[HN Gopher] Show HN: One Way Dungeon - A game I've been developi...
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Show HN: One Way Dungeon - A game I've been developing in the last
five months
Author : Vaskivo
Score : 105 points
Date : 2021-05-19 10:03 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (play.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (play.google.com)
| thih9 wrote:
| I played the web version. Random feedback:
|
| I like the mix of mobile casual and pokemon / mystery dungeon
| style. However I played two runs (returned safely, upgraded
| abilities, got killed by angry bear) and I don't want to try
| again. I'm missing some meaningful interaction (maybe shops? or
| alternate routes?). I'm bored by long transitions and repeated
| messages after battles (maybe let me skip or speed up the
| animation about absorbing monster energy?). I'm also overwhelmed
| by seeing so many different moves; perhaps moves could drop less
| frequently? This way it would be more of a special event instead
| of a regular thing.
|
| Overall, I enjoyed it and will look out for future upgrades.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Played the web app. Pretty fun but also pretty one dimensional.
| Congrats on releasing either way. That's my goal as well and I
| don't think I'm likely to reach it until I'm retired :(
|
| - The optimal strategy pretty clearly seemed to be max out speed
| and one type of attack. Most battles can be one shot victories. I
| assume it wouldn't be that difficult to build up enough
| durability to survive multiple rounds of a battle, but it'd
| likely be a lot slower. Final boss was one shot on my first
| attempt.
|
| - I only did physical attacks. There wasn't much room for
| strategy. Tackle if tackle would kill it; wild slashes if tackle
| wouldn't kill it; big slash if even that wouldn't work. There
| were some stat change attacks available but they didn't seem too
| interesting. Most of the time you just wanted to do enough damage
| to win quickly. Sand attack seemed somewhat useful once or twice.
| Because battles were so short, an enemy would need to be able to
| survive at least 3 tackles AND survive fewer than that with a
| debuff in order to make using any sort of buff or debuff
| worthwhile. Cuz tackle/tackle is basically the same outcome as
| sand attack/tackle. I'm not sure any fights lasted longer than 3
| rounds for me.
|
| - I had no obvious way to know if magic was more effective
| against certain enemies. But in any case, physical was more than
| enough, and thus, splitting any points between physical and magic
| attack was sort of a waste. I think there was a beastiery but I
| wasn't really interested enough to look through it
|
| - The attack ammunition felt a little odd. Mainly in that I
| mostly just wanted more tackle ammo but as the game went on,
| mostly got variants that felt less useful. Reckless tackle in
| particular felt weirdly useless in how dangerous it was to
| yourself. I did feel like I wanted to conserve some ammo, but
| mostly for not wanting the annoyance of farming level 1 for
| tackles. If I had known the game capped out at warehouse 3 I
| probably would have finished it a lot sooner just blasting
| everything with big slash and calling it a day.
|
| - I think it would be difficult to continue to add more
| meaningful content without adding more depth to the combat.
| arist0tl3 wrote:
| Congrats on launching!
|
| Had a play through and found it pretty addictive; similar to
| other clickminer/grind style games I've liked in the past.
|
| I found the action swap mechanic a little odd at first but
| ultimately a nice change of pace from the more typical
| "unlock/pay to play" style progression of actions.
|
| I do agree with some other posters that there is a good deal of
| unnecessary tapping (choosing to return/continue, etc) but I
| think it would take a little ingenuity about how to keep the core
| gameplay as is and reduce those taps.
|
| The ads did make me sad and really interrupted the
| flow/immersiveness of the experience. A revenue model I'd play
| with is a paywall after the first level (and capping the stats as
| kind of an "intro" experience) and doing away with the ads.
|
| Last thought was around the item that allows the player to see
| the unit's information. That part felt especially clunky/tap
| heavy. Might be cool to just see the general strengths/weaknesses
| mid-battle.
|
| Again, just a bunch of random thoughts, and the main takeaway is
| that you should be proud of not only building something cool, but
| putting it out there for others to enjoy!
| pomian wrote:
| I wonder if you could add the game to F-Droid? I think there are
| quite a few Android users that don't load apps through the Google
| Play store. Game looks interesting, but I suspect it would be
| better to play on Android as app, instead of website.
| uvesten wrote:
| Very good! I usually don't test out any demos here on HN, and I
| was really supposed to be going to bed, but the web version of
| your game delayed that for 45 minutes. Really enjoyable and well
| made!
