7DRL Success: The Man in the Mirror
Numeron
The hero of the game is a patient at an asylum for the mentally ill.
He has a dual personallity disorder, which allows him the ability to
be taken over by his evil side if he finds he has lost too much sanity
to be in the real world. This involves passing over to a twisted
mirror world where the hero's insanity is much more welcome. Stay too
long in either world however, and the mental stability of the hero
will cause hallucinations.
I had to cut back quite a bit from my origional plan, however the goal
to make it a visial feast I think was certainly accomplished. Although
its short, The game looks great, and the story and idea came together
quite well, even though it too needed to be modified part way through
the week.
Feedback and bug reports always welcome, however beyond a possible
post challenge bug fix release, the game is highly unlikely to see
further development.
-Numeron
Numeron
library I used to overcome the sluggish Java2D, and have had someone
put up a blog post about it already!
http://randomtower.blogspot.com/2011/03/man-in-mirror.html
-Numeron
Adam Gatt
the setting is solidly disturbing. Very good work.
Numeron
Further feedback always welcome!
-Numeron
Darren Grey
> As per recent review by Geoff White, I have added a minor prompt to let the player know about the rest key once you get below 50% health, and there are no monsters around.
>
> Further feedback always welcome!
It's a very cool game, but replaying the initial story bits gets old
quick. This is made more frustrating by some of the difficulty. I'd
rather see health regen removed and a higher number of more effective
healing potions in the game. The straight-jacketed patients also do
far too much damage and have too much HP.
Skipping the story texts takes too long - there should be a key to
bypass the whole dialogue sequence (Esc doesn't seem to work as
advertised). Procedural levels would also be very welcome, as the
static ones get boring to go through for the umpteenth time.
There seems to be a bug with The Machine display - once you cross the
mirror then the real version appears the same as the mirror version.
Another bug is stones getting stuck in unpassable terrain when thrown,
making them impossible to retrieve. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but it
seems like enemies don't drop loot when killed with missiles.
I absolutely love the whole mirror mechanic. I tried to have a sort
of "alternative display" to things in Broken Bottle with the alcohol
mechanics, but yours is way way better! The hallucinations are funky
too, and the detail on the graphics (blinking etc) is fantastic.
Ultimately I think it doesn't work well as a roguelike though. Either
it needs far more procedural content, or it needs to have the
permadeath removed (and thus just be a normal RPG). My own 7drl
suffers some of the same problems - once you play through the story
there's no incentive to play again.
Nice job anyway - I'm surprised you managed to get this all done in 7
days. Definitely one of the highlights this year.
--
Darren Grey
Numeron
> It's a very cool game, but replaying the initial story bits gets old
> quick. This is made more frustrating by some of the difficulty. I'd
> rather see health regen removed and a higher number of more effective
> healing potions in the game. The straight-jacketed patients also do
> far too much damage and have too much HP.
I was never happy with the idea of regenerating HP, but at the time it seemed to be either that, or require almost every enemy drop a health potion, or make enemies do low enough damage that you can easily go through a few before needing a potion... A more indepth planning of balance is a lesson learnt for next time.
The damage that the other patients, and their otherworldly twins the nightshade plants, do is high because they are generally meant to be left alone. There are no experience levels in the game, and those enemies are stuck on the spot making skirting them fairly easily - they have a much higher chance of dropping stones if you start to get desperate, but the cost benefit ratio is intentionally low.
> Skipping the story texts takes too long - there should be a key to
> bypass the whole dialogue sequence (Esc doesn't seem to work as
> advertised). Procedural levels would also be very welcome, as the
> static ones get boring to go through for the umpteenth time.
Just released a version with a new feature where for games beyond the first, no dialog will appear for previously activated dialogs. The mirrors that usually open during these dialogs will still pop up of course.
I was unable to reproduce the esc to skip the beginning sequence not working.
> There seems to be a bug with The Machine display - once you cross the
> mirror then the real version appears the same as the mirror version.
> Another bug is stones getting stuck in unpassable terrain when thrown,
> making them impossible to retrieve. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but it
> seems like enemies don't drop loot when killed with missiles.
The machine is the same in both worlds because with the destroyed machine graphic I didnt have time to make 4 machine images. Another oddity with that is that I had to put the chair attached to the machine on the south side in both worlds even though to mirror properly it should be in the north of one of them :P
The latest version now as a fix for stone killed enemies not dropping loot, and bumping terrain with a stone or thrown strait jacket on it will dislodge it onto the players tile.
> I absolutely love the whole mirror mechanic. I tried to have a sort
> of "alternative display" to things in Broken Bottle with the alcohol
> mechanics, but yours is way way better! The hallucinations are funky
> too, and the detail on the graphics (blinking etc) is fantastic.
Thanks! As unusal as it is as a goal for a roguelike, the visual appeal was top of the list.
> Ultimately I think it doesn't work well as a roguelike though. Either
> it needs far more procedural content, or it needs to have the
> permadeath removed (and thus just be a normal RPG). My own 7drl
> suffers some of the same problems - once you play through the story
> there's no incentive to play again.
