I did not see the franchise heading off in this direction...WTF?
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTSPIT/sword-of-the-stars-the-pit (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTSPIT/sword-of-the-stars-the-pit)
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Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a fun, fast, light-hearted turn-based RPG, where the tradition of Rogue and other old school dungeon-diving games meets the sci-fi Sword of the Stars universe, where the question to ask isn't "Did you make it to the end?" so much as "How far did you make it into The Pit before the monsters got you?"
Be brave, press on for the sake of your planet, and when all else fails, go out in a blaze of glory!
3 Characters to choose from... Marine, Pilot and Engineer!
30 Levels of ancient evil science between you and the cure!
Improve your character and increase your skills as you try and find a way to survive the depths.
Dozens and dozens of enemies drawn from the Sword of the Stars universe!
Over 50 weapons and armors with a variety of special effects including flamethrowers, rocket launchers, plasma cannons and powered Brawler armor!
Randomized augmentation effects (for your equipment... and for you!) make each game unique.
Crafting lets you make special items from bits and pieces of your enemies.
Over 100 items to discover, ranging from the familiar to ancient exotic tech.
Dozens of room types containing a host of exotic devices to help - or maybe hinder - your progress.
Discover and decipher hidden messages, crafting recipes, and pieces of Sword of the Stars lore!
Many fiendish ways to die including poisoning, disease, traps, radiation, starvation and of course... MONSTERS.
Well it started as a fundraiser program, but the Indigogo funding didn't make it.
They are still going to release it, though.
I pledged back in the day. Not for the game, but to support Kerberos. So I am running in the beta.
I can't tell anything because of the signed NDA, but suffice to say it positively surprised me. It's a pretty cool game with neat retro graphics, all in the SotS world.
The Pit is their own project, not tied to any publisher, as SotS was.
I have no idea what their next plans are.
SotS 2 is still going to be expanded, but I think The Pit isn't going to be so much.
I wondered how long until a thread about it popped here :P
Yeah, they seem to have decided to make a sci-fi rogue-like game.
I guess they don't feel very much up to the task of doing an AAA title right now (so soon after the debacle of SOTS2's release).
Seeing how dreadful their Fort Zombie game turned out to be, I am not confident in this project...or any other Kerberos project for that matter.
Oh hell yes! I'm all about non-ASCII roguelikes. :D
Hopefully it's got enough in it to be entertaining. I've put 200 hours into
Dredmor and still fire it up on occasion. Would be nice to have a sci-fi one of fair quality and depth.
Hrmm....
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Published on February 19, 2013,
The Pit is nearly ready for release! We have mere hours now before the completed game (and the new demo) are available for download.
Almost ready for release? Why didn't I hear about this earlier?
Quote from: RooksBailey on February 20, 2013, 04:32:21 PM
Seeing how dreadful their Fort Zombie game turned out to be, I am not confident in this project...or any other Kerberos project for that matter.
This. They've released three games - two of which took years to fix, and one that never got fixed at all.
Looks like I'll be the guinea pig this time.
S'ok. It's ten bucks so I'll spin the wheel.
The gamersgate page says it'll be released "today".
Good grief, what's with the name of this thing? We get that you're trying to create some sort of link to the series you're known for in the minds of potential buyers, but it's AWFUL. What's next?
Sword of the Stars : The Summoning (with the player as a spellcasting necromancer fighting for evil)
Sword of the Stars : The Heat (Who doesn't want to play a game involving a cooking competition?)
Sword of the Stars : Beneath the Waves (thrilling submarine combat!)
Sword of the Stars : The Crunch (Not even a game, it's a tax accounting program!)
Quote from: Arctic Blast on February 21, 2013, 01:17:52 AM
Good grief, what's with the name of this thing? We get that you're trying to create some sort of link to the series you're known for in the minds of potential buyers, but it's AWFUL. What's next?
Sword of the Stars : The Summoning (with the player as a spellcasting necromancer fighting for evil)
Sword of the Stars : The Heat (Who doesn't want to play a game involving a cooking competition?)
Sword of the Stars : Beneath the Waves (thrilling submarine combat!)
Sword of the Stars : The Crunch (Not even a game, it's a tax accounting program!)
