kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3574
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

File: RPG Mini.drh (19.4 KB)
Downloaded 69 times.
License: Public Domain

During the 2018 Year of RPG contest, myself and skell got talking about his Supremacy of Health entry, and stripping games down to their simplest forms. What would a simplified RPG game look like? Could it be suitable for mobile?

I began work on a concept called RPG Mini, and then at pretty much exactly the same time, Mike came to me about an idea he had called Twisty Little Passages, and so RPG Mini was immediately put on hold.

Well TLP is finished now, so I dusted off RPG Mini and it is now complete, ready for you to play.

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RPG Mini is a small 4-level hold with bare bones gameplay and very very small numbers. How small? Small potions only give 1 HP! There are no swords, there are no shields, heck, there isn't even any attack gems! That's right, defense only! Oh, and also (most) enemies only have 1 HP, and the gold they drop is equal to the amount of attack they have. Very simple!

HP values are multiplied by 40 at the scorepoints, so every single point of HP is worth 1 point. Are you up to the challenge of optimising?

But there's more! There are 4 playable characters, each with their own little twist on gameplay so you can replay the hold with different considerations. Each character has their own set of scorepoints.

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Overall I think this hold is on the easy side, and serious players might even beat the bonus boss on their first playthrough with each character. But that's OK! They don't all have to be the hardest hold ever, and serious optimising always provides a challenge.

Having said that, if you think any part of the levels could be tweaked to be more interesting feel free to make suggestions.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 07-09-2020 11:31 PM]

Meta
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 106
Registered: 12-06-2016
IP: Logged

Among the four characters, I feel that Rocky is the easiest. The extra DEF is really useful in combats. Since Rocky cannot use GR, the structure of the hold got simplified quite a lot.

Slippy gives me a hard time. I kept picking up keys, and ended up not having enough HP. After a few tries, I force myself to ignore the keys, and then defeat the boss easily.

My stats after defeating the bonus boss can be found below.

Tendry - HP: 3 * 40 - Keys: 5/3/0 - Score: 148
Rocky - HP: 2 * 40 - Keys: 4/2/0 - Score: 120
Slippy - HP: 8 * 40 - Keys: 3/1/0 - Score: 91
Bonelord - HP: 1 * 40 - Keys: 2/1/0/3 - Score: 136

I really like this hold. I will write a program to figure out how far I am from the optimal score.

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[Last edited by Meta at 06-25-2020 11:03 PM]

greenscience
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 167
Registered: 02-27-2015
IP: Logged

I agree that Rocky is the simplest, although being unable to open GR gates forces the use of keys instead and makes navigating trap doors more difficult.

Slippy is probably the hardest to master of the four, especially when modelling for programs. There are just so many possible places to use the Pickaxes. Generally Pickaxe should be used to skip mandatory doors, skip tough fight sequences, or bypass optional doors guarding many potions. Although skipping fights also costs GR. Using the pickaxe while facing diagonally tends to create more options.

With Bonelord it is tempting to just hoard Skeleton keys and hope that the extra healing from potions makes up for paper thin defenses. The buff to potions makes some doors skipped by other characters worth opening. It is also worth keeping in mind that Skeleton keys can also open GR gates, which could come in handy since Bonelord should prefer to avoid fights more than the others.

kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3574
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

Thanks for playing guys.

Probably no surprise that the hold was primarily designed with Tendry in mind, then the other characters were given abilities that tried to work within the framework of the simple hold, while also not breaking things too much. Minor tweaks were made to ensure all were possible at least. I think its fine if some are easier or harder, simpler or more complex than the main event, the focus was a different experience rather than pure balance. Bonelord originally didn't have the potion boost which might be a bit overpowered, but I didn't like how this made him identical to Tendry in the first level. As long as you felt the alternate characters changed things enough to be worthwhile to play, I consider it a success.

I think the hold being so short in scope helped. If the hold went on for another level, Bonelord and Slippy would have started to have a particularly terrible time of things given the way their disadvantages scale pretty harshly.

mauvebutterfly
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 811
Registered: 05-03-2015
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I've been having fun with this so far. Going to post stats once I have time to play seriously enough to take on the bonus boss.

One little thing I noticed is with Rocky's level intro texts. "bought" should be "brought." I think this occurred in the 3rd and 4th level intro texts if I'm remembering correctly.

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106th Skywatcher

kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3574
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

Thanks all for playing. Looks like there won't really be any further comments coming soon, so I'm submitting to the HAs now.