Concerns about monotony of Solomon game

I have been playing Solomon's Keep for last few days and I had an issue with dozing off during gameplay while I am doing one hour challenge. Luckily, I solved that problem by listening to some Cuphead ost and finish the game on time. After completing the game, I have realized that the overall tone of Solomon games have been very monotonous and it may become quite a problem with the new SKHD. I know you have realized that issue a bit and made new quest, different monster, new layouts, and etc to make SKHD less monotonous. However, I feel that it is still not enough to solve it. Here are my suggestions for designs of SKHD to make the game more engaging on each run:

1. Less grey, more color.  The overall tone of the keep has been grey and I felt that is what made the game very monotonous aesthetically. Of course, I am not suggesting we put some sunshine and neon signs in the keep. What I am suggesting is that it would be more appropriate to have some sort of different tones for few floors of the keep. For example, some floor could have Cherenkov-ish blue tone with blue glowing skeletons and zombies, Toxic green tone with bunch of vermins and putrid monsters, Hellish orange tone with demons and burning skeletons, and Arcane purple tone with ether monsters and abominations. There are various ways to make a creepy necromancer's keep with more colors. I recommend to fiddle around with RGB to find interesting color that could also fit with the creepiness of the Dork Lord.

2. More stimulating music: Don't get me wrong, I really love the music of Solomon franchise in general. I just felt that the song was pretty monotonous enough to put me into sleep (possibly because of listening to the same 1 minute length of music for hours). I understand it is difficult for you to deal with this problem but if you want SKHD to be perfect like I do, I believe you will need to find a way to get more stimulating music for the game.

3. Faster player: I always felt that the player was too slow compared to the map size. It is really painful to clear each floor not because the monster was difficult or anything, but because it takes so long to find every single loot and monsters in each floor (of course RNG can f*** me up too). There should be some sort of running or sprinting mechanism like Diablo 2 has so that players can explore the map much faster....... Or you can just make them as Gordon Freeman.

4. Sub-dungeons: Sub dungeons are good way to make playtime longer without increasing the volume of the main dungeon. In SKHD's case, there can be some arcane rifts, demonic portal, ancient pre-war secret lab, sewer, meat processing plant (for zombies), or even a portal to Rainbowland. I expect you have already thought about that idea but I wish you could just make theses sub-dungeons more unique than just another grey room with more skeletons.

5. God system: I don't think you really need this system at all but would be nice to have as a some sort of DLC or something. God system has various unique gods that has different personality. If you do something that the god likes, you gain more piety which grants more powerful abilities and gifts. If you do something that the god dislikes, you get punished and even be excommunicated. It is pretty much a very powerful perk with great penalty. Just because you are a mage or necromancer, does not mean you are an atheist. 

Keep the good work on RwK and boneyard beta stuff but hopefully, this helps in anyway to make SKHD better. 
:-bd

Comments

  • 1. The decision to make everything grey except the "important" things you need to pay attention to is a specific one.  One of the issues I have with modern games is I look at the screen and say "what can I interact with?  What matters here?"  In the interests of purity-of-game, Solomon's will always make that distinction.  Though there will be a little more color than the phone version-- that version is so drab because there simply wasn't memory for more when it was written.  But any color will be very desaturated, as befits the nastiest dark lord ever.

    2. Music has also been a factor of iPhone 1's memory.  If you've tried Solomon Dark, there's more music there, and if you look at the Solomon's Keep Greenlight video , there's even more music there.

    3. SKHD is actually going to feature a somewhat faster player.  The "rush" skill is being tossed in favor of perks and item effects, so it's necessary to start with a faster player.

    4. This is already planned for.

    5. KeepHD will have perks, similar to Boneyard, to mix that stuff up.  But it also has a few different features I won't announce yet, in case they change or turn out to be a bad idea.  The general gist of SKHD is to be Keep, but with a lot more.  There's randomized quests as well, since a proper dark lord has to kidnap pet kittens and virgins and stuff just to keep his reputation up. 

