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Post by Discoalucard on May 6, 2017 20:40:57 GMT -5
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Post by TΛPETRVE on May 6, 2017 22:32:52 GMT -5
Pretty much sums up the game's issues. In its best moments it feels like an old Taito arcade game, somewhere in between New Zealand Story and the Bubble Bobble sort. But many mechanics are really just tacked on with absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Quite the contrary, some are outright crippling the game, particularly the terrible slow-motion gimmick.
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Post by silentstorm on May 7, 2017 3:20:18 GMT -5
Look, i am a huge roguelite fan, i love them more than i should, i easily spent more time playing roguelites than any other genre in the last few years and yet...this game just does not grab me, which makes me sad because i love the soundtrack, the animations, graphics and the combat is fun too, i find the hooks a cool mechanic alongside the slow-motion gimmick(that ends too fast) but the levels rarely use those elements to their full potential...due to being a roguelite.
The hook and slow time gimmicks need good level design for them to be really fun, particularly the hooking mechanic, and you can't get that with randomised levels, it makes the game more annoying to me than most roguelites because i keep feeling it would be better off as a normal platformer.
It's sad, but it gets to the point that i get more addicted and want to play Streets Of Rogue more than Flinthook, and that is an early acess game that doesn't look nearly as good as Flinthook, though that game allows me to kill people by leaving banana peels in the ground and watching them slip to their death so that may be the reason why.
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Post by TΛPETRVE on May 7, 2017 5:38:32 GMT -5
The rooms themselves are not randomised, only the order they're in.
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Post by Gendo Ikari on May 7, 2017 6:11:17 GMT -5
This game only fuels my argument that roguelite elements and procedural generation have not only became overused in indie gaming (and they complain about lack of variety in AAA games), but are also making many small developers forget what true level design is. Even with the best visuals and gameplay, it's hard to have complete fun when any run doesn't depend on your skill but on pure luck, praying that the randomization doesn't screw you from the very beginning, or pulls a sudden fast one to ruin a good stretch.
Was it for me, anyone who wanted to develop a roguelite would be obliged to also include at least one campaign of immutable, hand-crafted levels, and make the randomization good enough that you can hardly tell the difference with those "fixed" levels.
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Post by TΛPETRVE on May 7, 2017 8:48:20 GMT -5
Sorry, but that's a load of pretentious bullshit. Most "rogue-lites" are room-based, so their levels are very much hand-crafted, just with the room order randomised. Now, if the room layouts suck, then that's one thing - a good example would be the new rooms added in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, especially when compared e.g. to the free fan mod Antibirth, which for the most part has pretty awesome level design (though there are some stinkers, too). Of course the progression from room to room still can be messed up pretty bad and impede any sort of gameplay flow, but that's all up to a well-written algorithm.
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Post by toei on May 7, 2017 14:42:59 GMT -5
Sorry, but that's a load of pretentious bullshit. Most "rogue-lites" are room-based, so their levels are very much hand-crafted, just with the room order randomised. Now, if the room layouts suck, then that's one thing - a good example would be the new rooms added in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, especially when compared e.g. to the free fan mod Antibirth, which for the most part has pretty awesome level design (though there are some stinkers, too). Of course the progression from room to room still can be messed up pretty bad and impede any sort of gameplay flow, but that's all up to a well-written algorithm. ...you might disagree with what he said, but what part was "pretentious"? And I've played plenty of games that use randomly-generated dungeons, I like some of them quite a bit (actually I'm playing one right now), but I've never seen one that managed to equate well-crafted levels. Sooner or later you stumble upon the same room types over and over or the overall result is bland.
