The game itself is really fun, but the difficulty is really unreasonable. I played for maybe 30 minutes, thinking I was doing something wrong, but even with the vampiric warhammer, which is in my opinion the best weapon, I never got to lvl 3 and was left frustrated. It isn't far off, but maybe scale back the difficulty a bit.
Reviews for "Return to Tolagal"
Green Hand Axes are OP!
Mix that with more speed when levelling and it becomes fairly easy.
Had a 2 basic and 5 power attack, 2 Heal on hit and 1 AP reduction to enemy.
Shield I finished with was slightly darker than the default color, it reduced damage by 2 in exchange for 1 AP, and blocked 2 damage normally for a total of 4 I assume, and it gave you 1 free AP.
It was fun.
Fun, but *please give me a mute button*. I liked everything else. A room with multiple necromancers is pretty broken at level 2 though. I can't get through their minions to attack them before I'm fireballed to death. Also it seemed like vampiric weapons were the only real option. I couldn't get anywhere without the lifesteal.
No major complaints here except for the lack of a mute button. I don't expect fantastic background music from a simple flash game like this, but I do expect the ability to mute it and play my own. Thanks for the upload, I enjoyed it.
A fun game! A rogue-styled game that makes little use of the RNG past dungeon generation so that the tactics are more solid than lucky. Think more like Chess and less like Risk. I give it 4.5 stars - It's a solid game, playable start to finish, no obvious bugs, decent graphics, etc, etc, but still has room for improvement. I'd give some strategy advice, but like any good rogue, figuring it out on your own is half the fun. The other half is dying a lot and swearing that you'll never play again. Enjoy!
Oh, I will say this though - Play the tutorial, every single time. You get to keep the items and XP you gain there, so starting a game without the tutorial puts you at a significant disadvantage.
Notes for the author:
I've been playing since you first posted this - great game!
First bug I've found is in the new tutorial level - you can step out of the map. I am walking all the way around the map. Something in the upper right corner freezes the game.
I really like how you've tried to create a balanced weapon system - pros and cons to each - instead of a linear upgrade path. It really lets the player choose their tactics based on the weapon they've found. A few short comings however:
The short sword is worthless. It is inferior to every other weapon. It will be traded for a better weapon in the first room of the tutorial, and as I've noted above there is no reason not to play the tutorial. So logically the short sword will never be used in the game and it is a waste of code/art to even have it programmed. I suggest either buff it or dump it and start the player with a random weapon. If you're going to buff it, I'd suggest giving it a repost ability. Once per turn, the first monster to attack the player will carry out it's attack as normal but immediately after it's attack the player gets 1 free automatic attack on the monster. If this attack kills the monster it dies immediately and doesn't get to use the rest of it's AP for that turn.
It's debatable whether green weapons are better than grey weapons. It is even arguable whether red weapons are better than green weapons. But it is obvious that red weapons are better than grey weapons. I think they need a de-buff to keep the balance. I've got an idea for this:
Right now a weapon can be used for 1 AP or charged and used for 2 AP. I say make it so that it takes 1 AP to charge a weapon (like it does to charge the shields) and then the next attack, charged or not, only takes 1 AP. So a charged attack will still take 2 AP but it will be split into 2 1AP actions - charge, then attack. This opens up some tactics for the player - she can charge the weapon before the battle for a sneak attack, and also if she has 1 AP left and the end of her turn she can choose whether to use it for a weak attack or for a charge to do a charged attack on her next turn. The de-buff for the red weapons is that they do not carry their charge between turns, they always lose their charge at the end of a turn, so they do not get a sneak attack and a charged attack must be completed in a single turn.
The flimsy buckler, like the short sword, is useless. Is it inferior to the wooden shield, which will be found in the first room of the tutorial, and therefore will never actually make it into the dungeon. I suggest making it so that it auto-charges every turn (doesn't cost an AP). Then the player gets to make a choice: Do I use this buckler which protects me for 1 HP per turn for free or do I use a shield which saves me 2 HP but costs me 1 AP?
