There’s still more to come for 100 Rogues (stay tuned), but in a way adding this fourth class feels like a sort of “completion” for the game’s development.  And because of that feeling, it gives me an opportunity to really look back on the game.  If you’ll indulge me, before I get into some details about the Dinoman Bruiser, I’d like to say a few things about the game, a retrospective if you will, as the game designer.

I am so, so proud of this game. It fills my heart with joy when I think about it.

After the Scoundrel came out, the lead artist Blake and I (aka Dinofarm Games) mostly moved on to other projects (such as our current title in development, Auro: The Golden Prince).  After two full years of a rather tumultuous development, we needed a break.  Of course, our programmer, Wes Paugh, has been on the project all along, fixing bugs and adding the fantastic Monster Classes (which he himself designed), as well as several new exciting game modes.

In December, however, we were asked to rejoin the team to create the Dinoman Bruiser.  At that point, I dove back into the game.  Having had some distance from the development of the game itself, I could look at it a little bit more objectively, and simply play – as a player.  And I absolutely loved it!  I had a total blast.  I am totally confident with 100 Rogues.  Its gameplay, its charm, its art, its music – it’s just a really great, unique, original thing.  It’s not to say that I don’t have a few issues with the game still, but they are vastly overshadowed by the strengths in my opinion.

Dinofarm Games made this game to show the world what we can do, and I feel satisfied that 100 Rogues is representative of us as a company.

Back to the Dinoman

Now, that’s not to say that we haven’t learned a lot along the way.  We used a lot of gameplay testing information and experience when designing the Scoundrel, and the Dinoman has even more of an advantage in this way.

A BRUISER CHARGING INTO BATTLE

I plan on writing a full post about the Dinoman’s skills, but just to touch on a few key elements about him…

• The Bruiser is a completely feral monster with colossal strength and titanic durability
• Because of his size, he can’t wear armor, and can’t grasp most weapons (except for Heavy Armament weapons)
• He has natural armor, but takes extra damage from magic, so he’s weak to casters
• He can eat ANY item for food!  Careful though, some items have strange effects on a Dino-Belly…
• He’s very capable in un-armed combat and has a lot of useful tactical physical attacks

…Most horrible of all, though…

• The Dinoman Bruiser has a terrifying DINO-FORM!!!  *thunder crashes*

DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT! AUUUGHGHGHGHGH!!!!

Anyway, like I said – expect a more complete post in the coming days or weeks.  The Dinoman himself should be out sometime in February, we think.  And stay tuned — more surprises await 100 Rogues fans right around the corner!  Seriously!!!

Thanks again to all our fans for supporting us!

At first glance, the Knight seems almost too powerful. His weapon deals more damage than most starting weapons, and he can take an area of effect spell as his first ability.

Wall of Swords: Spectral blades surround the Knight. At the end of each turn, each enemy occupying a space in the 8 tiles surrounding the Knight takes a bit of damage. This ability lasts for 10 turns, and deals more damage for each point put into the skill.

Stunning attack: What the Knight does choose to attack, he hits hard, and won’t let his targets escape. A Knight can learn to swing his sword so as to bludgeon as well as cleave, leaving the target unable to act for a turn.

Combined, these abilities can kill quickly and effectively. However, Wall of Swords does not scale damage over time, making the ability less useful later in the game. Stunning attack contributes to the Knight’s overall strength in carving a path to his goal and worrying less about monsters that get in his way.

The monsters that get in his way certainly don’t just let themselves get shrugged off, either. The potential damage that Zombies, Evil Rats and Bullies can deal in even one or two turns is life-threatening, even with the Knight’s naturally higher armor and health. Combat gets even trickier when considering that the Knight takes two hits each time he tries to move due to his hefty movement penalty. So, knowing and training to mitigate damage taken is another key component to playing a Knight.

Intimidation: A famous Rogue once said, ‘A shaky sword murders naught’. Taking a point in intimidation reduces the accuracy of all monsters standing adjacent to the Knight, which is ideal for helping dodge opportunity attacks as you search for treasure.