| arbitrage wrote:
| installed and playing. it's pretty cool! i'm really enjoying it.
|
| please let me give you a few bucks to turn off ads.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning it has ads. I was going to try it before
| I saw this.
| JohnDeHope wrote:
| > And the accomplishment of a life goal.
|
| Did you write a dev blog? I'm curious what your life goal was.
| The game looks cool. I'll try to play it via that web link you
| provided.
| Vaskivo wrote:
| The goal was to design and develop a game alone. And then
| publish it.
|
| It's no 100% mine. But anything that isn't I paid for it. So it
| "came from me" anyways.
|
| You can see the assets I bought in the credits section. And I
| even hired a designer to help with UI/UX.
|
| I have a dev blog, but as development went on I kinda skimped
| on it. Here it is: https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/
| Vaskivo wrote:
| Five months ago, I quit my job and started making a game alone.
| One Way Dungeon was what came of it. And the accomplishment of a
| life goal.
|
| I'll continue supporting the game and adding new content to it.
| But not at full time. I'm going back to a "normal life".
|
| (For those who don't want to install it or don't have Android,
| you can play it here:
| https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/builds/release-1-...)
|
| I welcome all and any criticism. And I hope you like it. Thank
| you!
| f00zz wrote:
| Congratulations on finishing your game, that's a huge
| accomplishment!
| wincy wrote:
| Any plans for an iOS version?
| J5892 wrote:
| Initial reactions:
|
| - It's great as a quick pick up and play game
|
| - I would love an option to speed up animations
|
| - I would definitely add attack power to the attack buttons
|
| - When replacing an attack, it would be great to have a
| comparison view for the selected attack (or relative values
| next to the new values)
|
| - Add some icons to the move buttons for effects (like attack
| up/down, etc.)
| mobilio wrote:
| I like it... it's like an old RPGs.
|
| Any cheats like IDDQD or IDKFA?
| acomjean wrote:
| reminds me of Ultima (the Dungeons parts), or Wizardry/ Bards
| tales bit, if they were in an arcade.
|
| Nice work, esp the music. Fun
| anxiostial wrote:
| did you want to share more details?, like sales numbers, time
| it took to build, why you decided to return to a normal job,
| etc.
| Vaskivo wrote:
| It all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed
| the result. And it kept popping back in my mind.
|
| November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished
| One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half
| month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software
| developer, and have played around with game dev, I never
| worked on and finished a game.
|
| Last weekend I shared it with a small group of people (just
| to check everything was OK on their devices and with
| downloading it from Google Play.) And yesterday I started
| sharing it on the internet.
|
| I don't have any concrete numbers to share. Google's reports
| are still a couple of days late. And I predict a spike on
| users starting yesterday.
|
| I'm going back to a normal job because:
|
| - I am unemployed. I have some savings but I don't want to
| spend more than I already have.
|
| - I don't predict One Way Dungeon to generate enough income
| to keep me working on it indefinitely. I might be wrong. But
| competition in mobile gaming is fierce!
|
| - I'm kinda missing working on backend. And working with
| people.
| wheybags wrote:
| > competition in mobile gaming is fierce!
|
| Curious as to why you decided to release on mobile, instead
| of a slightly friendlier platform like PC.
| Vaskivo wrote:
| Because the game design was better suited for mobile.
|
| IMO, putting it on PC/console would require the game to
| be more complex. And allow for longer play sessions (it
| is a bit repettitive and grindy).
| legohead wrote:
| If possible I recommend applying for work at a mobile game
| company. Even as a backend dev you can learn a lot. There's
| a ton of interesting stuff to learn about game design,
| marketing, analytics, ads vs iap, etc.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| So you quit your job to work on this game full time and
| after 5 months, you're deciding to go back to work full
| time.
|
| Did you quit your job with the hopes this game would
| sustain you? If so, did you do any market research to
| validate that hypothesis.
| bavila wrote:
| I'm inclined to think this was a labor of love, not
| profit.
|
| There are people out there who quit their jobs to go
| backpacking on arduous trails for 5 months. It's long,
| hard work, but they do it for the other joys that come
| with the experience. And they do it all with the
| expectation of returning back to working life--not on
| cashing out. I don't see how what OP did is any
| different, other than it being a digital journey rather
| than a physical one.
|
| Congrats, OP.
| LucidLynx wrote:
| Congratulations! :)
|
| I will download it asap in order to play a round.
