Back in Development

Hi there! It’s been over a year (almost a year and a half) since last update, and last release. I’ve been having a long break from development, and just wanted to tell you that I’m back.

I have a lot of plans but I don’t know exactly what will make it into the next version, but I will share some of the ideas that I’m currently experimenting with:

  • An Attempt to nerf thievery builds somewhat.
  • Adding generic information about monsters (such as if they are living or not, what type of AI they use).
  • Disconnecting magic resistance from max mp.
  • Adding a discovered NPC menu to reduce the amount of running back and forth.
  • Rework mechanics around censers, aggravation and sharp weapons.
  • Adding a whole lot of content.

I’ll be back with blog post when I have something more concrete to show. Here some current dev screenshots (just teasers, these may very well change):

Updated: March 1, 2021 at 17:06

Comments

  1. YES!!!!

    Wow what a great surprise, man! One thing though is that in my experience I’ve never been able to get enough thievery skill to actually use any thief type weapons and etc. I don’t know if it needs more nerf!

    Might I suggest- and please don’t get super offended- but is there anyway so that it’s impossible to not be able to not attack? Like for example I’d equip a metal helmet and boots and it’d take away my martial attacks so I’d be helpless to defend myself. And along those lines, since sometimes I’d only find out I couldn’t attack was when I WENT to attack the enemy it wouldn’t let me unequip the helmet (or whatever) because I was “in combat”. So in these instances it was pretty much R.I.P. time.

    The only thing I don’t really like about this otherwise amazing game is how armor takes away your attacks sometimes. If it doesn’t go too much against your vision of how you want your game to be please consider it 😀

    Hmmm.. Any chance maybe reducing the amount of EP it takes to I.D. an enchanted weapon perhaps?

    1. Hey Del_Duio! Nice to see you here, and thank you very much for your input! Ansers below:

      > One thing though is that in my experience I’ve never been able to get enough thievery skill to actually use any thief type weapons.

      I’d agree with you, I never seem to get thief builds going either. But experienced players really seem to agree that it is so powerful they basically try to go for thievery most of the time if possible. Usually it is enough to boost your vision/noise temporarily to get to around 10 thievery quite easily.

      And “nerf” was maybe the wrong word here, I’m trying to balance it so that it is easier to get started with thievery but harder to max it out.

      > and please don’t get super offended

      I will never get offended by a mechanic suggestion 🙂

      I am aware of the confusing martial combo mechanic. I kind of like it, but I agree it is unintuitive and could probably be made better, so I am thinking about it.

      I have done one thing that should make it much easier though: if you have a martial weapon and try to equip an item that would take your martial combo below 1 so you can’t attack, you’ll get a yes/no prompt. So at least that should prevent the situation you described.

      > Any chance maybe reducing the amount of EP it takes to I.D. an enchanted weapon perhaps?

      This is one of the things I personally like with the game as it creates suspense. However, this gets requested quite a lot, and if something gets requested a lot I start to rethink things.

      1. Hey!

        Well I mean don’t completely get rid of the EP for I.D. thing (I like this as well), I meant more like instead of it costing 10 EP to ID an enchanted leather hat it might take 7 or 8.

        The yes / no prompt is a big help, regardless of whether you want to tweak the martial abilities later.

        I’ll be following this one, don’t let us down Obi-Wan!

  3. Oh yeah! This is the kind of thing we love to see!!! ^.^ I hope that the break was refreshing. There’s another NPC change which has been mentioned on the Discord that’s even *more* exciting 🙂

    1. hm.. do you mean that they won’t leave the dungeon or are you referring to something else?

  4. It’s great to see you’re still improving this game! I’m glad to see the thievery change—I find thief characters so much easier in the late game that it feels kind of like cheating. I’ve never won a non-thief but have won a half-dozen characters that focus on thievery. Because there are so many consumables that raise vision and lower noise, and daggers are so damaging, I sometimes switch to a dagger when I go “all in” even when I’ve been playing melee up to that point—it doesn’t feel very flavorful.

    1. Thanks for your input, yeah I noticed exactly this is a problem. The first thing I’m trying out is to let vision contribute less to the thievery attribute to force thievery builds to center around noise.

  5. Welcome back in the dungeon 😀

    What about adding alternative goals/badges and game modes, for the more experienced players? Like choose a mutation at the start of the game and win the game with it (and game the badge of that mutation). Or similar things.

    1. Hey almalam, happy to see you’re still here!

      I’ve been thinking about adding achievements to collect, this should encourage trying out different kind of ways of playing. But it will probably not be done in the next version.

      2. Yes!!!! Great news! Such a beautiful ascii roguelike.

        Would love more branches or maybe some side quests?

  6. Oh yeah!

    > Rework mechanics around censers, aggravation and sharp weapons.

    Yes yes yes. Aggravation is so unnerving and the Thievery format so complicated I stopped playing the last version after trying it just a bit.

    Looking forward those new developments!

    1. Hey HedoNNN, great to see you here again!

      As it looks like now the aggravation system will be completely replaced by something else. However, thievery will probably not be less complex, but a bit more well rounded. Let me know if you have any specific things you don’t like with it.

  7. Great news, I was afraid that the game development has been abandoned. Hope the development will be still successful and game will rather short but great challenge. IMO the game is the best coffeebreak RL in the world, and I hope next versions will be even better – I know it will be possible with our developer.
    Best wishes from Poland, subcarpathian area.
    P.s.
    According to HedoNNN message, IMO thievery is often hard to manage well because: a) there are items available to make stealth higher and higher, but You can’t find good thievery weapon or b) there is great thievery weapon, but there aren’t items to grind stealth to sufficient level.

    1. Thank you very much Martin! Yes, it may be hard to find a good thievery build early, but after the castle there may be enough items around to turn it into a thievery build.

  8. This is great, TGGW is my absolute favorite “coffee break” rl. Personally, I see it as a great Brogue alternative. Can’t wait to see what the new updates bring.
    I’m also Polish like the poster above, adding to his wishes.

  9. Great to hear that you are back, I like the idea of more text regarding the monsters, it fits the game and the rat example is perfect

  10. I check this website from time to time to see if there are any updates on this AWESOME roguelike, i am so happy that i came here today and found that you are back in development !

    I can’t wait to see new content… 🙂
    Cheers BtS ! much love friend

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