Possession - A roguelike made in LÖVE

[Rickton]

(UPDATE: This post doesn't reflect it, since it's the original announcement, but the game actually does include graphics now. This post has screenshots and info.)

So, last week was the 7-Day Roguelike Challenge, and I made a game for it using LÖVE (actually, as I was looking through the list of games made for this year's challenge, it looked like there were a few others using LÖVE too, so that's cool).
You play as a ghost escaped from the Nether Regions, trying to make your way to the surface. You are incredibly frail, but have one advantage: you can possess the bodies of the monsters you encounter.

Features:
- 5 levels, each with unique possessable monsters
- A wide variety of creature powers
- Exploding bodies!
- A somewhat modern effects and GUI, for a roguelike (ie you can use the mouse)
- Item-less gameplay
- A high score table, for tracking your wins
- A monsterpedia, which tracks the details of the monsters you possess
- Quick to pick up and play

Here are some screenshots from the development, for what good they're worth (I mean, it is a roguelike):



Download Mac or Windows executable, or .love file from itch.io

[alasqa]

The game looks and plays great man! Could you perhaps make it open source? A friend and myself are currently trying to make our own roguelike and are very confused with how to start. If you could that would be awesome man.

[Ragzouken]

The game looks and plays great man! Could you perhaps make it open source? A friend and myself are currently trying to make our own roguelike and are very confused with how to start. If you could that would be awesome man.

All .love files are visible-source; just rename it to .zip and open it!

[Rickton]

The game looks and plays great man! Could you perhaps make it open source? A friend and myself are currently trying to make our own roguelike and are very confused with how to start. If you could that would be awesome man.

Thanks! I'm working on an updated version right now so I can't post the source, but like Ragzouken said, if you change the love file's extension to .zip you should be able to open it.
Good luck making sense of it though...since I had only 7 days to make it, a lot is pretty hacky (although the basics should be fairly well-implemented since I had those done beforehand). I'd like to clean it up and release a sort of open-source roguelike "starter kit" for people to use with LÖVE to make their own games with, but who knows if I'll actually get around to it.
In any case, thanks again for checking it out and for the compliments!

[Germanunkol]

Love the look of this... great style, I've rarely seen ascii-art used that well together with colors. Nice!

[Bransonn]

I'm alasqa's friend. I didn't even realize he posted here! I was about to send him this, ha.

Great game man. Thanks for letting us take it apart and learn. Means a lot.

[Rickton]

Thank you to both of you (and you're welcome to Bransonn).

Version 1.1 is out, mostly containing interface improvements including multiple resolutions and fullscreen mode, and letting you actually set your character's name and gender on a newgame.

(Links removed due to being out of date)

Full list of changes:
- Friendly and enemy summoned mushroom men are now different colors.
- A new "options" menu, which lets you switch the game to/from fullscreen, change the resolution, and change the keyboard refresh rate.
- You can set your name and gender when starting a new game.
- Clicking an adjacent enemy now attacks it as well as targeting it.
- Gameplay tweak: Creatures will not cast spells on you if you're a ghost (it was just too cheap otherwise).
- Fixes:
- Changed the pathfinding algorithm so that monsters will move through diagonal spaces.
- Fixed various typos and inaccuracies.
- Moving into a wall no longer wastes a turn.
- Allied monsters now attack enemies next to them. They still won't chase them unless the player sets the enemy as a target (this is intended).
- Trying to move the targeting cursor through an unseen area no longer resets the cursor.

[Germanunkol]

Played it a little... it's really great!
After playing it, I liked the style even more... great controls, gameplay is relatively intuitive, and the levels look nice, even though they're so simple. Well done!

[Rickton]

I've released a new version of the original Possession. No gameplay changes, but this adds support for graphics, though it has nowhere near the polish and fancy effects that Possession 2 has.

There are separate settings for creature and environment graphics, so if you like having ASCII characters for creatures, but want a graphical level, you can. Or, if you like having creature graphics, but an ASCII level, you can, too.

If you haven't played it, give it a try (link to itch.io page), it's free!

This isn't Possession 2. It uses the same sprites, but Possession 2 has much more polish and flair. I'm still continuing to work on Possession 2, and while I am posting them to the LÖVE forums, if you're interesting in receiving exclusive updates and info, go ahead and sign up for our newsletter!

Screenshots:


Full Graphical Mode

ASCII creature mode


ASCII environment mode


Full ASCII mode