http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/21 Things I like about it: - Leaves a lot to the imagination without resorting to ASCII visuals. - Choose Your Own Adventure style moments. Seems to be very early in development still, but shows a lot of promise. EDIT: Oh, this page describes what aspects of NEO Scavenger you may enjoy, based on other popular games and their features: http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/6
Oh right, I read about this a couple weeks ago. Looks pretty neat. I was under the impression it wasn't randomly generated though?
It most certainly is. EDIT: But trying to find a confirmation on the site was difficult, so it just isn't communicated very well. You can find it in the "Strategic Turn-Based Gameplay" paragraph here: http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/8 EDIT2: Or here: http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/6
Well, I tried it. It's not all that bad, but if there's one thing it lacks, I say it's "comfort". Not the "in-game-comfort-related-to-character-tiredness", but rather the possibility of freely attaining the feeling that things aren't shot to hell. And that is because out of the starting traits, you either choose all the stuff related to hiding and trap skills, or two~three skills that make you tougher in combat and the medic skill. Which is bad, because it doesn't left much in the way of actually customizing the character if you only have one skill to choose for yourself (and only three weaknesses, which give you additional skill slots, are actually "takable", because both frailness and weakness are pretty much suicidal unless you really get lucky). Still, the above was only with the demo, so if the issue of some skills being clearly superior gets addressed, it can end up being a rather neat game.
I like it in general, but it seems a bit more polish is needed for the moment. My last four characters all died to the very first thing they fought. Two of them had reasonable items and good skills too. So I think it is not ready for prime time.
I agree with the overall usefullness of the skills being all over the place. I've been trying to take Hiding and Athletic at the very least (Athletic is probably the most powerful one right now, giving you an extra action per turn). But, as you mentioned, hopefully the imbalance will be addressed. What I found interesting is on the character select screen, at the bottom where it determines how many skill slots you get, it says "Basic Human". Makes me think there will be race selection in the future, which could give you a different set of skills / flaws and a different amount of skill slots.
Personally, as it is right now, I prefer Cataclysm the Roguelike. When some improvements are made to Neo Scavenger, I'll consider coming back.
Yeah, I've never been able to handle ASCII art or just text alone, which from the screens I just looked up, is what Cataclysm uses. I like that NEO actually has some artwork for my imagination to work from.
Welp, there goes my Sunday afternoon. I think we should probably have a dedicated roguelike thread or sub-subforum.
Honestly I tried the demo, and not only is it pretty badly done, with poor character creation, and poor ui, but the start is so horribly hard and rng screwy the difficulty level can only be described as stupid. "You must find these things to survive, and they are rare. Also you must avoid combat at all cost because you will die".
Well, it is possible to win in combat if you face something that isn't both strong and tough and you at least have strong. But it takes, like, hundreds of actions to do that thing in because you have to prioritize incapacitating it over dealing damage and that means not only you deal pretty much the lowest damage possible but you also spend like 40% of time incapacitated too (you are pretty much stumbling the guy all the time hoping to get him to bleed before you start bleeding, pretty much). It's a good way to get decent stuff quickly if you get lucky in combat (and unlucky on the world map), but overall you don't want to do anything of this sort.
The best combat option while unarmed is kicking them while they're down. If you consistently aim for that (which involves what Kazeto said, trying to bring the enemy down by all means, tackling, rolling, pulling their ankle) you can defeat a crowbar-armed looter with your starting gear ahahahah starting gear) Doesn't work as well with dogmen AFAIK...
While we're on topic of postapocalyptic roguelikes, I can really recommend Caves of Qud: http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/showthread.php?10-Welcome-to-the-Caves-of-Qud-beta It's an ASCII game but with modern UI as far as it goes. It's still in development but I had a lot of fun with it. Teaser:
Yesssss. I demand more Qud exposure. We will force the developers to focus on it through the sheer influx of new fans.
