Equin 2: The Warren Peace, Coming to Steam this November!

[Del_Duio]

That's great! My enemy "A.I." I have to use quotations for so that'll give you a bit on how well it works haha

It's super simple on the main map- they just check to see where you are in relation to their X/Y position and move a tile accordingly (most of the time, which is by design in order to keep it a little fresh I guess). It's obviously super easy to fool and avoid a single monster however once you get a few of them in there plus the layout of the floor it can get tricky. If you are invisible it tweaks this a bit- it uses a percentage, so say if you equip a regular ring of invisibility that gives you 50% invis, and then before each monster goes to move it'll have the condition If random(100)+1 > invis_effect too. So having this ring on means half the time the enemy won't even move because it doesn't see you. The invis effect from a statue though is always 100, so they'll always stay put. The effect doesn't last long so it's not too OP.

The main tactics or whatever you want to call it comes from the 1 vs 1 fights of course. Each enemy has its own battle options that are loaded into a list object off screen and the game will randomly pull from that list each time its turn comes around. You can give them higher percentages of a regular attack simply by adding more "ATTACK" lines, it's so easy and works great. If an enemy has a "HEAL" option and it comes up it'll first check to see what it's current vs maximum HP is, so that if it doesn't need to heal it'll default to something else so the spell isn't wasted needlessly.

I like how you said the Spelunky method is quick and easy, yet almost nobody has been able to really duplicate it since or at least not very well. See that's the kind of stuff you'll be great at for sure.

[MuddyMole]

That's *exactly* the kind of artificial stupidity that I need!
In Microgue (and in my game) monster movements are entirely deterministic - there's no luck and no hidden information. Once you learn their patterns, you can predict with complete certainty where each monster will move. It sounds like it would be really easy and dull, but there are enough interactions and variables to keep track of that it ends up being fun and challenging.

The real trick to Microgue is not so much being able to spot which monsters can kill you, as being able to spot the moves that appear suicidal at first glance, but are actually safe - maybe the monster is going to be killed by a trap before it can kill you, or maybe a different monster is going to get in its way, or maybe a Yeti is going to be killed by a trap and that will freeze the monster, or maybe it will be killed by an exploding Fire Elemental - there are so many possibilities, but none of them are random.

That's interesting, having partial invisibility, instead of it just being all or nothing. I find stealth is rarely overpowered, because it usually translates to missing out on an opportunity to gain experience by fighting - it's just another lifeline to get you out of a really sticky situation (which is exactly what a traditional roguelike item *should* be - something that you try out of desperation, not knowing what its effect will be, that might just save the day... or might kill you quicker).

Your combat system is actually pretty sophisticated and impressive. Apart from being 1v1, it's just like a typical JRPG. Maybe Equin 3 should give the player a party of characters?

As for tactics, this may be controversial, but I'm not sure roguelikes even *need* to have any tactics, necessarily. I don't know if you play any board games, but there's one called "DungeonQuest" ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/472/dungeonquest ) which is basically a roguelike (you explore a randomly generated dungeon, and almost never make it out alive). It's a very successful game that was released in 1985 and is still popular today. The thing is, it's almost entirely a game of luck - you just draw cards and do what they tell you. If you draw a monster, you roll some dice to see who wins. If you draw a trap, you roll some dice to see if you're wounded (or insta-killed!). It's not a good game, but it is a great "story generator" - it's fun just too see what happens, almost like reading a book or watching a movie. "Talisman" ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/...ed-4th-edition ) another classic, is similar - you roll a dice and choose whether to move that full distance clockwise or anti-clockwise. There's a little more to it than that, but not a lot. Again though, what it does well is generate these amazing, epic stories of adventure.

The Spelunky method *is* really simple (about as simple as manually designing levels anyway). The downside is that it's kind of a halfway house between manual level design and procedural generation - you still have to manually create lots of room templates. It's really more "procedural modification" than procedural generation.