Monumental Protection: The Knight’s sheer force of will is impressive, to say the least. As the odds against him mount, a Knight can will himself to ignore pain. This effectively increases his armor more for each adjacent enemy.

Iron Stomach: A drawback to the strategy of cleaving through targets towards a goal is that it requires leaving foes behind sometimes in the interests of quicker progression. Not killing all monsters means that the Knight doesn’t get as much experience as the other player classes. To make up for this, the Knight has an extra defensive advantage against monsters that attack him from the direction in which he’s moving. This not only helps you move more directly, but also allows you to prioritize tougher monsters that yield higher experience, like other Knights or Mini Satans, which other player classes are more likely to avoid.

Improved Regeneration: Even with his unprecedented armor potential, sometimes the Knight will take more damage than he can possibly avoid, and needs a heal. If used effectively, Improved Regeneration helps the Knight get through the early stages of a fight and down a particularly tough creature, making it easier to mitigate damage through the remainder of combat.

There are times, however, when the Knight’s speed (or lack thereof) is a fatal liability. The class needed some potential to overcome the limitations of half-speed, so the Knight has two abilities to allow him to move more freely through the dungeons.

Jump: The Knight can move two spaces forward and one to the side in any direction. While the inspiration for the skill is obvious, its inclusion in 100 Rogues is indicative of long-standing goals to embody some of Chess’ founding design principles; strategic placement is key to victory.

Stomp: Sometimes there’s just no easy way out of a fight. When Jumping isn’t an option, Stomp helps to clear a path through a particularly difficult mob. The Knight bends at the knee, leaps upward, then crashes downward, dealing moderate damage to adjacent enemies and, more importantly, knocking them back and giving yourself a means of escaping from battle.

So, in general, it is best for the Knight to carve through the path of least resistance to his destination (the stairs to the next level).

RPGs have always had certain classes that are naturally better equipped to take more damage. Even our own Crusader dips its toe into Paladin or Fighter in ways. The Knight exacerbates these qualities, with extra means of dealing damage to single targets. While these are some nice advantages, they come at the cost of moving through the game at effectively half-speed; enemies hurt more and hunger is noticeably more imposing than other classes. Combined, these qualities give the Knight tools and challenges completely unique to 100 Rogues’ cast of characters.

As always, Happy Stabbing!

After days of running with little to drink and less food, his remaining hope fell to pieces. It was so close! That small, frayed book… But, he could not let himself succumb to crestfallen weakness and, instead, he stirred to outrage. “600 gold?!?”.

“You deaf AND dumb enough to get ripped off like this? Ya, 600 gold!”

“Listen, that’s everything I have. My family needs to eat! Can I at least-” he kicked the paunch of flesh behind him before continuing. His foot sunk into it a bit at first, but the force finally transferred, sending it back.

He continued.

“Can I at least sell you something? I’ve got this wood sword.” He checked the poultice pouch at his waist. “Or- Or maybe a Gypsy potion? That’s gotta do something useful!”

Quabbus the Merchant clearly wasn’t going to budge. He never budged. But a situation this desperate was no time for haggling.

Quick as he could manage, he chucked the poultice, his satchel and the wooden sword at the shopkeeper, then reached across the counter and snatched up the book. He opened it as he spun, uninterested in the coins that were now spilling onto the shop’s dirt floor.

He prayed, and he read.

“Flesh dead, souls lost. But!
Satan won’t stop fervent groans,
From proud Zombie hearts”

“Weary travelers.
Sleep empowers, yet we wake
Just a bit deader.”

Torpor – By entering a state of rest, Zombies can awaken stronger and more deadly than ever. They decay a bit further during the process, though, costing them health.

“Bountiful journeys
Always gains, never losses!
… although guts fall out.”

Throw Guts – A classic zombie move. Zombie’s poisonous organs make for a grand projectile.

“In, as out, decay.
Release our food’s power. And,
as our life, their death.”

Gastric Acid: The Zombie’s digestive system becomes more corrosive, allowing food to be digested more efficiently. As a side effect, the Throw Guts ability applies acid to targets.

“The rats will all come,
to sample your sacred corpse
Delicious? Deadly.”

