I don't seem to be able to pick up items in the newest version, unless I am doing it wrong, the how to play section says to click at them but it does nothing for me. I am on Windows 11, I tried restarting the game but it didn't help.
However the game seems very interesting, and I love the idea that the character gets captured instead of dying, very cool!
I’ve just tried the build from the site and picking up items seems to work fine for me in Windows 10.
Maybe you’re trying to click in the wrong place? You need to “step over” the item and click on the item name (in the bottom-right corner: this is “items on the ground”) to pick it up and equip: https://imgur.com/8Ql018g
There is no regular “inventory” in the game yet. The heroine can carry only the items she has equipped, at least for now. So, e.g. if she has an item in that slot, she will unequip it to equip a new one.
However if there are bondage items equipped (highlighted in purple color) - they can’t be unequipped that easily, press on names of those items in top-right corner to try struggle out of them. Some items (like bondage mittens or wrist bars) also prevent from equipping anything.
- Perhaps the descent into another level upon clicking the set of stairs could come with a confirmation message like "Proceed to next level?". I've faced a few situations where I've accidentally clicked on the stairs and went to the next level without actually fully exploring the current level that I was in.
- Maybe add a "screen panning" feature that allows you to move the screen without moving your character, for situations when you want to look around without zooming out.
Good progress so far, following this project with a close eye!
1 - Yes, exactly. I’m still in the middle of rework how map objects work (e.g. traps are now still “monsters” :D) - and one of the critical issues is to fix that bug with going down the level without confirmation. It’s very annoying, I know.
2 - Yes, I thought a lot about screen panning. That’s not hard - it’ll just need to rework Pause UI a bit. I guess adding panning there would be the best option - as it should be “active pause” to asses the situation and give orders, especially when there will be missions with multiple characters simultaneously.
Nice to hear about the missions things. I don't know if you're working on these too but maybe also:
- A transparent menu screen while resting to see when something is going to attack you, because having the enemy get the first hit on you while the resting screen abruptly shuts off, feels a little unfair to me to be honest. At least it should offer you a chance to dash away before the enemy's first attack lands on you. The rest icon imo should also be more lit up than the others so that players get to know that there is a button that you can press there which appears exclusively when you pause the game.
- The ability to see your character's overall statistics, so that I can see the total Damage Absorption value on my character if needed.
- A way to see how much time is left in either equipping/unequipping/repairing or attacking an enemy, like a circle timer that runs out or fills up around the character's in-game marker.
- The character when dashing also gets stuck on level geometry way too often, leading to runs being completely thrown away. Maybe any way to make the dash "Slippery" wherein it just slides along walls (as if it doesn't have any friction) may help with this issue.
Resting UI should be reworked significantly, I hate that button. However, the core idea is that resting is extremely dangerous, even on a clean level. Though, I’m not sure yet if this will be fun enough. I guess immediately starting pause mode when the heroine is attacked would be a better option for now. I’ll fix that in next update.
About UIs - yes, I need to rework them properly. All of those are planned.
Yes, I’m aware of this dashing bug (it hurts both dashing and stealth attacks). I’m not yet sure why it happens, but eventually I’ll need to investigate it, because it’s very annoying.
Can you please specify a bit more about those issues?
What is the OS you are using? Is it Windows, Linux or Android? What version?
Crash when going to the next level - I’ll investigate that. How often does that happen? How the crash manifests - you have some error message shown on screen or the game just closes or freezes?
Errors in start with 2 characters - does this happen on level “zero” or on deeper levels? On level zero (the settlement) - it’s intended. Every character rescued from the dungeon goes to the settlement and you can chose which one to control from Pause menu, there can be many of them. Other characters don’t have AI right now, but in future you’ll be able to take more than 1 character on some missions.
windows 11. crash happen once during first time playing. just froze. 2 character error happen when going to another level. 1 character move. other did not. maybe duplicate character image
Yes, freezes indeed happen, extremely rarely on my end - but maybe there is something that can “make them more frequent”? I’m aware of those, but I couldn’t track down the reason yet. You may track the status of the issue here : https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/178 (re-reading the ticket I noticed that it may be not related issue, so created a separate one for freezes when generating “regular maps”: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/232 - Maybe you can confirm it happened on one of the “upper levels”? (like level 1-5, not 6-10 and deeper))
Yes, indeed that bug with duplicate character also happened to me once. But as I was doing stress testing at that time, I thought it may have been a reason of some crash. You confirm that this may happen during a “normal playthrough”. I’ll prioritize to investigate this ticket: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/195 - and yes, you can switch between characters on current level through Pause menu, just as you would do in the settlement. She is just not properly set as “captured” for some reason.
