What's this game like?

[Zedrin]

I'm not familiar with the original Elona, but seeing some discussion and screenshots of this game has me curious and interested.

What's this game like, generally? How's it compare to things like Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode or Caves of Qud? Any other comparisons you'd make / "if you like X, you'd like this" recommendations or comparisons?

How "early access" is it, as well?

[Heathy]

I've playing most of today, its pretty freeform, its a bit like a single player runescape or ultima online, although you're not limited to 6-7 skills, it is a bit esoteric, there is quite a heavy emphasis on crafting, but you could ignore that and just explore do dungeons. there are quests. you can worship a god and gain benefits. have companions. there are npc adventurers you can meet in the world and a ranking board. its pretty deep. it can be quite punishing like most roguelikes but there is no perma-death unless you pick that difficulty option. for the first 90 days you don't have death penalty in the easiest difficulty.

it does share some similarities to other roguelikes like Cud, Tome, DCSS, Adom etc. there are things that are similar and things that are different. you get a deed in the beginning and the zone you start in is yours or I guess you might be able to move to another tile and claim that instead, I just claimed the area I started in, there are some tutorial quests to get you going. every month you get a tax bill and you have to go to one of the towns to pay it off, if you don't pay your bill you start to become wanted, there is a karma system. there are quite a few different systems in play. it has various things you might know, like unidentified scrolls, books, potions, gear. spell have 'charges' so you read a book, you learn that spell and it'll have x amount of charges before you need to find another book to read to get more charges of that spell.

how early access is it, it seems quite fleshed out from a year or so ago, there was a alpha but it was super bare bones and that was like 1-2 years ago so they've done quite a lot since then.

[Zedrin]

Originally posted by Heathy:

I've playing most of today, its pretty freeform, its a bit like a single player runescape or ultima online, although you're not limited to 6-7 skills, it is a bit esoteric, there is quite a heavy emphasis on crafting, but you could ignore that and just explore do dungeons. there are quests. you can worship a god and gain benefits. have companions. there are npc adventurers you can meet in the world and a ranking board. its pretty deep. it can be quite punishing like most roguelikes but there is no perma-death unless you pick that difficulty option. for the first 90 days you don't have death penalty in the easiest difficulty.

it does share some similarities to other roguelikes like Cud, Tome, DCSS, Adom etc. there are things that are similar and things that are different. you get a deed in the beginning and the zone you start in is yours or I guess you might be able to move to another tile and claim that instead, I just claimed the area I started in, there are some tutorial quests to get you going. every month you get a tax bill and you have to go to one of the towns to pay it off, if you don't pay your bill you start to become wanted, there is a karma system. there are quite a few different systems in play.

Honestly, sounds very tempting to try.

One concern, are there any overbearingly dominant strategies that might hamper things? Sorta like how Skyrim accidentally pushes you to be a stealth archer.

[Bollehopp]

You just have to buy it and find out. I am going in blind. Betcha Ill love it to bits. To the last pixel and beyond uuh rah!

[Heathy]

Originally posted by Zedrin:

One concern, are there any overbearingly dominant strategies that might hamper things? Sorta like how Skyrim accidentally pushes you to be a stealth archer.

not really, I started as a priest, you get a companion choice early in the game, same as you did in elona and its highly recommended that you pick the 'little girl' because she is a humanoid with arms that can hold weapons and wear armor she is easily the best pick to help carry you through the early game. you can equip her with anything you could use and she'll carry you. she will also level up and get better.

[Desmond]

Actually I found this game via the Dwarf fortress forum back in time.
I would not say it's the same as DF's advanture mode.
The universe of Elona/Elin is a bit more crazy in some ways.
Elona is free, so why not give that a try? If you like it, you will like this one too.

[El Gato]

@Heathy Would you be able to tell me about the complexity and depth of the NPCs? I remember watching a video briefly, and the world seemed kind of empty and lifeless, but it was one of the older versions you mentioned. Later, I heard that each NPC has their own occupations and routines. I really like that kind of detai, could you tell me how complex the NPCs are? Do they have needs? Or is there any kind of trade or currency system in the cities? Do they have personalities?

[Heathy]

there are npcs in towns and they do have roles, some will just be generic towns people, others will own shops, they go to bed at night time and stand in their shop during the day, you can invest in the shops (giving them money) and they'll get better offers / more stuff that they sell. each Npc in the game has a standing toward you when you talk to them it'll show you how much they like/dislike you. a lot of NPCs don't have much to say, talking to them doesn't do much, there are npcs in taverns you can 'ask about rumours' and they'll spawn level appropriate temporary dungeons to explore on the over map. I think if you do manage to make people like you enough you might be able to recruit them as companions, I think it was like this in elona, if you got friendly enough with the other NPC adventurers you could ask them to join you. while the quests are random and only stick around for x number of days before they rotate off, you can gift stuff to pretty much any npc to make them like you more. you can either get the quests from the npc who has it, or you can get them off the bounty boards.

your companions and pets / livestock do need to eat, ill admit i'm still figuring it out, there is a genetics system, I found a couple genes / DNA things but i'm not sure what you do with them yet. I think you can basically grow npcs with specific traits.

There are a few types of currencies, there is platinum coins which you can use to train skills, you get these from completing quests. there is also casino coins used for playing casino games, fruit machines and the like, random npcs will get quests and it'll just rotate you do improve your influence within a town and you can do certain things with that influence. like reroll shop inventories or buy furniture tickets and claim special furniture that is only available in a town.

there are gold bars, when you start the game you're given a shipping chest, and you can dump all sorts of stuff in there, food, wood, armor, generic junk and it sorta works like the sales chest in stardew valley where it'll sell the stuff in there each day and give you Orens which is the main currency / gold coins. gold bars are used to buy certain things, the two npcs at the start sell some recipes and things you can buy from them with gold bars. but you get gold bars for selling a certain amount of stuff from your shipping chest. there other currencies aswell, you get fame for progressing through the game, I think this is how you rank up on the adventure board, you might get challenged eventually if your fame gets too high but you can sell your fame at the pub/tavern. there are also small medals that act like a type of currency, I only found 1 so far but it does say on it that 'its rumored there are collectors' so I think you can trade those in for items with someone. I dunno where that person is yet though,

it is possible that some stuff isn't fully fleshed out yet, seeing as it just entered EA and they plan for it to be in EA for another year its possible that some features don't function quite yet.