Feed Them: Animals are very tempted by the smell of your Zombie’s flesh. By heaving a chunk of it, you can attract beasts to attack a less vital part of you.

“Repent! Cleanse and purge!
Release your potent bile! Then,
their sinned flesh will thin”

Wretch: Your acidic bile can be used to create a pool of acid, which severely lowers enemy armor.

“Infection is life.
Souls imbued with such disease
are divine! (til death)”

Diseased Claw: Blood, pus, stagnant sweat. The zombie physiology is not all that different from a man’s, only rotten, infectious and generally much, much more horrifying.

“We’re in danger! Oh,
Great Spirits of Being Dead
Make them like us. … Quick!”

Infect: One thing zombies have always excelled at is making more zombies. By willing your germ to spread, you can cause any enemy to become a zombie, as well, that will fight alongside you.

“We are holy, pure.
To kill the dead: heresy.
As they will soon learn…”

Explosive Organs: One thing Zombies do not like is being killed again. They dislike it so much, actually that they are capable of exploding violently, instead, killing everything around them.

“What?” He looked back at the undead monster lurching towards him again. “No no no, there’s got to be more!” He was still flipping, frantic, through the pages in search of something that might save him. He read the last passage of the book when everything finally sunk in: who it was that told him to find the book, this wicked cult’s crude purpose and, most significantly, his assailant’s bite.

“Our destined path, known.
Through the Dungeons lie rewards:
Forever. Rest.
Brains.”
~Excerpt from the Creed ‘o Zombie

Many Necromeisters resort to violence to get their preferred Robe color

Through their complete concentration, the light circled inward and upward from above nearly-visible hoods. The flames formed a hand, which waved vigorously down at them momentarily before being absorbed by the dark.

Much as the certainty of sight quickly faded, the unprepared would next lose clarity of hearing. Despite the wetness of the place, there was no sound of running water from a nearby river. Despite being situated not far underneath Mine Town residences, there were no sounds associated with modern life from above. Still, Ronnie would not go deaf from silence as, again, his brethren gave his mind an anchor in that void. Unthinking, he focused on the shuffle of fabric as the sleeves of robes around him played different parts of a rhythm he had practiced his entire life. The rhythm continued until time itself lost meaning, when a voice answered the call of Ronnie and his long-silent fellows.

“Thanks so much for coming guys! Now let’s get started!”

The sounds swelled and swirled with the visible aura of that place, and Ronnie lost himself to it. He and those around him changed that cavern, and it changed them, until even the barriers of walls and bodies fell, converging the energies of that place and those within it. United, but distinct, consciousnesses now sensed each other clearly.

In the center, the blue-white radiance of their Master coalesced, and handed down his terrible task.

“Well, we ALL know about Satans. Hunted to extinction, right? Right?!  Not so! Maybe. We’re not quite sure. I mean, *hem* I’M not that sure. Here, this will help:”

Ronnie watched closely as his luminous Master scried upon the town above. Weaving through the streets, down alleys, through armor shops and apothecaries, a queue of figures went on and on. Not one entity had a face to see; some were shrouded in metal or cloth, while others were dead and decayed beyond recognition.

The line eventually ended at a large spire, into which one of the metal-faced figures was summoned. From the court within, their impossible task was at last revealed: “Go kill Satan”.

“A Satan still lives!”, the image churned back into the Master’s presence. “We think. I think. I mean, that guy looks like he knows his stuff, right?” Ronnie and the others nodded in the way that disembodied essences tend to nod.

“Now, our research… err, AND, my infinite wisdom suggests that this one last Satan guy probably guards some swell kind of power, which is how he’s lived this long. So who’s up for a trip to Hell to go get it!?”

Ronnie and his fellows tried to look diffident in exactly the way that disembodied essences can’t, and the effort only made Ronnie appear to volunteer for the task.

“Ronnie! You are just the kind of go-getter guy to get this done! I know you’ll make me proud! Now don’t worry, I’ll be watching in as much as I can to give you a hand. As long as you learn the six secret principles of Necromeistry, you’ll make it through just fine!”

