Dwarf Fortress: The child punches the cave spider in the thorax, bruising the brain!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dwarf Fortress: The child punches the cave spider in the thorax, bruising the brain!

Eldiran: Mar 20, 2014

So, I don't know if this is a good place for this or not, but this is pretty much the closest to an active Boatmurdered-related, gaming-related thread I can find. So -- I made a game based on Boatmurdered!

It's a top-down horror game set in the aftermath of Boatmurdered. (It's free.)

Download link/more screenshots:
http://radcodex.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/depths-of-boatmurdered/

Please let me know what you guys think.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2014 17:09

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 03:20

Eldiran: Mar 20, 2014

Vengarr posted:

I'm having fun with this! But the longer I go without seeing an elephant, the more confused and terrified I get

TremendousMajestic posted:

I'm loving this so far! I have no idea how to get past the little pink guy just past the dining room but this is awesome

Thanks! You solve it the way almost everything in the game is solved: by running away a lot :cheeky:

So Math posted:

This is great! You're good at introducing the mechanics so that the player has time to experiment with them and figure out exactly how they behave. In particular, the way the enemies and the crossbow reload function makes it clear that the game is not combat oriented (at least as far as I've gotten). I haven't finished it yet, but when I got to the chase sequence, I got really pumped up. The minimal music really adds to the atmosphere; it reminds me of Link's Awakening at times. My only complaint so far is that in the big room before the crossbow it was easy to miss the intended path. I spent a while luring the elephant bones to shoot the lever for me before giving up and exploring again.

Thank you! I tried very hard not to overwhelm the player. Well, except for when I tried to overwhelm the player with monsters

I figured exploring the big room might be time consuming for some players, but I didn't expect anyone to try something that clever. :cheeky:

# ¿ Mar 24, 2014 20:35

Eldiran: Mar 20, 2014

Tunicate posted:

The game looks cool, but it won't start for me, and I'm getting this error

Any idea wassup with it?

Oh dear. I'm not familiar with that error... Does this happen during installation? Also, what OS are you running?

Is it possibly being run from a location you're not allowed to write to?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2014 21:43

Eldiran: Mar 20, 2014

TremendousMajestic posted:

Thanks for the game, Eldiran! I had a lot of free time today in which I was supposed to do productive things, but those puzzles kept pulling me back. It was a lot of fun and the music was great. At first I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't a traditional 'choose a class and level up' rpg but ultimately the fact that it was all atmosphere and puzzles, pick up and play won me over. I also loved that it was unforgiving - you either figured out what was going on right away, or you died.

I also really liked the arc with the kid, although the one criticism I have is that his death would have had more impact if he had been around just a bit longer. Still a jawdropping moment, though, because it happens with so little ceremony. And the way it ties into the little dream sequence (or whatever it is) near the end and is wrapped up with the monologue on the way out...the game turned out to have a few layers I didn't expect, and I was impressed.

Again, awesome job. Had a ton of fun with it.

Thank you! I'm really glad people are liking it

I agree that the kid didn't stick around long enough to really be meaningful, but for gameplay/pacing it was best to keep it short.

So Math posted:

I just finished Depths of Boatmurdered and it was amazing! I loved what you did with the shadow that followed you; especially when you kill it with the masher later. There were two parts where I was worried the game was going in bad directions, but thankfully that was not the case: escorting the kid, and the mashers in hell that you don't have to backtrack through with the jumpy boots. The latter made me smile. Other feel good moments included killing the worm miniboss, outwitting the line-of-sight skeletons and purple archers, and killing the final boss of course. I think maybe crossbow spam was too good on the final boss. I could shoot out all the fire before it got to my platform. The game was very effective at making me feel without using words.

I see on your website that you are working on another game. I can't wait!

Thanks!

I hoped those parts would be especially satisfying. And that is true about the final boss... though everyone's first instinct is to run after they shoot, which makes it harder for them. I'll have to think about how to balance those two strategies.

Yep, I can't wait either!

Here's hoping I get it out in the next 6 months as planned.

Thanks for playing!

EDIT: @Tunicate: hey! if you're from the EU, I may have fixed whatever bug you encountered. (Turns out using commas instead of periods in decimal numbers also applies to EU programs.) There's a new version up at https://radcodex.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/depths-of-boatmurdered/

Eldiran fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Mar 25, 2014

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 15:52

Eldiran: Mar 20, 2014

Dementedghost posted:

This was a really good game. Every enemy is well introduced and designed. I think the elephant bone tornado things are a little TOO easy to dodge, but otherwise no problem.

My only complaint would be the text, the entire game explains everything to you without words other than SAVE, from the orange crates, to the boulders to the planks, every enemy is done the same way, the text just seems a bit off, especially when you can sort of piece together what happened without a narration.

I did however run into a bug in the final tunnel after the boss. My poor dwarf guy turned to the right and got stuck walking into a wall. Maybe you have a script that turns on auto run, and I might have hit right at the wrong time?

Thanks! And yeah, I kind of agree about the text. I really wanted a satisfying ending, though, and I figured plenty of people wouldn't really get into it without some more explicit explanation.

Now that is an interesting bug. There shouldn't be any auto run goin' on there... did you get stuck permanently, and have to reload the game? (Musta been annoying to glitch out right after beating that boss)

Thanks for the feedback!

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 02:57

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