Ran into this game via RPS and thought “it’s just 4e, what the heck, might as well try it out” and BAM! instant addiction.
It is basically a graphical roguelike with a somewhat Discworldian, geeky sense of humor to it. First and foremost it is a very smooth and playable game though, the humor is mostly in the descriptions and graphics and such. There’s 34 different skills of which you choose 7 at the start, and every level you improve one of them a bit like WoW’s talents. Almost endless different character classes, in other words.
So, now I’m playing this instead of all the AAA-titles I bought during Steam’s summer sale. Anybody else in the same boat? I’d love to discuss character builds and such.
The wiki is still in a pretty poor shape, given how new the game is, so you need to test stuff out to figure what they do. For example, there’s evil chests but after somebody told one of their characters died to one I’ve steered clear of them. But maybe if you defeat whatever great evil lurks inside one there’s great treasure … gotta test it one of these days when I’ll find one with an expendable character.
Is the combat in this game real-time, or turn-based? Based on the video in Steam, I assume it’s real-time, in which case I’ll probably pass. But I cannot find the information anywhere. Why in the hell wouldn’t that be one of the bullet-point features listed? Nevermind, I’ll save that for a pit rant someday.
Anyhow, sounds like an interesting game. Real-time? Or turn-based?
That’s one of those things you should just be able to infer based on the game description. If it was real time it would be “diablo like” aka click fest, “rogue like” is turn based. I die extremely fast, i suck at this.
It does require a certain sort of mindset to play carefully enough. I’ve played roguelike games for over 20 years so I have the “slow and steady wins the race” playstyle deeply ingrained into my brain. Not having much trouble staying alive, I’m hindered more by my desire to start new characters to test different builds. My best guy is at 100k points, a dual-sword rogue/warrior with meatshield spell.
There’s a patch coming early this week that fixes the fact none of the mobs are casting spells at the moment. That should increase the difficulty of the lower levels a fair bit. :eek:
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not good at inferring…
The lack of info in game descriptions is actually a long-running complaint of mine. Back before digital distribution was common, I would be close to impulse buying a strategy game at a game store, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out if it was turn-based or real-time. With Dungeons of Dredmor, I even went to the game website and couldn’t find an answer. Now that I know roguelike = turn-based, it will be easier, but I can’t be the only moron that wants basic things like that spelled out for him…
Anyhow, like I said, I’ll save that for another thread. Having beat Portal 2, I broke down and bought this game.
I picked up a copy of the game just from the general descriptions I read here, and so far it seems well worth the $4.49.
After a few characters, it looks to me like tinkering is going to take a long time to pay off. You have to collect a lot of crap waiting for some combination of stuff to actually come in handy. Can anybody report something really neat they’ve done with it?
Skills that I’ve found come in handy right away: Sword, Dodge, Burglary, Wands. Also, Archeologist I assume is what allows me to disarm traps.
Two-weapon fighting comes when you find your first extra weapon on the first floor, and if I’d remember to use it, the Mathemagician would probably come in handy escaping a bad situation.
The crafting skills probably pay off in the long game, but it looks like it’ll be a while before you find out whether it’s even fun to screw with. I have yet to find whatever you need to do magic. With Wands, I seem to start with wands which are quite handy for getting out of a deadly situation with a heavily populated room, but using them doesn’t cost me mana, so it appears to be unrelated to actual spellcasting.
To cast a spell, you need to get the spell into the box immediately to the right of the face at the bottom of the screen. To get it into that box, it needs to first be in the numbered boxes to the right of that – left a click a spell, or press the corresponding number, to get it into the “active spell” box. Then cast it by right-clicking. For a better explanation, click on the tiny little question mark next to the active spell box.
Wands, as far as I know, each cast only one spell. And eventually (very quickly, it seems to me) will burn out.
I’m not home right now to look at the game, but I don’t seem to start with any spells, and I haven’t found any. But as a wand specialist, I started with a selection of wands and started finding them quickly.
You start with spells if you pick a skill that starts with spells. The fire mage skill has a fire spell, the golem skill has a summon, i think a couple others have spells also.
That’s pretty much it, yes, but when you get them going they are really worth it. Haven’t tried alchemy or fungal farming yet, but smithing makes gear that’s a fair bit better than what you tend to find and tinkering turns all that metal you find into bolts for your crossbow. At 0 tinkering you can make 3 bolts per metal, at 1 skill you make 9, then at 2 skill you start making barbed bolts with the same materials and I presume at 3 you’ll make cruelly barbed bolts. For bombs you’ll make more with the same materials and tinkering also gives you enough trap affinity that you can disarm all the traps you find and place them in front of enemies.
My dual-shield wielding karate-tinkerer is having tons of fun now that I’ve finished putting points in unarmed combat and increasing tinkering. Carrying up to 20 traps on me, all found in the dungeon, and 30 or so self-made bombs means if I end up in a tough fight it’ll look like Michael Bay movie.
Fungal farming is the single most broken skill in the game. It has buffs for pretty much any playstyle and you can grow them infinitely in a dirt patch the output is pretty random but you also get a skill to change them to whatever you want. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets a major nerf soon.
I’m finding it pretty tough to stay alive as well, I’ve been forced to down every food and drink I find as soon as I find them. If I try to stand around and rest until my HP/MP is back up I’m attacked by things so fast I can’t make any progress. Any tips?
So far, I’m finding that sometimes you roll a tough first level when you start out. Once you get a foothold, on a non-killer level, you can do alright. For a while.
Do the skills expand later? Because I got my dodge all the way up, and I still don’t get the Maxed Out Dodge Achievement.
Also, since there seem to be different achievements for different levels of play and each with or without permadeath, maybe I should just try blowing through on Easy with no permadeath at first, and proceeding through the chain of deadliness that way.