The plane dimmed a good deal as all followers except Ronnie twisted into the void.

“1. Eternal Life! This one’s a cinch. Just think really hard right when you’re about to die, and then you won’t! Don’t worry about getting it the first try, since not everyone gets the hang of it right away.

“2. Death Bolts.”  The Master pursed his lips and blew a white-hot blast of energy that washed over Ronnie, before sputtering a few ‘phwooooo’, ‘tseeeew’, and ‘bwoooosh’ noises. “Just like that,” he finished.

“3. Summon Stuff. Phantoms are best. I’ve got a boatload of them around here somewhere that you can use. Ah, there.” He produced an image of several limp spirits piled next to each other, a few of which were positioned to sit inside a suit of armor or had their grip wrapped over a potion. “Or just murder someone and bring them back from death. Up to you!

“4. Sacrifice. Just like we practiced on that Tourist last week. Only! When you kill something you’ve summoned, use its soul to patch yourself up. Oh, and you’ll be healed automatically, you won’t need to eat what you killed.” A chill went up Ronnie’s incorporeal spine as he remembered the Tourist.

“5. Vampiric Rain:”, the spectre next blasted Ronnie with several red fireballs and made a few more fireball sounds, this time. “So, it’s kind of like Death Bolts, only they ALSO heal you. Again, don’t eat anything.

“And 6: Touch. Just reach over to someone, poke him with your finger, and you can shoot all of your life force into him BOOM. This one might almost kill you though, so be careful not to die when you do it.

“So there you go! Just look how ready you are, I KNOW you can do this! Now,” Ronnie was returned to his body and the dark, hard cave as his Master gave final instructions from His now-invisible plane, “just like that wise, old man said, GO KILL SATAN. He’s that way”. Ronnie faced different directions of darkness, uninspired, then began feeling his way down the walls.

“Oh, and if you could send any stuff you find back my way, that’d be great! Especially clothes.” After a moment’s pause, the voice quickly continued, “because, we need more Offerings of Robes and stuff for new followers, yes. Now, off you go! Safe trip!”

Also, Runes!

Now, Rogue Mode is, however, relatively new, and so it’s far from perfect.  Which is why I put this post on the forums tonight, asking you, our beloved fans, to chime in on how we can make Rogue Mode better. I’d like Rogue Mode to be extremely hard, but still fair.   We need your help!  Log into the forums and let us know:

http://www.100rogues.com/forums/general/lets-talk-about-rogue-mode/

Tell us your experiences with Rogue Mode, and we’ll take everything you have to say into consideration for an upcoming update.

Go Kill Satan,

-Keith Burgun, Lead Designer @ Dinofarm Games

Endless Mode has been one of our longest-planned features. It’s typical of a roguelike to offer infinite replayability, usually thanks to a wealth of obscure mechanics and randomized traps and items. The ideology behind 100 Rogues’ design has, and continues to be, that difficulty should come from strategic choices with nearly deterministic outcomes. It made sense, then, to make a mode which could increasingly test these skills without bound.

Like 100 Rogues’ core game, Endless Mode will be benefitting from ongoing refinements and enhancements. Some of these enhancements will carry over from new additions to the core game (e.g. new player classes or teleport tiles), but also, Endless Mode will be receiving new art for monsters and their spawning behaviours and the endless mode map tiles, as well, to further customize the mode’s difficulty and identity.

Combo Mode is a more recent brainstorm. After receiving feedback that the core game still provides an unforgivingly inaccessible degree of difficulty to some, we began to look at other games that have had similar goals. Angry Birds was, unsurprisingly, one of the first games we came across to patch in a feature to circumvent the game’s difficulty. Their Golden Eagle made for a good example of how to do it right, allowing players to play more of the game without supplanting the need for skill with the original ruleset. With this in mind, we set to make Challenge Mode a simple game to complete, start-to-finish, but a difficult one to truly claim mastery with.

The most impactful means of accomplishing this was to remove hunger from the mode and to change health regeneration to be most effective when not in combat. The strongest players will therefore be able to keep themselves in battle longer (and, in doing so, earn more points, of course!).