In future there should be missions where you would be able to have several charters and switch between them. But that will be later (when I’ll make AI for companions).
Another problem is that your save game is now a bit glitched - there is no way you can extract that character from that level, you can only leave another in her place. You can “workaround” that by going into Options form Main Menu - you’ll have 3 red buttons on the very bottom and press “End Current Run”. This will set all characters not in the settlement as “captured” and start a new run. You should be able to rescue all of those without any issues later.
Yes, I plan to add males in the future. However, most likely - in relatively distant future :) It will require a lot of drawing. So first I want to have all “subsystems” in place that would define “what exactly sprites are needed” (different species, poses, facial expressions) and “how they should be organized”.
Very fun gameplay ideas. The item durability theme and rescue mechanic add a sexy spin to the roguelike elements.
The dodge roll feels very fun to use and I love the whole system of avoiding slow attacks through clever positioning. I think the player's own attack should also have some sort of indication of how long it's going to take, it can feel a bit awkward timing it.
The whole idea of having to choose which item to use without having an explicit inventory makes the game more fun in my opinion, but it is a bit punishing if you lose your weapon. Being able to carry a backup weapon or a smaller side-weapon might help the player feel a bit more in control.
I really like the semi-3D look of the dungeon, I thought it was very neat even in the progress previews. Some animated effect for when the attacks hit might be nice, but that's the only major visual cue that I think is missing.
Wishing you the best of luck with continued development. There are a lot of very interesting things this game does and I would love to see them all developed further.
Yeah, losing the weapon is the biggest trouble Player can get into, and it’s kinda semi-random. There will be a limited inventory a bit later - I’m still unsure how I want it though, but the idea to be able to store one (maybe only small) weapon is really cool, I like it, thank you!
I’m working on introducing a better feedback for player’s actions now - I already see it’s a big issue for most players. But it requires quite a big refactor: right now the “actions” were “pushed” just to make them work. One of the consequences is that to have a different action for Player character I had to use a “debug” action which doesn’t support visual feedback (and also prevents ability to have multiple different actions choices, e.g. heavy attack or quick attack). And also it will almost immediately add more diverse enemies attacks and traps mechanics. Hopefully I’ll be all fixed soon.
Hello! Thank you for the report! Can you please specify a bit more the issue?
Which OS do you use (Windows 64, Linux 64, Android)? What is the error message if any? You can’t extract the game, or the game crashes when you try to open it?
Note, there is a known bug on Windows systems, you shouldn’t put the game in folder that contains non-ASCII characters in case your user name also contains non-ASCII characters (e.g. in this situation putting the game on Desktop will hit the both conditions for a crash, put it somewhere into D:\Downloads\ or something like that).
Combat is, unfortunately, still a bit (significantly) confusing due to the absence of tutorial which is my horrible flaw. The biggest issue is absence of visual feedback that Player has performed the attack and can evade safely. But this is a prototype version after all…
So the main logic is that the character can attack and make a step back just in time to avoid monster’s attack (red/green/blue slimes). This way when getting into the rhythm player can avoid any damage very often. If too many enemies are around a dodge roll is usually safer as it gets away from danger quicker, but it uses vigor, so it’s not always an option to do it too often.
In future it’ll be changed a bit, and higher level characters will be faster in combat (which may determine it’s outcome completely). But in the current version it’s simple: Hit, retreat, hit, retreat.
Hi! Can you please tell what exactly problem are you experiencing? Some error message? If you are getting some vague “package parsing error” or “app not installed” can you please tell your Android version?
Neat little game. I think there are some balance issues still it is a tad bit getting better along the way, but when you die once it seems might either start over or bum rush each stairs since you get agroed instantly by slimes before equipping things. Nice little roguelike for few minute spurts though.
I would recommend either your respawning on a "prison floor" that has some basic stuff or making the slimes a little less aggressive or aware. Also some image outside of text noting that you are hitting like the monsters have.
I will say cheers on progress I down loaded when first posted and it is improving, so hope to see where goes. It is a nice little time killer and I know at this point you have the means to make better the way you have fixed things thus far I can tell you have something that can be fun in small bites or longer when completed.
I’ve just checked and could download it from both of my Android devices (5 and 11), it installs well and runs. Can you please specify what error message you are getting or maybe some additional information is shown on the screen?
Also note that if you can download, but can’t install the game - you need to allow installation of third-party APKs in your phone Settings. Your phone will usually prompt you to with a clear message when you click the downloaded file.
