Kevin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 262
Registered: 11-16-2003
IP: Logged

Conjurer Clash is a flash game I've been making that I think DROD players might enjoy.

You play as a wizard that battles against enemies by summoning an army of autonomous minions. The game takes place in a grid and plays out in a turn based manner similar to DROD. Each turn you can choose to either move or cast a spell. Most spells will summon a minion that, in the following turns, will move around on its own and attack enemies.

There's a single player mode where you have to fight your way past enemies to get to the exit of each level, and there's a multiplayer mode where two competing wizards try to kill each other.

You can play it at conjurerclash.weebly.com. I'd love to hear any feedback about the game.

skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged

Some quick comments:
1. Premise sounds fun!
2. Controls are wacky, I'd much prefer to stick to either only am mouse or only keyboard, preferring the latter.
3. I feel that the levels are too complex, requiring too much clicking and too much precise clicking. I don't find it that much fun unfortunately, because I love the general idea . I wish I could help with this one but at the moment I don't have any idea how this could be changed/improved, especially considering that you have already made so many levels.


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Kevin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 262
Registered: 11-16-2003
IP: Logged

Thanks for the comments.

The game can be played with only the mouse or only the keyboard. You can use the arrow keys to move, press W to wait, or press a number followed by an arrow key to cast a spell. The only thing you really need the mouse for is getting a description of something by mousing over it, but that's not something you need to do very often.

It's also possible to just use the mouse. Just above the spell buttons, there are buttons you can click on for moving the wizard or skipping a turn. I guess I should mention that in the tutorial.

Thanks again for the feedback.

larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1911
Registered: 12-09-2004
IP: Logged

I've played several conjurer and a couple transmuter levels and..


The game seems very good for the most part.
The game play was new to me.
There is interesting strategy involved.
I like how the mouse-over gives info, but it seems that mousing over the goal and help could say something.
I think allowing keyboard and mouse controls is nice.
(unlimited undo would be great)
I'd have to say I think my main problem would be level design. Most levels probably took me 10 to 20 minutes. I think the starting levels should be simpler or shorter.

Overall, I'm really impressed. Interesting mechanics with neat puzzles.

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[Last edited by larrymurk at 07-08-2013 06:40 PM]

Kevin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 262
Registered: 11-16-2003
IP: Logged

Thanks for the feedback. It's been helpful to hear people's thoughts on the levels.

I've reworked most of the Summoner levels to make them a bit simpler, and hopefully more fun. If anyone wants to give them a try, I'd appreciate any feedback. It's hard for me to tell how interesting or challenging the levels are, since I'm already very familiar with the game mechanics.

You might need to refresh the webpage to get your browser to load the new version of the game. You can still play the old versions of the levels if you want to, by clicking on the Old Levels tab in the single player menu.

I've added mouse-over info for the goal and the help.

Has anyone tried the multiplayer mode? You can set up matches against the AI by selecting Custom Battle from the main menu.

12th Archivist
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 789
Registered: 12-07-2008
IP: Logged

Kevin wrote:
Has anyone tried the multiplayer mode? You can set up matches against the AI by selecting Custom Battle from the main menu.

I found that on any AI difficulty, Small Map was ridiculously easy by just swarming the enemy wizard with blobs and serpents. Against another player, it might be interesting, but as it is, meh. Will you be adding another maps to the game?

Also, I might add that I wish the controls could be made easier, or even changeable in the settings. Just R to restart (compared to Shift-R) and 5 to wait would be much nicer, I feel, even without letting the player change the settings themselves.

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[Last edited by 12th Archivist at 07-12-2013 04:57 AM]

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1300
Registered: 06-14-2005
IP: Logged

Transmuter-5 seems pretty easy to me: Rushing in, I beat it in 58 turns without killing even one of the spawners.

Otherwise, fantastic game!

Kevin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 262
Registered: 11-16-2003
IP: Logged

12th Archivist wrote:
I found that on any AI difficulty, Small Map was ridiculously easy by just swarming the enemy wizard with blobs and serpents. Against another player, it might be interesting, but as it is, meh. Will you be adding another maps to the game?

What did you think of the maps other than Small Map? I might add more maps eventually. Is there a particular style of map that the game is lacking?

12th Archivist wrote:
Also, I might add that I wish the controls could be made easier, or even changeable in the settings. Just R to restart (compared to Shift-R) and 5 to wait would be much nicer, I feel, even without letting the player change the settings themselves.

I've added the ability to redefine the keys used for controlling your wizard. I'm going to leave W as the default wait key, though, since 5 wouldn't work well for keyboards without a numpad.

I'm not sure what to do with the restart key. I used shift-R instead of R because I was worried about people accidentally hitting R and losing their progress. I might expand the keyboard customization to include the restart key.

Someone Else wrote:
Transmuter-5 seems pretty easy to me: Rushing in, I beat it in 58 turns without killing even one of the spawners.

Nice job finding that! I didn't realize it could be beaten so quickly. There's a similar problem with the third transmuter level. I'll probably revise those levels at some point.

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1300
Registered: 06-14-2005
IP: Logged

Yeah, R is really close to W.

54 turns for level 3 is what I got, once I noticed that was possible. Lots easier, too. And 52 for level 5.