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Cool. Since it’s inspired by brogue … android … version? :P

https://smelc3.itch.io/rogue-vs-evil was the follow-up of Dungeon Mercenary and works on Android, but there were early technical choices that made supporting Android well quite tricky :-(

how do i avoid triggering skeletons to spawn in graveyards? is it just random?

There is a limited number of skeletons in every graveyard, so eventually you will exhaust them. But there is no way not to trigger them πŸ˜„

Ah, ok.

Is there any disadvantage to dual-welding weapons?

Not really, you loose the benefit that a shield brings, but that's all.

Will my character attack with both weapons each turn?

Yes, when you wield two weapons; you attack with both of them. Pretty powerful πŸ˜‰

Awesome!

what about adding different "texture packs"? if i want to play the pixel i can select it but if i want to play with text i can also play like that

This is impossible in Dungeon Mercenary but the game I did afterwards (Rogue vs Evil: https://smelc3.itch.io/rogue-vs-evil) is basically Dungeon Mercenary with pixelart graphics and slightly simplified mechanics. I never pushed it as far as Dungeon Mercenary though, because of lack of interest from players πŸ™‚

can you add saving for web?

Alas it's quite tricky to add the save feature on the web version, which is why I didn't do it in the first place. It's not planned to be added, as I don't update the game anymore, sorry πŸ™

hello mister creator

i know this game hasn't been updated since 2018 but i have found a small bug with the dagger

in the desciption it says the boosting it would add a +1 to damage AND add 4% more to the special attack chance. but when boosting it the + 4% isn't added.

i don't know if it was made on purpose to avoid the assin being to strong, because it works for other weapons

Hey vister71, thanks for commenting. The game logic of the description is quite tricky. It seems possible to me indeed that a discrepancy sneaked in between the description and the actual effect πŸ™

yea i figured would make a prety easy game if all you need was to oneshot everyone

This gme is much too hard,can you add some upgrade or EXP?

As you do more runs, you will find that the game is hard, but not impossible :-)

Oh,I see.By the way,will this game update?

No updates are planned as the game is pretty complete.

W game ong legit god-like, divine, bible status.

love the game been playing it on and off since late 2018/19 but id like to know if i could change the key binds somehow

Hello and thanks for the kind words πŸ™

Unfortunately it is impossible to change the keybindings :-(

Thank you for your quick response, its just that  diagonally on a number padless keyboard can be a bit cumbersome.

Yeah I understand, sorry :-(

You do know what an h-game is right?

Yes, but unfortunately I learnt it long after having chosen my itch handle :-)

Thanks for your reminder.. Because it was easy, I changed my itch username to smelc3...

TnT I've been trying to get the 'psychic' achievement and I'm just not sure how to do it. I've tried putting a bunch of boost runes on an awareness ring and then binding it to myself via a chaos alter. my next plan is doing that but with a sight ring. also I didnt know you could use force spells to set off explosive barrels next to something. Also Also, the 'dwarven doorknock' achievement is slightly bugged because it shows up whenever you use it on any kind of door.

Where did you find the psychic achievement? There is no pyschic achievement in the Achievement screen.

The "permanently telepathic" one XD sorry I forgot the name of it and didnt check

Ah permanently telepathic... Here's a hint: you need to drink many potions to obtain this achievement πŸ™‚

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I completely LOVE this game, but I wish I could see all of my scores instead of each time I reload it deletes them, if you could do this I would love this game 100x more, thank you :D

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If I remember correctly, the scores are stored on the GameJolt version: https://gamejolt.com/games/dungeon-mercenary/151692 because GameJolt provides a persistent state API.

Or alternatively you can use the desktop version.

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Can you tame dragons with the dragonist?

No, sadly.

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That's a cool idea πŸ‘

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Feels like a mixture of a text adventure and a rogue-like, still haven't beaten the game but it's very fun! I look forward to (hopefully) seeing a new update in the future.

