This has the potential to be quite confusing. Perhaps there are simpler options (if we want to combine ment and identification, though I’m all for ways of making ment more useful and powerful). What about:
When under the influence of ment, if you start reading an unidentified scroll, you’ll be able to identify it before reading it. You can then choose whether to read it or not, using a Y/N prompt. Whatever you choose, it will always cost you a turn. (And turns are valuable when you’re using ment!)
Every time you use ment, you’ll identify one of the unidentified scroll types you carry around.
Let’s not ignore Joey’s ideas:
The first certainly possible – an essence that identifies all or some scrolls but has some negative side effect could be quite interesting. Or maybe a reusable item that allows you to identify a scroll, but saps one mind in the process?
I’m not a big fan of the second and third proposal. The main problem here is that mind can go up and down, but identification can’t (and shouldn’t) be reversible. So making any link between the two is certain to cause troubles. (And doing anything with “new” scrolls leads to the paradox that finding a scroll sooner is worse than finding it later when your mind is higher. This would discourage exploration.)
What if ment didn’t identify a scroll, but instead let you see its aura? The “aura” could be binary (good/bad), or could categorize the scroll according to a different schema, e.g. offensive (blade, death), defensive (protection, teleport), or sorcerous (basically miscellaneous: summoning, ghoulification, knowledge etc.). This example schema probably isn’t worthwhile, but you get the idea. How things might look in text:
But what would be the point of asking the player to memorize? I tend to play Kerkerkruip in 5-minute bursts, and I much appreciate all the memory features, such as the freebie status of the look and inventory commands, as well as the remember, status, and trophies commands. (Generally, I’m not willing to look back through scrollback, and that is doubly true if I’m only going to be playing for 5 minutes!)
Yes, optimal play should be fun play. Writing down or memorising auras would not be fun, but it would be optimal from a strategic point of view – so if auras are seen, they should be remembered. In fact, they should probably be seen / remembered without doing an “examine” command, since if would be optimal to examine every scroll while under the influence of ment, which is just a tedious chore.
I agree! Doing this becomes less obtrusive the simpler you can make the aura (I chose a pretty complex example). If we used simple colors for the auras, we could use EXAMINE to remind the player what those colors stand for. Sticking with a complex system (rather than a binary one):
Could still use some tweaking, but you get the idea.
The player doesn’t need to remember. They can use the hint while under the influence of ment, they can remember for later, or they can forget and be no worse off.
How about this:
You can see scrolls here labeled CHETNAK (with a healthy blue glow), EM DAER (with a sickly green glow).
Or
You can see scrolls here labeled CHETNAK (glowing a healthy blue), EM DAER (glowing a sickly green).
I have this theory I’d like to bounce off y’all. Most of you people have menial, sedentary jobs that require little or no cognition. You’re basically cowering in your cubicles, killing time. You can’t play a first-person shooter, for obvious reasons, so you play a game where you get to type ATTACK BLOOD APE fifteen times in a row, which is just as stupid as a first-person shooter but to your employer it looks like you’re working, frantically typing away. This is the only way I can explain the popularity of something as submental as this Kerkerkruip thing.
Jacek - The critique misses the mark for me as I get paid to play first person shooters. Still, I could explain how Kerkerkruip is a cerebral game of tactics and how typing ATTACK BLOOD APE fifteen times in a row would be a bad tactical decision, but your tone leaves me less than convinced that you actually care.
Dannii - Whether or not you strictly need to remember, the player will often want to remember what a scroll did, and so not having them have to make a note is a small convenience. In any case, of the two options presented, I think the second one reads better.
This is what I am planning to do for the next release! (In fact, I have already done some of if.)
Make size more interesting. In Kerkerkruip 7, we already have the blood ape, the blood ape’s power, and the spiked mace of the ape king; plus, I implemented a whole system to simulate combat with different sizes of person and weapon. However, this system wasn’t really used yet. So I want to add more stuff that makes size matter.
