2019-01-13 18:43:31

Hi Honk, it's true that RNG plays an important role in this game. This is indeed quite oldskool, but there are more (indie) games these days that follow this design. There are some mechanisms in place that try to keep it balanced, and I wouldn't say the game is unfair, but, yeah... sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you aren't smile
Glad to know there's someone ready to try the iOS port!

@25, thanks for verifying and also for updating your review in the Play Store! Really appreciate it!

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-13 20:47:17

Yeah right, the indie market is kind of crazy with this nostalgic resurrections of supposedly dead game mechanics. I think I as a 90s kid am just a little to young to really appreciate that big_smile
But I also was a little to quick with my judgement. Even though I consider myself quite a skilled gamer I obviously didn't do to well on my first attemts. Went through the demo about two dozen times now and by now I can make it past the first mini boss every time instead of almost never. So yeah, it is much more skill based than I thought wink

One last thing I want to point out: Don't bother to much with that tiny detail work when you try to improve screen reader accessibility. You mentioned some obscure pronounciation issues with damage values. Screen readers _always_ do such things somewhere. Thats not your problem. We work with that all day so we usually can understand what is meant by it. Just make sure that it reads the correct words/numbers and not just something like image000743 instead.

2019-01-13 23:15:10

I'm up for the IOS port as well, make sure you let us know when it's out.

2019-01-15 16:43:49

@27 haha, yeah those indies do love their nostalgia. I try to make the game not too hard, or at least, build up steadily, but difficulty is one of the hardest parts of game design, I've come to discover. When it's too easy, it get's boring very quickly. Especially with the turn-based nature of the game. Glad to hear you got the hang of it after all!
And thanks for that insight! When I listen to the screen reader I get lost so quickly. I know it's probably because I'm not trained in it, but still, you all have my respect smile When I have a bit more time, I will try to improve it further, though, because I think it should just work properly. So let me know when there's anything that can be improved.

@28, awesome! I'll do! For now, I'm fighting my way through the Mysterious Labyrinth of iOS Development, which is filled with monsters and traps... Not to bash Apple, but it's a different world out there, for sure tongue

I'll keep you posted!

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-18 18:09:43

I'm very excited to play this.  have always wanted to play more roguelikes properly, and this seems right up my street.

2019-01-18 21:05:02 (edited by Dark 2019-01-18 21:06:12)

Wow, the demo was really cool, I love the random generation and the tactical use of weapons, this is just my sort of game.

Is the Ios version out yet?
If so I would suggest creating a new topic to announce it, or perhaps Kinshera can change the subject of this one, a lot of people here like myself don't  own an android device so probably didn't check this   topic, I just looked out of idle curiosity and then was very pleased to learn both that there is a playable, demo, and that there will be a version on Ios .

Oh and extra points for reminding me of the babe with the worm outside the tunnel big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-18 21:35:58

I believe the IOS version is still being worked on, apple being tricky as usual by the looks of it.  When I was in my previous job,, even the process of sending out builds was a pain.  Though that might be partly due to having no experience with it before.  even so, android looked easier.  I still can't believe what I'm doing now compared with last year.  that's offtopic though. tongue

2019-01-18 22:36:03

I will update the thread when the IOS version is released for sure.

2019-01-18 23:13:36 (edited by Honk 2019-01-18 23:14:47)

Hi Keeweed,

a great youtube channel about game design just happened to upload a video about roguelike mechanics. That could be interessting for your thoughts of improving replayability.
See here: Gamemakers Toolkit: Should roguelikes have Persistent Upgrades?
The channel host also has a rather good video series on game development for disabilities btw.

2019-01-19 06:08:05 (edited by Dark 2019-01-19 12:45:58)

Ah that makes sense, I do appreciate Apple aren't' exactly friendly to develop for.

I'll be looking forward to the ios version, Heck I'm tempted to see if I could play this through crome.

I think once its got an ios release it'll get a lot of community attention as well, since there are still more visually impared Ios users than android users at the second including a lot of people who will enjoy this style of rpg.

Edit: Nope, while I can browse the google ap store with Chrome I apparently need an android device to actually play this, which is a bit of a pain since the browser version is really screen reader friendly.

