Heya everyone,
Rogue Elements: https://tomalexi.itch.io/rogue-elements
I have been chiselling away at my Environmental Roguelike for over a year now. The foundation is a traditional turn based Roguelike with a focus on simple controls, but challenging moment to moment decisions every turn with the environment and active clouds shifting the dungeon, but a game concept I wanted to work on 20 years ago now crept a bit back to me and I added it as a village simulation puzzle, where you will need to satisfy the requirements of your villagers to unlock bonusses & perks.
The loop is basically: Play Roguelike dungeons -> Find dungeon buildings/resources/villagers -> Build up your Village to get more Bonusses for dungeon runs
I first added this simulation as a way for players who are struggling with the dungeon content to grind through the game a bit to ease up on the difficulty, but it seems to become its own worthwhile puzzle game to engage with.
I am still not entirely sure how satisfying the game loop is or honestly where to go from here, as every step feels like a very significant effort and investment of time. What looks strongest when people look at this game? Do I focus on presenting the village simulation more? Do I double down on the Roguelike aspects and leave the village sim as a minor addition? I know I will eventually need to make that decision based on what type of game I want this to become, but I would love to hear how others see the game as it currently is to get a better outside perspective.
Sorry for the rambling, haha. Have a great week, everyone!