Very weird. Can you please tell your Android version? It should work with Android 4.2 and above, but I don’t have device older than 5.0 to test. Previous game ran fine on Android 4.2.2.
Yeah installing it from my phone download folder it starts the installation process but then says "app not installed" without elaboration. Then tried installing it over usb with android studio and it seemed to work fine weirdly enough? I don't understand why
I’ve just published a build with a fix for Android 12 installation (thanks to Deathcomes18 for reporting and testing it and Michalis Kamburelis for fixing it :)), can you please check if it helps with your issue:?
There's not too much but it's interesting and I like the art, background music and how the maps look (but the generation it's a bit weird, but I think it's ok right now), pretty nice :)
played a bit it seems combat is a bit hit or miss atm with the blue slimes really being hard to hit also noticed the auto pathing sometimes moves where i dont wanna go sometimes dont know what causes it
Yeah, I wanted to keep blue slimes as small enemies for some future boss spawns, but indeed it’s better to rework/remove them for now as they cause more annoyance. I’ll do that in the next update.
Pahtfinding is not very good because the map generation algorithm is not good - it’s not always clear where it’s possible to go and where not. I’ll need to fix that ASAP. But unfortunately that’s not for the next update.
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This game is becoming epic
Thank you! :D
I don't seem to be able to pick up items in the newest version, unless I am doing it wrong, the how to play section says to click at them but it does nothing for me. I am on Windows 11, I tried restarting the game but it didn't help.
However the game seems very interesting, and I love the idea that the character gets captured instead of dying, very cool!
Huge thank you for trying Vinculike! :D
I’ve just tried the build from the site and picking up items seems to work fine for me in Windows 10.
Maybe you’re trying to click in the wrong place? You need to “step over” the item and click on the item name (in the bottom-right corner: this is “items on the ground”) to pick it up and equip: https://imgur.com/8Ql018g
There is no regular “inventory” in the game yet. The heroine can carry only the items she has equipped, at least for now. So, e.g. if she has an item in that slot, she will unequip it to equip a new one.
However if there are bondage items equipped (highlighted in purple color) - they can’t be unequipped that easily, press on names of those items in top-right corner to try struggle out of them. Some items (like bondage mittens or wrist bars) also prevent from equipping anything.
Ohh, I am silly yeah I was clicking on the item in the map, not on the name of it haha. Thank you for your help
Yeah, the game lacks a tutorial badly :D I really need to make at least some overlay to show how to work with UI.
I've come with a few suggestions:
- Perhaps the descent into another level upon clicking the set of stairs could come with a confirmation message like "Proceed to next level?". I've faced a few situations where I've accidentally clicked on the stairs and went to the next level without actually fully exploring the current level that I was in.
- Maybe add a "screen panning" feature that allows you to move the screen without moving your character, for situations when you want to look around without zooming out.
Good progress so far, following this project with a close eye!
Thank you! :D
1 - Yes, exactly. I’m still in the middle of rework how map objects work (e.g. traps are now still “monsters” :D) - and one of the critical issues is to fix that bug with going down the level without confirmation. It’s very annoying, I know.
2 - Yes, I thought a lot about screen panning. That’s not hard - it’ll just need to rework Pause UI a bit. I guess adding panning there would be the best option - as it should be “active pause” to asses the situation and give orders, especially when there will be missions with multiple characters simultaneously.
Nice to hear about the missions things. I don't know if you're working on these too but maybe also:
- A transparent menu screen while resting to see when something is going to attack you, because having the enemy get the first hit on you while the resting screen abruptly shuts off, feels a little unfair to me to be honest. At least it should offer you a chance to dash away before the enemy's first attack lands on you. The rest icon imo should also be more lit up than the others so that players get to know that there is a button that you can press there which appears exclusively when you pause the game.
- The ability to see your character's overall statistics, so that I can see the total Damage Absorption value on my character if needed.
- A way to see how much time is left in either equipping/unequipping/repairing or attacking an enemy, like a circle timer that runs out or fills up around the character's in-game marker.
- The character when dashing also gets stuck on level geometry way too often, leading to runs being completely thrown away. Maybe any way to make the dash "Slippery" wherein it just slides along walls (as if it doesn't have any friction) may help with this issue.
Yes, most of those are planned! :)
Resting UI should be reworked significantly, I hate that button. However, the core idea is that resting is extremely dangerous, even on a clean level. Though, I’m not sure yet if this will be fun enough. I guess immediately starting pause mode when the heroine is attacked would be a better option for now. I’ll fix that in next update.
