MageRunner by gigitrix

made by gigitrix for LD21 (-)

You were once a powerful wizard who dedicated your life to fighting evil.
Yet your power could not match that of the MazeMaster, who banished you to his personal realm of mystery. If you can escape through all 50 floors of the Labyrinth the realm will collapse, and the MazeMaster's power will be destroyed.
It won't be easy, especially when death is final...

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Features
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*50 Floor labyrinth that must be cleared by one character.

* Full RPG progression system: levels, skill points, elemental attack/defence, speed.

* Permadeath: that's right. Make sure to stock up on potions if you want to survive, and you'll have to manage them well!

* All battles are automated, but you get to watch!

* Single world for all players: if we are online and "nearby" I can throw my items on the ground for you!

* New Game +: If (by some magic) you complete all 50 floors, you can restart with a new character and enemies will have 2x health. Do this again for 3x, 4x etc: THERE'S NO STOPPING THE FUN!

* Secret and visible items litter the labyrinth for harvesting: you aren't just looking for the stairs all the time!

Windows	http://www.tobypinder.com/magerunner
OS/X	http://www.tobypinder.com/magerunner
Linux	http://www.tobypinder.com/magerunner
Web	http://www.tobypinder.com/magerunner
Source Code	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5491766/MageRunner_LudumDare21.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=4783

Ratings

Coolness	0%	418
Overall	1.50	492

Audio	1.00	371
Community	1.50	467
Fun	1.22	499
Graphics	1.00	499
Humor	1.00	466
Innovation	1.89	442
Theme	2.00	450

Feedback

🎤 gigitrix

22. Aug 2011 · 02:51 UTC

Please let me know what you think: if there's enough interest, I've plenty of scope for easily extending the core gameplay, adding more enemy/item variety (and therefore maze traversal strategy) and so on.

ratking

22. Aug 2011 · 20:55 UTC

Hmm ... the beginning is tedious (registration with captcha) and the animations of the boxes are just timewasting. It doesn't help that the game hasn't any graphics nor story (calling your red box enemy "red box" doesn't help my imagination). Also, it's kind of sad that the labyrinth really is just a maze. Thinking of roguelikes I'd like to see some more interesting room-corridor-constructs.
As a whole there isn't any reason for me to play the game further. Sorry!

🎤 gigitrix

22. Aug 2011 · 22:27 UTC

Yeah I couldn't really figure out how to dump the captcha: it's tied to the authentication library I'm using. Enemies and content really do need a lot of work: the idea was that it would be a resource management thing where you have to try and aim for various goals (other than decending to the next floor) otherwise you'll die. Potions are a primitive form of this but there just wasn't time to implement my ideas! The mazes themselves are too big as well, in hindsight! Also the multiplayer component was going to be fleshed out a bit so it was beneficial to play in groups.

Thanks for the feedback, and if I work on it further I'll hopefully address some of this!

Devenger

23. Aug 2011 · 05:56 UTC

I can see this is quite a technical achievement, but between the very limited character advancement options and the zero-interaction combat, there's very little to play for. I suspect it was just a bit too ambitious for 48 hours. That's no reason not to work on it and make it something interesting, though.

🎤 gigitrix

23. Aug 2011 · 16:39 UTC

Yeah that's my thinking as well. Bit off a bit more than I could chew really. I would have made it a Jam entry but I was completely mentally drained and as this was my first "go" I figured I'd just release it! It's more of a game engine than a game, really, but I'll probably end up abandoning it as I have other projects (that have much more codebase stability than this, which was bashed out without any thought to design patterns, commenting and maintenance!) Don't understand why the source link isn't visible, I'll fix that.

Daniel X. Moore

23. Aug 2011 · 21:33 UTC

I want to play, but I don't want to log in, is there a guest mode?

🎤 gigitrix

23. Aug 2011 · 21:51 UTC

@Daniel, Sorry there can't really be, although you can put any bogus email address in. It doesn't send any email, that and the silly Captcha are just part of TankAuth which is what I'm using for the login system. I can remove the email/captcha, but it would have cost precious dev time :D

foobaz

23. Aug 2011 · 22:13 UTC

A bit too much clicking for me. It should have some keyboard shortcuts. Interesting technical achievement as others have mentioned.

@gigitrix: I think you should create a bunch of accounts and post them here so we can try the game more easily. I don't think uninitialized empty accounts would affect the game much.

Mine is
username:bogus
password:bogus
if anyone wants to try. (there doesn't seem to be much difference the (random) starting square and my currently (random) location.

jplur

24. Aug 2011 · 04:12 UTC

I can tell a lot of work went into the mechanics of this, but having to reload the map every time i moved a square didn't leave me enough patience. I dig the layout, maybe next time focus on the user's experience.

Rudy

24. Aug 2011 · 07:25 UTC

I must join the "impatient" club on this one. Got two potions and killed a hyperactive slime before giving up. This has potential for a dungeon crawler. I suppose technical achievement is what counts here, albeit there's no category for that :`(

Hangedman

24. Aug 2011 · 19:04 UTC

Gotta go along with everyone else. Shows some promise, but keeps a lot of it hidden away. I'd love to see it with some graphical work and some more variety and design. Clicking is ok, but it can get tedious, some basic actions could probably use simple automation or implement more keyboard controls, etc. A good achievement, most definitely, but unfinished. Keep at it!

Codexus

27. Aug 2011 · 07:41 UTC

Guest mode please

KevinWorkman

28. Aug 2011 · 15:21 UTC

Yeah, I have to say that forcing players to register and login probably scared a lot of people away from this one. Setting up a guest account would have gone a long way to fix that.

Jhelle

01. Sep 2011 · 20:30 UTC

Darnit, would've loved to try your entry but can't get passed the captha. Have tried over 15 times but no dice :(