Bloplike
Bloplike
An ASCII roguelike, where you progress by building up your DNA. This project is the continuation of a 7DRL-2021 submission.
Summary
In this game, you build your character by gathering pieces of DNA. You will be forming chromosomes by gathering one gene of each of the two types:
- Trigger (greenish): determines when the chromosme is activated
- Effect (blueish): determines what happens when the chromosome is activated
Those genes are torn of blops trying to kill you. Because they also posess chromosomes which can be activated the same manners as yours!
The goal is to defeat enemies by anticipating the chains of effects, until you find The Blopulet.
Disclaimer
The game is in development. It is playable and there is an end. But it is not really balanced.
Controls
The controls are always displayed at the top of the screen.
They are updated when the mode changes.
Precisions and tips
- You attack when you move into an enemy.
- Damage dealt by attacking is equal to the attacker's power (displayed below the healthbar)
- You regain all your life when you go downstairs.
- Enemies drop only one gene when they die.
- You can't remove genes from your DNA. But you can override them with other genes.
- You can look at dropped genes or enemies' DNA with Observation mode (Enter).
- There is no XP. You only get stronger by picking up genes and items.
- The Blopulet is at depth 11.
Goals of this project
- item-based progression, no exponential stats upgrades, no skill points
- no grinding (no XP)
- free-form builds, no classes, no skill trees
- reward exploration of gene combinations
- multiple viable but very different strategies
- great replayability, interesting even in the first levels
- short (<1h)
We are not there yet. For example there ARE better genes and trash genes, and the levels feel very samey.
Inspirations:
Credits
- Language: TypeScript
- Library: rot.js
- Font: Fira Code
- Developers: Aurélien Coussat and Maxime Chabance (Drestin)
Changelog
0.3
- 8-directions movement (going south-east does trigger OnWalkEast). This makes the game harder.
- Can't wait anymore
- Some new genes (GainCharge, OnMoveAround...)
- Attack and movement animations
- Lots of fixes and visual improvements
0.2
Lots of changes since the jam version. Mainly User Interface improvements, but there also are 9 new genes!
Development log
- Version 0.3 – movement update and animationsSep 21, 2021
- Bloplike, continuedSep 06, 2021
Comments
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I see you've rebalanced the game since the 7DRL :) Now summoning seems like the OP build:
Ahah well yeah…
I touched it a bit since the jam. But not much ^^. Thanks for playing :)
If I ever update this game, I would certainly post a changelog (if not a devlog) on this page. You can follow it if you’d like :p
Awesome game, i gone full offensive in both runs i played (and both win), had a good fun playing it!
There was one time when some blop with summon dummy also had summon dummy on ally death, and he trapped himself in a corner with his dummys, that was absolute defense of him!)
Other time there was blop with OnHploose=>SelfHurt, he vanished the moment i touch it, it was hilarious!)
In my first run at a start i build OnTurnAround=>SummonMini and OnTrigger=>SummonMini, needless to say that my sight range was filled with my loyal servants who annihilated anyone they saw!)
P.s. ember floor was the most rare to me, making IfOnAmber trigger completely useless, but maybe just my luck?
Hey thanks for the commment :) Glad you had fun! It is great to read your experience :D
Ahah yeah, summons can lead to chaotic or completly stuck states ^^’
And you are right, terrain-related triggers (among others) are too rare to be useful. Since some others can easily be activated once per turn in any situation. So no reasons to choose them. Maybe the solution is to only make triggers hard to activate. Or add a power value that would be used by the effect part, to balance the rarity.
Maybe one day I will come back to it to make a new version :p
I like the idea of power values, also have few ideas about game and wanna share them:
maybe some unique genes that will take both trigger and effect places (full string gene, like 2 tile step in any direction when move),
maybe to OnEmber also should have immunity to damage from ember with it,
maybe perks at some milepoint given to pick from random pool, like bigger sight range (or it can be a gene) and bigger map (camera chase player, bigger map = more genes, reward, difficulty, harder to find exit, more usefulness from wall-destroying effects)
maybe summoned miniblop should live only for 4 turn?
Potential is enormous!)
I think easily activated genes should stay in some form, making an overpowered build its also part of a fun, but yeah, making balance it's hard and long tread.
Thank you for the ideas :)
I didn’t think of adding passive perks to some triggers. Maybe I didn’t find it “elegant” enough. But for the ember, that makes sense. The alternative can be to give risky triggers a higher power value.
I totally agree that a ton of work can be done through level design. So that different builds can thrive in different regions/biomes/rooms. Maybe having information about the future regions or boss, so that you can adapt your build. Genes that can give you better access to these information…
One other thing that could be improved is that the enemies don’t really use their perks. And most of their build are totally useless. So they feel at the same time very samey, but also force the player to carefully look at their build to avoid being one-shot by a rare loop. I tried to introduce “species” (= enemies that share some genes), but it actually made the game boring ^^ so I don’t know.
Yes I can totally see easily activated genes as a high-value legendary gene ;)
Simply incredible. I love it.
It was pretty easy once I got the dummy on hp loss. Later I could heal on swap, then switched to teleport on swap. Eventually I got to spawn mobs on ally death. Ha! I once got cornered by my own spawn as I was close to reaching the next level.
Anyway, I believe this game could be huge or am I too optimistic? It's already addicting as someone else put it in the comments. I think your game would be even greater if you added more interactions with the environment, new environmental elements or different worlds like lava, many more levels (and perhaps different difficulties), and a limit on the DNA sequence (or not)!
Thanks for the post :)
Totally, we would love to add environmental interactions.
Right now I was thinking of how to make each run feel distinct, not just chaotic and same-y. For example, adding species of Blops (generated each run), with similar DNA, to orient the player build (who better knows what he or she will find in the future).
But in testing, it causes the game to be much more repetitive. Maybe we should just add tons of genes. The different possible builds could be enough to make each run feel different. I don’t know ^^
What an addicting game ! I love how you can build your skills. Ascii style is very nice too. Great job team ^^
Thanks :) Glad you had a good time.
Just played through it, had a lot of fun!
Beat the game with:
SummonMini OnTrigger
Explode OnAttack
SummonDummy OnSwap
Shock OnTileSwap
Heal OnWait
Cleave OnAttack
as well as another Shock and Cleave but I forgot what they were on. I enjoyed being able to 'program' my own powers, and figuring out how to fight opponents with interesting combinations of powers.
I think it might be worth implementing a summon limit, maybe 10 or so, cause as you can see with the above setup, the ground [and thus chromosomes] becomes hard to see very quickly :D
Ahah yeah, I didn’t tackle the balancing, yet. A summon limit could be a solution.
I think onWait and onTrigger will need to go, too powerful and consistant. Or maybe become a reward for a hard optional challenge/boss.
Thanks for the comment :) Glad you had fun :)