Kingdom Cards
A downloadable game
Kingdom Cards is a deck-building traditional roguelike. Collect units with unique abilities and stats as you progress, and manage their strengths and weaknesses in a tight tactical experience. There is always only one unit at the head of your party taking and dealing the damage, so you need to manage your lineup to have the right unit out at the right time - for example, preferring ranged units out of melee, and vice versa.
This game was made inside of a seven day period for the 7DRL challenge 2020, on top the bones of my entry for the previous year.
Download
Install instructions
Requires Java 8+, and OpenGL2+
The jar file should run just like an exe (or other OS equivilent)
Theoretically works on *nixes, but is entirely untested!
Comments
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Does not run at all like an exe, plz help
Requires Java 8+ to run - https://www.java.com
How so? What do I do
Hello can you add WASD in the settings?
The game doesn't work. It loads, shows spinning circles and that's it.
Hello, the splash screen is normally cleared by pressing any key on the keyboard - just to confirm, this doesn't work for you?
OMG! Thank you so much! I feel so stupid, but it's really a bit unintuitive.
I really like this one. Can you go more in details on how you made this? Is this your own engine? How did you make the maps? Do you have a map editor? Did you draw the art of the characters?
Thanks :) It's my own engine, but makes use of libGDX to help with some low-level rendering since plain OpenGL is a bit too raw for my taste. It's hacked open so I can use my own game loops and own everything else.
Maps are mostly randomly generated, so they're almost entirely just code. The small chunks which are static I define inline as a 2d array of chars, like the roguelikes of yore.
I do a loads of my own artwork, but for the most part it's modifying, re-coloring and extending existing tilesets. It's much easier to follow a consistent design language than invent your own. This game is mostly based brilliant work from https://pita.itch.io/, and http://www.squidi.net/pixel/char.default.php
How big is your engine in lines of code? Just curious.
My entire workspace is 68,400 lines, not lines of code but raw line count of all *.java files - so it's a bit susceptible to the formatting style. This represents ~5 years of active development, a couple of significant refactors, and 9 games worth of left-over bits and pieces. I haven't worked on this engine for a few years now, except for the 7DRL game jams because it's more complete and capable than my current project.
It keeps telling me to choose an app to open the jar file with. It was working, but now it asks me what app do I want to open it with (for both this and your other game).
Hello, it sounds like you don't have java.
Are the controls for this game rebindable? I, uh... hate whatever the buttons are this game is using.
They aren't sorry. You seem to have a uh... Strong opinion about them though, so what in particular do you hate? My rationale goes like: Numpad is the roguelike standard because the game needs to incorporate diagonals but Ive included vikeys for users without. Then my theroy goes A for action, and Z for action 2 (cycle) because its right next to A on both qwerty and azerty layouts. Also, they're at the opposite end of the keybaord to the numpad which makes them ergonomic. Other action keys are much more rarely used, so can more go wherever but are lucky enough to also align with some old rl standards Q for quaff and C for close X for examine.
I prefer WASD movement and buttons. As for diagonals, most games these days tend to feature mouse movement, but I don't think this game features mouse movement at all.
I'm not a fan of moving with my right hand and using normal controls with my left. Even when I play keyboard-only games, I always use WASD for my left hand and other controls for my right.
It's fine. The game probably isn't right for me.
How do you use potions, or are they automatically used upon fatal blows? Are there any other keys apart from NumPad + Z? There's nothing in the Readme about controls...
Okay, so Q to quaff (and healing potions always restore to full health, it seems), A to use abilities... how do I get my archer to regain points to be able to fire off another arrow? So much is unexplained with not even an optional tutorial forest to the non-east at the beginning... I'm really digging the graphics, though, and would be happy to contribute audio.
Hi, you can press F1 for the help screen. While this is printed to the log at the top of the screen at the start of each game, it could probably also be added to the main menu for folks who miss it... I'll update the game soon... edit: this is now done for V1.3
Ability names are always shown with an orb cost following the name, with orbs to spend displayed to the right of the primary card. I tried to tie them together visually so it would be intuitive but perhaps it could be done better... They're limited action points and cant be replenished except by cycling your hand to the next guy :)
I appreciate the offer for audio! Unfortunately I have no ambitions to further the game beyond maintenance since it's just a throwaway game made as a jam entry.
Visually it's great, also combined with card effects, combat and overall/detailed view switching (great solution!). Different types of characters and the need for combining their strengths gave me lots of fun.
A few comments regarding balance (and one possible bug):
I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for the feedback!
Berserkers are definitely in there, you must have received the raw end of the random number generator for that one, unfortunately. They appear in the first area, with the same chance as rogues and rangers.
Great game, nice work! Deck building mechanic works well. The challenge is up there too, what's the deal the "Rogue's challenge", is it just for starting deck composition? So swap the captain for some rogues?
Thanks! Rogue's challenge only allows you rogues and dummys for the whole run - just a fun little alternate play idea that came from early dev when there was no invis fatigue so you could be permanently invisible.
Ah I see, that is a significantly different play through then, nice idea.
It doesn't load for me, your logo just keeps turning. Both this and your other game.
Hi, just to confirm, no keyboard keys in Kingdom Cards, and none of enter/space/esc in Summoner's Handbook clear the splash screen for you? This has been reported in the past by people only using their mouse, which I don't support...
Oh. I have to click.
Edit: It works now.
lol
Is there a way to cycle cards faster than just pressing enter a lot? It seems like you should be allowed to freely reorder your cards, at least out of combat. Currently the only obstacle to doing so is the tedium of it.
The unique deckbuilder/rpg mechanic is cool, and the game in general is very good for a 7DRL. In particular, the different abilities possessed by different units carrying over onto a swapped in unit allows (after the annoying card ordering out of combat part) some very effective combos that allow you to make short work of whole groups of enemies without taking damage (but you have to prep said combo before entering each room and usually there's nothing there and then you have to re-prep again for the next room or give up on having your combo).
Thanks for the feedback! You can cycle with Z, but too much control over your hand would be overpowered. To an extent I wanted you to have to make do, while still having the ability to reject a card at the cost of a turn, and making it an important tactical decision between whether cycling is worth that lost turn (in which you may get hit).
Since you mention pressing enter to burn time instead of using Z, I'm going to update the help screen to use "cycle" instead of "discard" as the terminology since discard may be misconstrued to mean permanently destroy. edit: this is done as of v1.1
Oh, cool! Thanks. Yes, complete control would definitely be overpowered, but pushing enter so much was just silly. Discarding as a turn is much more in line with what makes sense.
.jar is a java file - so wont really work on MacOS as java was removed due to security issues :(
Thanks for the info, I wasnt aware! Unchecked it as a download.
cant open tried the jars. Which jar file is it?
Sorry I don't understand, there is only one jar in the download?