Link is here: http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-6-dungeons-of-dredmor.html It's a discussion between some roguelikers of dubious credentials (myself included) about the jolly dungeon inhabited by the famed Lord Dredmor. Not all of it is positive, especially in respect to the huge amount of loot and the crafting system, but there's plenty of praise for the game in there as well. We're very interested in hearing feedback from more experienced players on some of the points raised.
Just had a listen and you nailed it pretty well: the game has too much fiddly clicking, but generally you're so involved with the humour and the push of "just one more door!" that you don't notice it much. A good example: Just got done playing an Alchemist caster. To save inventory space, I was putting my Aqua Vitae (the all-purpose potion building-block) in my Alchemy Kit. However, whenever I distilled more Vitae and shift-clicked it to auto-loot it out of the Porta-still, it would appear as a separate stack in my Inventory, and I'd have to click-and-drag that stack and combine it with the stack in my Alchemy Kit. After doing this about 30 times I wanted to shoot somebody. Also, when crafting, by can't you spam click? Let's say you put 10 Rust and 10 Vitae in your Alchemy Kit. Now, you click on "Brew!" and get 2 Healing Potions. If you click Brew again, nothing happens. You have to remove the 2 Healing Potions into your inventory or belt before making 2 more. So, making 20 potions takes 20 (or more) clicks, pausing to move the mouse in-between each click. In a less carpal tunnel-inducing world, it would only take 11 clicks and ONE mouse movement. Why can't you just hit Brew 10 times in a row and see a stack of 20 potions in the "results" box? Why, when I click on a Trap, can I not use the Enter key to say "Yea" and the Backspace or Esc key to say "Nea"? When I'm hiding behind a wall and am chain-disarming a Gargoyle Arrow Trap, having to go through the process of click trap-click Yea 10 times in a row is a bit much. Click, enter, click, enter, click, enter. No fiddly mouse jerks that way. Seriously, this game makes my elbow hurt after a session, but I can't stop playing it. Okay, on to other topics! The most recent patch made Bookcases about 400% more frequent, but you're right, it's all about looking at the Wiki for Recipes and trying to remember what Materials to keep an eye out for. There's a big thread on Melee vs. Casters right here in the general section, but you're right: Casters have the toughest time getting their first 2 level-ups, but then they usually proceed to slaughter their way through the rest of the dungeon. Melee don't normally have that "first 2 levels" wall, but by the end of the game it can be very hard to survive without a horde of AoE Bolts and Flasks and the best of the best in terms of armor. Linear Warrior, Quadratic Wizard. That doesn't even get into the viability (or lack thereof) of Crossbow or Thrown Weapon builds. I also agree with the following from a recent interview: 12. Ideally, how did you want players to perceive the game? DGB: I love the tagline from a review site – “A Roguelike For The Rest Of Us”. This cuts right to the core of what Dredmor is about, being a roguelike-inspired game that’s also accessible to non-roguelike players. Mmm, that's all I can think of for now. It was an entertaining podcast though, I enjoyed listening to it.
I think you can click spam crafting when you have the recipe selected. Edit: Just finished listening. Really enjoyed the podcast. I think there were some good points raised. I've invested almost 100 hours in the game, and I still don't know it back to front. I've mainly focused on melee. I do like the aspect of needing to play it to fully grasp it. Only non-roguelike game I've played that captured this so well was the first Fallout. I've never died so quickly in a AAA game in my life. ;D
I, like every one time CS student/roguelike player, have a half unfinished roguelike mulling around waiting for the motivation to finish it and I'm familiar with the rogue community. I've read Andrew Doull's acii dreams before and respect his opinion a lot. Also one of the guys in the podcast was a DCSS developer? It was interesting to hear their thoughts on the game. Two of the three hadn't really played the game beyond the first level, so keep that in mind. Their opinion was based less on the depth of the game and more on interface and inventory management. I share some of their criticism. I remember saying I had played like 70 hours or so over a few characters and people seemed shocked. But I've played a lot of roguelikes so I also got slogged down by all the items. And it still takes me hours to clear each level and a significant portion of that is inventory management. You know what would greatly improve the game? Doing away with the inventory box altogether for a limitless scrolling inventory like in final fantasy. Have the inventory auto sorted by drink/food/potion/weapon/armor/ring. Then just auto turn on auto loot. Edit: up to 196 hours played in the game. I've beaten the game in GRPD probably 6 times now. Each play through seems to be about 25 hours or so and I've had a few fail attempts. But I could see 2-3 hours per dungeon level in play time. The game seems to speed up after the first 2 levels, but then a dungeon zoo can take up to 40 minutes or so to clear.
For those interested, Dredmor has gotten a bit more mention on the latest episode on Roguelike Radio, this week focussing on character progression systems in roguelikes: http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com/2011/10/episode-8-progression-systems.html
Incidentally, for those racking up huge playtimes, try out the '+' key -- it'll double animation speeds. This really speeds up gameplay. Just don't walk into traps!
At my first programming job, when I was bored, I worked on a roguelike-like game (that must have been about 25 years ago or so). It was at the point that it was playable but I wasn't entirely happy with it, especially the level design. The only other people who played it were my co-workers who liked it a lot more than I did (I've always been my own worst critic. It was somewhat inspired by rogue and some video game machine that I can't recall the name of, where you could kill dumb robots by making them run into electrified walls. My version was more complex than that, but there were electrified walls, but some of the robots were smart enough to avoid the walls, or were immune to electricity or could destroy the walls. Each level was a bit like a puzzle where you had to figure out how to kill every robot on that level, either through luring them to their death or shooting them. You died if any robot managed to touch you.
Same general idea -- my version was in ascii, and in mine you could buy arrows, mines, and similar stuff between levels by spending victory points. Though I'd never seen that particular game -- the game I was trying to think of that was part of my inspiration was this (there was an arcade version): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerk. Honestly, I never actually played the game, I just watched a friend play it (I didn't like reflex games myself, and mine was turn-based like what you linked).
