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Got some Q’s you’d like the devs behind the game to A? Join the team behind Crypt of the Necrodancer for a special forum Q&A session!

A gamedev duet from Brace Yourself Games, Ryan and Heather, are here to answer all your pressing questions about the game, the life behind game development, or their favorite cat video of all time, from from 8pm GMT to 10pm GMT (click the times to check when that is in your time zone).

Here’s a short bio of our guests to give you something to start off with:

Ryan (Creator/Designer, BraceYourselfGames)
-- Has been creating independent games professionally since 2004, including games like IncrediBots
-- Started programming games as a hobby when he was 6
-- Designed Crypt of the NecroDancer by accident, with help from Michael Jackson

Heather (Community Manager/Producer, BraceYourselfGames)
-- Been working in video games for over 10 years.
-- Designed her first board game in middle school, but gave up that lucrative career due to homework demands.
-- Office mates include 1 dog, and 2 cats.


Now that our Crypt of the Necrodancer guests have been introduced, we’d like to remind you our Q&A rules for this Q&A to work as smoothly as possible:

Not all questions might get answered during the Q&A. This means your specific question might go unnoticed or unanswered, but feel free to read along anyway and hang out with us - it’s gonna be fun anyway!
Be nice. This means no abuse, harassment, name-calling and the like.
Don’t spam or take over the thread to go off-topic. This will help us all keep track of incoming questions and help you get the most out of this event - and keep our guests involved!
Try to look through some recent questions before asking a new one. If the Q&A has been going on for a while, it’s likely your question has already been addressed.
Try to keep it about Rampart. Just kidding, we’re sure the devs have lots of subjects aside from Crypt of the Necrodancer that they’d love to have a chat about with you guys!

Let’s get this show on the road!
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justMaku: Ryan, how exactly does one design a game by accident - and why should I believe you guys when you say that an accidental game is any good?
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BraceYourselfGames: I didn't intend for it to be a rhythm game, at the start :)

I was inspired by Spelunky. I enjoy the fact that when you die in Spelunky, it's always your own fault. There is always something you could've done to have avoided that death. Spelunky feels fair in a way that most true roguelikes don't. I wanted to make a more "true" roguelike (top down turn based dungeon crawler with permadeath) that also felt fair like that. But one reason that Spelunky feels fair is that there is a lot of real time skill involved.

I didn't want to get rid of the turn based nature of my "true" roguelike, so I tried a hybrid: Keep the turns, but force the player to move quickly. When I tried this it worked well, but it also felt like I was moving to the beat of something! So I tried playing it to the rhythm of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and the rest is history :)
Did any of the classic roguelikes (Angband, Nethack, Moria, etc) have an influence on Crypt of the NecroDancer? :)
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NecroHeather: getting to test Coda before the rest of the world had seen her. :D
I have yet to unlock that character myself as I am still trying to work with Aria and the Monk (must not grab gold!!!) but I can't imagine playing as Coda, based on some youtube videos I've seen. How difficult was the testing process for Coda for you? :)
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JudasIscariot: Did any of the classic roguelikes (Angband, Nethack, Moria, etc) have an influence on Crypt of the NecroDancer? :)
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BraceYourselfGames: I put the most hours into the original Rogue, and I played a fair amount of Nethack. But the original Rogue was definitely the biggest influence. I hated the fact that you'd often die for lack of food (meaning you needed to have descended more quickly) while ALSO often dying because you'd run into a troll or centaur that you just weren't ready for (perhaps because you descended too quickly). It felt frustrating. Some of the seeds just seemed unwinnable. I wanted to make a game that was similar, but always felt fair.

As for Nethack, I loved the fact that high level players can beat it a very high percentage of the time. This means that, in some way, Nethack is quite "fair". However, to get to that level you have to study the game for years and learn all kinds of obscure lore. I wanted NecroDancer to be "fair" in a much more obvious way. As a result, when you die we show you a replay of that death, so that you can see the enemy movement pattern that killed you, and hopefully immediately learn how to avoid that kind of death in the future. No need to study the game for years on end :)
Ahhh yes, the blasted food mechanic :D Can't believe how many times I died due to starvation :D

Forgive me for veering slightly off-topic but if you are ever in the mood for a roguelike that eases the pain of the food mechanic I can easily recommend PosChengband , food everywhere :D Also, gotta give you major props for playing the original Rogue :)

(I am a big RL fan...in case you haven't noticed :) )
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HauntedGeode: Which character is your favorite to play as?
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NecroHeather: Mine is Choral (the player 2 skin of Cadence), and I also really like the challenge of Monk.
How do you get over the habit-forming gold, though? :P All of my deaths were due to grabbing gold out of habit :D