Sinuosity - A Simple Maze-Solving Dungeon Crawler

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#1

MULTIPLAYER VERSION IS UP! ;D

MORE INFO: http://www.otcsw.com/sinuosity.php

Built using Ah, Maze!'s pathfinding and maze generation algorithms, with a few major improvements. From there, I added a bunch of dungeon crawler elements, drew a few pictures, recorded some sounds, and bundled it all together. I’m surprised at how fun and addicting the game is, even just in single player. Although it’s not quite ready to be multiplayer, I’ve put the single player game here. Enjoy!

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Webstart: http://www.otcsw.com/webstart/Sinuosity/Sinuosity.jnlp

New multiplayer version:
http://www.gamegardens.com/gardens/view_game.wm?gameid=122

#2

Hi!

Of course don’t forget to add it into the Java Game Tome :wink:

#3

Great game! :slight_smile: Control system is just lovely, it feels like you can explore without any effort. Mazes are nice and you’re right, it’s actually a lot of fun already :slight_smile: Few comments:

  • Can you clear the instructions message on my first click, it gets in the way.
  • Limit the fps (or something) it made my CPU go crazy
  • If possible, lose the swing GUI around the outside, it detracts from the game.
  • More feedback on combat would be nice, like in Rogue “You bash the skeleton for 5 damage!” scrolling up the screen [classic!]
  • Lower resolution window, it goes off the edges here (probably because of the Swing GUI)

Really nice implementation too, didn’t notice any bugs and the whole thing feels good. Home grown graphics (I presume?) are great also :slight_smile:

Can’t wait to see what you’ve added at later levels.

Kev

EDIT: The Java Process didn’t shut down when I closed the window also btw. Need to add a window lister or set the default close op or something?

#4

Thanks for the great comments.

Yup, instructions need to be cleared quickly. If you noticed on the right there is “Tutorials On” you can uncheck it to turn them off, which will help. Just because of the way I display the tutorial messages, clicking to remove them is a little more work to implement, but I’ll definitely do that eventually.

I noticed my CPU goes up very high as well. I thought I just copy / pasted my game loop from one of my other games, but I must have missed something. I’ll give it a look.

Yeah, the Swing GUI is definitely ugly. I’ll make it purely graphical in the future, and also more conveniently located. It’s pretty annoying to look so far to the right to see enemy stats.

Scrolling text was one of the next things on my agenda, as well as converting all feedback to onscreen text. Considering I’m going for a very simple old-school feel here, that’s definitely a good idea. I’ll change the “-5”/"-10" etc. message to a more detailed one.

I just set the window to the screen size using Toolkit. I can definitely make it smaller, no big deal.

Thanks, I’m glad you didn’t find any bugs, although there are a couple well hidden ones I know about. :wink: Yup, I drew all the graphics myself, and for the most part I like them a lot. The sounds are also all mine, aside from a few public domain ones (I’m sure you can guess which).

Oh yeah, I’ve got no window listener. I’ll add that in.

PS - Multiplayer will probably be ready tomorrow night. So I’m hoping.

#5

Very cool game. Though dono how to beat a boss. And when you die how to restart the game?

#6

The game definitely has a very cool feel to it. The fact that you can click any uncovered tile from anywhere is great.

It would be nice to improve the graphics during battle. I am really interested to see how the multilayer aspect works out!

#7

You quit and reopen it. ;D

I just need to add that feature in. :stuck_out_tongue:

And to beat the boss, you just need to attack it like normal. However, during the fight, potions will constantly spawn somewhere in the maze, so you can run away from battle when you’re almost dead and heal up.

Yeah, I was thinking about having it auto zoom in during a battle, and also programming it to center in on your character. Similarly, I need more robust stat reporting.

#8

Interesting, you’ve definitely taken this to a point that unfortunately I think a lot of apps (esp basic swing ones) don’t get to, and I’m happy to see a reasonable degree of polish to the whole thing. A couple of interesting points that came up in my head while playing:

  1. Keyboard control? I personally tried this out on a laptop (in a position where a mouse would be a bit awk, i.e. sitting on a sofa) and I’d rather not use the touchpad for quick twitch based movements. Right now keyboard seems bound to the zoom… which, actually was moderately useful? But I think I’d rather have keyboard usage, and just modify the zoom once per level. Or, possibly, you might want to get rid of the zoom altogether (or at least hide it somewhat), since it’s a kind of odd feature to be necessary to control (in 3D games, yes, 2D games, not really unless it’s an RTS). Though I do understand you wanting to give players the freedom to switch, so I’m not entirely sure what to do here. Perhaps come up with 5-10 main zooms and hide it in a options somewhere?

  2. Please… fix the cpu usage if possible. My leg is now burning from laptop going overkill on processing just trying to power your game :stuck_out_tongue: I know this has been mentioned before but meh reiterating can’t hurt?

  3. Is there any way you’re going to make the combat more dynamic? I’m not sure what plans you have, is blocking or anything (right click? spacebar?) in mind? Gameplay works as is but success is largely due to luck right now. Though I’m happy to say I’ve been seeing varying degrees of progress in the game each time I try (i.e., I don’t just cruise easily through everything nor do I perish repeatedly without any hope). So I’m impressed with the balance so far, but would like to know what the strategy is/will be involved with this game. I did discover you could perform a “hit and run” tactic to avoid damage, as long as you had space to retreat, which required some skill to pull off. Is this an intended mechanic, btw? (note: this becomes much easier if you slow the turn speed, which I think you might also want to remove, or at least simplify, at some point)

  4. I am also impressed that the sound effects in the game did not actually annoy me. Normally when people record their own sounds and plop them in I have to mute the game to continue playing. For whatever reason I found your simplistic self-recordings amusing if nothing else, and even the “woohoo” didn’t bother me. Good job (I guess? heh).