Notes on the interface:
Looking at something pops up a description window. A click/tap will close the window but also move the player. This first click/tap should close the window without affecting the game.
Looking at a door should tell me it's HP.
Looking at a monster should tell more about them - HP, AP, damage, range, etc. Or do you prefer to leave it a mystery for the player to figure out?
Picking up potions is automatic but weapons and shields need to be clicked. There should be a hot key for this. Since you can have a shield and a weapon on the same square, a single hot key would be ambiguous. I'd suggest making it so that shift-2 and shift-3 would pickup a weapon and a shield respectively. Maybe picking up an item with a hot key would also pop up a description window as if the player had looked at it? This way a player could keep pressing shift-2 and it would toggle between the 2 weapons and their descriptions so that they could compare them.
You should display experience points (both the current count and the requirement for the next level-up) on the status bar. It's annoying that I can only see this when I kill something and that it only flashes for a moment.
The dungeon level number should also be displayed.
The hearts are confusing. I did a lot of dying when trying to figure out what they meant. The new tutorial tells you, but still I think I'd rather just have a single heart icon and next to that a numerical HP/Max display rather than trying to remember that each heart means 3 and a crack means 2 and a half means 1.
I really like that you don't count APs unless a monster is active. This makes it so much easier to move around between battles. But sometimes when entering a room or spotting a monster it is hard to know if the next move will consume an AP or if the player is still in "free move" mode. I'd suggest that you gray-out and/or dim the AP diamonds while in free mode and restore brightness/color when in battle mode. And like the hearts I'd personally prefer a numerical AP/Max readout.
Over-all I suggest that the status bar should look like this:
<3 6/9 <> 2/2 {} 20/28 [] 2
That's HP, AP, XP, and depth
The dungeon itself:
It is really necessary to not let me go back up a level? If so, can you at least give me a confirmation before going down? Some times I step on the stairs by accident. And I cannot get a weapon on the stairs.
Is it necessary that my shield loses charge between levels?
Most times between dungeon sections there is a small room with just an up stairs and a down stairs. Seems kind of pointless.
Could you make it so that rooms I have seen but can't see now aren't blacked out but just dimmed a bit or something? And that I could scroll around on the map? Or get a mini-map? Before going down I'd like to look at my map and make sure I've been in all the rooms without having to walk back through them all.
Good game with potential to be very good
Good:
1. Gameplay
2. Diversity of equipment
3. Strategy
4. Challenge
5. Enemies
6. Animation
7. How doors are a part of the game and enemies popping out of objects
Bad:
1. The game lacked better instructions, like I didn't know anything about the monsters until I killed one, and by then I might have died multiple times already, or the enemy status effects, such as dark green, and what they meant, or what AP means and does. In general, there is way too much the player is not informed about.
2. Could use a story.
3. Could use bosses and more lore. I would have thought you would learn something when inspecting the bookshelves, but apparently the protagonist isn't much of a reader.
4. Could use ranged weapons with higher action points to use like other reviewers said.
Ugly:
1. Poor, repetitive controls for Item Activation. I'm constantly using the Shield and Power Attack, so I have to press 3 and 2 every few seconds, which is painfully repetitive. Maybe a Always Put Shield On or Always Use Power Attack when have available action points toggles would be useful.
2. With the mage in the large circular room, I would have the same number of action points as the mage, and I would keep chasing him around and around, and he would always be able to keep the same distance. We would just go around in circles forever if I didn't stop at a corner and take advantage of the AI's stupid decision to come around the corner after me and make himself vulnerable. It's either a stupid AI or neverending chasing around the level, neither of which is fun.
3. Levels seemed to be randomly generated, and there were some levels that were impossible to beat. Like I would walk down a long straight hallway and into a room with multiple fire mages who proceeded to make short work of me. If I retreated into the hallway, they would fire away at me and fry me. If I charged into the room, same thing. There was no possible way to beat that room, and the exit was beyond that room, so there was no way for me to continue in the game except to start the game over by dying.
Hint for those with difficulty beating the game: Action Points are king- don't waste skill points on the other two attributes! By getting more action points, you'll be able to deal more damage AND not take any damage.