LOL! You almost made me choke on my ice tea with that last program! ;D +1
I agree that the name for the game is just awful.
But if you like Dungeons of Dredmor, but also like a sci-fi setting, then probably you'll like The Pit too.
It's a fun roguelike which doesn't take itself very seriously. It's certainly much less serious than the SotS lore, eventhough it takes place in the same world.
Played a bit this morning.
'The Pit' reminds me of the freeware Roguelike version of Doom. Except it has more stuff to paw through and find, which was what I thought the Doom Roguelike needed.
I think The Pit could've used a bit more content-wise, as there aren't any special abilities you can use - it's all skill/stat based modifiers and that's where you point your level-up points. It will still force you to focus on a few of the numerous combat & looting skills, but the RPG system is pretty light but it looks like there's a decent amount of unlockable crafting recipes in it.
It's definitely roguelike in difficulty. I made it to "Sub Level" 8 on my first run, on normal. As with numerous other roguelikes it has a little tongue-in-cheek feel and nerdy references like the Sub Level name, amongst others.
Is it better than Dungeons of Dredmor? I don't think so. There's not enough character customization for that, and less content overall. But it's not bad if you would enjoy the Doom Roguelike with more containers to open and craftable items. I grabbed it for about $8 at Gamersgate, as it had a small discount on it, and it has absolutely no DRM at all (not even a serial) so I'm fine with the purchase. I would like to see more added to it, but I'd be willing to bet it's just a one-off side project.
Well, I've decided to grab this as well.
Will try it out later.
Strange, I backed this and they have not sent the key. Perhaps today? I was under the impression that backers would get a key before release.
Didn't get mine either yet...
This game is quite nice (from the little I got to play it).
It does however REALLY REALLY NEED a Save/Load system.
You shouldn't have to start a whole new game every darn time you have to exit the game.
I am pretty sure the beta had a save/load feature...
Not sure why they would get rid of that.
I was able to reach Sub-level 10 as a Level 7-8 Marine before the game crashed on me :P
Kinda fun TBH.
Quote from: Tpek on February 21, 2013, 03:40:16 PM
This game is quite nice (from the little I got to play it).
It does however REALLY REALLY NEED a Save/Load system.
You shouldn't have to start a whole new game every darn time you have to exit the game.
It automatically saves your game if you exit (before dying).
Being, literally, a roguelike - it doesn't allow "save scumming" so you can't reload after you die. It's all about the high score & how far you can get before you do get murderized.
As for the game, all the unlocking of containers seems to take up too much play time. While it's cool that your skill distribution dictates how often & what types of loot containers you can open, the turns seem to pass rather slowly when you take five or six to pry open or repair something so you can use it. I wish that moved along a bit faster, at least in real-time.
EDIT: Now that there's been a report of a crash, it does give me concern about not having a quick save option of some kind. That can be a problem with these games that only save when you exit - a CTD that wipes your hard-won progress.
I'm not sure if The Pit automatically makes a save every once in awhile or not. Were you able to select "Load Game" from the menu when you started it back up, Tpek?
^I'll try it.
Yeah, it does work :)
And damn, this game is really addictive.
This thing can get really brutal, even for a roguelike.
I was playing an Engineer and made it to sub-level 9. Opened a door to an armory room and saw two Security Bot Mk2s closer to the far side of the room so shut the door and went around to a closer entrance. Because a door trap had zapped my only gun - the revolver I had started with. So I was down to my Knife and a Virbro Sword I had luckily found, recently. Anyway.. I opened the door closer to these bots, hoping to give them less time shooting me while I closed, and two of those damned huge Proto Beast things were right next to the door - and come at me (bro). Ya know.. the kind that do damage to every weapon in your inventory every time they attack, and even more to a melee weapon you use on them? Yeah. That. It took about three turns before all the rest of my weapons were gone and I was punching them with fists while that just made them divide up into the smaller (medium-sized) protean beasts, and their grapple ability held me in place. X.X
I'd like to see more features in this thing and a bit speedier turn advancement. But it's a decent roguelike, despite a few freebies having more meat to them.
EDIT... almost forgot:
Tips!
1) Close doors before opening/fixing the broken containers/work stations, if you think there may be critters nearby but don't want to waste time clearing further out before opening.