    BUT: One important feature of Keep that will stay is that it will always be designed to be a "short" game.  Winnable in an hour.  The only difference is going to be that if you want to take longer and see more, you will have that option.
  • Also, Keep is going to be quite moddable, so even if I don't keep it exciting, someone else will!
  • >since a proper dark lord has to kidnap pet kittens

    Good thing the game doesn't have a sci-fi setting. Otherwise, Solomon would face a serious robot problem.
  • He kinda has had demon problems in the past, or he would have, if he wasn't nastier than they were.
  • @Raptisoft

    1. Here is a one more concern about the color: skeletons and zombies are sort of grey too (even the putrid version are sort of greyish green). Their color is sort of against your philosophy of highlighting the important parts. If you watch the greenlight video, you can see that skeletons and zombies(especially zombies) have very similar color with the floor. In my opinion, having different color theme (I am talking about grey combined with other color) would not prevent those important things to stand out. Rather, it would show the theme of the current floor and make player to think they are adventuring each unique floors instead of same thing over and over again. Best example of what I am saying would be Hollow Knight. It's mostly dark and grey but different grey for each locations. Also, highlighting(black line around each sprite) would make those important objects more standout more effectively than using white grey all the time.

    2. I've made this suggestion after watching the greenlight video and playing all three Solomon games. There should be more music than what you have revealed so far to make game less monotonous (two or three of them are remix of a same music anyway).

    3. I am sort of skeptical about this if the movement speed is same as the one I saw in the trailer. Also, you need to make non-combat rush skill to make exploration faster. That is what I am mostly complaining about

    P.S.

    Can you make challenges like one hour challenge to give some sort of good reward? The one hour challenge will definitely make player miss lots of xp and gold because player's will be forced to dismiss those precious quests and sub-dungeons to complete that challenge. It will make players to make one character just dedicated to complete that challenge and delete it without a decent reward from the challenge.
  • edited October 2017
    @SomeRandomHEFan


    I am pretty sure Golems want Kitty ;)
    Or Demons want Solomon

  • Yes, challenges will have in-game rewards, rather than just being "achievements."
  • So Solomon's demons are undead like the rest of his minions? That's interesting. I guess he's too prideful to make pacts with living ones.
  • No, they're not undead, they're literally demons out of the inferno. 

    Solomon specialized all his skill points into undead+demons+vermin+black magic with none of that sissy purple ether stuff, or any of that pathetically slow fire stuff, or any of that girly air magic, and especially none of that "playing life on easy mode" cold magic.
  • Then why did he have a "demon problem". If they initially opposed him, why did they switch sides?
  • No, you use ritual to compel them (they certainly would never take a mortal's "side"), but demons are all bastards, so pretty much anyone who fiddles with a demon has a "demon problem" at some point.  Usually the problem is resolved when you are dragged to hell, but the cream of the crop necromancers are able to achieve better outcomes.
  • Is there any hostile ether monsters (lovecraftean eldritch chaotic abomination thingy?)hidden on the other dimension that we could fight in game? I bet this would be good idea for a subdungeon monster or dlc contents. (Maybe Dire Sirmin opens a portal to ether relam or something)
  • No, that would be out of scope for the Solomon Games... it's supposed to be a short game very focused on "take down the bad wizard."

    Though in HD, I have some plans to change Gauntlet Mode to be more interesting, it might be necessary to descend into Hell just to double check that Solomon hasn't managed to take over the place.
  • Oh come on, Sirmin is just as bad as Solomon to me. Why he is bad? He is arrogant, uses unauthorized spell (acid rain), has the worst starting spell, and... ... just plain stupid ;).

    That Gauntlet Mode change seems very fascinating though. Looking forward to kill some demon lords. 
  • >Oh come on, Sirmin is just as bad as Solomon to me.

    They're pretty different.  Sirmin would look down on you.  Solomon would look down on you from the rim of his pit as the scorpions pick all the flesh from your bones.
  • edited October 2017
    I was mostly joking but you are technically right.
    However, in my heart, Sirmin will always be an a***ole and a potential future dork lord. 

    P.S. Still, I can tell both of them are bad at this game. I mean, Acid Rain is "kid's stuff" and melee attack focused mage is pure troll. (I know he didn't put most skill points on melee attack but he did put some and put no points on rush or deflect so he is bad :D) Hail Ice
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