Inspired by Hero Quest, a game for Android and Windows Phone

[KT_Cobra]

This is awesome. I'm gonna try it now. Thanks!

[Goblin-King]

QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Does it still make sense to keep the "Search for secrets" and "Search for treasures" actions separated?
Wouldn't be simpler to have a "Search secrets and treasures" action?

I'd say go for this. A single "Search" button. The only reason to keep it separate is to honor HQ.

[KT_Cobra]

I really think you should have the treasures seperate from traps and secret doors.

[Goblin-King]

I really think you should have the treasures seperate from traps and secret doors.

I was too fast! On second thought I agree with this
Treasure and secrets. That's the way to go.

[KT_Cobra]

Disclaimer: There are 1000+ ways to do a game and all of them have the potential to be fun. I don't hold the answers, just qualified opinions

That being said... Here are some opinions:

This is a niche game. There are many dungeon crawlers like it, but this is built up to be an almost 1:1 of HeroQuest.
I think you should keep the fundamentals - fading into generic RPG conventions could possible remove that particular flavor.

Character progression (levels) could easily be kept Gold/equipment based by simply expanding the range of equipment available at the shop.
The equipment slots could be expanded as well to accommodate this. Right now we have weapon, shield, armor, ring and amulet. Add helmet, cloak and boots and we are good to go.
Extra attack/HP/MP/spells or even special abilities could easily be bound to items.
That way you as the programmer and us as the players only have to manage one resource: Gold!

Kill monsters? Get gold! Explore Rooms? Get gold! Complete quests? Get gold!
Everything you want the players to do is rewarded with gold. Push on instead of going back to town? +5% gold!

Never ever allow unlimited healing in a game like this. It is almost always game breaking. Seriously! Don't do this!
I can almost guarantee that after every single battle the average player will hurdle up all heroes and heal back to full. EVERY... SINGLE... BATTLE!
Casting extra spells are fine, but make it impossible to abuse. Perhaps like; The first 3 spells you use are not consumed.

As for the decision whether to heal, half heal or whatever between levels.
The easy option could be to just put it in as options. I like the option to play normal or hardcore.
But I still feel like the best way to do it is to just heal the players. The price you are paying is that you don't get to spend gold on equipment.
Sure you can push on... Maybe you are a pretty good strategist. But sooner or later you WILL... NEED... better equipment to survive. (at least if the level designer remembers to actually increase the difficulty)

And finally. You should add an option to put in custom text when opening chests and entering rooms.
Just little pieces of flavor like in the quest notes. The orc in the middle of the room is Grakzul! He looks mad with bloodlust...

I have to say, what Goblin-King said right here, I agree with for the most part. I feel like the game should be kept as close to an HQ feel as possible; however, I also understand why you'd want to add character development such as XP to keep things leveled against AI.

Another thing...
I'm sure you don't want to hear this, and this is just MY opinion, but I feel like I prefer seeing a tile-like symbol for the character (facial or entire body) rather than an actual character as pictured below as you posted before:


I know the picture is a work in progress, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents.
I'm really enjoying the game, by the way. Great job!
I'm going to give the editor a try.

[nante]

I really think you should have the treasures separate from traps and secret doors.

I was too fast! On second thought I agree with this
Treasure and secrets. That's the way to go.

Is there a reason for this? I think it would really simplify the life of the player to just have one search action. I know it may be a bit unrealistic to search treasures while there are monsters around, but that's the player decision to spend his action to search instead of attacking.
I'm still unconvinced

[KT_Cobra]

I really think you should have the treasures separate from traps and secret doors.

I was too fast! On second thought I agree with this
Treasure and secrets. That's the way to go.

Is there a reason for this? I think it would really simplify the life of the player to just have one search action. I know it may be a bit unrealistic to search treasures while there are monsters around, but that's the player decision to spend his action to search instead of attacking.
I'm still unconvinced

Simply put, it adds depth. It would be much more rewarding to players to have spent the time to make sure they've searched for all traps and treasures and been rewarded accordingly rather than having a four-person quest be finished more quickly as they each go through the rooms and with only one action turn be able to check for everything. I like having to take care of monsters first and have that bit of nervousness/worry as to whether or not I'm going to step on a trap. I also like (believe it or not) wondering whether or not I checked that room waaay back there for treasure.

[Goblin-King]

I really think you should have the treasures separate from traps and secret doors.

I was too fast! On second thought I agree with this
Treasure and secrets. That's the way to go.

Is there a reason for this? I think it would really simplify the life of the player to just have one search action. I know it may be a bit unrealistic to search treasures while there are monsters around, but that's the player decision to spend his action to search instead of attacking.
I'm still unconvinced

The reason I would prefer a split between traps+secret doors and treasure is because one is meant for survival+progress and the other is just for greed.
If you rush through without checking for traps you might die.
If you rush through without checking for secret doors you might get stuck.

These two are pretty essential for completing the game.

If you rush through without checking for treasure you get less treasure... That's it basically.
Okay, so in the long run you might die as a consequence of being under-geared. But at that point it's pretty much the player's own fault.

[nante]

Yes, but a player can simply search for treasures when the room has been cleaned up. So it's basically just an additional action he has to do but there's not much strategy involved, he just has to remind to search for treasures before leaving a room.

Let me think about it

[KT_Cobra]

The reason I would prefer a split between traps+secret doors and treasure is because one is meant for survival+progress and the other is just for greed.
If you rush through without checking for traps you might die.
If you rush through without checking for secret doors you might get stuck.

These two are pretty essential for completing the game.

If you rush through without checking for treasure you get less treasure... That's it basically.
Okay, so in the long run you might die as a consequence of being under-geared. But at that point it's pretty much the player's own fault.

Agreed.

Yes, but a player can simply search for treasures when the room has been cleaned up. So it's basically just an additional action he has to do but there's not much strategy involved, he just has to remind to search for treasures before leaving a room.

Let me think about it

I completely understand what you mean here. But this is assuming you have players who would want to search for everything before moving on or get distracted from doing those things because of monsters in the next room or hallway or maybe even get chased away by a strong monster(s). Secret doors add so much more mystery to the game. I remember some HQ quests that forced you to find a secret door before advancing.