The very strong starting stats, lack of a hunger time limit, and fast health regeneration make it very easy to survive through Combo Mode, but the measure of success is much more than simple scoring! Instead of experience points, your score in combo mode can be used to purchase skill points, higher stats, and useful items that will help you on your way.

As an extra reward, we’ve made unlockable items available to the top-scoring Combo Mode players. By being frugal with your spending of Combo Points, you can save up to unlock three Scrolls for permanent use in the main game.

We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading about 100 Rogues’ two newest modes. Please feel free to give us feedback on what you have enjoyed, what could be improved, or what you might like to see in the future with new 100 Rogues game modes. And don’t forget to post your best strategies in our forums to help the 100 Rogues community members!

Rogue-Bot software is capable of fear, for the sole ability to ignore it

“Lotta people doh’know when y’got a ‘Bot that’ll kill its target, an when y’got a Bot that’s gonna kill EVERYBODY. Now that is a Bot!”

Packrats, also famous for his summer “Bombing in the Park” stage desctructions in Mine Town, claims the inspiration for the design came from the multitude of Rogues passing through the Bandit Hole. “‘Specially those fairies, with the snug little purple dresses. They were a particular inspiration for me,” said Packrats.

Indie developer and town beatnik Brandy Starshine described the Rogue-Bot development experience as “life-affirming”. After struggling to manually recreate the abilities of Packrat’s prototype herself, Starshine realized “we’ve all just got to let our Rogue-Bots go and roam free through the subterranean world. They say, when a Rogue-Bot transcends the fourth layer of Hell, its mind unfurls to the beauty of true destructive omnipotence”.

While not all designers have taken such a spiritual outlook on learning algorithms, many bot-builders have released their creations into the Bandit Hole in the hopes that they will learn to kill more effectively on their own, hopefully returning with some of Packrat’s hallmark skills, or other emergent behaviors:

Target Rocket: Returning from earlier RFL designs, Rogue-Bots can launch projectile ballistics that explode outward from the target.

Net Launcher: Compensating for a design limitation that prevents their rockets from moving more than 12 feet per second, Rogue-Bots are capable of trapping their target in place until a rocket has detonated.

Robo-Bombs: These small red bombs create a 3×3 explosive blast upon close contact with any enemy targets. Packrats claims the happy expression is owed to “a complicatered heyoooour-istic (that’s a programmin’ word fer goal) that brings happiness with the opportunity for pain”

Morph Ball: RFL enthusiasts often note that other Robot Class fights either end too quickly or get boring fast as Robots are killed or tire. Rogue-Bots can transition into a smaller state in which they can absorb damage and quickly regain energy, allowing battles to be longer and more action-packed.

The Rogue-Bots were designed as a means of pushing the limits of the sense of danger many fans cite as being key to the Robot Fighting experience. Tom Tardent, whiskey distiller and father of two, said, “We used to go to the races each week hoping to see a good crash, and maybe only saw one or two. When we heard that even spectators were getting killed in the Robot League games, well, we knew where we’d be spending our Friday nights, right kids?!”

Even with the wildly anticipated start of the new League only weeks away, there are still some safety concerns that may put the Fighting League games on hold indefinitely. Public Safety officials are addressing fears that concession stands and water fountains are in violation of public health codes, and Public Safety Senior Toxin Analyst also stated that, “Mine Town residents should be aware of the disease risk presented by Bandit Hole residents and Tourists from foreign lands. Both should be easily identifiable thanks to their fondness for ten-gallon hats. Direct contact should be avoided if at all possible.” He finished, “Really, they’re just gross.”

He’s super-cool.

That’s all I wanted to say.  Enjoy the monster classes (more info & updates coming soon!)

Also, the TEAM was interviewed by WHERE MONSTERS DWELL!  Listen HERE.

I’ve been working on an article for Gamasutra about our game, which just went live yesterday!  Hooray!

Finally, for something fun, below is a script that I wrote for a short film about 100 Rogues.

The writing is completed but I don’t know if I’ll be able to actually animate and voice the whole thing.  The idea was for the main character, “The Adventurer”, to be doing the voices of the Crusader and the Wizard as he treks through the Bandit Hole. 

