Open Source top-down game - Warlock's Gauntlet

[rAum]

Hi!

Warlock's Gauntlet is an Open-Source community project, created by users from gamedev.pl - a polish game development site known as Warsztat (the workshop). It's a dynamic, top-down shooter (well, spell-caster) game, placing you - the player - in the role of a battlemage. The hero travels through maps filled with monsters, gaining experience and learning new spells. The game is similar to titles like Gauntlet or Diablo.

The game features over 12 action-packed levels which should amount to about two hours of gameplay; the player character can learn over 30 distinct spells. There is no networked multiplayer, but the game includes a hot-seat two-player mode. The game available entirely for free - the code is open source and the assets are licensed CC.

We are looking forward to your comments - both the positive and the negative ones. Either If you think you can help - with the graphics, sound, level design or by contriving a plotline - we would happy to have you You must be aware that the project is developed and managed in polish, so your contact with the team and understanding of ongoing issues could be lacking.


(Of course we are using SFML - version 1.4, however the migration to 1.6 is in progress. Also we consider using pure OpenGL to gain better performance and have better control which will enable us to implement some good stuff )

Download link - you can grab there version for Windows/Linux/MacOS

And just to entice you a bit to download and play the game below are some screenshots:



http://

// edit: updated download link, new screen

[Svenstaro]

Some first impressions: Overall looks are good!

Try to make each object have some alpha-blended blob shadow. It will give your game some automatic depth and contrast for each on-screen entity.

Look at your characters. They all seem to have hard edges along the alpha borders. You can easily blend these a bit.

Improve the font rendering and make the fonts more interesting.


Keep it up!

[Liosan]

Try to make each object have some alpha-blended blob shadow. It will give your game some automatic depth and contrast for each on-screen entity.

You think blob shadows would be better than the "animation shadow" we have under each character? Admitively, it's not under each object, but still we thought they did their job

Liosan

[Svenstaro]

Personally, I prefer blob shadow + animation shadow. Also, your animation shadows probably look better in motion and thus I wasn't able to judge it quite that well from these screenshots alone.

[Finn]

Looks great!
I'll download the game and test it

[Liosan]

Thanks Be sure to post some feedback when you do, we're counting on it

@Svenstaro: I didn't say earlier, but I filed your two other comments as bugs.

Liosan

[Spodi]

That was a surprisingly sweet game. Though after killing Zygmut (or whatever it was), there was just nothing to do and nowhere to go. Was that the end?

The game is similar to titles like Gauntlet or Diablo.

Funny, I never read what you wrote before playing, but was thinking exactly that while playing. I personally would've liked a bit more Diablo influence in it: more places to go, less linear, items, stats, etc. But that is just my preference.

[sultan_programistow]

That was a surprisingly sweet game. Though after killing Zygmut (or whatever it was), there was just nothing to do and nowhere to go. Was that the end?

Well... definitely that is the end (it was the third boss, the one summoning red crawlers and black mages, am I right?). However after wiping out the remaining enemies on the level and waiting a few seconds there should appear a nice 'congratulations' screen. Question why it hadn't?

Do you have saves from that level? If yes, would you pass them us for further examination? (Just zip contents of game './user' folder and attach them here in this thread)

regards,
SP

[Spodi]

Sorry, turns out I already deleted it. :? But yes, that was the boss. I didn't wait too long (no more than maybe 10 seconds). If it helps, I didn't have any other issues with the game and when I beat the boss, I had a healing sprite.

It was probably just me being impatient since I was about to stop playing anyways. :wink:

[rAum]

Sorry, turns out I already deleted it. :? But yes, that was the boss. I didn't wait too long (no more than maybe 10 seconds). If it helps, I didn't have any other issues with the game and when I beat the boss, I had a healing sprite.

Oh, I see. I think that the healing sprite may feel guilty. Even if he heals you, he is still implemented as enemy so I guess the game thought that you have one more to kill

Thanks for your feedback, glad you like it

[Finn]

Well...it's easy to cheat Just change a few things in the savefile^^

[Walker]

Congratulations on making a game that I've actually gone back after my first go to complete!

[Liosan]

That was a surprisingly sweet game.

Congratulations on making a game that I've actually gone back after my first go to complete!

Thanks people, I'm glad you like it We're doing our best. We've still got a few nice features we would like to implement, but I'm not going to give you any dates... I have no idea when we'll finish them.

Well...it's easy to cheat Just change a few things in the savefile^^

Or in the xmls defining the player. Or in the console command files. Or in the maps. Or use the console to change whatever you need. Or, for that matter, download the source code and recompile it so that the player is immortal The game is not exactly hardened Apart from the save file thing, how did you like it?

Liosan

[bobasaurus]

I played it through.  The game was really great... reminded me of diablo, but faster with even more hordes of enemies.  My only real complaint was the lack of spell slots (I was using the arrows for movement + qwe for slots control mode).  Remembering the complex keyboard shortcuts for un-slotted spells was tough.  I would also add some visual indicator on the character when low on health, reminding you to heal.  Right now it's easy to forget checking and die when careless.

[Nexus]

Nice game, I've also completed it

The graphics and sound effects are well done, it's really funny. Also the particles and spell effects look very good. However some spells seem to be imbalanced:

• Elemental revenge is pretty strong, yet consumes no mana? Is this a bug?
• To the contrary, spark rain doesn't seem to be very effective compared to its mana costs and cooldown time.
• Haste lasts only very shortly, you could make it last longer. Maybe a passive ability that permanently increases speed is another solution.
• I had problems casting some of the lightnings (I guess it was mainly Transfuse), nothing happened. I even died once because of that ;)
• The fire wall is easily penetrable by some enemies.
• Why does the healing look like you're bleeding? :D

Keep up the good work!