Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 86: Delver

[Ravenlock]

I like Roguelikes. I like the randomized levels, I like the brutal but generally fair gameplay, I like the feeling of slow but genuine improvement as you fail a little bit better each time. (If you have no clue what I'm talking about, go look at the articles I wrote for Spelunky, or Shoot First, or Desktop Dungeons, and you'll get the idea.) I also like free games that experiment with something new. So, even in a slightly rough, unfinished state, Delver makes me very happy indeed.

Coming as so many good things do from TIGSource, Delver is "a first person action roguelike"... an attempt "to combine the mechanics of games like Ultima Underworld with the depth and replayability of a roguelike." In practice, right now it plays a little like Doom, a little like Nethack, and a little like The Legend of Grimrock. Which, itself, plays like a lot of old classic games. Here's a video where the designer speaks for himself a bit:

I've only done a couple runs through Delver so far, but there's a lot I like about it.

• The interface is minimal but functional. A hotbar, popups for map and inventory, and a key that toggles between mouselook and interaction with the mouse pointer. That's all it needs, so that's all it has.
• The world feels at least somewhat complex - nothing like Nethack levels of madness yet, this is still an alpha version - but intuitive. If a trap is on the floor and you can trick an enemy into walking on it, the trap will harm them instead of you. You can also trigger traps by tossing unwanted items onto them (hence the Grimrock comparison), which gives you a good reason to pick up "junk" like skulls, or keep items after their usefulness has run out (wands out of charges, swords you've already got better versions of, etc).
• Combat is simple but satisfying. Enemies vary in attack patterns and potency, so you'll need to put some thought into which ones to tackle first, and how (melee vs ranged combat being the primary distinction).
• The game never stops, so you need to be on your toes about things like inventory management and checking the map. I like that I need to find a safe spot to do those things.
• I like the aesthetic. It's intentionally low-fi, but charming. Good music, too.

It isn't entirely without its problems - there are still some bugs in there, like combat sounds disappearing when I enter a new level sometimes, and I don't like how random the enemy respawning seems to be. It is in the flavor of Roguelikes to have enemies respawn, but in this it seems like a room I just cleared can suddenly have bad guys in it when I go back in, and that's aggravating.

That won't end well for anyone.

Still, I expect I'm going to spend quite a bit of time with Delver. It's still being actively updated by developer Chad Cuddigan - the latest build is only a few days old, and apparently he's working on getting bows & arrows working the way he wants now.

If you like it enough to toss him a couple bucks and you have an Android device, it's also in the Google Play store for $2, which seems quite reasonable to me. (It looks pretty great on my Nexus 7.) The Windows version is totally free, though, so get delving.

Done with this one? Want more? Check out the complete archive of Free and Worth Every Penny. This post also appears on ErraticGamer, where I write about stuff sometimes.

[Spigot]

Very interesting. Any plans to bring it to iOS?

[Ravenlock]

Not that I've yet heard, but I'll ask the developer.

[Superman's Dead]

That looks pretty cool...but the draw for me with Rogue-likes is getting fancy gear and character customization. I am going to watch with great interest.

[biosc1]

Love it so far. Up to (or down to) level 6 so far.

Pretty good. The floor tiles are pretty annoying to begin with until...well, I'll spoiler this just in case people want to figure it out on their own

Throwing skulls onto the tiles will trigger the tile which lets you figure out if it is a teleport tile or damage tile. If it is a damage tile, you get a moment to walk over top of it so you don't take damage

One thing I seem to be missing is experience points for leveling up? Not sure if I can view them, but it would be nice to know when the next level hits so you know you'll get a health regeneration.

Edit: This game also has that nice equipment progression...man, I'm hooked. Great game to sit in my Dropbox for playing on the go. Performance was a little demanding on a laptop though. Plugged in, this laptop runs on an NVidia chipset and the game flew. Unplugged, the laptop switches to an Intel chipset which made gameplay a little choppy.

[Ravenlock]

Originally Posted by Superman's Dead

That looks pretty cool...but the draw for me with Rogue-likes is getting fancy gear and character customization. I am going to watch with great interest.

Well, the gear it has - several levels of item material (iron swords vs steel vs jeweled, etc), as well as quality levels for each (worn, fine) and magical modifiers.

Character customization I don't see any of so far, though.

Originally Posted by biosc1

Love it so far. Up to (or down to) level 6 so far.

I'm on Level 7 of the latest development build, and I may be as far as I can go. Can't see any way to go deeper, and there's no boss. Might just be as much as he's done yet.

