Empires of Eradia: The Cataclysm of Chaos

Empires of Eradia: The Cataclysm of Chaos
Beta Project
Developer	Jason Roberts
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Too many to count
Released	Sept 12, 2018 (Alpha V13)
Updated	Sept 9, 2020 (Alpha V43)
Licensing	Currently, Freeware
P. Language	Python 2.7 and Libtcod
Platforms	Windows
Interface	ASCII, Keyboard, Partial Mouse
Game Length	countless hours, designed for multiple playthroughs
[n/a Official site of Empires of Eradia: The Cataclysm of Chaos]

Important Links

EOE:COC Discord = https://discord.gg/Qthezuh

EOE:COC Subreddit = https://www.reddit.com/r/EmpiresOfEradiaCOC/

3 Month Update = https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/ip0lde/empires_of_eradia_the_cataclysm_of_chaos_3_month/

Changes to Development Cycle = https://www.reddit.com/r/EmpiresOfEradiaCOC/comments/ip96rt/development_cycle_changes_going_forward_with_v44/

Description

NOTE: I will be doing an overhaul of this page, so check back from time to time. (Last Updated = Sept 9, 2020)

A great rift has appeared in the Solarii monarchy, spewing forth vile creatures. You enter the rift, where the laws of the material plane do not necessarily apply. You must close the rift, and escape, but is there really a way out? You'll just have to find out!

Primary Development Focus

As it has been heavily requested, I am working towards implementing a new Interactive Tutorial System into the game. There is a pair of Interactive Tutorials in the game and a bunch of external help text files, but the game seriously needs a better tutorial, so that is why it is my current Focus.

Currently I have completed 3 / 5, components. It requires 5 key components before I can begin to assemble it:

• Data Unload/Reload
• Map Rulesets
• Map Storage Changes
• Map Specific Task Lists
• Event Handling System

Once the Interactive Tutorial System has been built fully, then I'll choose a new Development Focus.

Top Ten Features

• You have a ton of character build freedom and can play as you like, even being a complete pacifist, and can win the game. Specializing however is still the most optimal way to survive and excel.
• The gameplay is a sandbox experience; pursue your own goals, work towards a victory condition you like, and explore as much or as little as you want.
• Unique permadeath, resulting from achieving too much stress. This allows players to learn from their mistakes, correct them, and eventually succeed. As you get more stressed, it activates stress mechanics.
• Profile system, that allows you to achieve progression between playthroughs. This ensures that even if you go insane in a playthrough, you'll still have acquired some progression that will help the next run.
• Utilizes a more unique map generation, opting more for large battlefields, rather than tight corridors of most dungeon crawlers. Walls block vision, but not movement, allowing for tactical opportunities.
• You must serve as entertainment for the Chaos God; if you don't they will make things harder for you. This effectively works like a food clock, but without the annoyances of instant death if it runs out.
• Chaos is accrued by various actions. It cannot be reduced, and only gets worse as you progress farther, building tension, and unlocking challenging mechanics. It will clear on death however.
• The game offers many valuable and useful interactable objects. The most valuable are Secret Areas, which can be found by getting close enough to the Secret or by following directions in the Collectibles Report.
• The game has Map Hazards, which are usually optional. These make the specific map you are more challenging, and some work in synergy with other mechanics or other hazards, making them even more challenging.
• The game has Self-Imposed Restrictions, which are optional. Completing one grants great rewards, but breaking your Restriction, punishes you severely.