  5. Can you make descending optional? Sometimes you can see that there are places to go on the level still, but the ladder is in the way, so you’re forced to move down. I’m one of those obsessive people who likes to uncover every square. Thanks :slight_smile:

Sorry if I went on for a bit there. Game definitely has potential though, and seems to possess a certain addictiveness already. Going to try again I thinks.

Good luck.

#9

Just so you know no potions spawned for me when I was battling, so I thought you had to hide then attack him but nope. I was battling him for 10+ min trying to figure out to beat him.
I’ll try it again later if still no potions spawn.

#10

Pleasant to play, and surprisingly charming (even the sound effects!).

My only gripe is that I didn’t really feel like I was doing much to influence what was happening. The only choice the game seems to give you is which passage to walk down next, and (to some extent) whether to fight or flee from monsters. It feels a bit like the random number generator is controlling the game, not me. I guess this will become less of an issue as the game mechanics evolve though.

Also, considering how simple (or even “casual”) the game is to play, the character statistics seem unnecessarily complicated. How about streamlining them down to just “hit points” and “strength”?

I’m looking forward to seeing the multiplayer version!

Simon

#11

Potions still don’t spawn on the boss lvl, meaning I can’t win.
The text when you die is on the top of the map meaning you don’t always see it.
And I agree that its kind useless seeing all those stats when they don’t mean much and you have no control over them.

#12

Very bad taste to quote my own messages… ::slight_smile:

How about, when you get to the level exit it gives you a choice: “Return to surface” or “Go deeper”. If you return to the surface, your character is healed and all of your gold, experience, items, etc. are saved - but you have to start a new dungeon at Level 1. On the other hand, if you go deeper, then there’s more treasure to be found (twice as much as on the previous level, say) but you lose everything if you die before finding the exit. That way each level becomes a gamble: play safe or be adventurous.

Just a thought.
Simon

#13

Just a note, by the time you get to the second boss I think all the powerful stats (esp really high dodge %) that you accumulate starts to overpower your character a tad. Although on the first boss I had to run around and hit and jump back a lot (note to zammbi concerning potion spawns: they only appear while you are actually fighting the boss; sitting in the outside won’t do anything), by the time I got to the second boss I was hitting for at least 9 and taking only 1, and he went down with surprising ease.

Perhaps this has to do with me exploring each level thoroughly before continuing, and holding off on killing spawns until I’ve explored a few other paths first?

Picture of me right before I decided to quit: http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sinuosityyx3.png

Note that there are in fact multiple XPs in the air cause they just kinda die in one hit. I did feel satisfyingly powerful though ;D

All of these also hit me for 1, if they hit.

#14

Well I’m guessing I just got bad luck because I explore each lvl thoroughly and was hitting the boss then searching for potions then hit more. But no potions showed, I’ll give it another go later on.

#15

Pro’s:

  • Sound effects
  • Fun combat
  • Hat wiggles when moving

Con’s:

  • Impossible boss
  • Msg blocking view as Kev pointed out
#16

Hi

It’s a very cool game. It was fun to play, but I couldn’t kill the boss :-.

kuhnibert

#17

Thanks for all the great comments!

About the boss and his potions:
Potions spawn whether or not you are hitting him at the moment, but it’s completely random, and has a low probability. There will be a small message at the top of the map in blue that tells you a potion has spawned. It will be at a random space - within the center or the fringes. Typically when I fight the boss I attack him until I have 1 hit left, then I run around the maze until I find a potion, then I hit him 2 more times, etc.

I was thinking I wouldn’t add keyboard control, but I definitely wasn’t considering laptops. In order to make combat more dynamic, I was considering adding in strokes - like if you click and drag you attack in that direction. I don’t really want to make this a Diablo fest, though, so I’m not so sure about that.

CPU usage is fixed for the next version!

Combat currently works like so: you have a percent chance to completely dodge an attack (your dodge %), then if you take damage the amount you take is the enemy’s power minus your defense, to a minimum of 1 damage.

Very cool hit and run tactic, I didn’t even realize you could do that! ;D

Optional descent is one of the next advancements on my list.

I was definitely thinking it would be good to limit the number of statistics shown, especially for the items.

I am also aware that the game gets way too easy at high difficulty levels. This is because your stat increase is typically exponential (because of potions), whereas the difficulty increase is linear. I’ll constantly be refining balance.

I like the idea of being able to go back up - the only reason I didn’t add it yet is because the players start on top of where I put the going back ladder. So I’ll need to make it work with a key press or something.

Thanks again for all the comments!

STATUS UPDATE: The multiplayer version currently works without animations, sounds, or output messages. Working on adding those last few features in, hopefully it will be done tonight.

#18

This has been added and adapted for Game Gardens, so now you can play with up to 4 players simultaneously! The sounds appear to not be working (even though they were when I ran a test server on my machine), but I’ll fix that later.

A lot of tiny bugs were fixed too - the huge processor usage, for example.

#19

Good addition Demonpants…having 4 players play simultaneously is awesome and added some spice to the game…hoping for much more improvement of the game…

#20

Seems you can walk and see through some walls in the boss battle. Still no potions spawn when I fight him(unless it takes more then 10 min searching…) which makes it very hard trying to kill him.
Maybe you should have it that you need to find a weak spot of the boss to kill him so you don’t to search for potions.
Might want to make the scroll bars auto scroll.