Albion

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#1

Albion is a graphical, party-based Roguelike with an emphasis on exploration and tactical combat.

Play as an applet here


http://www.triangularpixels.com/Albion/Images/v0.1/Combat.png


http://www.triangularpixels.com/Albion/Images/v0.1/Adventurers.png
http://www.triangularpixels.com/Albion/Images/v0.1/Fireball.png

As a bit of an experiment I’m going to embrace the roguelike tradition of “release early, release often”, rather than waiting until I’ve got a finished game before unveiling it. I started this in August, but there’s been a few false starts so it’s taken a while to get to this point.

At the moment you can explore with your party and attack the numerous imps that are out to get you. Find the stairs in the level to delve deeper into the next dungeon level. Your party consists of a swordsman, an archer and a mage (who can both attack with fireballs and heal allies). Maps are procedurally generated and there’s no end - you just keep going until your entire party is dead.

General feedback is welcome, but at the moment I’m particularly interested in technical problems (and framerate), and what people think of the controls.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

#2

The shield icon is choppy, some draw problem.
Works fine but having to finish off with a look or a defend makes it clumsy to progress.
when not in combat, being forced to move three different chars 4 squares at a time feels slow.
Otherwise movement and combat simple controls seem fine.

#3

Could you get a screenshot? It’s just a regular j2d cursor so I’m not sure what could go wrong.

[quote]Works fine but having to finish off with a look or a defend makes it clumsy to progress.
when not in combat, being forced to move three different chars 4 squares at a time feels slow.
Otherwise movement and combat simple controls seem fine.
[/quote]
Yes, I’m a little worried that exploring when there’s no monsters around is a little slow. I’m thinking of removing the ‘defend’ animation so it’s an instant way of ending your turn rather than a second delay. Also planned (at some point) is a movement mode where you just move the party leader (and the other characters either follow you automatically or your whole party is considered to be standing on the same tile).

#4

you could just do this if there arent any enemies within a certain distance, and when they get in range, switch modes.

#5

the applet loaded in about 2 seconds, how did you do that?

seems like a good game so far,
very smooth, but needs to have ‘party mode’ as others have mentioned

#6

Nothing special, it’s just very, very small. A lot of the world graphics (like the walls) are generated on the fly from a very small set of images by splicing together different edges/quaters/etc.

[quote]seems like a good game so far,
very smooth, but needs to have ‘party mode’ as others have mentioned
[/quote]
Thanks, it does sound like a ‘party mode’ should be bumped up my priority list.

#7

Nice.

Seems to work nicely enough (62fps). The interface works fine, but I’d focus on adding inventory/loot system soon (IMO, the driving force for all roguelikes :-)).

#8

Darmn, I was expecting Albion. ;D

Works fine for me so far. I don’t really like the way command are done but it is mainly because I’m used to other game (mainly with a pad and not a mouse).

#9

Heh, it seems like every name is taken these days. ;D

One of my main goals is to code a n00b-friendly and accessible roguelike. A big part in this is having the whole game playable with just the mouse alongside with context-sensitive commands so complete beginners can largely click at random. However I’ll be adding proper keyboard controls eventually for experienced players so hopefully you’ll be able to play entirely with the keyboard once you know the commands.

And yes, an inventory system is probably going to be my next major task, but first I’ve got to figure out how I want it to work…

#10

Interesting.

When you have a version of the game that you feel is worthwhile to play (i.e., multiple enemies, et al.), you should consider porting it to Android. The idea of having context sensitive commands, etc., would seem to be a natural fit to a touch based interface.

#11

I really liked it, but I agree with the comments about moving being slow. But more then that I think you should also cut down the size of your dungeon. I was walking around for about 5 minutes and was about to quit presuming you hadn’t added any monsters, before I encountered some.

It’s dull walking through large rooms and down corridoors if there is no point to them.

#12

I definitely think it needs a combat mode and a non-combat mode. When a monster is detected on-screen, it enters combat mode (allowing you to move around and all that tactically), otherwise you just move as a party (one guy in front) and there is no turn-based play.

I quite like the way that Spiderweb Software does it in Nethergate (one of my favorite games ever):
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/nethergateres/index.html

Basically, you can allow combat mode to be engaged automatically when an enemy appears, or only manually. And, if you don’t have combat mode on when an enemy is around, they get an action every time you walk one space. If you walk into them when not in combat mode, you attack them as if you were in it. In this fashion, only the front guy can fight, and you lose out on tons of actions. The advantage to this possibility is that you can move much more quickly when there are weaker enemies that are just wasting your time.

#13

I’ll happily admit that Spiderweb’s RPGs are one of the main inspirations - I played Exile 2 ages ago and really enjoyed it, and your description sounds very similar to Exile’s grouped movement mode as well. In that the group mode would ‘stack’ all the characters on one tile and move them around as one unit (with the massive disadvantage that if you were attacked every character would take individual damage).

One of these days I’ll find time to actually play some of Spiderweb’s more recent stuff. :slight_smile:

Back in Albion, I actually got ‘party mode’ implemented over the weekend, but it needs properly hooking into the UI. I’ll go into more detail when it’s playable (hopefully tonight) but it does speed up combat-free movement significantly.

#14

Ah, cool! It’s good to find a fellow Spiderweb fan. Nethergate was far and away my favorite game by Spiderweb, and one of my favorite games of all time. It definitely has the best character development and a wicked cool story and setting - I highly recommend. Exile (and its better-looking rebirth, Avernum), have never hooked me as much. A semi-historical tale of Romans versus Celts was always much more interesting to me than a bunch of people stuck in a cave. But, I digress.

I’m looking forward to see what you do with the movement system. :slight_smile:

#15

There’s a new version up (url here or in original post) with slightly nicer UI and the ‘party mode’ button top-left. Click to turn it on and everyone follows that character, click again to turn it off again.

Probably some bugs in the party mode still, but seems to be pretty solid.

#16

Yup a lot better with party mode

#17

Yep, the party mode is a good idea. But some time, I have problem to leave this mode.

I don’t know for other people but several time I have clicked on the top portrait to select the one I want to move. I don’t like to follow order :P.

#18

Was the party icon greyed out / transparent? I’ve seen that happen once here but couldn’t recreate it. ???

[quote]I don’t know for other people but several time I have clicked on the top portrait to select the one I want to move. I don’t like to follow order :P.
[/quote]
At the moment the leader is whoever is active when you enter party mode, so you can choose who goes first like that. Later (much later) when you create/modify your party you’ll be able to rearrange their order so you can have your tanks up front and your vulnerable characters in the back.

#19

The party icon was grey out. I open a door with the party lead. There was a monster so I want to go back to “solo” mode. But it takes me several turn to do so :frowning:

For me the order is part of the “strategy”, depending of the situation you may want to attack with the mage first then the tank and change the order in the next turn (to kill a mob and place the tank in the best position for the next turn for exemple). But it may be not what you want for the gameplay.

#20

This is where the lack of a tutorial sucks. :slight_smile: Basically there isn’t separate “your turn” “enemies turn”, every character runs off their own response speed and gets a turn when they’re the next highest priority. This isn’t obvious at the moment though because every character and action has the same cost. Later, different characters will have different response speeds (so a fast character might get two turns for another characters one) or there might be particularly costly actions that mean you have to wait longer before that character gets another turn.

Part of the strategy you crave may eventually be provided by spells or potions to mess with your response rate (either by speeding up your important characters or slowing down the particularly difficult enemies).