All Other Features

• You can perform four forms of crafting; Alchemy (includes Light equipment), Smithing (Medium and Heavy Equipment), Enchanting (of Equipment and Profile), and Fabrication (of Epics and Artifacts).
• I've gone for a "more is less" approach to techniques (my "spells"). So there is 5 melee, 5 ranged, and 5 spell techniques, that are each powerful and situationally useful.
• The Horde foes are weak cannon fodder, which often will encourage you to waste precious resources on killing them. They scale in power, but only for fresh spawns, so eventually with enough kills, they will be able to hurt you.
• Primal Chaos foes are generally the most dangerous foe you will encounter, and come in melee, ranged, and spell variants. They earn powerful modifiers that boost their stats, they drain character XP, and scale in power the moment you kill one.
• Treasure Fiends are cowardly, nonhostile foes that carry a ton of loot... if you manage to kill one. They have defensive abilities to make that task more challenging. Sometimes, on death, they will open up a Portal to the Trapped Treasury, an optional area.
• Bosses are currently invulnerable, and can only be banished with a Holy Hand Grenade, at which point they drop a ton of great loot. Otherwise, you should avoid them as they drain xp, drain energy points, and often cause Stress points.

Old Features List

Some of this is relevant, but most of the list hasn't been updated in over a year!

• Comes with a series of Interactive Tutorials and a Help Directory (neither complete though), to help new players and returning players understand game mechanics and be successful.
• Has a Journal menu, that stores all of the game's lore that is optional to read; this allows those who want to just hack and slash to do so, but also allows those who want to be immersed in lore, to be immersed!
• The game gets progressively more difficult based on accumulated Chaos. Every 100 points increases difficulty level (which affects portal spawn rates and enemy stats) and persists between levels.
• Has an Objectives menu, with a series of objectives that grant a reward for completion. Complete all objectives in a set, and earn the Completionist, which gives even better rewards.
• You earn new Objectives every 3rd floor (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, etc), giving the player an unlimited number of objectives to complete and encourages the player to go deeper and deeper into the game.
• Bosses and Artifacts are now in, providing more of the endgame content!
• You can now win the game, and you can track your progress towards Victory conditions in the Trials Menu (Shift + 4). Can work towards many different Victories, and this progress is retained between playthroughs!
• You can now encounter Traps ($). Can be triggered by both player or monsters and will reset after 30 turns.
• Completely rebuilt the map generation code. Maps generate nearly instantly now, are easier to modify and add/remove elements, and are persistent until you die, allowing you to revisit old areas!
• Added a Credits, Changelog, and Known Issues sub-menu to the Main Menu. Also the version of the game is now listed at the Main Menu!
• Added a consistent color theme to the message log. Now you can at a glance tell if the message is worthwhile to read. May tweak later, as needed.
• Reduced the message log spam and have implemented Round Updates that tell you in general what happened in that round. A lot of different things can happen, and this keeps the player informed without spamming!
• Can change the Element of your Techniques and it remembers your choice. Each Element is powerful in their own right and each is situationally useful to use.
• Rare consumable items now are automatically added to your Satchel, so that you never run the risk of missing out on one of these awesome items.
• Added a Look Around command (Shift + /?). While active, any enemies in Field of View will be highlighted. Useful for detecting that hard to see enemy. Doesn't count as a turn to use!
• Added an Information Window (HOLD Ctrl or Alt as indicated by the game). Provides extended information of the object under your mouse. Doesn't count as a turn to use!
• Added a Keybindings menu by holding `~ or \| keys.
• Added a Root Menu by hitting either Enter keys.
• Item Comparison is now possible in the Inventory. Just hover over an item with the mouse to see it's stats.
• Full mouse support is now available in all menus and all bugs related to hacked mouse support have been fixed.
• Can now use Shift to capitalize your name in Name Input and have middle and/or last names.
• Primal Chaos and Treasure Fiends suffer a fight/flight response, when brought to 50% or less HP for the first time, making them significantly nastier threats or significantly harder to kill.
• Melee foes now get multiple movement per turn, allowing them to close the distance to the player, so watch out! If they are in melee range, they will attack and end all of their movement.
• Auto-Pickup is now a thing. Grabs everything automatically under you and adjacent to you. Radius is increased by every 20 Spellcasting mastery and/or Greater Rune of the Rogue.
• You can now batch craft (ie make more than one item in a single action) alchemy and equipment items! When you have 3x the needed resources, the game prompts you for how many you want to craft.
• Created a brand new Fabrication system for creating Epic Items and Artifacts with Runic Shards.
• Salvaging artifacts now gives you the Artifact recipe and the Artifact's legendary rune!
• You can now load old profile files into the game. Simply copy your profile file from the previous version, into the game directory of the new version to retain your long-term gameplay progress!
• Portals are fully functional now, can be entered, closed, and then deactivated. Monsters only spawn from active portals, and monster spawning has been completely redesigned!
• The game's balance of intensity and calmness is significantly better, than the last 10 builds. I personally, really like the change of pacing!
• ...
• ... and much more! (will update this list in the future; last updated May 7, 2019)