A nice update i might like to see is progress being saved via your account on web, every time I refresh or go out and back in, my achievements & high scores get wiped, which is kinda sad.

Hi Flowershirt, thanks for your kind comment πŸ™ No update is planned for the moment.

The desktop version of the game features saving progress. At the time I wrote this game, I don't think itch was providing a way to store data for the browser version. I could have done it with browser-storage but it's a bit cumbersome for technical reason; that's why I didn't do it.

This is a very creative and fun game to play, i would definetley reccomend it to a freind and i hope the creators of the game keep updating it. I like the simplistic art-style, because it allows me to imagine the world the game is set in

Hi Xevion888x, thanks for your nice feedback β€οΈ No update is planned for the moment, I feel this version is pretty mature.

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a Extremely well done game though, chaos fairy are wayyy to deadly they give prot to other monsters, heal, slow, teleport, and a nuisance to kill







i just hate the chaos fairy :C

Thanks for your kind feedback πŸ™ Indeed the chaos fairy is one of the most annoying monster, but the game makes sure you have something to defeat them easily :-)

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There is a room here (see the shading on the bloodied wall, but no door got spawned.

Addendum: I've noticed that sleeping enemies wake up through walls. Maybe add a check to see if there's a wall between myself and the enemy, when and if the game is updated.

Addendum 2: Spellcasters, such as the Chaos Fairy and Orc Sorcerer, can cast spells through other enemies (and sometimes, with the Master of Rats and dragon's breath, through walls), while I cannot.

Addendum 3: Sometimes, when transmuting a rune, the rune is deleted instead of transformed. I've noticed this happens more when I have large amounts of runes in my inventor

Addendum 4: I cannot get the downloaded game to work, no matter what I try.

Thanks for the bug reports Numbers! Indeed all things look like bugs. Regarding bug 3 I suppose it has to do with the inventory's capacity. If the inventory is nearly full, runics created won't get added to it; without warning the player.. doh not very nice. Regarding bug 1, the fix should be easy.

Onto bug 4, I suppose it has to do with the version of java shipped with Dungeon Mercenary. Dungeon Mercenary's desktop version embeds a Java 8 virtual machine, but Java 8 is now circa 5 years old and your system may refuse running it. Can you tell me your operating system details? A very-likely-to-work solution would be to install Java 8 on your system and launch Dungeon Mercenary using the file named dm-18-04-30.jar in the downloads (which is flagged Linux but can actually work on all three OSes) by executing java -jar dm-18-04-30.jar in Windows' terminal.

What is specifically needed? OS name is Microsoft Windows 10 Pro, version is 10.0.17763 Build 17763, type is x64. That's all I could find that I'd think would be relevant

Could you do that also: open a terminal (lookup on the internet how to do that on Windows) and type java -version and then copy paste me the result.

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Well there's a way to avoid getting killed, don't get adjacent to it :-) Upon generating a death mage, the game will have made sure you have the tooling to kill an enemy from a distance (such as a bomb). Of course you can use this tooling before and then you'll be in the doo-doo; but roguelikes in general are about experience. After a few run, you'll learn where the death mage (if any) spawns approximately. In your screenshot you indeed seemed well equipped to deal with it. Did you think of using your dash move to get away?
Anyway, thanks for your comment. I'll take it into account for a future release (if any).

Here's the teleport bug I was talking about. Note that I, "as" the orc, am invulnerable to non-ranged attacks, except probably Death Finger. Also note how the dead Knight still walks. I was also "as" a dead goblin.

Haha that's cool, I suppose I don't check whether teleportation's destination cell contains a monster. If yes, my code records the player's position to be the monsters' position, that's why you take control of the orc. It's actually pretty nice to see that this works, in a weird way, it means the code shares well the algorithms that are common to monsters and the player!

Re: enemies being right behind a door and killing me instantly:

This has happened twice now. A run ends because of instant-kill no-warning BS.