2) Listen for the sound cues. Aliens & bots start making noises when they're near. The audio in the game is rather quiet, and I have to turn my volume up a good deal to hear it better - but it's a great help.
3) Reload when you get some breathing room (you knew that already, right). Use your knife or blade to dispatch the wounded or weak critters next to you, to save on ammo.
4) Raising your Lockpicking skill is always needed. I suppose that's why it's first in the skill list. I don't think higher weapon skill does much other than very slowly raise your damage potential. Your Finesse rating looks to be what affects your accuracy, along with the accuracy rating of the weapon itself. If you need to skip raising one of your higher-rated weapon skills during a level-up, don't be afraid to do so in order to raise one of your looting skills instead.
5) Crafting is a serious pain in the ass. I don't think I'll learn many recipes without using Data Terminals and rolling well on the Decipher skill to find out some recipes. Meanwhile, a lot of ingredients will suck up your inventory space after awhile, so dump some of the odd ones if need be.
Some crafting recipe hints I've received thus far:
1) Some kind of Medical Kit/Heal/Cure thingy -- Bindings, *?* , *?* , Bone Slivers = profit
(I suspect the one or both of the unknowns in the middle are the medical liquid ingredients shown as a colored syringe)
2) Something about BOTS. -- Cyber Brain, Energy Cell, Electronic Parts
(Perhaps either a decoy that draws them in or some kind of control device? I've not created it yet.)
Those are the only deciphered hints I've had thus far. Many of the Deciphered messages are just flavor text, or warnings regarding mob behavior.
I generally play Marine on the easy difficulty, so it's not that brutal.
And I did encounter those huge white acid spewing tentacled monstrosities.
It destroyed nearly all my equipment.
And when I was finally able to take it down, it turned into 2 lesser version of itself :o
OK, so I guess the backers just got the shaft then. Not happy about still having no code.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on February 22, 2013, 12:21:10 PM
OK, so I guess the backers just got the shaft then. Not happy about still having no code.
Have you tried contacting the devs?
And by contacting I mean pestering them with emails and frequenting their forum.
Yeah, SoM. I'd be raising a stink on their forums if they haven't forked it over. If one person had the issue, there are likely more so maybe they just need to be reminded who didn't get it?
Looks like they just released a $5 expansion for SOTS: The Pit, the roguelike.
It adds a couple new classes, some items & areas, and Psionic skills!
http://www.gamersgate.com/DLC-SOTSPMG/sword-of-the-stars-the-pit-mindgames
Once I get back to playing it, this will be mine.
One thing I don't like about these new roguelike(likes) is that they often have some kind of meta progression meaning the more you play the stronger your characters get. The Pit does this with crafting recipes that you have to discover by deciphering messages and once you've acquired all the recipes, the deciphering skill becomes completely useless. So basically you have to gimp bunch of your characters with this skill whose only purpose is to increase your meta power (which is obtainable by reading spoilers anyway) and has no impact on the gameplay itself. I view this as a serious design flaw and unfortunately it's quite commong nowadays. Rogue Legacy is a prime example of this as the whole point of the game is farming gold for persistent upgrades.
I'd say one of the worst offenders, of the game becoming easier the more you play it, is Rogues Tale. http://www.desura.com/games/rogues-tale
While I generally like that one, it's extremely difficult so each game is very short compared to others. The biggest concern is that as you manage to collect specific sets of equipment, it'll give you extra starting kit for each new game to choose from (once you've unlocked it). So it actually starts off brutally difficult and will become easier to survive the initial part once you've managed to gather some stuff. While I like the concept of having to collect specific loot to unlock such starting 'classes', I thought the rewards made that initial cliff even higher. He probably should've granted a freebie kit (warrior of course) at the beginning and then let people unlock all the others to even out the difficulty curve.
Anyway.. that one's a fun game but each session is rather short in comparison to most roguelikes. I had spoken to the guy in-game (there's an in-game chat like that in TOME) and he says that he wants to expand on the content to make it longer, so hopefully that pans out as I'd like to see each session last longer before X.X
NOTE: Last I checked, there was a free 'demo' version of Rogue's Tale .. perhaps on their home site (?) if you want to try it.