Berserking again!
20 January 2007
Berserk! 0.8 has been released! Hence it is decided that the roguelike game of tactical bloodshed will be continued despite the controversies. Why Berserk!?
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Working on Berserk! is a lot of fun… Maybe it’s because I’m a true fan of the Manga, contrary to Doom and Diablo which I realy like, but don’t have such an emotional connection with. It also may be because the code is a lot cleaner then that of the other two roguelikes — I can focus on adding content, and not hacking the code to work the way I expect it to. I’m not a great fan of programming, I much more prefer design.
But probably a more important reason is the fact that the work I’m doing on Berserk! is a lot more original then on the other two. Except for the hero and his equipment, all the rest is my original creation, just inspired by the “theme” of the Manga. I feel a lot more creative here.
Finally there’s theres one more reason — I’m realy proud of the design of Berserk! — the game I envisioned and designed worked even better than I expected. Some of the features that I knew would be good didn’t fail me, but others appeared as a sudden inspiration and turned out to be great!
For example, one of the things that I enjoy about Berserk! is the way how the game encourages playing “on the edge”. There’s the moment in almost every game, that you have just a few HPs left, you’re berserk, and still have Fairydust, but you go on, “just another kill”, not wanting to waste the precious damage from berserk mode… Feels very much in the spirit of Berserk IMHO.
Another thing about Berserk! (the latest release) that I’m proud of is the fact that of all the monsters, EACH one of them has a special ability (except the beast which is intended as cannon-fodder – no pun intended). And contrary to traditional roguelikes the special abilities realy matter, and are not just different stats.
Finally, there’s one thing that I value most in Berserk! – the mood. The feeling of a desperate and already lost battle against the demonic forces. And the desperate battle to go on. This is what I loved in Kentaro’s Manga, and this is what I wanted to achieve in Berserk!.
I could write a lot more about Berserk!, but one person wrote almost all that I wanted to write already. Read the post by Pointless from the controversial thread, it made me realy… happy. Thank you, Pointless!