RogueBlock (Working Title)
Explore a small, grid based world. Fight monsters in bullet hell style combat. Win battles to increase your stats, find chests to gain new abilities, combine relics to create powerful synergies! Become as strong as possible before facing the final boss!
Note: This game is pretty difficult. I'm considering making the 'practice mode' just the normal mode. For the first few runs at least, I'd definitely recommend enabling practice mode.
### Controls: ###
Overworld:
- Move: [W][A][S][D]
- Sprint: [Shift] + [W][A][S][D]
- Interact: [Space]
- Pause: [P]
- Minimap: [M]
Battle:
- Move: [W][A][S][D]
- Shoot: [Space]
- Dash: [Shift] + [W][A][S][D]
- Abilities: [<], [>], [?]
- Pause: [P]
Looking for feedback!
* This game is a work in progress. Currently, features planned for the near future include:
- A tutorial
- Custom Keybinds
- Easier enemies that require you to use the dash (Currently, dashing is not really needed in any fight before the boss)
Gameplay-wise, the biggest change I have planned for the future of this game is a form of permanent progression, where each run of the game grants you some kind of small boost that allows you to become stronger in all future runs.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- V0.1.2 patch notes39 days ago
- V0.1.1 patch notes: easier practice mode41 days ago
- V0.1.0 relic update!46 days ago
- V0.0.1 patch notes56 days ago
Comments
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Hey unaware-robot,
You were my Gem of the Stream!
Check it out:
A lot of potential here. What you already have is a great and playable experience. I know you have plans for a story and to expand the game further so looking forward to that. Gameplay is pretty straightforward which I like. Explore, loot, battle and upgrade. Your enemy encounters are all different and fun to fight. I really suck at the onion enemy though. As discussed in the video perhaps just beefing up the player HP a bit could make things a little more beginner friendly but I know you'll be changing things up anyway. I have been thinking a little bit about the layout of the battle screens. I find it difficult to keep my eyes on the action and check my ability cooldowns, so if you haven't already, maybe play around with some different screen configurations to help that stuff be more readable while dodging bullets. Really enjoyed my time with your game, great work!
Thanks again for playing my game, I’m very happy you liked it!
My main takeaways from seeing you play are:
The UI in battles is another good point, and a challenging part of the design I think. There is a lot of info to convey to the player but the game gives the player very little time to pay attention to it haha. It’s definitely something I need to experiment with more.
I really appreciate the feedback :). It’s definitely a work in progress (and will be for a long time) so I really want to get as many opinions as possible so I can take this game in a good direction.
I would second CocoMimi Games's opinion. So far there isn't a point to "explore" (there's only one path, no ?). As a shooter it's kind of fun even if I noticed the opponents going through the menu where I can't. What's my character supposed to be like ? An old school mouse with a joystick ? It's fine but I just didn't get it would be in a swamp.
My main complain would be that the game looks really tiny in a web-browser.
Pro-tip for anyone who wants to test it: 5 bullets to the face is always efficient.
thanks for playing :). There's not just one path, the world always generates in such a way that there's choices for which direction to go.
I didn't think about the story yet (but I have some ideas), about what the character is and why it's in this world. I just thought he looked cute
You can enable fullscreen by pressing P in the world, there is an option :). I know this is not really made clear, will work on this
The animation for moving is neat, but feels a bit sluggish. I think I would personally prefer that it be a bit snappier. I understand that's probably the job of sprinting, though.
I thought I had practice mode on but still found the game to be pretty challenging.
The control instructions for using the abilities (< > ?) were a bit confusing to me. I assumed the arrows were for selecting different abilities and the question mark was for activating the selected one. I figured it out, but maybe showing the corresponding button next to each ability would be a good idea.
I found shift to be a somewhat awkward key to press for dashing. Being able to assign my own keys for actions would be nice, but I understand it would also be challenging to implement.
