Unfinished: Crawl 08/14/2014

@icantbestopped: I don't mean to insult, but at what point are people going to accept that if you have problems getting people over for local co-op, maybe games like this, Nidhogg, and Samurai Gunn maybe just aren't for you? As someone who has literally negative interest in playing games online with strangers, I got endlessly frustrated last generation with the lack of split-screen head-to-head or co-op in a lot of racing and brawling games simply because the developers wouldn't put the resources towards those kind of modes. I think this resurgence of couch-co-op is one of the more interesting things to happen to gaming in a decade, and I'm afraid of all this talk of online being a mandatory feature is going to steer developers away from making these amazing split-second twitch games that just don't work well at all over an internet connection.

Wait a minute... @brad is frustrated by the "last hit" mechanic?! Mr. Dota himself?

Also hurray for more Crawl!

This game looks rad but I don't live with anyone that would want to play this with me--at least on my computer. Needs to come out for PS4.

This game is brilliant!

@whitegreyblack: Out of curiosity, I ran some screenshots through a colorblindness filter:

It's not like the coins/crystals/etc. are invisible, but they pop out much less than the normal image. If you look at the shop's counter, the two buyable weapons in blue/white are pretty clear but the other one is just this weird smudge. The potion looks the same color as the boxes; it's hard to tell that one is important and one isn't at a glance.

@aprotagonist: There is no reason this game couldn't work online

That is not a great color palette, I can deal with brown, but pastel, no way, that's even worse than fluo.

@thankyougiantbomb: Thanks for the images. That could certainly explain things. Colorblind folks could have some real trouble discerning important objects from the backdrop.

yep, we played recently with a friend who is colorblind and quickly realized a lot of our mechanics rely on quickly picking up those color cues- will definitely be working on colorblind readability at some point to give those players a less confusing experience!

S'hrim begin!

Except it's a video game website, not a phone operating system website.

Oh awesome, Powerhoof developer! The game looks great.

Yet another ugly-ass indie pixel mess, what a surprise! At least this one looks somewhat fun. If I buy it, which I likely will, it will most certainly be despite the "art" style, if it can be called art.

I really wish we could see more indies producing beautiful, hand-drawn 2D games like Castle Crashers and Dust, instead of this derivative crap.

That's not directed at just this game, but this is the first one that's interested me enough to care about how it looks.

This looks extremely boring for people playing as monsters. The balancing is a big issue, especially with humans who don't have upgrades and have to fight high level monsters. Also, they should add an option to make it so that the person who deals the most damage becomes the human.

not really

S'hrim = Tim and Eric reference?

The Android ignorance among most of the staff is saaaad.

wonder if they had to take out the Gabe Newell god

Collecting ectoplasm and banking blobs are great fixes to the ghosts. I'm not sure if players stuck as monsters/ghosts for long periods need any extra help for their humans. Monsters get blood, and blood means a quick port to a shop to convert it to gold for human upgrades. Lower level people just need to book it to a shop/fountain immediately upon gaining humanity. If lower level people do need a boost late game, buffing the shop items as the game progresses could work. (Yanking penalties from the potions may do the trick.)

Right now, there's a good risk/reward system going with blood. Use it now to buff your monsters to make killing someone easier or save it for gold later and try to sneak in a killing blow for regaining humanity. (Really, leaving the killing blow as the deciding factor needs to stay. It gives losing players an opportunity to mount a come back.)

Mann, the leveling is waaaaaay too fast now. In a four player game, it seems totally possible for the whole game to pass without somebody (Drew) ever being the human. I think the XP accrual and game length of the earlier build they looked at was much better.

Basically, by making it that short, the "humanity ownership" is only going to pass hands so many times, and it kinda guarantees that one person is going to get pretty hosed.

Also, I think the game would actually be way better with like, 25% as many health potions. The "humanity ownership" should pass hands a bunch of times, and you should only be able to stay human for a long time by being super skilled and dodging a lot. Right now, it's dumb: if you just survive for like 3-4 rooms, you'll find some dumb potion or something and get back like 50% life, which is absurd.

