Temple of Anput

[andmatand]

Temple of Anput
featuring procedurally generated dungeon action and CGA graphics!

This is a game I worked on for pretty much all of 2012, and I haven't really touched it since March. I guess I got kind of burned out on it or something. But I looked at it again recently and realized I was pretty proud of it, but had never really shown it to many people (since I am terrible at self-promotion and never really confident in my own work).

It's completable from start to finish (there is a brief ending), but it's not 100% done...there were more things I had planned to add to it, but at this point I'm kind of just curious to see what people think of it so far. Thanks for any feedback, and thanks to the creators of LÖVE which is super fun to use :)

Links

• anput.love
• Website

And of course everyone loves SCREENSHOTS




Controls

• Gameplay
  • move: wasd
  • switch weapon: 1 - 5, or Shift
  • shoot: arrow buttons
  • pause: spacebar
  • use elixir: e
  • use potion: p
  • context-sensitive button: enter
• Inventory
  • use item: enter
  • drop item: delete
• System-Wide
  • fullscreen: f11, Alt + Enter
  • new game: Ctrl + n
  • increase/decrease graphics scaling: Ctrl +/-
  • quit: Ctrl + q, or close the window

[Lafolie]

This is amazing.

I feel that the controls could be better conveyed. At the moment they flash up really fast and sometimes I didn't even notice the instructions (took me an extra try to figure out the bow firing). Players unfamiliar with roguelikes may be confused by the sword attacking mechanism for example. I did, however, enjoy that retro phenomena of "Oh, I have this item with no description other than icon and name, let's use it and see what it does!".

Love the exposition too. Are those enemies that keep killing me sphinxes or cats?

I would be interested in playing this with a controller. I can imagine Finn and Jake playing this.

[andmatand]

I feel that the controls could be better conveyed. At the moment they flash up really fast and sometimes I didn't even notice the instructions (took me an extra try to figure out the bow firing). Players unfamiliar with roguelikes may be confused by the sword attacking mechanism for example. I did, however, enjoy that retro phenomena of "Oh, I have this item with no description other than icon and name, let's use it and see what it does!".

Hmm yeah I was really trying to find a balance between old-school "figure it out as you go" experience and modern "tutorialize EVERYTHING" mindset. The instructions for the bow stay there until you push one of the buttons, but maybe you accidentally pushed an arrow button really quick and then it went away?

Are those enemies that keep killing me sphinxes or cats?

They're supposed to just be cats. 'cause cats are Egyptian, right? That's actually one thing I like about the minimalist style though, that it creates some ambiguity about what things are. So it's okay that you couldn't tell what they were :)

I would be interested in playing this with a controller.

It actually does work with a controller! Although it's not super easy to control that way.,,maybe someone has an idea of how to improve the controller feel. The default bindings are for an XBox 360 controller, but you can change them in conf.lua. But yeah, one of my inspirations for this was "Adventure" for Atari, so I definitely needed it to have joystick support :)

I can imagine Finn and Jake playing this.

Haha yess that sort of thing is exactly what I was going for. It's good to hear that the game communicates that feeling to someone playing it for the first time. Thanks for the feedback, man!

[Hexenhammer]

Very cool. However as someone who actually played CGA games as a kid I would like to point out that those aren't CGA graphics. First, the resolution is too high, and more importantly the colors are wrong. CGA's light magenta is 0xFF55FF, not 0xFF00FF etc. And yes, I noticed that immediately

Also I don't like the sounds, it seems you aimed to reproduce those old PC speaker sounds but that attempt failed. They don't sound right or good.

I like the code, though. Very readable.

[andmatand]

as someone who actually played CGA games as a kid I would like to point out that those aren't CGA graphics. First, the resolution is too high

Well yes, that's because the game is scaled to 3x by default. Just press Ctrl - a couple times and you'll see that the game is in fact running at 320x200 :)

and more importantly the colors are wrong. CGA's light magenta is 0xFF55FF, not 0xFF00FF etc. And yes, I noticed that immediately :huh:

HOLY CRAP YOU'RE RIGHT! HOW DID I MISS THAT??? Hahahahaa I could have SWORN I checked that, but apparently I was assuming!!

I have now fixed the color, and the latest builds are updated! Seriously, thanks for pointing that out! Wow. I feel dumb.

