Megacatrogue

decided  to release the game after roughly three years of on and off development when i decided i had a fairly complete rogue. although i currently have no plans to continue development beyond pursuing any bugs reported. this may change in the future

megacatrogue was developed using the Unity3D engine and largely inspired by the megaten series by ATLUS. having grown up on similar jrpgs, i felt that party building mechanics these games are known for would be interesting to see in the turnbased rogue format. i also wanted to see if i could reinterpret certain staple rogue features like hunger and progression

on party building, one of the main decisions the player has to make is which monster in the dungeon to invite to his party. to do this properly, the player will have to use an identify scroll to view the skills the monster possess as well as its elemental strengths and weaknesses before deciding whether to talk to it. of course you could go in blind and leave it to chance, which could be interesting as well

for the hunger mechanic i've decided to explicitly tie it to progression in the form of cursed weapons. on the first level, the player will come across either a lifesteal weapon or a manasteal weapon. once chosen, the player will not be able to unequip it until a scroll of remove curse is used. while cursed, the weapon will, at regular intervals, reduce a set percentage of either the max hp or mp of the user. when either maximum is reduced to zero, its game over. the good news is every time the weapon does this, it grows stronger

methods of increasing your hp/mp maximum include levelling up and finding potions, which in addition to restoring your current hp/mp will also increase your maximum. there are also certain accessories that increase your max hp/mp when worn. removing those when your hp and mp would drop to zero or below will also cause a game over.

another system i've designed regarding hunger is the torch system. throughout every floor will be scattered a number of torches. the player will have to activate and remain near one of them in order to regenerate spent hp/mp. once a certain amount of hp/mp regeneration has occurred, the torch will burn out permanently. the amount of XP the player receives from hunting will also reduce drastically when fighting lower level monsters.

it remains to be seen how compelling these systems are. i still think a lot of testing is required, which is part of the reason i wish to release it now

this post is the work of anemone.stand