Which I have been doing over the last two days. There are now salves that increase or decrease the size of a weapon; there is a scroll of mutation which, among other things, can change the size of the player’s body; there is a room full of broken pillars, in which large creatures get combat penalties and small ceatures get combat bonuses; and there is a dagger called Giantsbane, which deals damage depending on the size difference between the wielder and the victim. Also, I set suitable sizes for all monsters.
Get blood magic done. It’s a simple system, and I implemented in yesterday. I also created one blood magic item (more will follow). The crown of the god-king gives you a +0 bonus on body, mind and spirit. But feed it 5 health, and it will give you a +1 bonus on body, mind and spirit. For another 10 health, the bonus increases to +2. Another 15 health, and the bonus increases to +3. And so on! The ultimate temptation.
I want add at least one new monster, the overmind. But ideally, I’d like to add at least one other new monster, because having a good variety of interesting enemies is the core of the game, it seems to me.
I’ve been thinking about themes. Some items/features/monsters work well together, and are pretty useless on their own. For instance, stuff like Darkul’s lifeblood, the vampiric dagger, a scroll of ghoulification and a scroll of death work well together; while getting just one of them is somewhat disappointing. The same goes for, say, items and rooms and so on that have to do with size changes and size modifiers.
As we add more stuff to the game, the probability of suitable items being spawned in the same dungeon goes down. To counteract this, I’d like to add something new to the dungeon generation rules: themes. Each theme has a certain probability to be activated when dungeon generation starts; and if activated, all itmes/rooms/monsters/whatever with that theme have a higher probability of being placed in the dungeon. So, say, there is a 20% probability of the necromancy theme being activated. If it is, all the necromancy items I mentioned above have a higher chance of being put in the dungeon. This system would increase the probability of suitable items being spawned together, while still allowing any and all combinations to happen.
As I see it, there are now three sets of objects that are somewhat interdependent and could be put together in a theme:
Necromancy: everything that has to do with being undead.
Size: everything that has to do with sizes.
Stealth: everything that has to do with becoming and remaining hidden.
Release 6 took a hard look at all the monsters. Release 7 did the same for items. In release 8, I’d like to check all the rooms. See if anything has to be changed to make things more fun.
For point 5, it might be important to finally rethink the religion system. I have no specific plans for this, though, so it’s a more tentative item on the list.
I like what I did with the periapt of prophecy and the psychedlic cloak: items that activate their special ability only when you’re under the influence of ment. I want more ment-dependent stuff, to make the player more, well, dependent on ment.
This sounds like a good plan. I’ve had the same basic idea about themes, so I’m happy to see that. A few disjoint thoughts:
Size: I wonder if this might be one way to make ranged weapons more distinct, as well, with bonuses for striking large creatures w/ranged weapons, and penalties for particularly small ones. This may be one of the things included in the as yet unused corner of the combat system that you mentioned.
Blood magic: The glass cannon is thematically similar to a blood magic device. Would it become more interesting if we had to decide how much to feed it, rather than it automatically stealing half our health?
New monsters: I’d been thinking that it might be neat to have an alternate Malygris who is a necromancer. Possibly that could be tied into the themes system somehow.
Ment: You know, I always forget to use my ment until I’m already facing an enemy. I wonder if ment might get more use if you could use it in the first round of combat only. That is, if you are allowed to run away without penalty, you can use your ment. It wouldn’t be that big of a giveaway to players, since it is very limited. Often you are using that retreat round to explore the dungeon and find out what’s in store, so you don’t want to use it for ment-taking anyway–on the other hand, it might make that decision more interesting: “I was planning to just run off, but maybe a hit of ment right now would let me take this fella out!”
I still think it would be worthwhile to try to think of more basic combat options (other than Attack, Defend, Concentrate), but I haven’t been able to come up with anything meaningful yet. At least, nothing that isn’t insanely complicated. And it probably wouldn’t be for release 8 in any case!
What about keeping Malygris, but changing his powers at random, so that sometimes he is a necromancer? (I kind of like the fact that you’re always up against the same guy.)
We could just allow the player to use ment in combat. Anyone opposed to that idea?
I have some ideas for advanced combat actions – let me add that to the list of things I want to do, or at least want to think about.
