Evil Keeper by XmmmX

[raw]
made by XmmmX for LD25 (COMPO)
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be the endboss of a game? Well, here is a game that answers your questions.

In Evil Keeper you have to build your own dungeon and fight every hero who dares to enter your lair. Each hero tries to find as many treasures as possible before he challenges you to an epic fight to the death.
Claim the victory, take his money and expand your dungeon!

Find more detailed information ingame.

Programming Language: C# (XNA 4.0)
Sound: sfxr
Music: SunVox
Graphics: Paint.NET

This is my second ludum dare entry. The code is really messed up this time because I had no time to comment and optimize it so if you have any questions concerning the code feel free to ask.

Info: If you have some performance issues press 'V' ingame once to disable frameskipping.

If there are any bugs or glitches please inform me by posting a comment. I will fix them as soon as possible.


Please enjoy my game as much as I did making it.

EDIT: You can place new dungeon ground on gray walls next to grey tiles. The red area is the bossbattle arena. You cannot build there.
EDIT2: Ok, I am going to make a post-compo version.
EDIT3: Added the first post-compo version. I am sorry, I haven't had much time so it only contains small changes. But there is still more to come. The changelog.txt contains all the changes.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.94 387
Audio 2.83 230
Fun 2.81 383
Graphics 2.69 471
Humor 2.24 461
Innovation 2.98 315
Mood 2.77 368
Theme 3.55 210

Feedback

ParaPup
17. Dec 2012 路 14:07 UTC
It wouldn't launch
Gemberkoekje
17. Dec 2012 路 14:08 UTC
Putting this one on a list to play at home.
馃帳 XmmmX
17. Dec 2012 路 14:12 UTC
@ParaPup
What do you mean with "It wouldn't launch"?
Did you install the XNA Framework?
TheCze
17. Dec 2012 路 14:25 UTC
I had some problems with the controls but it's a good game. More traps would have been nice.
Fonserbc
17. Dec 2012 路 14:35 UTC
Great game!
What was tifficult to figure out is that the red blocks are the boss battle room and that you are only able to modify the gray blocks :P

The battle animations are great and fun!
馃帳 XmmmX
17. Dec 2012 路 14:47 UTC
@TheCze
Thanks for your review.
I am sorry, I couldn't finish the game entirely but maybe I'll do a post-compo. ;)

@Fonserbc
Thanks for your review. :)

Yeah,I think I should mention it in the description that you can only place new tiles on gray walls next to gray tiles.^^
Ace
17. Dec 2012 路 14:49 UTC
Not too bad a game but the gameplay was a bit boring, you never seemed to have enough gold to really expand your dungeon or do anything fun.

The boss battle controls were a bit confusing at first too, considering that you're able to move at will during normal play but not boss battles.
delpes
17. Dec 2012 路 14:51 UTC
Nice. Made it to lvl 11.It took me some seconds to figure out where i could build things and that i need to be in front of the hero to begin the fight.
Aswissrole
17. Dec 2012 路 14:52 UTC
Can't seem to get it working. Seems to be my virus scanner going crazy. Damn you Norton!
DeathBySnail
17. Dec 2012 路 15:04 UTC
A bit confusing at first, but once I found out how to build stuff, it became much more clear. Like it!
lorancou
17. Dec 2012 路 15:22 UTC
Good entry. Fits the theme, this is actually close to one of my initial ideas :)

I didn't find how to place furniture on my first run. Not very intuitive, things should just pop on the map once you've clicked them in the inventory. Also it took me a while to figure out how to start the boss fights, there should be a red spot "go there now". But nice effort overall, art, sound, gameplay, this all fits very well, just misses a bit of in-game guidelines.
馃帳 XmmmX
17. Dec 2012 路 15:31 UTC
@lorancou
Thanks for your review. :)
I am sorry,I thought I explained it well enough in the Help/Controls menu. I will try better next time.
Rex Peppers
17. Dec 2012 路 15:40 UTC
Can't play windows only games. :-(
arhpositive
17. Dec 2012 路 15:41 UTC
Lasted for 6 rounds and 3205 points. Second Level 13 in a row killed me with just little hp left. I enjoyed the game. Graphics and audio were right on the spot. Overall, it was a fun game to play. Well done.
tumoxep
17. Dec 2012 路 16:50 UTC
Awesome idea. Game itself is very enjoyable and makes a lot of fun to play.
It would be nice to see character customization in post-compo version.
Devenger
17. Dec 2012 路 16:56 UTC
Pretty cool idea, but the combat was needlessly frustrating (sometimes you'd just teleport onto the hero's sword...) and placing dungeon tiles is so expensive, I can't work out how you could ever place enough tiles to hide any treasure. Perhaps if the hero's pathfinding was worse/more exploitable?

