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General discussionRelease: Barony: Cursed Edition(186 posts)(186 posts)
(186 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 10, 2016
Just remember that death is not the end



<span class="bold">Barony: Cursed Edition</span>, a first-person dungeon-crawler that throws you inside a treacherous labyrinth, is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, DRM-free on GOG.com, with a 30% launch discount.

If someone's been a pain in the backside while alive, you can bet they're going to be impossible after death. Such is the story of Baron Herx, who's come back as an undead lich, forcing your hero to dive into his lair and dispose of him for good. Thing is, the Baron is holed up inside a hardcore, procedurally-generated dungeon full of sinister traps and monsters, hidden passages, cryptic messages, and heaps of shiny loot. Frantically narrated perma-death lurks around every corner, but don't die alone - grab your friends and go about it in an up-to-4-player-co-op fashion.



Delve into an underground complex full of unpredictable dangers in <span class="bold">Barony: Cursed Edition</span>, DRM-free on GOG.com. The 30% discount ends May 17, 12:59 PM UTC.
Posted May 12, 2016
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tokisto: Of all the releases today, this is the one I'm considering.

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/barony-cursed-edition
Awesome price. Too bad it's tied to a drm store.
Posted May 12, 2016
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fortune_p_dawg: yeah, but that's the steam edition. bleh.
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tokisto: I drag attention to the price discount. I don't use Steam.
I bought the game for $6.99 here and played it quite a bit already. Even tho it has only been one day since I bought it I feel like I already got my money's worth out of it and I am not even done with the game yet. The game also includes the soundtrack here and I am not sure if that is the case with the Humble/Steam version.
Posted May 12, 2016
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sheridanr: The discount is one day only and part of the Humble Spring Sale. In the midst of dealing with GOG I had actually forgotten about it.
I don't know when it went up, but currently the discount says it has just under another day and eighteen hours left. If you only agreed to have the game 90% off for one day, you might want to look into that.
Posted May 12, 2016
high rated
Since the developers are reading this thread, I'd like to say thank you for a DRM free and Linux release.
Posted May 12, 2016
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sheridanr: I think GOG is the first place we've ever been seriously called out on the system requirements before. You are certainly a different crowd of people than I am used to dealing with. :)
I guess it's because the site used to focus so heavily on "old" games, so people are used to very low requirements, and games they can run on their automatic toaster ovens or whatever.

In any case, we're really not that bad around here. We're a fairly friendly bunch. Well, most of us... Most of the time!
Posted May 12, 2016
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fortune_p_dawg: yeah, but that's the steam edition. bleh.
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tokisto: I drag attention to the price discount. I don't use Steam.
Point taken.
Posted May 12, 2016
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mistermumbles: It's still a way of shooting oneself in the foot by posting such outlandish sys reqs. One would think that the dev would have asked his testers about what systems they've run the game on and then go from there instead of just going with only his own PC.
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sheridanr: We didn't have anybody test the product consistently on their own hardware, and those we did have to test occasionally tended to have nice specs anyway. Knowing that the game is not that demanding, I didn't think requirements testing was actually all that important.

Like I said before, I can't effectively support hardware I don't own, though I do understand why you guys would be outraged about it now. I think GOG is the first place we've ever been seriously called out on the system requirements before. You are certainly a different crowd of people than I am used to dealing with. :)
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tokisto: I drag attention to the price discount. I don't use Steam.
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sheridanr: The discount is one day only and part of the Humble Spring Sale. In the midst of dealing with GOG I had actually forgotten about it.
I'd like to add in here my laptop is an HP with a dual core (virtual quad core) i7 2.4 and intel 5500 graphics and the game works just fine. It also works on my i5 laptop. I was concerned, but the game works fine. Now if only I can survive long enough to see any of the game world past the beginning of the first dungeon...this game is quite challenging.
Posted May 12, 2016
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rampancy: As sheridanr himself has stated, these aren't exactly hard and fast min/recommended specs, but just him being conservative with his estimates. It's reasonably understandable that he'd want to ensure that people playing his game do so with a fair assurance that their computer will allow his game to be played as he feels it was meant to be played.
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mistermumbles: It's still a way of shooting oneself in the foot by posting such outlandish sys reqs. One would think that the dev would have asked his testers about what systems they've run the game on and then go from there instead of just going with only his own PC.
The problem here is that if they set the system requirements more realistically low, then they have to deal with lots more performance complaints, support requests, and negative reviews -- all of which can be disastrous, in their own ways, for a one- or two-person dev team -- because of things the developer could never have foreseen (like some idiot trying to do CGI rendering in the background while playing the game :P ). Granted, they'll lose some sales because of the misleadingly high stated requirements, but it's one of those things where they have to pick their poison, I guess.

