Brewing in the Dungeon
Brewing in the Dungeon is a solo-developed game for Mini Jam 186: Evolution.
It's a simple roguelike autobattler that focuses on both the evolution mechanic and "failure is progress," which was the jam's limitation.
INTRO
The player starts as a simple character, armed with just a sword and a flask. By collecting various materials, such as Essences, the player can brew successfully to either evolve or fail the concoction and gain strong passive stat bonuses. This is key to progressing before getting overwhelmed by enemies that live in the dungeon-like, never-ending bridge.
HOW TO PLAY
There's a simple tutorial and a "help" button in the game to assist players.
The player can move around with either the WASD keys or arrow keys. A mouse is needed to interact with the UI.
CURRENT CONTENT
- EVOLUTIONS: There are four evolution forms currently (Paladin, Trickster, Zealot, Spearman). Each one is accessed by successfully brewing a flask with three materials. An essence-type material is needed to trigger the evolution.
- FLASK BREWING: Not only is success much needed, but failing brews is also vital to gain random stat bonuses. To achieve a 100% chance to fail, scrap two materials to obtain a Volatile Spice, which will fail the next brew.
- ENEMY SCALING: Each round, the enemies get stronger, and there's a chance for each enemy to become elite, doubling in size and achieving strong stat enhancements.
- TREASURES: Each round will reward the player not just with a loot chest containing a material for brewing, but a random trinket to further enhance the player, such as the Espresso which boosts attack speed, or the Fire Orb which fires a fireball each round at the enemies.
ABOUT
The whole project was solo-developed by me (starea), and the assets are from me as well (graphical assets and SFX made from jsfxr). The music track is a free-royalty asset from Zapsplat.
Balancing roguelike games is never easy, so expect some very messy game balance in this project!
Comments
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This game feels like pure luck. The only player input is deciding whether to brew or scrap, but even that has an element of chance to it.
It could be much more fun if there were choices to be made, like if you could pick which treasure you get after a room. If I'm a Trickster, I need attack speed to stack my slow as fast as possible, so I shouldn't be forced to get a Chainmail that slows my attacks.
I agree, the current version was quickly designed and developed during a 72 hours jam so it does have its flaws. I'm working on a newer version with much more player agency to make the game more engaging and less about pure luck.