I would suggest better maps with multiple paths so you don't have to fight everything.
The rng is a good thing for replay value like nethack, but the lack of choices is bad.
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I have decided on the weeks experiment: Will be removing the "player" tile from the dungeon board and having the game progress tied to other bejeweled based systems.
What's even the point of having a little red guy on the board? The player is the one moving the tiles (you!), like a game of chess.
This stays true to the design philosophy of Removing stuff to make things better, rather than just adding on top/sideways.
Think I found a bug.
The wolf howled and summoned a second wolf (there were 3 enemies in the encounter). After the first died, it looks like my automatic match 3 at A4 did not get picked up.
Had to beat Krazy's high score. My new high score is 930. I got a lot of good damage items, not sure which I was supposed to be using (2h sword, electric sword, etc)
It's not really a "bug", @Miku said the same. I knew about this and just left it in.
It's one line of code to change anyway.
I'll probably change it to auto match eventually if that system even stays in, but as discussed with jones - giant chains are just slotmachines and not that fun.
The actual bug in the picture you posted is a UI bug in the enemy gem display panel, it shows two bear gems instead of bear and wolf.
Removing stuff to make the product better
(Apple Ear Pods, Computers without USB ports.)
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Nice game. Playing it right now.
Just finished it. This was actually pretty challenging. As you can see my scores include a lot of fumbling around while trying to figure out the courses, might try to do another run some other day with my improved skills.
@31.214.227.13-10350 Test branch is up.
First test: No player/staircases.
Use the mouse to swap tiles in the dungeon. Clearing Walls and Corpses does not grant progress.
Avoid matching Monster tiles.
"Egypt Indie Game Festival Game Jam". Found on r/Egypt.
Will not be submitting my game to this. (does not meet the Game Jam theme or development time criteria)
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You can swap the assets to meet the theme
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Test branch updated.
New and Improved UI. This feels a lot better than the old one. Will be sticking for now.
Gameplay:
Move player tile to stairs and avoid matching enemies.
Avoiding matches is too easy. Trivial and very uninteresting, quite bad. I tried some ideas (from this thread and my own) to make it more interesting, but everything failed.
This may be improved by enemy AI, but from the looks of it that would just cause enemies being matched every single turn right now unless the AI is intentionally stupid.
The test build gameplay from earlier this week was better in my opinion but needed a lot of refinement. Will probably be going back to a no player system.
No battle system changes.
I tried it, I agree it is trivial to avoid enemies now. Too easy, tbh I found the old style of gameplay more fun. Felt more like moving through / exploring a dungeon.
Speaking of exploring if you go back to that design maybe you could add a mechanic on later levels where you can only see X blocks around you. Darkness mechanic. Needs to be mild enough to not be annoying but at least be little different