About UIs - yes, I need to rework them properly. All of those are planned.
Yes, I’m aware of this dashing bug (it hurts both dashing and stealth attacks). I’m not yet sure why it happens, but eventually I’ll need to investigate it, because it’s very annoying.
needs work but is okay. sometime crash when going to next level. sometimes there is erros in start where it has 2 characters
Thank you for your report!
Can you please specify a bit more about those issues?
What is the OS you are using? Is it Windows, Linux or Android? What version?
Crash when going to the next level - I’ll investigate that. How often does that happen? How the crash manifests - you have some error message shown on screen or the game just closes or freezes?
Errors in start with 2 characters - does this happen on level “zero” or on deeper levels? On level zero (the settlement) - it’s intended. Every character rescued from the dungeon goes to the settlement and you can chose which one to control from Pause menu, there can be many of them. Other characters don’t have AI right now, but in future you’ll be able to take more than 1 character on some missions.
windows 11. crash happen once during first time playing. just froze. 2 character error happen when going to another level. 1 character move. other did not. maybe duplicate character image
Huge thank you for the reply!
Yes, freezes indeed happen, extremely rarely on my end - but maybe there is something that can “make them more frequent”? I’m aware of those, but I couldn’t track down the reason yet. You may track the status of the issue here : https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/178 (re-reading the ticket I noticed that it may be not related issue, so created a separate one for freezes when generating “regular maps”: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/232 - Maybe you can confirm it happened on one of the “upper levels”? (like level 1-5, not 6-10 and deeper))
Yes, indeed that bug with duplicate character also happened to me once. But as I was doing stress testing at that time, I thought it may have been a reason of some crash. You confirm that this may happen during a “normal playthrough”. I’ll prioritize to investigate this ticket: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza/vinculike/-/issues/195 - and yes, you can switch between characters on current level through Pause menu, just as you would do in the settlement. She is just not properly set as “captured” for some reason.
In future there should be missions where you would be able to have several charters and switch between them. But that will be later (when I’ll make AI for companions).
Another problem is that your save game is now a bit glitched - there is no way you can extract that character from that level, you can only leave another in her place. You can “workaround” that by going into Options form Main Menu - you’ll have 3 red buttons on the very bottom and press “End Current Run”. This will set all characters not in the settlement as “captured” and start a new run. You should be able to rescue all of those without any issues later.
Will there be male version in the future?
Yes, I plan to add males in the future. However, most likely - in relatively distant future :) It will require a lot of drawing. So first I want to have all “subsystems” in place that would define “what exactly sprites are needed” (different species, poses, facial expressions) and “how they should be organized”.
Very fun gameplay ideas. The item durability theme and rescue mechanic add a sexy spin to the roguelike elements.
The dodge roll feels very fun to use and I love the whole system of avoiding slow attacks through clever positioning. I think the player's own attack should also have some sort of indication of how long it's going to take, it can feel a bit awkward timing it.
The whole idea of having to choose which item to use without having an explicit inventory makes the game more fun in my opinion, but it is a bit punishing if you lose your weapon. Being able to carry a backup weapon or a smaller side-weapon might help the player feel a bit more in control.
I really like the semi-3D look of the dungeon, I thought it was very neat even in the progress previews. Some animated effect for when the attacks hit might be nice, but that's the only major visual cue that I think is missing.
Wishing you the best of luck with continued development. There are a lot of very interesting things this game does and I would love to see them all developed further.
Huge thank you for your feedback!
Yeah, losing the weapon is the biggest trouble Player can get into, and it’s kinda semi-random. There will be a limited inventory a bit later - I’m still unsure how I want it though, but the idea to be able to store one (maybe only small) weapon is really cool, I like it, thank you!
I’m working on introducing a better feedback for player’s actions now - I already see it’s a big issue for most players. But it requires quite a big refactor: right now the “actions” were “pushed” just to make them work. One of the consequences is that to have a different action for Player character I had to use a “debug” action which doesn’t support visual feedback (and also prevents ability to have multiple different actions choices, e.g. heavy attack or quick attack). And also it will almost immediately add more diverse enemies attacks and traps mechanics. Hopefully I’ll be all fixed soon.
cant open it
Hello! Thank you for the report! Can you please specify a bit more the issue?
Which OS do you use (Windows 64, Linux 64, Android)? What is the error message if any? You can’t extract the game, or the game crashes when you try to open it?
