Parasite, roguelike

Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 25 Jan 2017, 19:13

Hey folks.

I've been working for some time on my newest project - an openworld roguelike survival game about an alien parasite that can control human and animal hosts. The idea behind the gameplay is that the player is a sentient lifeform that doesn't remember anything about its previous life. Learning about the human world will allow the parasite to question what is it doing here and opens up the investigation part of the game. The investigation allows it to remember its goal, complete it and ultimately win the game. The game is intended to be combat light at this point. Basically when you start the combat, you're going to die very fast (this might change later but the game will not be about killing everything that moves like in the usual roguelikes). While the parasite is pretty weak, being an alien lifeform has its perks: the player can learn about the improvements that it can make to the bodies of the hosts it possesses. This allows solving most of the problems.

I've just released the 0.3 version on the web platform (I can also make Linux/Windows binaries if someone needs them). It's main change is that now the player can build some useful contructions in the microhabitat (think of it as a base). You can read the changelog here: https://github.com/infidel-/parasite/releases/tag/v0.3

You can play the game here: http://www.in-fi-del.net/parasite-03/. If you need the debug version for whatever reason (cheating and some information), play here instead: http://www.in-fi-del.net/parasite-03-debug/.

Check out the manual before playing to get the idea of what to do at start: https://github.com/infidel-/parasite/wiki/Guide
The source code and all assets are available here: https://github.com/infidel-/parasite. Everything is licensed with GPLv3.

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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby shirish » 31 Jan 2017, 19:09

Would it be possible to play it stand-alone without using the web ? I don't like web-games as they need constant net connectivity.

I'm also open to compiling them in case if you have sufficient build instructions.
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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 31 Jan 2017, 19:41

shirish {l Wrote}:Would it be possible to play it stand-alone without using the web ? I don't like web-games as they need constant net connectivity.

I'm also open to compiling them in case if you have sufficient build instructions.


Hmmm, so someone actually does want binaries :)
I'm gonna make release archives available tomorrow.
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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 01 Feb 2017, 18:43

I updated the Github release page with Linux/Win/Mac binaries.

https://github.com/infidel-/parasite/releases/tag/v0.3
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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 19 Jul 2017, 23:12

Parasite v0.4 released!

https://github.com/infidel-/parasite/releases/tag/v0.4
HTML5: http://www.in-fi-del.net/parasite-04/

This release introduces a huge amount of changes into the game. The main focus is on the shiny new player antagonists - they're called The Group. From the first moments of the game the group acts as player nemesis. Judging the parasite threat a priority (pretty low at start, though) they're actively assigning dedicated agent teams to seek and destroy missions. You can stumble on the agents on the streets and you're probably better off running from them.

The team distance will get lower and lower until the team will resort to active measures which might or might not result in a deadly confrontation (and I seriously mean it, you have no chance of winning). Area interest has been removed (it never did anything anyway). Upon learning about the group's existence you will be able to read the manual detailing the ingame logic. You can also find it in the wiki. The difficulty setting for the group controls only the amount of information available to the player. On easy difficulty you can always check how close the team is and what's the group priority. On normal setting this is described in vague words and on hard difficulty you have no information at all.

Evolution has been significantly reworked. There are no evolution paths now, you will receive a fixed amount of starting improvements plus the maximum improvement level now depends on the difficulty setting with the exception of the brain probe (more on the difficulty settings below). Evolution process will also degrade the current host until it dies. This ensures that you can't evolve to maximum in the safety of the microhabitat. This also limits the player power. Unfortunately, I did nothing to improve the improvements themselves, so to speak. This will have to wait until the future (probably next release). Also the body feature growth is still safe, you can grow organs in the microhabitat fast without any danger apart from the usual energy loss (this will change in the future, he-he-he).

Work on marginally prettier UI and mouse support has started. Another important thing is that at some points the game will ask you to select difficulty for some specific aspect of the game. I decided against selecting overall difficulty at start, instead opting for giving the player smaller choices when it becomes necessary. You can choose from one of three difficulties and each choice is described in the selection window.

Summary of changes:

* The group and active team logic
* Evolution reworked
* Difficulty: The Group - controls the amount of information about the group
* Difficulty: Evolution - limits the starting number of improvements and their maximum level
* Difficulty: Timeline - controls the speed of clues gathering
* Limited mouse support (mostly for movement/attacks)
* New UI support (limited for now but at least you get "Close" button in every window)
* Biominerals will now restore parasite energy and health with unused energy
* Console (press ; to open, type "help" to see available commands) is now available in normal mode. Specifically, in HTML5 client you can use it to change the font size ("cfg fontSize 16", for example). Config changes are saved only in HTML5 client for now.
* AI can now wear armor (parasite cannot attach to AI in full-body armor)
* Stun rifles on some AI
* Always spawn dog on entering area if the player has no host (this makes the habitat construction process much safer, some might say even too safe)
* Dogs cannot enter the sewers now
* Assimilated hosts count as hosts with body features
* Mouse cursor is now drawn on top of everything
* Changed default tileset to 48x48
* Number of AI spawned is now based off the amount of empty cells on screen, so do their sight and hearing. This should fix the static number of AI not depending on window resolution.
* Area alertness now increases much faster, previously it was somewhat useless due to the slow increase speed.
* You cannot enter areas with high alertness now.
* And a whole lot of other tweaks and fixes.
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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 07 May 2019, 11:03

Been a long time since I've posted here. I've managed to rekindle my interest in the project and after a month or so of work here's v0.5. I've changed the underlying engine which made it compile and run noticeably faster, added commercial royalty-free art and polished the early game stage. The city streets areas are now generated by proper city generator instead of just throwing around random buildings.

The game is now available on itch.io (you can play the full version for free on the webpage), come play it here: https://starinfidel.itch.io/parasite. The GPL version with ASCII art is here: http://www.in-fi-del.net/parasite-05/

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Re: Parasite, roguelike

Postby starinfidel » 20 Nov 2019, 20:48

v0.6 is out and it brings some improvements to the game. The main focus of it is the addition of music and sounds into the game. It now includes four types of ambience along with many sound effects for things like attacks, deaths, confusion, alerts, and so on. There are four music tracks included for a start; expect more later on. I'm thinking of making a couple for each new release to slowly grow the pool of what's available. The web version only has one track and lower quality sound files due to size limitations. Now the HUD elements can be clicked with mouse and there is an options window. There's also a new habitat growth and some gameplay fixes and changes.

Full changelog:

  • Sound effects, sound ambience and music
  • Options GUI window
  • Separate volumes for music, effects, and ambience
  • Movement delay on mouse clicks
  • Tilemap scale
  • Multiple font sizes
  • Watcher habitat growth, evolution improvement, related goals and messages
  • Easy group difficulty ambush notification removed
  • Ambush is now spawned in a concrete habitat (was just in "the one you enter" before)
  • Mouse support for HUD menus
  • Added confirmation dialog for exiting the game
  • Added "Enter sewers" goal into the tutorial
  • Made smartphones more common to better match reality
  • Police officers now carry radios and use them to call for backup; drop the radio and they can't
  • Added another "wait a turn" shortcut (Z) that is also shown in the HUD
  • Team member spawn notification now has red blinking text and sound
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