Not to mention that it was a great run, utterly ruined:

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I've been playing a lot and it's real fun. I've never been able to get past 13, but even still it's fun to stack up runics and go wild. 

Like others have said, the UI gets in the way but it's pretty easy to get rid of it by zooming. Something that annoys me is how sometimes there will be a particularly deadly enemy behind a door and I get killed immediately; it's almost like I have to be scared of doors to not be killed by a death mage or a dragon waiting behind. Also, apparently rats seem to know where you are at all times, and that's nonsensical. It's also really annoying, as they waste my time and chip away at my health, Another weird thing is how loot tends to peter out after the first few floors—I'd think it'd be more common the deeper you go. Though, it does reinforce the fact that you need to get a good build and stick to it. Another thing is how Force damage when crashing into something is with distance, and not the power of the Force runic. I'd think that, as more powerful Force runics can push something farther, that must mean that the thing is going faster, and therefore should have more damage be done. 

I've found that, occasionally, using a teleport spell will clip you into an enemy and render you weirdly invulnerable while you control the enemy, and sometimes after coming out of water the enemies stop making any moves of any kind. Also, you can push barrels into enemies. Additionally, pressing 'q' at the starting screen makes every button black. Also, the runic system would really benefit from a rework into a more balanced relationship between spell and item runics. The ranged properties of the spells, the fact that they always proc, and that they are usually more powerful than item runics makes them a bit more useful than item runics. 

Regardless, the game is very fun and I'll be playing this for a while.

Thanks for the detailed comment Numbers! It's the kind of comment that would make me go back to my code editor and continue developing Dungeon Mercenary ^^

Doors... yeah doors are tricky, to mitigate the issue you can burn doors down using (if I recall correctly) all fire-based spells (dragon breath, firebolt). Regardings rats, they don't have super powers, it's weird you witness a difference between rats and other monsters.

Regarding the loot, the game is intentionally giving a bit more loot in the beginning, to be "more" noob-friendly. Later on the game makes sure you'll get sufficient loot (if the random generation is too scarce for a few levels, it'll get corrected deep down the dungeon).

Regarding the Force runic, what you're expecting is correct. The more powerful the Force runic, the longer the distance you can push things with, and damage is correlated with the distance; so you should observe that a more powerful Force runic should do more damage. If not there's a bug.

Regarding teleport, thanks for the report; I've never heard this bug before.

Regarding spells being a bit too powerful, that's true. It's really difficult to balance correctly a game like Dungeon Mercenary. Given that I did not do that many iterations, I'm quite happy with the balance. You can think of the spells builds being the "easy" mode while closed-combat builds being more difficult.

Once again, thank you very for your thorough analysis! That's comments like yours that keep small indie devs like me going.

Re: burning the door down, it doesn't actually work: the game only registers the door not being there when something walks through the doorway. Additionally, I have to wait 8 turns for my spell to recharge, which is a big risk.

Also, there is loot later in the game, however at times i can't use it because i've already put a bunch of runics in one weapon or shield so using those items would be a downgrade. A bit more forges would be nice.

You're experiencing the game's true balance here! The point of runics is that you should try to go as deep as possible without using them, so that you can use them on a powerful item that will make you reach the endgame. The point of this mechanic is that new players can burn their runics early on, so that they go a little bit further that they would do without runics. Experienced players, on the other hand, should try to keep the runics as deep as possible.

Regarding forges, there's a 1/8 chance to have a forge at a given level; except for the first level where there's always a forge. I believe it's the past it was 1/6.

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I'll reply here also then :-) I'm happy you could play it, in the browser I guess ? I developed the game with Java 8 and a few players experienced difficulties with more recent versions (on desktop); just to let you - and others - know.

I'm happy you had a good experience, indeed I believe the game requires the player to test and try, to know what to do; and then the experience starts becoming appealing. Try the class conjuror of cheap tricks, it's the most fun one I believe :-)

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Hey cool, you've battled and liked some of the most powerful monsters (and so the most untested ones!), that's nice to hear. I guess the popups are about achievements and maybe suggestions (likedrink your health potion, you're in danger). I suppose going to the main menu (escape) and going back (resume) would get rid of those.