It was quite satisfying when I figured out how to tackle the piranha plant-esque boss (but I still died haha).
Having a toggleable auto-fire would be nice. It's a bit awkward to have to perpetually hold it down.
The art is cool. It's a bit nostalgic to me in a way that I can't quite place.
Hi, thanks for playing! I appreciate your feedback.
I've had similar feedback on the dash keybinds before, so custom keybinds are definitely coming at some point! The toggleable auto-fire is a nice idea too, I will probably add this in a future update.
I played the game for 5 minutes. I have three main comments :
1) the fighting mini-game is fun
2) the exploration phase is not so fun and
3) I have an AZERTY keyboard and the WASD control is very uncomfortable for me.
Other minor comments :
*) The grass animated pattern at the beginning should be improved, it's too repetitive.
*) The bottom tree tiles cover most of the avatar when the trees are at the bottom of the screen .
*) A text could explain that we have to choose an ability when we win a fight to make that window clearer.
*) We don't have a goal to push us to explore the world.
*) The ennemies don't move on the map so we have to decide to attack them but since they cannot attack us it's not a danger.
Hope you will continue to provide some fun ^^
Hey, thanks for the feedback! You can switch to AZERTY controls in the pause menu (press P) :)
First thing I noticed: carrot not stick. Don't brand easy mode as easy mode. I found this game to be pretty challenging, but never turned on easy mode because I knew I would be giving feedback and I wanted to play the game as intended. Were it branded as practice mode I probably would have tried it.
I really like the penta shot. It is really powerful. I took it as my starting ability all four times I played. I think you need more starting abilities.
I never actually used the dash. I was moving shooting, watching my abilities cool down timers. I was focusing on a lot and never found a situation where moving my fingers to the shift key felt like it was worth while.
I used the lazer exactly one time. I found rooting myself down was not worth the damage. It would have been more useful if I had a shield, but I didn't and never took the lazer again. I see the potential for it to be useful, but it feels very situational and penta shot is just flat out better.
I really like the visuals and music. The game is fun. I will be giving it another shot in the future.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to give all this feedback, and I'm happy you liked the game!
I see your point with the name 'easy mode', it makes it sound as you are not playing the 'real' game. It's something I didn't think about too much as I added it to the game late. I will give it a different name.
I get what you mean with the laser, to me it is very situational, it can be good against some enemies but very difficult to use against others.
I'm most interested in your experience with dashing: I intend to make attacks that you need to dash to dodge (there should be one already). So when you say you feel that dashing is a hassle that is something I really want to make better. Do you think possibly different keybinds would work better?
I tried the game again and I wanted to try dashing and I do do think changing the way you dash could be helpful. Highlighting why the dash is useful would also help. I could avoid most attacks without even trying to dash (which is a good thing) so I barely dashed even though I was making a conscious effort to dash more. Don't take game design advice from strangers, but you could steal an idea from Cup head and have colored bullets that reward you for dashing through them. Maybe give the player a shield or remove the bullets from the screen. I don't know. But the dash as it is feels pretty useless. You could go the opposite direction and cut the dash all together. Replace it with something else or not. Again don't listen to me I am just some jerk on the internet.
I made it all the way to the boss and it was really mean. I found its attacks nearly impossible to dodge and dashing did not help. I am sure with some practice I could beat it, but I didn't try a second time. It should give more of a warning before attacking or have easier to avoid attacks. It felt a little unfair.
You make a very good point with the dashing that I didnt think about. None of the enemies before the boss encourage you to dash, so it makes sense that suddenly requiring you to use it in the boss fight is unintuitive. In the future, I will try to (re)design enemies more with the dash in mind.
About the boss's difficulty: For me the fun of games like these is that you fail often, retry, learn and become better over time. It makes finally winning feel more rewarding. Therefore the boss being difficult is intentional, I don't want people to generally beat it in the first few tries. I hope that doesn't discourage you from playing :)