Din's Curse - New Roundup

Dhruin

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Several Din's Curse items lobbed into the inbox, so I'll group them here. Let's start with an interview over at The Rampant Coyote, which discusses Steven Peeler's background, Din's Curse and what might be next for Soldak Entertainment:
Rampant Coyote: You’ve incorporated a lot of roguelike elements into Din’s Curse. Can you tell me more about them?
Steven Peeler: Actually the funny thing is I really haven’t purposely pulled many ideas from roguelikes. Diablo took the idea of rogue, added nice graphics, and simplified it a lot. Din starts with a Diablo action RPG concept and adds a lot more depth. So it’s not too surprising that we overlap roguelikes quite a bit.
Some of the things we have in common are a hardcore mode, lots of environmental interaction, and special rooms. Hardcore (also know as permadeath) is only an option, but it’s there for those that like that tense, danger feeling. There are tons of objects to interact with in the environment like traps, dangerous liquids like magma and oil, support beams that are holding up the ceiling, obelisks that can give you cool temporary boosts, and many more cool things. Beware many monsters can also use the environment to their advantage! As for special rooms, we have things like vaults, lairs, and treasure rooms which are very similar to some roguelikes.
There's also an interview at Random Tower.
Ausgamers has a review, with a score of 7.7/10. It's a bit hard to pull a good quote from this one but here we go:
The loot system is extensive, with item rarity, dual weapon wielding, sets of legendary equipment, cursed and egotistical articles. There is also a system of pouches for storing items, and chests for storing personal items, as well as items for other characters you have on the go. So if your Priest finds a wizbang double handed sword that he can’t use, store it in the town chest for next time you play with the Warrior you are developing.
Finally, the official site has some new monster profiles on offer.
More information.
 
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Both are nice interviews. I hope he picks up something new instead of a sequel - the originality of his games is really the most exciting thing about Soldak, and I hope he keeps exploring new ideas.
 
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I wonder why he isn´t trying something more different with his games. I mean: he made three diablo clones in a row. With a little twist though, but just how many more of those games the world needs? I dont like diablo clones so i could not enjoy any of his games til now. Always waiting for the next one.
Why not make a turn based rpg the next time? Is it to risky in terms of user acceptance?
I would really love to play a soldak game with the typical good graphics and little gameplay twists, but just with turn based combat, or at least something drastically different (i guess it boils down to the combat).

Also having just played the demo of Dins Curse, the interface / interaction could be a little bit more user friendly. The font with all the different sizes is strange. And when i point at a monster the info (HP, Name) is at the top right of the screen, while text messages are in the center of the screen. Shouldn´t it be the opposite? It is all a bit rough and chaotic. (as my english is, so i stop here.)
 
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I wonder why he isn´t trying something more different with his games. I mean: he made three diablo clones in a row. With a little twist though, but just how many more of those games the world needs? I dont like diablo clones so i could not enjoy any of his games til now. Always waiting for the next one.
Why not make a turn based rpg the next time? Is it to risky in terms of user acceptance?

Perhaps because some people like ARPGs? Isn't this question a bit like asking why do they keep making Wargames, FPS games, RTS, RPGs when there are so many already? How many games does the world need?

Just because a game isn't your preferred style doesn't mean it's not someone else's. Turn-based RPGs are likely a smaller niche then even ARPGs, which is what I call the games as opposed to Diablo-clone, which is the way a lot of people who dislike ARPGs prefer to call them.

There are a lot of developers who focus on one genre of games. I don't personally play many FPS games, but I don't criticize Valve for continuing to make them either.
 
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Perhaps because some people like ARPGs? Isn't this question a bit like asking why do they keep making Wargames, FPS games, RTS, RPGs when there are so many already? How many games does the world need?

Just because a game isn't your preferred style doesn't mean it's not someone else's. Turn-based RPGs are likely a smaller niche then even ARPGs, which is what I call the games as opposed to Diablo-clone, which is the way a lot of people who dislike ARPGs prefer to call them.

There are a lot of developers who focus on one genre of games. I don't personally play many FPS games, but I don't criticize Valve for continuing to make them either.

Of course you are right. I just always hope to get games from indie developers which i won´t get from mainstream publishers anymore. I mean there are tons of diablo clones out there and so few turn based combat games. But of course soldak can produce the games they want. It was a mere plea them.
 
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It's possible to not catch the gameplay of din's Curse but if there's a Diablo clone that made it different than the Diablo series it's Din's Curse. It's the less clone of the Diablo clones. And yes the world needs it when it could drop most other Diablo clones.

EDIT: In fact his first game, Depth of Peril was also another Diablo clone very different to Diablo series. It would worth a Depth of Peril clone with additional tuning, better graphics, more polished gameplay.
 
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Why not make a turn based rpg the next time? Is it to risky in terms of user acceptance?

I would like to do a turn based RPG some day. I'm not sure when that will happen though.

It would be a risk for us, because we could potentially lose a good chunk of our current customers with a change from real-time to turn based. Of course for a small indie just about everything is risky. :)
 
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I'm playing ton of turn based game, ok most are on DS but I wonder why turn based disappeared on PC. My little bet is Japanese Art and Culture is deeply linked to symbolism when Occidental Art and Culture made a switch to symbolism only very recently, I don't know the exact dates but that could be between 100/150 years ago. Anyway realism is more important for Occidental players and turn based is less realistic. But on gameplay value point of view, turn based is probably superior even if it's also different qualities. The good point is that average game buyers age is going older and older and the lower are your reflex the more you enjoy turn based games. :)
 
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I would like to do a turn based RPG some day. I'm not sure when that will happen though.