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Nice little game, Those teleporting creatures can be annoying if I dont have a bomb :D. I have a question is there any stealth aspect to this? I see that theres vision and such but is there a "sneak attack" damage?

Thanks Hectic. There is no stealth aspect for the player, solely the distance of your vision may vary - as you've seen - and this distance is used for throwing stuff and casting some spells, so the longer the better (no pun intended :-). The only stealth aspect is that, if a goblin ninja attacks you - while not being revealed yet - he'll hit automatically.

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You should make it so the Dragonist class has a "Tame Dragon" move where he attempts to tame the baby dragon as long as it is within the normal field of view, and can only be upgraded with boost tunics, because it says that the Dragonist "Walks the dangerous path of taming dragons." which implies that it is possible to tame dragons.

This is an excellent idea! I'm working on my next game where there will be a tree of skills (as in Diablo 2 for example) and this makes sense in the list of skills. Or else for long I've been thinking of "domination" spell that lets the player try to turn wounded enemies into allies, and the dragonist could have a bonus when using it on dragons.. Thanks for the suggestion :-)

Sounds great! Make sure it's like this game in terms of where to play because I don't have enough computer space to download... and I'm poor, so I can't buy it... but this is a really great game, and I think it's cool that all of the different tiles and characters are represented by keyboard characters of varying colors.

It's unclear whether my next game will support ASCII rendering (keyboard character graphics) as I'm focusing on the tiles display. But there are a ton of games with ASCII graphics (akin "roguelike"), for example check out brogue: https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/ or Sil: http://www.amirrorclear.net/flowers/game/sil/ They do not require expensive hardware nor disk space! And they are really awesome games (check out "cataclysm DDA" too for a zombie setting).

can you make a level editor for this game? it would be so good to make a level!

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Actually there are 3 hardcoded maps that are simply loaded from text files:

There is no way to plug other maps right now but it wouldn't be too much work.

And I guess there are open source maps editors to which I could plug too, it's just hasn't been high on my priority list :-(

I would recommend it because it can really open up more stuff to implement. for example there could be a share function and a map viewer plus player and even item creator and monster creator! it can open up games like these cuz there are alot of elements in games like these like monsters chests the rooms that has special things that happen and even more! they could even have floors! you could make something like a trelly (yeah i said trelly) to show people when stuff is  planned and what is currently is being worked on and more! ...i think thats enough of over genius ideas that i have no idea if it is genius ideas for one day....i made a fool of myself

I agree it would open up many possibilities! Because of how the game is coded, it wouldn't be possible to add monsters or items, it would only be possible to modify the existing ones; but that would be nice already. It'd also require extra work to be able to load those maps from the game (such as a menu to load a list of maps, to do kind of a campaign), but nothing difficult.

ok i hope to see this game grow! this game is beautiful never give up

Glad to hear it, thanks for the support :-)

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1. what exatly does using 2 wepons do?

i know u can use one of their special attacks by pressing alt (left or right determines which special attack will use)

but in normal attacks, do u deal damage from both weapons?

2. what does slowness do? it reduces speed by 50% for 2 turns

but what is speed?

3. there are runics on the shield that activate when u block the attack

the sword has parry

does parry and shield stack?

4. what's the difference between "parry" (sword) and "contact hit probability"? (shield)

1. Yes wielding two weapons means you deal damage from both weapons.

2. Speed is the speed with which you and the monsters take turns. Most monsters have the same speed as you, which means it is alternatively your turn to do an action and then the monsters' turn. When slowed down, you're at half speed meaning you play a turn every two monsters' turn. Note that this is a simplistic explanation, the game uses a scheduler; which means any kind of interleaving is possible, but this is what happens most of the time.