That’s actually what I was trying to get at with the phrasing “an alternate Malygris”
In fact, it would be numerologically auspicious if we had three faces of Malygris. I haven’t thought about any other alternate Malygrii, though. A psychedelic, ment-addicted one?
Not I! But it should not be a free move, of course: the player should use it at the cost of potentially taking damage.
I want a Malygris who is actually the good guy, trying to quietly curate his nicely-organised dungeon, keeping its dangerous inhabitants from ravaging the world without inflicting unusual cruelty on them.
Wait now, isn’t that the current story? Hasn’t Malygris assembled a family of misfits and outcasts, who now live together, in essential harmony, in a dungeon that he has provided with shrines to learning (the library), the useful arts (the workshop), piety (four temples!), and to memorial of the departed (crypts)? Aren’t there even halls for art and entertainment, including a much-fabled phantasmagorium? And isn’t the spirit of community produced by these institutions–and Malygris’s wise guidance–such that all of the dungeon’s denizens, from primates to disgraced monks, are willing even to die to protect their fellows from harm?!
But every Mexico has its Cortez, and up on the surface the prince and his gang of drunken bullies are constantly making ment-fueled sallies into the dungeon, besottedly tossing grenades about and slicing up its citizenry. It’s gotten so bad that every time the prince has a party, some lout jumps into a dungeon-bound wormhole to see how many peace-loving blood apes he can thrash to death.
Victor made an interesting choice in making the protagonist of the game one of the latter, rather than the more obvious choice of Malygris. On the other hand, a cynical critic might argue that Dr Gijsbers’s oeuvre merely tells the same story again and again. After all, wasn’t De Baron also the tale of a pathological sociopath’s attempt to portray himself as a hero, even as he obsessively teases at the fabric of society with his swordpoint?
Inspired by Terraria we will introduce Biomes to Kerkerkruip. These will be large scale geographical features, and I’d expect to have 3-5 of them in a dungeon. Some of them would be in every dungeon, others would only sometimes be present. Some of the Biomes I’ve thought of are:
The core dungeon: This is where the player would start, and it would have a few essential rooms such as the drawing room. I’ve always imagined Kerkerkruip to be roughly hewn from rock.
Malygris’ home/fortress/bunker: Malygris lives in a separate part of the dungeon, which is much more nicely decorated. Inside his home would be the library, workshop and other more civilised rooms. This biome would always be present. Malygris however wouldn’t always be inside. Possibly it should appear half abandoned (otherwise the player might be afraid to enter)?
The underworld: a world of heat, smoke and lava. If the bridge is present it will be here. (Or perhaps, if the bridge is selected to be placed, then the underworld will be selected as a biome. I haven’t thought too far about how the dungeon generation rules would work.) The biome would be below everything else.
On the shore of the underground sea: a linear biome would stretch out N-S or E-W, with the sea stretching out on one side of it.
Borrowing from Terraria, maybe a forest or The Corruption? If we had something like The Corruption it could be a place that even Malygris would be afraid of, perhaps a place of dark blood magic?
A few rooms/items/monsters would be locked into a particular biome, while others will be more likely to appear in some biomes than others. Some, such as the temples, could appear in any, but would change in appearance depending on where they are. In the core dungeon they would appear as they do now, but on the shore of the underground sea maybe they would be a simpler arrangement of standing stones. This would largely be flavour text, but perhaps the biomes could influence the behaviour of rooms too sometimes.
Tunnels would sometimes be required to link up between biomes, while their descriptions would be generated to match the biomes they are next to.
Rooms currently have a mood. If you want to keep that system I don’t know how best to integrate it with biomes.
Erik, I’m going to put that into the game as a speech that Malygris gives once every 100 encounters. If you don’t mind!
Let’s make it so that ment can be used in combat.
Dannii, while I like the idea of large-scale dungeon features (an underground lake, an underground river, whatever), don’t you think that requiring the dungeon to consist of several specific areas with clear layouts and themes would limit us too much? The Kerkerkruip dungeon is small, and I’m worried that too much of the randomness would be removed if we add tight constraints on its layout.
