Manicule of Fury

Manicule of Fury
Developer	Badscribbler
Theme	Martial Arts
Influences	SRPG, non standard HP systems
Status	Done
Released
Updated	March 12
Licensing	???
P. Language	Python
Platforms	Windows
Interface	ASCII, Keyboard
Game Length	30-60 minutes
Official site of Manicule of Fury

Manicule of Fury is a coffeebreak roguelike

Based on some vague concept of a martial arts roguelike where you can take on many enemies at once and survive without the enemies being too easy where the true threats are bosses.

Your HP, as focus, is as much a resource as anything else and time can be spent to quickly regain your focus so there is no need to look for health potions or wait 100s of turns for auto regeneration. Techniques allow you to use focus to deliver attacks that will bypass most enemy blocking ability and possibly have other effects such as enemy movement or multiple enemies hit.

Post-7DRL Thoughts

I threw the level design on the alter of sacrifice too early to work on the system. I gave up on trying to make anything worthwhile early on and pushed it to a polish which I never got around to due to various boss attempts not being interesting and having to rework them.

Techniques while useful are not pivotal to the game, in reality I bug checked and difficulty checked the game with starting focus and no techniques as I could not be certain players would pick up techniques or focus allowing all bosses and enemies to be defeated with no set progression. Shot myself in the foot mostly with this but I'd rather have a finish able roguelike for a 7drl than something that is touched twice and given up cause it killed them in second or third area. This possibly made it too easy and the action economy bloat of a late game character can crush most bosses unless the bosses get the first hit in and can survive the retaliation.

Items were planed for the game but scraped for time. Items would have been equipment with special one time effects per area, a wanders cloak that invalidated an attack that would do damage, or your standard throwing items and healing items. This was planed to give you something to head to other than the boss room. Original idea was having a a side treasure in the dungeon but the power increase of getting 2 such things an area was too extreme.

The progression system was based off a thought of combining more video game ideas with roguelike ones, mostly earlier videogames for simplicity. The progression was based off of going to new area beating a boss and getting a new item ability like megaman or lesser extent zelda games. Allowing the player to see what item was in the area or boss gave a better feeling of choice. The boss/item reveal was 50% chance when you beat a node next to it and 2 nodes showed all information.

The menu system could have used a line of explanation, seemingly most people struggle on initial usage but understand it perfectly after they get it.

Bosses while unique could have been stronger and had a few more mid bosses to take over the middle band. I had a thought of mid-elite 4 for 2,2 where 4 of the lower tier boss from the other stages would share a room but the spawning system and the item drop to progress system kept bugging out and not spawning them all correctly. Could have spent more time but working on the final boss was priority at that point.

I should have had trap areas where enemies would pop up/drop from ceiling, the Shadow boss had that as an inbuilt mechanic but normal rooms having a surprise like that would have enhanced the game play. The game is most fun when nearly surrounded and you have to think of your actions instead of kiting as few enemies out of next room as you go about.

Overall think combat system worked out well but better mook enemies (or at least more) could have really made it shine. The problem is the fights may come down to who gets the first hit which is a real problem for the AI, the player can plan to get cherry tapped and then retaliate against an action less enemy. May implement this idea in the future as more variants on roguelike action economy systems are welcome.