[LATEST UPDATE TO THIS INFORMATION = June 24th, 2019; Information re-arrange is fine by me!]

Useful Information

According to RogueBasin, my title would be classified here as Beta. It is quite stable, playable, and fun, but it is missing a lot of the endgame-related stuff, which is why I consider the game to still be in Late Alpha status. I try to do 2 week releases (weekly releases were pushing me towards burnout), and participate in Sharing Saturday on RoguelikeDev subreddit, so if I forget to upload here, then you can visit Sharing Saturday OR my subreddit and grab the latest build there. The reason for the name change is primarily to avoid confusion with Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead!

I am looking for feedback on the game; bugs, suggestions, problems run into, etc. I would really love it if people had feedback and gave it, as it really helps me to know that if a player is having an issue that I want to try and solve it. That is why I often release hotfixes; someone reports an issue and I solve it and release a hotfix.

I can be reached by PM on reddit (I'm Palandus) or by email: jason.roberts10000@gmail.com. I'll try to remember to update the RogueBasin as I release new builds. I use Pyinstaller to build the game, and as I only have access to Windows, I can only build for Windows.

Current Known Issues

Most of these will get addressed once I reach Beta status (well my impression of Beta, not roguebasin's; I consider the game to be Late Alpha). Once I reach Beta, I'll be more focusing on balancing, story implementation, and implementing feedback from players, so I'll have more time/energy to focus on other game issues, such as these issues below:

BUGGED SCREEN = If you launch the game and the window doesn't look right, try using fullscreen mode (ALT+ENTER) and then exiting fullscreen mode with the same keybind, should fix the issue. The issue has been reported by some users, while others haven't encountered it. I am looking into providing resolution scaling, which should in theory solve this issue, but haven't currently had the time to research how to implement resolution scaling, except that I know that libtcodpy does offer resolution scaling.

CROSS COMPILING = I am looking into determining how to cross-compile binary builds for Linux / MacOS, and am hoping to have it ready before I reach Beta status. If I figure it out in a day or two, then I'll upload the builds immediately. Thus far I've not figured out how to do so yet.

32 BIT BINARIES = I have tried to compile the game as 32bit (had to download a 32 bit version of python 2.7 and a 32 bit version of the libtcod.dlls), but it appears portions of my menu code requires 64-bit, and thus I haven't been able to successfully create a 32-bit version of the game without a significant amount of problems being in the build.

List of Currently Missing Features

• Primal Chaos Abilities
• Rare Portals
• Boss Abilities
• Milestones (important for multiple playthroughs)
• Main story and Side stories
• Better Menus (specifically working mouse support)
• Interface Overhaul
• Pacifist Playstyle Overhaul
• Create your own Custom Techniques
• And more (will update list later)

List of Partially Implemented Features

• Traps and Environmental Dangers (Close to completion)
• Endings, and End Goals Menu
• Artifacts (Need to implement Artifact Runes)
• Help Directory and Interactive Tutorial Series
• Uniquely useful Techniques
• Unique Biomes with their own specific challenges
• Elements and Elemental Protection (Close to completion)
• Auditory and Visual Hallucinations (Need sound effects for Audiotory, and need archer/mages for Visual)
• Legendary Runes and Empowered Runes
• And more (will update list later)