3. Yes parry and shield stack.

4. Both parry and shields are modifiers to contact hit probability (although shields also modify ranged hit probability), i.e. they decrease likeliness of being hit.

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i have a few questions

1. why did u make this game?

2. which programming language did u use?

3. are u a developer or do u study it as a hobby?

4. and last but not least...

would u allow me to help u? as a developer 

i have a lot of free time

1. I made this game because I wanted to play such a game :-)

2. I'm using Java as the programming language with libgdx as the graphics library and a number of my own libraries. libgdx is plain awesome for an experienced developer like me.

3. I'm doing this game on my free time but I'm a professional developer!

4.  This is very kind of you but I'm not looking for development support. I'm looking for support 1/ for translations (besides German, Italian, and French; for which I have translators already) 2/ maybe for pixelart in the near future, and 3/ for advertisement (but you did a lot commenting here already ;-)

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i would gladly translate to Portuguese (i'm brazilian)

in a similar topic, some of your english text is wrong

in descriptions of runics, where it describes what would happen if you applied it to each item, it says:

"...increases BY 10%..."

when it should say "increases TO 10%"

Thanks for the translation offer :-) It is noted!

Regarding the text, I believe "increase by" and "increase to" have different meanings; I use "increase by" to denote that the existing amount is increased by some additive value; whereas "increase to" would denote the total right away. I mean: 5 increased by 10 is 15, which corresponds to "increased to 15". Or did you mean that I meant "increased to" in the text ?

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u said about making the runic system less complicated

i don't think it is complicated at all

what is complicated is the monster "states"

infuritated... i have no idea what they do

oh, and slowness. all the time the mosnters put it on  me

Most monster states are also player states: infuriated works as if the monster had drunk a potion of fury, slowness works as if you had cast it on a monster. I feel like that there is so much in the descriptions already that I had thought this did not deserve a mention :-/

i imagined that was the case, however i never received a slowness runic. so i could never read it's description

i even thought about starting a game with the class that has it just so i could read it

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suggestions:

1. would be very useful a counter that says how many summons u currently have

2. show current/max health

3. spell descriptions should say their cooldown

Those are all good suggestions. I would have thought that 3. was there already ;-) At first I didn't want to overwhelm players with not-necessary numbers, that is why I had omitted health points; but I believe it is disturbing some players.

more suggestions:

1. when u see the enemies potential damage, take into consideration your damage reduction (thoughness/armor)

about this, i have a question

once, if i remember correctly, i had 9 damage reduction

when i put mouse above an enemy, it said "damage 1 to 4", however, i did take a little damage

why/how?

Because damage is never reduced below 1. In other words, if you were supposed to take some damage, you'll always at least suffer 1 damage.

what about taking into consideration your damage reduction to show the possible damage the enemy can deal?

oh, and the messages saying u received damage, could say how much it was

same for damage u do

why are some walls red?

Red walls are torches, but as you noted; it isn't explained anywhere ;-) It slightly changes the nearby lighting though.

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is there a way to have more than 1 save?

i would like to try other classes (i know they just change the stuff u start with) before i commit myself to the class i chose first

also, it would be nice to play different styles once in a while. but if i have to kill myself and start new game, that would suck

Unfortunately there is no way to have more than 1 save with the UI, because it required to handle user input (to name the savefile..) and it didn't yet reach the top of my priority list.

If you want to do it manually though, you can move the file  our_home_directory/.hgames/dm/save0 somewhere and restore it later on. Once this file is moved, restarting the game will change the main menu entry (Continue or New Game). Hope this helps!

maybe just do like some other games, where u have 3~save slots

If I had multiple save files, I would directly allow to name the file; it's not that much more work than having 3~ slots.

Admin

Hey, I just noticed the itch.io devlog link you have in your game description points to your dashboard, so one one else will be able to load the page!

Indeed, thanks for pointing it out! I've corrected the link. It now points to https://hgames.itch.io/dungeon-mercenary/devlog.