|
| Did you used a web-based game engine and export it in an
| Android app in some way?
| modeless wrote:
| Looks like they are using Godot engine.
| mushishi wrote:
| Congrats, that sounds like a fulfilling choice.
|
| Wrt. the game, the music seems really catchy, I like that the
| bass has clear presence.
|
| From a quick test try of it, was probably fun to make, and
| seems like a cool concept. Unfortunately have to prioritize
| other things.
| debo_ wrote:
| I love it! The music is very comfy.
| offtop5 wrote:
| What a great game, my only comment is I would love to be able to
| pay to remove the ads. Although from my own experience I know
| that this is probably more trouble than it's worth since the vast
| majority of people will never pay
| dovrce wrote:
| This is pretty fun, reminds me of flash games from my childhood,
| thanks for posting!
| dsr_ wrote:
| OK, I've played it for a bit.
|
| - This is effectively a progression game, where the player builds
| up abilities. But defeating a low-level enemy is boring and slow,
| even when you kill them with your first blow.
|
| - It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. I was
| expecting punching to not advance quickly, but instead it has
| limited uses. That's a strange metaphor.
|
| - Everything feels slow - not because it needs better
| programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast enough.
| Asking whether I want to return to the start after every enemy is
| aggravating.
|
| - There's no actual sense of progression or reward.
|
| - There's no sense of danger, either.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Everything feels slow - not because it needs better
| programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast
| enough.
|
| This is, unfortunately, a sin committed by a whole lot of games
| these days. Off the top of my head I can name XCOM 2, which
| notoriously seemed to have delays resolving actions for _no
| discernible reason whatsoever_. The mod to fix this was
| literally named "stop wasting my time".
| nvarsj wrote:
| Magic Arena does this. It's _incredibly_ irritating,
| especially if you play a combo deck or something click
| intensive. Those 5-10s animations get really old after the
| millionth time.
| jerf wrote:
| I don't 100% percent know this for sure, but since a lot of
| gamers are using "how long the game is" as a significant
| portion of their "is this game worth buying" metric, we've
| unfortunately incentivized game developers to pad this
| unnecessarily. I'm not sure which is worse, the micro ways
| like this that they pad things out or the inclusion of entire
| irrelevant subplots or the "Cut and Paste Dungeon It Will
| Take You Longer To Go Through Than It Took Us To Make (Please
| Enjoy These Palette Swapped Enemies And Palette Swapped Boss
| Rush)" in the last third of the game just because they need
| more run time.
| void_mint wrote:
| > I don't 100% percent know this for sure, but since a lot
| of gamers are using "how long the game is" as a significant
| portion of their "is this game worth buying" metric, we've
| unfortunately incentivized game developers to pad this
| unnecessarily.
|
| I can confirm that this is a common, intentional practice
| in the games industry.
| enkid wrote:
| Another possible explanation is that it feels/looks better
| for demonstration purposes. For press and initial players,
| having some time to process the information or make the
| animation look pretty is probably much more attractive then
| if information is spewing at them. As you progress, you
| need less processing time and understand what information
| on the screen is actually valuable, and therefore don't
| need as much time, so now the long animations go from being
| useful to being repetitive and boring.
| viraptor wrote:
| > It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch.
|
| This style of fight / abilities is almost exactly how Pokemon
| games work - it will be familiar to a lot of people. Actually
| so familiar I'd be worried about overzealous Nintendo lawyers
| :-P
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Ah yes, I think they were called AP(Action Points) or
| something. But you rarely felt them as a player aside from
| long journeys and really strong attacks that are balanced out
| by having more limited uses.
|
| I think it makes more sense to have at least one unlimited
| attack, though. It's hard to logically justify it otherwise.
| wheybags wrote:
| They're called PP, and when you run out of PP on all your
| moves, you automatically use "struggle" which hurts both
| you and the enemy.
| debo_ wrote:
| In response to the slowness: I clicked the settings button on
| the battle screen (top right star-shape) and maxed the text
| speed, and actions moved very quickly after that.
| dnmfarrell wrote:
| this is super fun to play. I love the music, the interface,
| leveling etc. Perfect for mobile. Unfortunately the game crashed
| on me mid-dungeon level 2 after defeating a monsta :/
| socialist_coder wrote:
| How was your experience using Godot? Why did you go with that
| over other engines?
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(page generated 2021-05-19 23:01 UTC)