The basement level, the machine room, and the final boss room are all static, but the rest of the machine level is procedurally generated. I had origionally intended to have 2 more levels, the others with a differing theme and goal, but alas for the time constraints - I had to satisfy myself with a larger machine level. At least the randomly generated rooms of that level still constitute the bulk area of the game.
> Nice job anyway - I'm surprised you managed to get this all done in 7
> days. Definitely one of the highlights this year.
>
> --
> Darren Grey
Thanks for the feedback!
-Numeron
Todd Carnes
Looks like a cool game, but I haven't figured out how to run it on Linux. :(
I'm sure it's probably operator error. :)
Todd
Darren Grey
> On Monday, March 28, 2011 9:56:49 PM UTC+10:30, Darren Grey wrote:
> > It's a very cool game, but replaying the initial story bits gets old
> > quick. This is made more frustrating by some of the difficulty. I'd
> > rather see health regen removed and a higher number of more effective
> > healing potions in the game. The straight-jacketed patients also do
> > far too much damage and have too much HP.
>
> I was never happy with the idea of regenerating HP, but at the time it seemed to be either that, or require almost every enemy drop a health potion, or make enemies do low enough damage that you can easily go through a few before needing a potion... A more indepth planning of balance is a lesson learnt for next time.
>
> The damage that the other patients, and their otherworldly twins the nightshade plants, do is high because they are generally meant to be left alone. There are no experience levels in the game, and those enemies are stuck on the spot making skirting them fairly easily - they have a much higher chance of dropping stones if you start to get desperate, but the cost benefit ratio is intentionally low.
I find even skirting them takes a lot of damage, especially if there's
a lot packed in one room and they block the exit. After too many
stupid deaths trying to pass them I switched to wholesale slaughter,
and ultimately found their drops to be quite profitable. I'd
personally suggest reducing their damage significantly and stopping
them from ever having drops. Then it's left up to the player how
cruel they want to be. Perhaps to retain some gameplay effect killing
them could decrease sanity.
> > Skipping the story texts takes too long - there should be a key to
> > bypass the whole dialogue sequence (Esc doesn't seem to work as
> > advertised). Procedural levels would also be very welcome, as the
> > static ones get boring to go through for the umpteenth time.
>
> Just released a version with a new feature where for games beyond the first, no dialog will appear for previously activated dialogs. The mirrors that usually open during these dialogs will still pop up of course.
Does that mean you'll never see the dialogue again? Seems a shame
when that's part of the richness of the game. I'd personally just
like to see one button skip through the whole sequence, so that it can
be ignored when desired.
> > Ultimately I think it doesn't work well as a roguelike though. Either
> > it needs far more procedural content, or it needs to have the
> > permadeath removed (and thus just be a normal RPG). My own 7drl
> > suffers some of the same problems - once you play through the story
> > there's no incentive to play again.
>
> The basement level, the machine room, and the final boss room are all static, but the rest of the machine level is procedurally generated. I had origionally intended to have 2 more levels, the others with a differing theme and goal, but alas for the time constraints - I had to satisfy myself with a larger machine level. At least the randomly generated rooms of that level still constitute the bulk area of the game.
I guess the whole machine level just feels like it has little
variance. The switches are always in the same place and there's only
a small subset of room types. But aye, time steals many dreams!
--
Darren Grey
Michal Bielinski
From data subdirectory run:
java -Djava.library.path=./ -jar mirror.jar
This did it for me.
--
Michal Bielinski
Michal Bielinski
> The latest version now as a fix for stone killed enemies not
> dropping loot, and bumping terrain with a stone or thrown strait
> jacket on it will dislodge it onto the players tile.
In original version killing the warden with stone did not trigger
victory condition. I think this may be the same bug but it is
worth checking if it persists after your modification.
Just a note: for me ESC always worked like it should.
--
Michal Bielinski
Numeron
- Fixed warden not triggering victory on death by stoning. Also added half the sanity drain you get from hitting him normally, and he will occasionaly use his special ability when hit by a stone.
- Fixed embarrasing bug I introduced where throwing stones at stuff will make them drop loot even if they dont die.
- Restored dialogs to always activate, but esc will skip the sequence. The rest advisory dialog and explanation of hallucinations dialog will still only fire on the first time.
Thanks guys!
-Numeron
Darren Grey
Well, with those changes I managed to not get frustrated long enough
to complete it. I see the system shock potions no longer crash the
game, which is a bonus. Oh, and it seems my problem with the Escape
key is that it doesn't work until after the first message is properly
displayed, and the first message always *crawls* onto the screen for
me.
Overall a short but sweet game. End boss was interesting and about
the right level of challenge, though I felt it was a shame that he
didn't have a different name in the mirror world. Could be
interesting if there were more gameplay differences between the two
worlds, but obviously in the scope of 7 days only so many things can
be done.
I remarked privately to Jeff Lait that it was funny how this year we
have three games that play around with the gamer's perception of
enemies in different circumstances. Yours obviously does it the
best :) But it does bring up the interesting prospect of expanding
on this in more games, especially since it can be easy to do in ASCII.
--
Darren Grey
Numeron
Hearing about the the system shock crash is also strange, I havent touched that code since I first put it in, and its always worked for me. I guess Im glad if a little perplexed that it works now if it didnt before.
Thanks for all your feedback, its been invaluable to putting together these post-challenge final touches.
-Numeron