Originally Posted by biosc1

The floor tiles are pretty annoying to begin with until...well, I'll spoiler this just in case people want to figure it out on their own

Probably no need to spoiler that, I called it out in my write-up.

Originally Posted by biosc1

One thing I seem to be missing is experience points for leveling up? Not sure if I can view them, but it would be nice to know when the next level hits so you know you'll get a health regeneration.

Agree. As far as I can tell all you get is the health increase and regen when you level, so it'd be nice to have a counter telling you when you were getting close to that.

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

Probably no need to spoiler that, I called it out in my write-up.

Pfft...you think people READ your writeup? You flatter yourself!

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

I'm on Level 7 of the latest development build, and I may be as far as I can go. Can't see any way to go deeper, and there's no boss. Might just be as much as he's done yet.

I got to level 8, I believe...maybe it was 7. Encountered skeletons and warlock skeletons. Ended up dying due to a warlock clipping through a wall being able to attack me, but not being able to be attacked by myself. It's alpha, so I'll let it pass...for now

[Ravenlock]

Reading through the TIGSource thread, it may just be that I killed the boss and didn't realize it. I got to a big room full of enemies, and killed them all. Might just not be an "ending" in place yet.

Even in its early state I had enough fun doing it that I'll happily do it again.

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

Even in its early state I had enough fun doing it that I'll happily do it again.

It certainly has a feel of desktop dungeons in that I feel like I can get a good dose of fun out of it in less than 30 minutes.

[LongStepMantis]

Will definitely try this, thanks for pointing it out.

Probably going to wait for now though. I'm over-saturated with roguelikes as it is. Dredmor, Elona, Hack Slash Loot, Binding of Isaac, started playing Spelunky again, and a few others I can't even remember right now. Hell, I even have 2 or 3 rogues on my phone (Andor's Trail rocks) and just don't have the time to put into all of them.

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by LongStepMantis

Will definitely try this, thanks for pointing it out.

Probably going to wait for now though. I'm over-saturated with roguelikes as it is. Dredmor, Elona, Hack Slash Loot, Binding of Isaac, started playing Spelunky again, and a few others I can't even remember right now. Hell, I even have 2 or 3 rogues on my phone (Andor's Trail rocks) and just don't have the time to put into all of them.

Skip Hack, Slash, Loot. Fire this game up instead. Takes a few seconds to download and few minutes to play

[LongStepMantis]

Originally Posted by biosc1

Skip Hack, Slash, Loot. Fire this game up instead. Takes a few seconds to download and few minutes to play

Too late. The games I listed aren't rogues I have and need to play, those are just the ones I'm already actively playing right now. I have quite a few more waiting in the old game queue.

I just meant I would probably wait and catch this a bit further in development.
Besides, I enjoy Hack, Slash, Loot.

I'll still download it and give it a shot. I can't miss any roguelike, it's just not in me.

[biosc1]

Played some more today. Went through 3 levels. Really enjoyed myself. On the second level, I found the ladder down pretty quickly, but then decided to explore some more and I was extremely happy I did as the level ended up being gigantic. I'll probably have an easy time with the next couple of levels as I leveled up quite a bit.

[Interrupt]

There is a boss, but in that dev build a few days ago he wasn't spawning and completely broke the endgame. That build was the first to use levels saved via the new level editor, I mucked up the translation between saving and loading him between the game and the editor.

Pushed out a new stable build today that has all the new content from that dev version plus a bunch of bugfixes.

[Ravenlock]

Welcome to CoG, Chad! It's great to have you with us. Thanks for making a pretty awesome game!

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by Interrupt

Pushed out a new stable build today that has all the new content from that dev version plus a bunch of bugfixes.

Awesome.

Also...Kickstarter / IndieGoGo the project eventually?

Edit: And it appears save games work with the newer version.

[Interrupt]

Originally Posted by biosc1

Awesome.

Also...Kickstarter / IndieGoGo the project eventually?

Edit: And it appears save games work with the newer version.

I really try to avoid breaking savegames between versions. Due to putting out new development versions so often, having to wipe your savegames between them would be a bit dickish.

The Desura guys sounded interested about having it on there, but it wasn't fully baked enough at the time. Selling the PC version now just seems like it would limit my pool of interested people / involuntary testers

Once classes and skills are in I'll revisit it. When Steam Greenlight launches I'll probably muck around with that too although it seems more geared towards people that are good at marketing their game and spamming links on reddit.

[Ravenlock]

Maybe, but I think a game that comes in with a base of popular support already could probably do quite well.

Having already paid a couple bucks for Delver on my Nexus, I will quite happily do so again for a more fleshed out PC game, on whatever platform(s) you end up releasing on.