Desktop Dungeons

[Archinerd]

I downloaded Desktop Dungeons a few days ago and have been having a lot of fun with it.
Its a mini rogue like that plays kind of like a puzzle game. You create a character (race, class) then are plopped into a dark randomly generated dungeon at level 1. Your mission: Kill the level 10 boss. Like a standard rouge you search for power ups and kill monsters to gain experience until you think you can take on the boss.
What makes it puzzle like is that the monsters don't chase you and only fight you if you attack them. Combat is deterministic too, the game even tells you if its safe to attack a monster or if you'll die. The skill is in how to best manage your limited resources in order to win. And it plays really quick, the developer says 10-15 min. My games are probably closer to the 30 min. mark unless the dungeon screws me over and there is no way to win. Actually winning is hard, I've only managed to win twice so far.

You can get it here:
http://www.qcfdesign.com/?cat=20" target="_blank

Here's the newbie guide on the wiki:
http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... yers_Guide" target="_blank

[GreenGoo]

Sounds great. I'll check it out tonight.

[The Meal]

Sounds great! But why so red?

[LordMortis]

Sounds great! But why so red?

It was translators license

Hast Du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Denkst Du vielleicht grad' an mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Und dass sowas von sowas kommt

Red was poetically translated luft which is actually literally should have been air. But being literal would have messed thing up and a luftballon just means a toy type of balloon. Toy in this instance could be substituted for game. Like say spielen or Jugar.

Which is to say you should substituted Game instead of Red and things will make much more sense.

[Odin]

My favorite thing about quitting WoW was no longer having to see people constantly misspell rogue. Until now.

Sounds like a neat time-waster, though.

[Archinerd]

Jeez, since when did the internet care about minor misspellings?

Anyway. its been corrected you bastards.

[Vorret]

Jeez, since when did the internet care about minor misspellings?

Anyway. its been corrected you bastards.

Since WoW.
Actually, many guild out there require you to spell it correctly in order to join.

[The Meal]

Jeez, since when did the internet care about minor misspellings?

!

[GreenGoo]

Just gave it a try. Seems pretty great for short bursts. Not sure what legs it has, but I enjoyed my first few games. none of which I won, as a Human Fighter.

[Archinerd]

Just gave it a try. Seems pretty great for short bursts. Not sure what legs it has, but I enjoyed my first few games. none of which I won, as a Human Fighter.

I think it has a good amount of replayability for what it is. If you ever manage to win things will start to unlock giving you more classes, different monsters and better loot.

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, if I ever win.

I've managed to kill everything on the map except Frank a few times, but he is out of my league, even then.

The unlocks are cool. I think/hope. Going to try a different class just to see what it's like.

[Sarkus]

Jeez, since when did the internet care about minor misspellings?

Anyway. its been corrected you bastards.

Has it?

. . . a standard rouge like you . . .

[GreenGoo]

First attempt as a halfling priest and I finished it in 17 minutes. Nice synergy between the glyph converts and full health restore. Plus I got the holy warrior god, so that just made it that much more powerful.

unlocked

Spoiler:

the monk class

Won it with a Human Thief. Unlocked

Spoiler:

rogue class

[Archinerd]

Jeez, since when did the internet care about minor misspellings?

Anyway. its been corrected you bastards.

Has it?

. . . a standard rouge like you . . .

You expect me to fix all of them?

[Shinjin]

Anyone know what the arcane god does? I took that near the end with an elf mage, but other than drop my attack to 1 I didn't notice anything.

[Archinerd]

Anyone know what the arcane god does? I took that near the end with an elf mage, but other than drop my attack to 1 I didn't notice anything.

I'm pretty sure it increases your total mana +1 when you kill things with magic. I'm not sure if it does anything else, but I found it to be necessary to win with the Wizard.

[GreenGoo]

Anyone know what the arcane god does? I took that near the end with an elf mage, but other than drop my attack to 1 I didn't notice anything.

I'm pretty sure it increases your total mana +1 when you kill things with magic. I'm not sure if it does anything else, but I found it to be necessary to win with the Wizard.

This was my experience as well. +1 max mana when you get a kill. Since your attack drops to 1, it was always with magic, so I couldn't tell what happens if you get a kill with attack power/damage.

