the new class designed specifically for these challenges, I've been hard at work streamlining the UI for the game, making new features, mechanics, items, monsters, and monster abilities that are appropriate. I want this game to feel as unique and well-planned a game as 100 Rogues by the time it releases.



Also, how about them new Monster Class items in 2.9.5?

[EfratBarTal]

Sweet update. Thank you very much!

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by WesPaugh

That is the question, isn't it? It has been a big dilemma figuring out how to balance replayability with high-score mechanism; I don't want the randomness to mean you have to play the challenge 10,000 to get the right conditions for the highest score possible.

I also want people to be able to go back to challenges after beating them to find new and better ways to approach them.

But yes, I am working on the scoring algorithms this week, and I've been adjusting the levels I've got so far to try to make them as fair, interesting and replayable as possible. What I'm playing with now factors in how many turns you took compared to a 'par' score for the challenge, the number of difficulty of monsters you kill during the challenge, as well as how efficiently you use skills. Pinning a target to a wall with Whack of Glory for a crit will earn bonus points, for example.

The better challenges I've done so far have all been fairly long and complex, with lots of decisions to make en route. 'Number 10' was used as a baseline for the absolute minimum complexity of the challenges at the heart of the game. Apart from a few early tutorial challenges, most are quite long and involved.

In an ideal world, the random elements within each challenge (does a rat spawn or a bandit? how much damage does it do?) would average out over a long period of time. They might sometimes guide you down a different path, but always with the same likelihood of achieving a max score. At that point, the number of significant paths through a challenge provide the cap on replayability, I realize, but one of the agreements in deciding to do this was that the goal would be giving players a goal state of being able to 'complete' a game with 100 Rogues' mechanics, since many players seem to want that.

One of my fears, and I worry that the presence of this Beta within a 100 Rogues update hurts in this regard, is that we're giving off the impression of slapping together another quick game without putting any thought or care into it. In addition to the new class designed specifically for these challenges, I've been hard at work streamlining the UI for the game, making new features, mechanics, items, monsters, and monster abilities that are appropriate. I want this game to feel as unique and well-planned a game as 100 Rogues by the time it releases.



Also, how about them new Monster Class items in 2.9.5?

I've "juiced" a few times and like how I noticed at least one time that the moment I juiced the monsters started running away from me (as if they KNEW what followed would not be pretty).

Okay then, please leave the Challenges scripted, I'm thinking of whole new modes of play then that you'll need to come up with a new name for.

Wes, have you ever played any of the Shiren the Wanderer games? The coolest aspect of these games, IMHO, were the post story dungeons. Kind of like the game saying, "Now that we've gotten this story crap out of the way, let's have some fun with the core game mechanics!" Here is a small sampling of the dungeon concepts they introduced that I think you guys could easily work in with the 100 Rogues mechanics.

Run, Scooby, Run: In this dungeon you can't gain exp (so perpetually first level but maybe double hp to be nice), most of the monsters wandering about can kill you in just 1-2 hits, and the only items you'll find are of a non-offensive manner (so healing potions, maybe mana potions without the boom properties, scrolls of evasion, food, etc. but no weapons, destructive scrolls, or offensive wands). Monsters should primarily be of the melee sort but I guess a few missile folk could be okay. Your mission is simply to dive through as many levels as you can until you're finally done in and your final score is either just the level you made it to or a more complex system that is based on how long (in turns) it took you to dive past each level like some slowly counting down bonus that isn't locked in until you take the stairs. Not sure if this could be open to all classes as they sure as heck could not use any of their offensive skills here (but then again, as first level characters, we could just deny them skills altogether or only allow one non-offensive one).

Arena: Really simple one here with each level being one huge room chock full of monsters and items. The character can level as normal and might need to start off a little leveled to begin with. Could even make it a bit of an Endless mode with stairs so that the player is rewarded for both how much they've killed and how quickly they've traversed the levels (so as to discourage camping on a level once leveled past the point of the creatures providing any challenge).

Shopping Spree: This would seem a normal enough Endless Dungeon except...the only item the player will ever stumble across will be bags of money and each level is guaranteed to have a shop. So the only items you'll ever have are those you can pay for. As a further twist, your end score is based COMPLETELY on cash on hand when you die. So this game presents you with a weird contrary goals. Are you saving up money to get the key gear needed to survive in later levels or really just being cheap as possible and seeing how deep you can dash down through the levels snagging all of the cash you can before somebody calls you number in a permanent sense?

So, using the basic game mechanics but in weird ways.