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sheridanr:
So, what were some of the Roguelikes that most inspired Barony? Which one(s) would you say it's closest to?
Post edited May 12, 2016 by HunchBluntley
Posted May 12, 2016
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HunchBluntley: So, what were some of the Roguelikes that most inspired Barony? Which one(s) would you say it's closest to?
Nethack was a tremendous influence. I've played a bit of other roguelikes (ADOM, Angband, and DCSS) but Nethack is by far my favorite and has been my go-to roguelike for at least 10 years.

As far as roguelites are concerned, Spelunky was also a big inspiration, particularly when it comes to the sense of progression you get with the levels and the different areas (mines, jungle, desert, etc.)

Other influences are: System Shock 2, which inspired the interface and co-op aspects of the game, and Ultima Underworld and Daggerfall for the combat, atmosphere, and general dungeoneering experience.

Up to a few weeks before release, Barony actually used hit chance for melee like Daggerfall/Morrowind/Ultima, but after a bug disabled it on accident I finally realized that the game was a lot more fun when bad rolls didn't constantly force you to retreat from combat.

There are trace artistic inspirations from Doom and Heretic/Hexen scattered throughout the game (which I guess makes sense since Doom2 is probably my favorite game of all time) but those games were not really an influence otherwise.

Minecraft was not an influence in the least.
Posted May 12, 2016
I forgot to mention, but Ultima VIII: Pagan was also a big influence artistically.

Despite being one of the more disliked entries in the Ultima series, I played that game a lot as a kid, and the colorful, well-shaded, and expressive artwork stuck with me into adulthood:

http://www.micromania.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Ultima-VIII-Pagan.gif

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jWbCdhO2h2s/maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.gamersglobal.de/sites/gamersglobal.de/files/galerie/u8_04.png
Post edited May 12, 2016 by sheridanr
Posted May 12, 2016
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sheridanr: I forgot to mention, but Ultima VIII: Pagan was also a big influence artistically.

Despite being one of the more disliked entries in the Ultima series, I played that game a lot as a kid, and the colorful, well-shaded, and expressive artwork stuck with me into adulthood:

http://www.micromania.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Ultima-VIII-Pagan.gif

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jWbCdhO2h2s/maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.gamersglobal.de/sites/gamersglobal.de/files/galerie/u8_04.png
Pagan was my favorite Ultima as well. Love that earthy art style!
Posted May 12, 2016
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rampancy: As sheridanr himself has stated, these aren't exactly hard and fast min/recommended specs, but just him being conservative with his estimates. It's reasonably understandable that he'd want to ensure that people playing his game do so with a fair assurance that their computer will allow his game to be played as he feels it was meant to be played.
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mistermumbles: It's still a way of shooting oneself in the foot by posting such outlandish sys reqs. One would think that the dev would have asked his testers about what systems they've run the game on and then go from there instead of just going with only his own PC.
To be fair, it's not just this game and these developers that have overstated their minimum requirements; my little 2010 MacBook Air has been able to run other games like Not A Hero, Nuclear Throne, Starward Rogue and Enter the Gungeon, all of which have system requirements that exceed either its CPU or GPU spec. Granted I've had to turn down the graphical settings/resolution to get them to play comfortably, but they're all eminently playable with only the occasional lagging.

I can only speculate that, like Turning Wheel, those developers either did so because they had limited testing resources, or wanted to avoid excessive support issues as stated by HunchBluntley.

I do agree though that I'd like to see developers put a tad more effort into widening their base of hardware configurations for testing and support.

In any case, I do want to thank Turning Wheel for their efforts, and sheridanr for being here and engaging us on the forums as he has. I bought Barony in part because I want to support such developers as much as I personally can.
Posted May 12, 2016
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HunchBluntley: So, what were some of the Roguelikes that most inspired Barony? Which one(s) would you say it's closest to?
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sheridanr: [lots of answers]
Cool, thanks for the response! How about my second question, though? Which "true" Roguelike (i.e., not Spelunky, Don't Starve or FTL :) ) would you say contributed the most DNA to your game? Is it particularly "Nethack-y", given your love for that game, or would you say it skews in another direction?

And I second the others who have thanked you (and mistersneak!) for patiently answering questions and responding to feedback here. You've certainly made me more likely to pick up Barony at some point. : )
Posted May 13, 2016
The game takes most of its roguelike cues from Nethack. Sorry that wasn't clear already :)
Posted May 13, 2016
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sheridanr: The game takes most of its roguelike cues from Nethack. Sorry that wasn't clear already :)
No worries, I assumed that's what you meant, but I figured maybe some gameplay changes could have left the final product feeling more like some other RL (like Crawl). Thanks again!
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: Barony: Cursed Edition(186 posts)(186 posts)
(186 posts)