[GreenGoo]

Having real trouble finishing it with the fighter and wizard classes.

With the fighter, I often clear everything out, but have no staying power against the boss.

With the wizard, it's just too hard to keep your mana supply up. It doesn't regen at nearly the same pace as health.

With both unlocked classes, they are really tough to start. Actually, the wizard is tough to get going as well. But the unlocked classes are particularly difficult, imo. Once they get going, they aren't too bad and even come into their own at the mid levels (4-5-6) but then weaken again as you near the upper levels (7-8-9).

I'll need to play a lot more games before I figure out how to win with those closes. The halfling priest was easy. Easy. The human rogue was a little harder, but still pretty easy. The other 4 classes I can play have all be tough, with none coming close to beating the boss.

This is the first game in a very long time that I seriously considered throwing on a stick and spending the whole day at work playing. I didn't, but I thought about it. For the record, I have never played a game at work. I've never even loaded up solitaire. Somehow that is different than posting on OO

[Freezer-TPF-]

So this game is fairly complete and polished? The 0.051 version number gave me pause...

[GreenGoo]

So this game is fairly complete and polished? The 0.051 version number gave me pause...

It's a sort of puzzly rogue-like.

So far, the game has been a single, randomly generated level with your character being 1 of 4 classes (other classes open up with success) and 1 of 4 races (again, more races if you win). It's certainly polished enough to be playable, with no glaring defects/bugs/crashes that I've encountered.

You start at level 1 and must climb in level until you are able to defeat the level 10 "boss". There are no random encounters or anything like that. The map is generated at start time, but the fog of war covers everything until you push it back by exploring. Monsters between levels 1 and 9 litter the map.

It's free. It's small. And it's fast to play. it's even fast to install, which is simply extracting the files from a .zip file. Download it and try it yourself. It'll take you about 5 minutes from beginning to download to playing, if that. It will take you a few more minutes to understand the mechanics enough to start using "strategy" to increase your chances of success.

I found it more fun than I was expecting. I would suggest that it is in the same vein as Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. From a design philosophy at least.

A couple of negatives. There aren't enough runes to be interesting, yet. I'm still not sure how some of the gods work, but that's a good thing I think. They've done a pretty good job of balancing the stats, classes and races, but there still seem to be some weaker and some stronger.

[Freezer-TPF-]

Oh, it's just one level? At least that should minimize the timesuck. Sounds like a good coffee break. Thanks for the detailed response!

[GreenGoo]

Oh, it's just one level? At least that should minimize the timesuck. Sounds like a good coffee break. Thanks for the detailed response!

Yep. Think of it like a game of bejeweled. Except without the jewels. or the bees.

There are more things to unlock than races and classes though, so what I described is just the early stuff I've seen.

It is, in no way, a full blown rogue-like. Play time is suggested to be 10 minutes, but the 2 games I've won (out of say...40? 50?) were both over that.

[Archinerd]

Yeah, I'm hoping that there are more runes to unlock. Some runes don't seem all that useful to me either, but there may be some strategies that involve them in classes I haven't unlocked yet, which is most of the classes.

Spoiler:

I've managed to unlock Barbarian and Sorcerer.

[Sudy]

I won my first game with a dwarven fighter. Am I doing it wrong?

Discovering the "fireball rune" early seemed key. I got two shots out of a full mana pool and at level nine, I think each hit was doing 26-28 non-returnable damage. With the three or four mana potions I had stocked up by the end, beating the boss was just manageable.

Unlocked:

Spoiler:

Berserker.

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, I'm hoping that there are more runes to unlock. Some runes don't seem all that useful to me either, but there may be some strategies that involve them in classes I haven't unlocked yet, which is most of the classes.

Spoiler:

I've managed to unlock Barbarian and Sorcerer.

Cool, the exact opposite of the ones I've opened. If I can't get them opened, I'll ask for advice.

Some of the runes play roles with certain gods, as you probably know by how. Earth goddess + turn to stone rune. Dwarf god + dig stone rune.

Since you don't get experience points for turning a monster into stone, I never use it. What's the point? I need the xp if I hope to defeat the boss. Removing xp from the table doesn't seem to be a good idea.

[GreenGoo]

I won my first game with a dwarven fighter. Am I doing it wrong?