Note, there is a known bug on Windows systems, you shouldn’t put the game in folder that contains non-ASCII characters in case your user name also contains non-ASCII characters (e.g. in this situation putting the game on Desktop will hit the both conditions for a crash, put it somewhere into D:\Downloads\ or something like that).
thanks
Finally, a rogue-like I like!
Combat are a bit confusing (old version, I don’t know if it changed).
I like the way the map looks. Nice retro-3D looking.
I think it’s going the right direction.
Thank you! :)
Combat is, unfortunately, still a bit (significantly) confusing due to the absence of tutorial which is my horrible flaw. The biggest issue is absence of visual feedback that Player has performed the attack and can evade safely. But this is a prototype version after all…
So the main logic is that the character can attack and make a step back just in time to avoid monster’s attack (red/green/blue slimes). This way when getting into the rhythm player can avoid any damage very often. If too many enemies are around a dodge roll is usually safer as it gets away from danger quicker, but it uses vigor, so it’s not always an option to do it too often.
In future it’ll be changed a bit, and higher level characters will be faster in combat (which may determine it’s outcome completely). But in the current version it’s simple: Hit, retreat, hit, retreat.
I can't download it from android
Hi! Can you please tell what exactly problem are you experiencing? Some error message? If you are getting some vague “package parsing error” or “app not installed” can you please tell your Android version?
For me it downloads and works without errors.
Now works too for me
Perfect!
Hello there! Did you manage to install the game? If not, can you please tell me what exactly doesn’t work or which error message you get?
oh sorry mb
oh sorry mb
now work
This Game look cool
Thank you! :)
Neat little game. I think there are some balance issues still it is a tad bit getting better along the way, but when you die once it seems might either start over or bum rush each stairs since you get agroed instantly by slimes before equipping things. Nice little roguelike for few minute spurts though.
I would recommend either your respawning on a "prison floor" that has some basic stuff or making the slimes a little less aggressive or aware. Also some image outside of text noting that you are hitting like the monsters have.
I will say cheers on progress I down loaded when first posted and it is improving, so hope to see where goes. It is a nice little time killer and I know at this point you have the means to make better the way you have fixed things thus far I can tell you have something that can be fun in small bites or longer when completed.
Thank you!
I’m working on this feature just right now :D The characters will get captured instead and next character will have to go down to the rescue :)
Doesn't let me download on android.
I’ve just checked and could download it from both of my Android devices (5 and 11), it installs well and runs. Can you please specify what error message you are getting or maybe some additional information is shown on the screen?
Also note that if you can download, but can’t install the game - you need to allow installation of third-party APKs in your phone Settings. Your phone will usually prompt you to with a clear message when you click the downloaded file.
"there was a problem parsing the package" it said
Very weird. Can you please tell your Android version? It should work with Android 4.2 and above, but I don’t have device older than 5.0 to test. Previous game ran fine on Android 4.2.2.
Android version 12
Thank you! There seems to be an issue that may be related. Investigating.
Thank you for reporting the issue and testing the fix! Michalis, author of Castle Game Engine, has fixed it and the new build is available!
Also you got discord?
Yes, eugeneloza#1285
Yeah installing it from my phone download folder it starts the installation process but then says "app not installed" without elaboration.
Then tried installing it over usb with android studio and it seemed to work fine weirdly enough? I don't understand why
Indeed, very weird. Can you please tell your Android OS version?
Edit: there may be a bug with Android version 12, investigating.
I’ve just published a build with a fix for Android 12 installation (thanks to Deathcomes18 for reporting and testing it and Michalis Kamburelis for fixing it :)), can you please check if it helps with your issue:?
abdl content?
If DuckDuckGo expands this acronym correctly, then no. Currently only cartoon nudity.
Bummer
There's not too much but it's interesting and I like the art, background music and how the maps look (but the generation it's a bit weird, but I think it's ok right now), pretty nice :)
Thank you! Yes, the map generation will be fixed ASAP, because it’s extremely confusing.
played a bit it seems combat is a bit hit or miss atm with the blue slimes really being hard to hit also noticed the auto pathing sometimes moves
where i dont wanna go sometimes dont know what causes it
Thank you!
Yeah, I wanted to keep blue slimes as small enemies for some future boss spawns, but indeed it’s better to rework/remove them for now as they cause more annoyance. I’ll do that in the next update.
Pahtfinding is not very good because the map generation algorithm is not good - it’s not always clear where it’s possible to go and where not. I’ll need to fix that ASAP. But unfortunately that’s not for the next update.
Fixed blue slime issue, release ready :)