We Slay Monsters - Roguelike with Poker-esque combat out of Early Access

So, need to spend more time this weekend, but I started playing and I have a few initial comments. They might be dumb once I get further in, but from a new player picking up the game perspective:

  • Should be able to adjust my mouse speed
  • While in a dungeon I should be able to look up the key bindings. I am not sure how to actively loot the item under my character without clicking. There is probably a button. I won’t know until I clear this dungeon and can check. As a new player I really like to be able to see the key bindings
  • While I quickly figured out the ranged/melee options, it was a bit confusing at first
  • It is just odd to play poker with cards 1-10. It is just weird to have a 1 instead of an Ace in general.
  • It would be nice to see my character’s equiped gear when picking an upgrade. Clearly I want to upgrade the gear that I plan on keeping longer, but it is hard to tell what that is with just the text name of the gear
  • I haven’t fought any ranged enemies, but without any penalty for hunger it seems like it is very easy to sit in a doorway and teleport them away every time they get close. Maybe teleport should have a chance of backfiring or sending them ‘behind’ me? And when I teleport them away if an enemy is behind them they just take a step forward. I am very unlikely to get hit. Of course, first mission probably should be easy and all. Just a thought.

Overall, I had fun with it, I am looking forward to having more time this weekend to play.

First, thanks for the feedback.

Can you elaborate on this? Not quite sure what you mean.

Yup, agreed. This is on our list.

We’re adding tooltips for the cards, so when you mouseover them you’ll get a better idea of what they do, do you think that would address this? Any other ideas how to make this more obvious? Maybe some icon on the card itself that indicates range/melee?

Yeah, I agree, but since the “face” value of the card is the damage it does, I didn’t want Ace to be ambiguous based on people’s idea of what an ace is, so I just went with 1-10.

If you’re talking about the shop screen, there is a button on there that allows you to view your full character sheet and see your equipment and stats. If you find a piece of equipment in a chest, you should be shown a comparison between the new and old equipment.

Ranged enemies are tough :) And there are monsters that have countermeasures to the standing in a doorway technique. Once you start unlocking more monsters it will get more difficult. But, there is balancing to do for sure. We have swung from the game being way too hard to (probably) being too easy. Once we get to “feature complete”, we’re going to spend a good deal of time on balance and trying to get it just right. Once you’ve played some more, I’d be interested in your thoughts on difficulty.

Great! Always good when people enjoy your game :)

Published Update 26 to Steam and itch.io last night, full patch notes:

TL;DR version: New rogue profession, new monsters, and lots of other great stuff.

Published Update 27 to Steam just now, full patch notes:

@rezaf The bug you reported with movement on the numeric keypad is fixed with this build :)

New items! Moar Steam Integration! Boom!

Haven’t posted any updates here in a while, but we have continued to plug away. Just released Update 31 on Steam and itch.io. Full patch notes:

If anyone here on QT3 would like a steam key, just PM me :)

Back again!

Just uploaded Update 32 to Steam and itch.io. Six new monsters! Tons of bug fixes! Lots of community suggestions have been implemented!

Wow, it’s been almost 2 years since I posted to this thread, and almost 5 years since I originally posted it. Developing a game in your spare time sure takes a long time!

Believe it or not, we’re in the final stretch. The game has been in Early Access on steam for a long time, and we’re finally getting ready for our 1.0 release and getting the game out of EA.

We’re in the last phases of testing and adding the final features, and I’d really love to get some more feedback from people, so I’m going to once again throw out the offer of steam keys for anyone here on QT3, just PM me if you’re interested.

I posted our “plan to get to 1.0” on our devlog, if anyone is interested.

Congrats! That’s a big deal, right? Yay!

Yes, it’s a very big deal, at least for us. When I started working on this game in March of 2010 (it originally started as a 7-day roguelike for the 7DRL jam), I had no idea where that path would lead. I’m not a professional game developer, so it’s been a lot of learning, a lot of nights and weekends, and a lot of fun.

Thanks for the kind words :)

That’s awesome! I love seeing when people have a go at game development, even as a learning exercise. That you took it to the next level and are getting your game out there is impressive!

At least I do have a professional software development background, and I’ve been dabbling in games since I got a VIC-20 when I was 12 years old, so the actual programming part came easily. But dabbling and getting something delivered are two very different things. The one thing I never expected was how much work was involved in the business-y parts of getting a game launched, and how much time I would spend marketing the game.

We just released We Slay Monsters out of early access yesterday, so we’re pretty excited. It’s been a long road (I first posted this here in October of 2013!). Here’s a link to the game on Steam, if anyone is interested:

grats! hope you do well with it. I’ve enjoyed my time with it quite a bit.

I remembered Tom playing this charming little game a year ago, and I grabbed it during the current, very attractive, sale.
I have played a couple of hours, and while it isn’t a big thinker (although it shares a lot of its structure, this is no Deskop Dungeons), it is a very nice time waster. The interface is a bit challenged, as it seems the game would be fit for a keyboard or gamepad only interface, but it requires the mouse for a lot of interactions or hints somehow.
There was a game, a while ago, which used slots instead of videopoker for its combat and was even more simple, but it reminded me of that same easy going feel.
Anyway, very cool little game.

Thanks for playing, glad you like it!

There are keyboard shortcuts for most actions, but yes, for the “hover” information, you have to use the mouse. I played with trying to come up with alternate ways of showing this stuff, and this was the best I could come up with, especially when you are facing multiple enemies.

Ah, I was about to ask what the shortcuts to select cards were as I couldn’t figure them, but it appears they are 1 to 5, and are simply not accessible on my non-qwerty layout (where we have to use shift to access numbers). Dang!