Oh well I'll be eager to try this on Ios when its released.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-19 14:37:51

Wow, you guys are excited, haha. Awesome! And some good news, the iOS version is ready to be released; as far as I'm concerned. It's now being tested by some friends and when they approve, I have to send it to Apple, who's going to review it and either approve or disapprove it. So wish me luck tongue
By the way, if anyone here wants to test it for screen readability, send me a PM and I'll send you an invite for beta testing. The built-in iOS screenreader seemed to do a good job at least.

@Dark, haha, yeah, the babe with the power!
I think it's good that Apple keeps a close eye on quality. What I don't like, though, is that they force developers to use some serious buggy tools and environments. Worse thing that happened was a form that simply said 'there are errors', not specifying what the error was. Took me a day to find out that, in fact, the error was I used a @hotmail address... But then again, Android has its flaws too.

@Honk, thanks for that excellent video! Does a perfect job of explaining all the pros and cons of the different systems. Very useful!

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-19 15:05:35

Yep, sadly accessible single player rpgs are a little thin on the ground, so yes, people will be excited indeed.
Path of adventure is also remniscent of The wastes, a great randomly generating, rather grim text rpg released in 2015 for the pc.
unfortunately, the developer of the wastes had a really severe code crash so work on the game stopped, so its great that something in a vaguely similar line will be avaialble soon.

Also really good to hear you tested the game with voiceover and that its working. I can think of a couple of instances where Ios ports of android games needed a wee bit of fiddling to work as they should.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-19 15:24:29

@Keeweed
I have sended a pm smile

2019-01-19 15:57:56

I don't believe the forum alerts you to new pms yet, so I've send one as well.  wish it did, then we wouldn't have to send messages like this.  Also for some reason I cannot figure out how to find most of the page functions on IOS now.

2019-01-19 16:58:34

Answered your PM's.

@37, wow, the Wastes looks like an immense game! Very impressive. I don't think Path of Adventure will ever get near that amount of content, but who knows smile

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-19 17:32:30

@Keeweed, I sent you a pm and an email, though I'm not sure if the last one came through. I got a bad request, so I just wanted to make sure you received the message.

2019-01-19 18:50:47

@Keeweed Sent you a PM as well.
Thanks

2019-01-19 20:39:08

will there be a windows build of this?
it sounds very interesting

2019-01-20 01:57:49

@Keeweed I sent you a pm as well.
Keep up the great work!

"Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself."

2019-01-20 11:19:03

Thanks all for all the reactions! I'll reply to all of them in a minute. I think I have enough testers now smile

@41, yes I got your email.

@43, no Windows version on the planning, sorry. I did a short investigation, but there are some problems with that, and I'm not convinced it's worth the time. Maybe in the future.

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-20 19:37:23 (edited by Dark 2019-01-20 20:05:03)

As to the wastes, it is indeed an awesome game, but a lot of the content comes from random  generation, and of course its not really possible to win, its more about surviving as long as you can.

obviously Path of adventure has a slightly different focus, actually the idea that you could! win and that you have different character types is one I'm interested in exploring.

Btw, have you considered a browser version? that would be quite accessible on windows or other platforms and might be a good way to get the game to other users, plus the demo is extremely accessible with a Windows screen reader.
of course  has the disadvantage of having to sell the full version through paypal etc which might be more inconvenient, plus I don't know how the maintenance of that would be update wise.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-21 13:19:38

Like you say, the problem with a browser build is how do you monetize it. Setting up a payment service would create a lot of overhead. I'll dig a bit deeper in doing a windows build, because it shouldn't be such a problem.

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-21 13:42:53

Even if you were making a browser version, you could always sell as a downloadabl html package through itchio if you didn't want to go the hole paypal and account systems route which is fair enough.

Either way, keep us posted about the Ios version, I'm for one very much looking forward to it. I'll also be glad to do  writeup for our database as well once I've played the game.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-22 11:27:00

Yes, itch.io would be my preferred way of selling something like that. But, you can't just run a html package; you'll need to run a local webserver. And although there are tools that wrap up a site with a web server, it still takes time to make and maintain such a package.

About iOS, I have submitted the game to Apple! Waiting for their response now. It would be great to have the game in your database!

Developer of text-based roguelike Path of Adventure.
Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … fadventure
Download from the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/path-of-ad … 1449457468

2019-01-22 16:41:22

@Keeweed that sounds  great,  please let us know when Path of adventure has negotiated the Apple maze and is free to download and play, as I said I'm very much looking forward to it.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)