I hope you all enjoy it – if anyone wants to make a movie using this script, we’d absolutely love to see it!

Interior shot of the  Rusty Scubbard Tavern

Bartender:  Evenin’ kid!  The usual I take it?

Adventurer:  Ah…  It’s been a hard day, Groggald… (takes off helmet)

A: I went down into the old Mine today.

B: YOU went into the Bandit Hole?  What for?!

A: You won’t believe it, but the highest councilman… he gave me a quest, he did!

B: Heyyy that’s great!  What was it?

A: He actually charged ME, of all people, to go Kill Satan!

B: Ahhh that’s – wait..

B: He asked *you*… to kill Satan?  *The* Satan?

A: He sure did!  Oh boy was I excited… anyway I’m sure you can guess that I didn’t get to actually get to do it, since I don’t got a big old satan head with me…

B: Oh… right, yeah.  That’s how I guessed.

Cut to Mine, with VO…

A: Ya well, this mornin’ off I go, into the mine, and I don’t get two steps in when some guy knocks me down the entire flight of steps!  I go, “Hey, watch where yer goin, buddy!”  The fella turns around and yelled something about glory, and started waving his sword around like a maniac, and then ran off.  All I could think was wow, what a  ridiculous-looking helmet.

I brushed myself off, and started moving.  Oh boy, what they said about the old Mine sure was true, that place is CRAWLIN’ with baddies!  I was holding my own against them just fine though, until I killed this one bandit, and suddenly some Fairy teleports in right behind him!

She goes, “Oh, I see.  Stealing my kills.  Who the hell are you to come down here and call me a bad Wizard?”  I told her that I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

She says,  “Yeah – look – I know what your quest is.  You’re on a quest to make me feel pathetic.  You just hate me that much.”  I apologized and again tried to explain that it was some kind of misunderstanding.

Then she consulted this magic crystal ball about it.  She goes, “Oh really?  Let’s ask Ball.”  and summons it.  “Ball!  Is this guy a judgmental idiot?”  she shouted, and the ball just sat there idly.  Then she says “Ha!  He just told me, telepathically, that you are a bigot!” and she left.

Adventurer: It was awful, Groggald.  Anyway, I was on a mission, so I kept moving.  I got at least a couple floors down, when I bumped into that crazy bucket helmet guy again…

I was singin’ my little adventure song and moving along, when I heard a lot of commotion from the next room.  Then I heard someone yell “GLORY!” and a monster corpse came flying at me, pinning me to the ground!

It was that Bucket head guy!  I asked him for help, and he said: “SAVING *YOU* IS NOT PART OF GOD’S PLAN!!!”

Just then a group of scary looking red Rats appeared!  I yelled “Ahh Help!  Rats!”

The bucket head guy said “Those are no ordinary rats!  Those rats are BRIMMING WITH EVIL!!!” and he dove into the battle!   It wasn’t going well for him, though.  He shouted “The Crusader can’t hold them off!  GOD, I PRAY THEE, CRUSH THESE ABOMINATIONS”

I expected something to happen when he said that, but nothing did.  Then he yelled, “”I KNOW YOU’RE WATCHING THIS, GOD!!!”

Still, nothing happened.

He got angry and yelled “DAMMIT, GOD!!” and casted Holy Flames, burning up those three rats, AND ME in the process!!
Cut back to the Rusty Scubbard

Adventurer: I’ve seen a lot in my 12 years, Groggald… and there’s one thing I gotta tell you.  Each Holy Flame fireball deals more damage, the more targets the spell hits.

Groggald: I can see that!  So I take it you got out of there while the gettin’ was good?

Adventurer: Yeah…  There was a shopkeeper down there, who gave me some potions and showed me how to get back home.  He’s really cool.

Groggald: Well, I’m glad you’re back safe.  Most who go down there never return, you know.

Adventurer: Really?  Wow…  I wonder what’ll become of the Fairy Wizard and the Human Crusader!

Groggald: *Stares off out the window*  So do I, kid.  So do I.