Maybe everybody is just rubbish at using the monsters effectively, but the streaks that Brad and Jeff had where they got a few health potions and ham, and were the human for like an entire floor and then some, felt ridiculous.

The game just takes it way too easy on the human, between all the health potions and the relatively low damage of all of the starting monsters (compared to the high health pool of even level 1 humans).

@bisonhero: Totally agree with your points here.

@bisonhero: I've played this game a few times with a couple of groups of people. Although I do agree that it's easy to get stuck as a ghost, and that isn't as fun as it could be, I think it is also true that the team isn't using monsters to their full effectiveness so far. Understanding how to play human well is fairly straightforward, but using the monsters well takes cooperation and experience; there are some incredibly nasty tactics that you start to figure out after some time.

The level 1/level 2 spiders can be pretty punishing as part of a team, since they make you completely vulnerable to attack. A good level 2 tadpole is brutal, especially when combined with most traps; the spike evade makes it almost impossible for the human to hit you without taking damage himself, and the trap gives you a good place to camp while your special recharges. The level 1 Santa is also excellent when used well. And, of course, there's no greater joy in life than waiting for the human to walk into a room full of traps and dropping slimes one at a time so he can't escape while abusing him with spike and bubble traps.

As you evolve your monsters, they tend to go from an evade-and-annoy strategy to a more directly damaging one. You have to be aware of three enemies at all times, since if you're only concentrating on one enemy, the level 3 minotaur can sneak up on you and give you the People's Elbow, for example. And if you ever enter a room where two dragons spawn, you're pretty much guaranteed to die there.

One issue that I have with the game, though, is that the way you become human often seems random and unfair. Some monsters help kill the human but don't do much damage themselves (e.g. the spider), which makes it harder for them to become human. This encourages evolving the dragon (which does massive damage with a well-aimed fire stream) rather than the troll (which does a little damage but is mainly useful for stunning the human). And as a level 3 minotaur, I'd rather hang back and wait for a good time to use my special, rather than to get up close and attack normally, which would put me in danger. You're ostensibly cooperating with the other ghosts, but there's a perverse incentive to let them wear down the human (and die in the process), then swoop in for the kill.

@thankyougiantbomb: Fair points. Can we agree that health potions are too plentiful? It's bullshit when one guy finds like 2-3 on one floor, but I guess it would also suck if there was only one potion every floor and the guy who happens to be human at the time gets a huge advantage that no one else does. I'd probably be fine with the game if it just had no health potions, or if health restoration cost an exorbitant amount of gold in the shop.

@bisonhero: Hmm. I hadn't really thought about it, but that seems reasonable. It's probably one of the elements of chance that doesn't contribute as much to the game. If you walk into a room with a beholder/dragon statue, it's a surprising and exciting challenge, and I think everyone enjoys it, even the human. In contrast, the health potions seem like arbitrary randomness (akin to giving people random amounts of starting health or something like that); the person who benefits feels good and everyone else just feels cheated.

Of course, randomness (even arbitrary, unfair randomness) is an important part of these sorts of games, but I agree that I don't personally enjoy it when the game is too transparent about the arbitrary unfairness. I might even venture to say that I find randomness more acceptable when it feels like you can adapt to an unexpected situation, or even turn it towards your favor (such as not getting the weapons you want in FTL, but still being able to use the ones you find effectively, as long as you're flexible), rather than just being a straight punishment.

First time I've seen a playthrough finished and that boss battle was kinda cool. Guess I'll keep my eye on this one.

I agree. It's worn thin a long time ago. The whole sweeter than apples thing is incorrect. It's just a confectionary alphabetic based code. As long as the indie mobile game dev community continues to put out games on iOS first, they will continue to make those jokes, even though Android sells more phones and tablets.

We don't find out about the games that matter on mobile on Android first, because the press that we're following (in this case Giantbomb, but it happens on other sites) is not talking about them on Android, so how are we supposed to know about these games? I usually stumble onto a game on Android that the guys bill as an iOS game. The Room Two was free on the Amazon App Store the other day for example, but noone mentioned it.

The only people I know championing quality Android games are the Humble Bundles. That's the primary way that I find out about Android games.