I'd love to see this tweaked (or better explained?) so that I could have some fun with dungeon layout; I'll be on the lookout for a post-LD version of this, if you make one!
SmallDeadGuy
17. Dec 2012 路 17:02 UTC
Controls are slightly awkward, in terms of buying things. I don't like the actual boss fighting much but maybe because I'm not used to it. It seems like I use more money in preparation (like treasure) than I gain in a fight
NiceAlexanderAS
18. Dec 2012 路 23:40 UTC
Wow nice work man! :D i also like how you can build your own dungeons which is awesome :DDDD
gameXcore
19. Dec 2012 路 20:20 UTC
Fun, but there are definite balancing issues with the cost of placing things, tiles should be almost free!
Freakill
20. Dec 2012 路 16:40 UTC
Nice idea with some little reminiscences to Dungeon keeper for the Dungeon building and decoration. The only thing is that Arena fighting feels unnecessarily limited, I do not understand why I cannot move while fighting :( Also it is difficult to expand your dungeon in a wide way. I saw that the best mechanic to follow was creating corridos to force hero to advance in a twisted way on traps. Did to 8 level :D.
jmaasing
20. Dec 2012 路 21:36 UTC
Sorry, can't rate since I don't have windows.
h.attila
20. Dec 2012 路 21:41 UTC
Great idea, good presentation.
BrothersT
22. Dec 2012 路 03:03 UTC
Couldn't seem to place anything in the dungeon :(
Grungi Ankhfire
22. Dec 2012 路 19:27 UTC
Sorry, cannot play XNA games on Linux (using Wine). Maybe my Wine knowledge is just not up to snuff, but this wouldn't run for me. Sorry :(
ceronman
23. Dec 2012 路 01:36 UTC
Nice game, I also had problems with the controls during play.
Dark Acre Jack
23. Dec 2012 路 03:29 UTC
There's a good start to a game here.
Spelchan
23. Dec 2012 路 04:17 UTC
Fun game but Dungeon tiles are way too expensive making the dungeon building experience less than it should be. Buying stuff should be easier. Prefer zip files as zip utilities come with every OS, rar utilities don't.
caranha
25. Dec 2012 路 14:59 UTC
Very interesting game, it has a lot of potential! I really loved the boss battles. At first, I thought it was a little limiting that we couldn't control where we will teleport to, but after a while that style of battle grew on me.

On the other hand, the game felt a bit repetitive. You probably need other furniture for the dungeon. Reducing the price for placing tiles would also help a lot.

I loved the boss death animation! I hope you have some time to work a bit on the other graphics of the game.

Thanks for the game!
lotusgame
25. Dec 2012 路 17:17 UTC
I like the Dungeon Keeper way, the ambience but not your graphics. Anyway, your game is fully playable and has many features. Congrats !
MortalWombat
04. Jan 2013 路 14:30 UTC
Doesn't start for me on Win 7.
zenmumbler
05. Jan 2013 路 00:03 UTC
Crashes on start on my WinXP with DX9 VM. The "windows encountered a problem" dialog.
馃帳 XmmmX
05. Jan 2013 路 02:20 UTC
@MortalWombat
@zenmumbler
Have you installed the XNA Framework?
Has this happend in both (compo & post-compo) versions or just in one of them?
Amos Wenger
05. Jan 2013 路 11:17 UTC
I've never seen weirder controls :) It was still fun to play though!

Looking forward to your next LD entry!
zenmumbler
05. Jan 2013 路 14:33 UTC
@XmmmX, yep, XNA installed, have run a lot of other XNA entries.
I can't run the ones that are not compiled with the Reach profile but then I get a warning that my video card is rubbish, not a crash.
If the app is 64-bit, I will get another error dialog for it. This is really an honest to god crash at startup.

Same result for the post-compo version.

FWIW, I uploaded the first bits of the crash report here: http://logic-dream.com/ext/evilkeepercrash.png
馃帳 XmmmX
05. Jan 2013 路 16:32 UTC
@zenmumbler
Thanks for your feedback and the screenshot.

I have done a little reasearch on the internet but I couldn't find a good solution for this kind of crash/error.

I tested my game on my old pc with Windows XP and on my newer one with 64-Bit Windows 7 and it worked both times without a single crash so I can only guarantee that it works under w7 and wXP.

Even though you said you get a different error message when a game is compiled with the HiDef profile I uploaded a new post-compo version which is compiled using the reach profile.

I will try my best to fix this error as soon as possible.
馃帳 XmmmX
05. Jan 2013 路 16:34 UTC
@zenmumbler
And I forgot, have you tried running it in administrator mode?
Doublecaster
05. Jan 2013 路 20:29 UTC
That was awesome! I got to round 11. I liked it when you had low hp and you could spam the abilities.
zenmumbler
07. Jan 2013 路 22:31 UTC
@XmmmX, yes it's run with an Admin user. I tried your latest update, same result. I fear there may be some weird incompatibility with my install. It's a VM running in VMware which may trigger something obscure, even though all other entries work fine and I haven't had any issues with it. Thanks for your help but it's probably better not to put too much time into this. Best of luck!
zenmumbler
07. Jan 2013 路 22:48 UTC
Oh wait, I redownloaded the original entry, I got you 0.01b version and it worked! Huzzah. Got to level 8. Fun and quite a big game. I wish I got more money and more time per round to build out my dungeon. It's a fun section and now I can only break a few brick and set a few chests with traps. Art is clearly programmer art but you added details like the slowly down-drifting hat when you're defeated and other touches to add polish. Very nice entry and thanks again for your trouble.