Nope, but I'd like to think that I'm not incompetent and that you were just lucky.

For the record, the first game I played a halfling priest I won easily.

Which boss you get vs which class you are probably has some impact as well.

The trouble with the fireball is that everyone does the same damage. Sure, the wizard gets -1 mana to the cost, but that doesn't seem to me to be a huge discount.

[Archinerd]

Not to rain on your parade, but the first win is the easiest. Monsters have 80% health until you win once.

[GreenGoo]

Not to rain on your parade, but the first win is the easiest. Monsters have 80% health until you win once.

I just read that in the DDwiki

Some useful information in there. Anyone interested in the game should check it out.

[GreenGoo]

Finally finished it as a fighter. Was a near thing, but managed to squeek out a fireball on a 2 hp boss ftw.

Unlocked

Spoiler:

Berzerker

I have yet to win with any tier 2 classes, but with 3 tier 1 classes completed, I did start to notice new items in the stores.

[Archinerd]

I am having a very difficult time winning with the thief. I've had some very close ones and some very desperate attempts, but so far no bones. I think part of it is the difficulty in calculating how much damage I will be doing on my first hit. There is a +30% which is easy enough but when you factor in spells and monster resistances it seems like I always miss something important.

[Shinjin]

This game is much more entertaining than I expected it to be.

[GreenGoo]

Not putting anything in spoilers anymore, hopefully everyone is ok with that.

Unlocked Warlord using the Berzerker. Got fairly lucky with Taurog at level 2, so by the time I fought the boss I had over +200% attack. It took 2 swings, but I had to heal in between.

No advice on Thief. I did it as my first win, so monsters were at 80% to start.

While I'm probably not as enthused about the game as my multiple postings might lead you to believe, I am enjoying it. I need to play in smaller doses though, because it does start to drag after 10's of games in a row.

[GreenGoo]

Finally won with the wizard. Mostly, I got lucky with the boss roll. It was the medusa, and only had 190 hp. I also got the magic god, so I had a max mana of 44 at level 7. I realized I had enough mana to kill the medusa without leveling up any more, which is good, since I was almost out of black fog squares to help keep my mana pool up. So yeah, after a million fails, the wizard wins at level 7 (giving a 1000 bonus points for doing it under level 8), something I haven't come close to doing with other classes.

Unlocked Sorcerer.

[Archinerd]

Yah! I won with the thief and the priest back to back. The glowing guardian god that gives you attack bonus for killing undead was a major factor in both cases.

I agree Green Goo, this game is fun but I'll probably burn myself out on it by the end of next week. Not too bad for a freebie though.

[Archinerd]

woohoo, unlocked a new race. The Orc!

[Sudy]

Definitely a fun time waster, but I'm getting a little annoyed with it due to the randomness coupled with the playtime. As with others, I tend to last 20+ minutes, playing very carefully, before realizing the game was probably never winnable. The Rock, Paper, Shotgun writer compared it to Solitaire in regard to difficulty. That's a good comparison, except Solitaire doesn't bother me so much because games don't tend to last so long. Spider Solitaire or Free Cell, on the other hand....

If only games didn't seem to depend solely on finding the right glyphs and altars early on. But yeah, it's free. And still addicting. I think the game should place a greater emphasis on its commonly unwinnable nature by tracking your scores outside of the ranking system only available for the ranked dungeon type. I could track scores myself in Notepad or Excel, but I'm too lazy.

[Freezer-TPF-]

Tried it, not bad. The solitaire analogy makes sense.

[Semaj]

You get a bad one and you know pretty quickly... and yes, how you kill things matters... but got it yesterday night played it for an hour or three and have opened up:

Fighter->Berserker->Warlord
Thief->Rogue
Priest->Monk->Paladin
Wizard
Transmutter

I'll prolly try the wizard for a bit and see how spellcasting as a main goes, then work on seeing how transmutter works.

[GreenGoo]

Unlocked Assassin class, after I won with the Rogue. Had been trying with the Rogue for awhile. Had a couple of strategies, but ended up winning with a different god, and back to back 20% dodges, which was incredibly lucky.

[GreenGoo]

Gnome Sorcerer now complete. Unlocked Bloodmage.

No new races available, yet.