[ul]
[li]Isn’t a clicker game. I’ve clicked enough for a lifetime, and these games rarely have much gameplay depth anyway. [/li][li]Can do its thing in the background and notify me when I need to check in on it. I don’t want “a turn-based RPG where my character explores automatically and I control her in combat” - or, at least, I don’t want something where I always have to control her in combat. [/li][li]Has randomized and affixed loot and skill trees and whatnot. I realized at some point that what I really want is “a Diablo clone, minus having to click a million times to move around and pop loot piñatas.” [/li][li]Has interesting choices to make with its loot and skill trees and whatnot. I’ve run into a couple of these on mobile that fit some of what I want, but then all the loot is variants on “this shield boosts defense, but this shield of the same level and a higher rarity boosts defense higher and also boosts HP,” while all the skills are “deal 10% more damage,” “increase max HP by 10%,” and so on, unlocked in a straight line. [/li][li]Doesn’t have any features locked behind in-app purchases. Note that while this is something that mostly comes up with mobile games, this is not the same thing as “isn’t a mobile game.” [/li][/ul]
I feel like, with all the indie stuff out there these days, there’s got to be something that fits most of my interests here. Anyone have any ideas?
Perhaps this is a horrible thought, but the first thing that popped into my mind is that it sounds like you want to hire someone in the third world country to play a game like a Path of Exile for you and email you whenever there’s a choice to be made!
There’s a Steam game called Adventurer Manager, which, going by the description, is exactly what you want. Unfortunately, going by the reviews, it probably isn’t. That’s a good place to start your search, at any rate.
While I promised not to be bitter about it, the game was still ultimately a disappointment (Hi Derek, sorry!). Great premise, but ultimately it wasn’t that great in execution. A shame, because it had a lot of great ideas, but like many games who gets trapped in development hell (This one was so for what…7 years?) it was finished quickly afterwards, and failed to live up to its interesting ideas and premise.
Thanks! Didnt realise this was a Derek D game! I tend to really enjoy his work but on the other hand I often share your tastes in games. Hmm, I see there is a demo.
https://www.kingdomofloathing.com/static.php?id=whatiskol might have some of the things you’re looking for. It’s a browser based RPG with very deep mechanics that can be fully automated almost up to Progress Quest level with a community developed client.
It combines turn based single person party Wizardry/roguelike combat with multiple choice text adventure sequences and an elaborate new game+ mechanic. After you finish the main quest line you get the option to make one of your class skills a permanent feature of your character and to start over as a different class on a different path (basically remixes of the game world that range from mechanics changes to full blown rewrites of all quests with custom classes).
It’s technically F2P with microtransactions but it predates modern F2P games and isn’t designed around milking every last cent out of their player base. There is content that is gated behind ‘premium’ items but there is always a mechanic that lets players who own the item create day passes that can be sold to other players. The economy is player-driven and almost everything can be traded, it’s like a more polite mini EVE Online.
The only game I know of that even hints at this is a goofy game called Shoppe Keep, which is predominantly a first-person shop management game (sort of like Recettear but not Anime-ish and first-person) that has a little “shop combat” (you can attack shoplifters and defend your shop from the rare barbarian attack). In addition to stocking your shelves, expanding your store, ordering goods, and growing plants, you have an employee who you can send dungeon delving. You equip him with armor, weapons, potions, etc, and send him off to different dungeons. Eventually he returns, and you can look at a text-based description of his adventures (including the monsters he defeated and the loot he picked up). Any loot he returns with you can sell.
As you can tell, that “hands-off adventurer” feature part is just a tiny piece of the game, though, and the game is definitely not what you’re looking for.
The more I thought about this the more I thought that could be a really interesting project, and it’s definitely something that doesn’t currently exist it seems!
What you’re asking is present in partial form as a minigame in some games (like Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 and 3, and maybe The Guild series if you choose certain professions). It’s also a part of emergent games like Dwarf Fortress and Gnomoria (though, again, not exactly like you describe). I’m trying to remember if you can do something like that in Heroes of a Broken Land (since you can create multiple teams of adventurers), but I think you have to control them when they go down in a dungeon. You might want to double-check though.
“Hero” management is a key feature in some games like Rebuild and A Valley Without Wind 2.
You might want to check Mount & Blade mods. I think an indie game called Kenshi might have something similar planned or implemented, but I could be wrong. And you should consider taking a look at the Dungeon Keeper and Majesty series, since they provide at least part of what you might want.
BTW, Siralim 2 is supposed to have a mid/late game option to send your monsters in missions that provide loot and all, but I haven’t reached that point yet, so I don’t know exactly how it works.
zombo77: I’ve been playing KoL on and off for years. I thought about it as a possible answer, but I think I’d rather get into playing it again properly than bot it, and it still doesn’t quite hit what I’m looking for with regards to Diablo II-style skill and loot progression - I want skill trees and loot with randomized stats and affixes.
I’ve seen or heard of several of the examples here, and sadly, as mentioned, “minigame in a larger thing” doesn’t quite hit what I’m looking for. I want something fleshed out enough that it can stand as its own work, and most of the efforts I’ve seen to that end are Asian mobile games bogged down entirely by overly-aggressive IAP implementations and rather poor localizations.
Nonstop knight on the IOS , even plays itself when you are offline, skills and loot, and it’s free with no iap needed really. Go ahead, it’s fun a little while.
I just tried Nonstop Knight, and it’s far too simplistic for what I’m looking for - loot isn’t nearly plentiful enough, and it uses a Diablo III-style linear skill system with minor amounts of skill customization - as well as generally being structured like any other clicker game. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Sorry if I’m highjacking the thread a bit, but I wonder if these two requirements are contradictory.
Can a game really have interesting choices when the player has been completely isolated from the game systems the choices affect? My experience with management sims has always been that they are either pretty straightforward optimization exercises of a couple of variables (like your example above) or the simulation is so opaque that I could never make an informed choice. In contrast, in any game where the player has an active role, they can internalize the systems and have a kind of intuitive understanding of what the effect of changing a parameter would be. So for example if you’re actually playing Diablo, you’ll know what kind of enemies are the most troublesome and what kind of build changes would help against them. Or you’d have an idea about which spells or special powers could produce interesting combos that fit your playstyle. If you’re just doing the character building part, how will the player build up this kind of an understanding?
I’ve not played it, but the other day I found Age Of Gladiators on Steam via the discovery queue (once I’d blocked all of the anime games)
Age Of Gladiators is a single-player strategy/management sim set at the height of the bloody gladiatorial games in ancient Rome. As your fighters increase in level, it will be up to you to decide how to forge their attributes and abilities.
The screenshots make it look like Championship manager, except you’ve got “stabbing” skills instead of “heading”.