It would be a risk for us, because we could potentially lose a good chunk of our current customers with a change from real-time to turn based. Of course for a small indie just about everything is risky. :)

To avoid that risk you could make it optional, like the auto-pause options in the infinity engine or in Drakensang...

(not really turn based but round based - I know)

Of course that increases development cost, mainly w.r.t. balancing and testing..
 
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I'm playing ton of turn based game, ok most are on DS but I wonder why turn based disappeared on PC.

I think there are just simply more real-time players than turned based and AAA games tend to just follow wherever the majority is.

To avoid that risk you could make it optional, like the auto-pause options in the infinity engine or in Drakensang…

We have actually had at least one player play our games like they were turned based by pausing frequently. It's not built for this and it sounds really strange, but she said it was fun. :)
 
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We have actually had at least one player play our games like they were turned based by pausing frequently. It's not built for this and it sounds really strange, but she said it was fun. :)
Hm, may be I will give that a try...
 
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I used the pause a lot too and don't remember any other similar game working like that with pause.

I used it a lot but totally merged to the action and that's what no other game allowed to me, there's a slippery of movements making the whole working rather well.

Here an "example" with a long range attack: Move, pause, aim and target, unpause, and your movement continue itself because of a slippery system. Ie I constantly pause for a very short time to aim any target. It's the only game like that where I never used the "shift" key to shoot without moving.

EDIT: One use of many quick short pause is aiming but there's another, it's to mix movements and do something else at same time. The point is that for many skills/spells/attacks if you trigger them during movement, you movement order stop but the movement continue with a relatively long slipping. With many short pauses you can exploit it a lot to constantly move and do something else. Beside long range attack I used it a lot for enter stealth mode, but there's many other utility of exploiting quick pauses and slipping system.
 
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I would like to do a turn based RPG some day. I'm not sure when that will happen though.

It would be a risk for us, because we could potentially lose a good chunk of our current customers with a change from real-time to turn based. Of course for a small indie just about everything is risky. :)

Nice hearing that. I think that turn based combat rpgs just need a boost of creativity to make them interesting again.

Regarding loosing customers: Is that "just" your fear, or have you done some polls on your website?
 
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I think there are just simply more real-time players than turned based and AAA games tend to just follow wherever the majority is.

On most game system perhaps, on DS I doubt the majority is real-time. I wonder how many units sold for turn based game like Civilization IV, King's Bounty the legend, some FF released on PC and more. That said if I would be very interested in a sort of Din's curse turn based, in term of design it's a totally different challenge to design an action game and a turn based game.
 
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Regarding loosing customers: Is that "just" your fear, or have you done some polls on your website?

It's more of a gut feel, but we did experience it a bit with Kivi's Underworld since it was a very different game than either Depths of Peril or Din's Curse.

On most game system perhaps, on DS I doubt the majority is real-time. I wonder how many units sold for turn based game like Civilization IV, King's Bounty the legend, some FF released on PC and more. That said if I would be very interested in a sort of Din's curse turn based, in term of design it's a totally different challenge to design an action game and a turn based game.

I mostly was referring to the PC market. I'm a big fan of games like Civ, MOO, ToEE, and the old gold box games. I wish we had more of them these days. :(
 
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It's more of a gut feel, but we did experience it a bit with Kivi's Underworld since it was a very different game than either Depths of Peril or Din's Curse.



I mostly was referring to the PC market. I'm a big fan of games like Civ, MOO, ToEE, and the old gold box games. I wish we had more of them these days. :(


Man, an gold box like game with your engine with party based combat would be so cool! ;)

While i love Eschalon i think it´s turn based combat is a little bit unsatisfactory because there is no party and thus no big strategic decisions.
 
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Man, an gold box like game with your engine with party based combat would be so cool! ;)

While i love Eschalon i think it´s turn based combat is a little bit unsatisfactory because there is no party and thus no big strategic decisions.

If we ever do a turn based game I'm pretty sure it will have a party. I personally prefer to control only 1 character in action RPGs and multiple characters in turn based.
 
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Eschalon Book I was a first design (I believe), I'm waiting the Mac version to play Book II. Secondly when you dig the fights in Book I they show qualities, it had to because fights are an important part of the game and Book I is a very good game.

Anyway I'm fully for party based but fights turn based with one character can be a lot better. You just need try some Roguelike as ADOM or Shiren the wanderer to know it.

I also think that some of the best fights idea of Diablo like games could be reused in a turn based game, that includes Din's curse and Torchlight. Pets is also a possible key element to explore in single character turn based, ADOM shows some good points even if pets end to be a burden, the same for companions in Shiren. I also think that single character turn based hasn't been explored as thoroughly than party turn based and there's perhaps more to do.

The key point of single character in turn based is to be more light than with a party, less controls, fights less long, more mobile than a party during fights, less enemies (4 vs 1 is something else than 4 vs 4), exploration mode more natural, less inventories to manage. I don't throw my vote to solo turn based, party brings a lot of plus with RPG, I just mean that single character in turn based has qualities party design doesn't have and that it's probably a design not explored enough out of the very special context of Roguelike games.
 
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I also think that single character turn based hasn't been explored as thoroughly than party turn based and there's perhaps more to do.

Lots of good points in there, but I wanted to point out that I completely agree with this. I might like party turn based play, but that might just be because not enough games have shown how cool a single character turn based game can be.
 
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