Also I don't like the sounds, it seems you aimed to reproduce those old PC speaker sounds but that attempt failed. They don't sound right or good.

Yeah, those sounds are actually recorded from DOSBox, which I thought did a good enough imitation of PC speaker sounds so I just went with it. One thing that I have noticed makes them sound MUCH worse is having the volume up too high; there seem to be some weird imperfections in the sound that are only audible at a high amplitude. Compare it with your volume lower and you'll see what I mean.

I like the code, though. Very readable.

Ha, thanks! I am a programmer for a living, so I guess it's good that my code is readable :)

EDIT: I also fixed the magenta in the screenshots!

EDIT 2: Just to be clear, I thought I should also mention that there are a couple other minor liberties I took with the whole color palette limitation: one is the color used for the walls that are in the "dark" outside of your FOV. The other is something that you will only see if you make it much further in the game. Both of these were deliberate stylistic choices (unlike my unintentional psuedo-magenta!), so my use of "CGA" in the description is somewhat facetious, in case there's any misunderstanding :)

[Helvecta]

The most fun thing I've seen posted on the forum since I've been here; it's just so.. complete! Polished! Fun! Addictive! And challenging!

Well done!

Are you thirsty? I'm not.

[jjmafiae]

This is so cool!! one of the best unfinished love games i have ever seen! good job comrade!!!

[andmatand]

The most fun thing I've seen posted on the forum since I've been here; it's just so.. complete! Polished! Fun! Addictive! And challenging!

Wow thanks! Making it feel very "polished" was definitely something I was trying to do, so that means a lot to me

Are you thirsty? I'm not.

Haha you caught the camel! And you did that whole puzzle, apparently; nice! You must have gotten pretty far! I was a little afraid the camel part might be too hard to figure out (at least the "grab" mechanic), but I'm glad someone has done it without any help!

This is so cool!! one of the best unfinished love games i have ever seen! good job comrade!!!

Thanks! Having people play the game makes me want to finish it now...at least add a more substantial ending...I'll post here when I have something!

[Helvecta]

Wow thanks! Making it feel very "polished" was definitely something I was trying to do, so that means a lot to me

Well you definitely totally nailed that. The greatness is all in the details; that the first room always only holds a sword so that the player can learn movement first, that the second room is always the room with only beetles in them so that you can learn combat without being hit, that the intro message is always different, that the camel comments when being hit, it's just.. agh, nice job.

The only thing I have as constructive criticism is to increase the minimum time that spikes may take to clomp down, and to offset this increase in time, make your character get damaged / not able to move when the spikes are down (if you start running immediately after spikes clomp you can run through them without damage).

Also, fuck ghosts. And archers. And Khnum. And mummies (which are surprisingly OP for such a simple AI).

[andmatand]

The greatness is all in the details; that the first room always only holds a sword so that the player can learn movement first, that the second room is always the room with only beetles in them so that you can learn combat without being hit, that the intro message is always different, that the camel comments when being hit, it's just.. agh, nice job.

Agh, someone who notices and appreciates the details! You are precisely my target audience! I want to hug you right now

The only thing I have as constructive criticism is to increase the minimum time that spikes may take to clomp down, and to offset this increase in time, make your character get damaged / not able to move when the spikes are down (if you start running immediately after spikes clomp you can run through them without damage).

I think you're right; I was actually just thinking about this the other day! "It kind of makes the spikes feel insubstantial or too easy when you can just walk through them while they are down," I thought.

The spikes were one of the last things added to the game before I stopped working on it for a while, so I never did as much thinking about them until now. Now that I know someone else has the same reaction, I'm definitely going to try it out and see how it feels. Thanks for the confirmation!

Also, fuck ghosts.

Haha and that's after I toned down the ghosts to make them MUCH easier...you would hate the old ghosts

And mummies (which are surprisingly OP for such a simple AI).

Yeah, the idea I was going for with them is that they are very intelligent, but slower to move and execute; a menacing mummy-wrap-laden hobbling. They also know how to drink elixirs

EDIT: I have made the change to the spikes, and updated the builds. I deliberated a bit on how far down the spikes need to be before they become collidable, but I think I found a setting that feels natural.

EDIT 2: Oh, I forgot to also increase the minimum delay for the spikes to compensate...working on that now!

EDIT 3: All done! Let me know what you think!