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Post by Discoalucard on May 7, 2017 17:12:36 GMT -5
This game only fuels my argument that roguelite elements and procedural generation have not only became overused in indie gaming (and they complain about lack of variety in AAA games), but are also making many small developers forget what true level design is. Even with the best visuals and gameplay, it's hard to have complete fun when any run doesn't depend on your skill but on pure luck, praying that the randomization doesn't screw you from the very beginning, or pulls a sudden fast one to ruin a good stretch. The game is pretty good about randomness not screwing you over too badly. Due to the nature, there can potentially be some difficulty spikes in some runs - some fairly easy rooms and then one or two very difficult ones - but to me it never happened often enough that it was really gamebreaking. The major issue for me was when it came to boss battles - they're the type of fights that you really need to practice, because they have huge life bars and you need a solid, consistent strategy to beat them, and you can't just grind past them. But since you only have one try, and depending on how your run went, you may not even have a full life meter, it doesn't give you that opportunity unless you save scum. Plus, in most other roguelites, there's a feeling that if you try again, you'll be more powerful, or have a different weapon, or otherwise do the fight again under more advantageous circumstances. Flinthook doesn't offer that, because the perks don't make you THAT much stronger, and there's not enough variation that you'll, say, get there with different weapon. At best you'll be able to take one more hit, and that's just not nearly enough to make it feel like the 20-30 minutes it'll take to refight the boss is worth it. Some rooms are well built to make good use of the hook (and even the time slow in tandem, which I think is fine in principle, but also both underutilized and a little different to use, considering it's yet another button in a game already full of button use), but a non-randomly generated game with remade levels built completely around it would've made for a better experience.
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Post by Woody Alien on May 8, 2017 12:30:31 GMT -5
Flinthook, meet the Flinthook... (on the notes of "The Flintstones" theme tune)
I was somewhat interested in this game but then after reading the article I no longer want to play it. Why is that Tribute Games always feel the need to ruin perfectly serviceable old-style action games with bullshit mechanics that bog everything down? Wizorb had the "rebuild the village" pseudo-RPG stuff, Mercenary Kings had the crafting mechanics and the "follow the boss around the map" stuff, and now this... Are they afraid their games will be too short? But being short for indie games is not so bad, as long as they're fun and compelling. Do they really think they're being clever? I'm sad because I like a lot the graphic style (I <3 Paul Robertson) but if the games are annoying to play I won't really care.
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Post by silentstorm on May 8, 2017 15:26:11 GMT -5
Agreed, if you are going to tribute something that was simple and fast paced there is no need to complicate things, Metal Slug is fun because you don't need to worry about crafting stuff, Breakout is fun because it's a bunch of stages with nothing in between where you break blocks with a ball and that's it.
The closest genre i can think of where indie games don't complicate things are shmups, mostly because it's a simple genre.
It's not released yet, but Strikey Sisters looks like a much better version of Wizorb because it's pure gameplay, only a bunch of stages with brick breaker goodness, including bosses, enemies, secret stages and a fantasy theme and again, no village thing to worry about:
God, that game looks fun and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any pseudo RPG bullshit just makes me want the game even more, also not a roguelite.
But Flinthook is not a bad game, it's just that when there are rooms that use the hook well, the game becomes alot more fun, and using it with the time travel is even better, it's a case where the gimmicks are better suited for a game with actual levels that were designed around the gimmicks rather than a roguelite where the level design quality will vary.
The upgrades are also too weak, the reason why items and upgrades work in roguelites is because they usually either punish a player by being weak and something to increase challenge or actually empower the player to make all the effort put into getting the item worth it, instead the upgrades are just "meh" which is not something that should happen in a roguelite.
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Post by Gendo Ikari on May 9, 2017 5:25:39 GMT -5
Ah, good taste in mentioning that! I voted it on Greenlight with no doubts because of the developer's previous games, Super Star Path and Bot Vice. DYA Games would deserve to be featured here.
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Post by Discoalucard on May 9, 2017 9:18:43 GMT -5
I'd like to feature some of their stuff. I have Bot Vice, it's pretty clumsy but I still like it.
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Post by silentstorm on May 9, 2017 9:36:25 GMT -5
I'd like to feature some of their stuff. I have Bot Vice, it's pretty clumsy but I still like it. Super Star Path is a fun little puzzle/shmup game, it's a short game though, in less than 3 hours i beat the campaign and unlocked all the ships, though that still left Boss Rush and it's more of an arcade game meant to be played so you can improve your time. It's easier than Bot Vice at least, but then again, that game was made to be hard.
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Post by Snarboo on May 9, 2017 16:35:16 GMT -5
Why is that Tribute Games always feel the need to ruin perfectly serviceable old-style action games with bullshit mechanics that bog everything down? Wizorb had the "rebuild the village" pseudo-RPG stuff, Mercenary Kings had the crafting mechanics and the "follow the boss around the map" stuff, and now this... I was just about to make this exact post! All of Tribute Games stuff seems great on the surface, but has some crippling flaw to it. I was hoping Flinthook would be the exception, but it seems to suffer from similar issues. Although, I felt Wizorb's controls were its biggest problem. How do you make a breakout clone with unresponsive controls?!
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