Errant Mech
7DRL note: the web version on Itch has been updated since the 7DRL release. The 7DRL version is 1.0.0, which is available to download, or can be played in browser here. The 1.0.x releases add only basic quality of life bug fixes and does not change gameplay. The 1.1.x releases add consistency changes and slower enemy danger level progression, but no new mechanics etc..
You are the pilot of the only mech available to defend the city from enemy attack. Your only goal is to engage the enemy as long as possible (there is no win condition, just try to survive as long as possible and maximize kills). Enemy units will be air dropped into the city, and are expected to include infantry, tanks, and mechs. Your mech is equipped with experimental technology which gives you twice the health and shields as enemy mechs of the same type.
Equipment slots can take separate actions, and using one to move, shoot, or get/drop makes that slot busy until it is finished with the action. The panel on the right of the screen shows your equipment slots and highlights those which are currently available for action. For convenience, if you request movement when the locomotor is busy or request get/drop to/from a slot which is is busy, then time will advance until that slot becomes available. The skip command advances time until the next busy slot becomes available. Note that enemies can still take actions in this time.
Larger mechs and larger weapons tend to make more noise. Sound will give you away to enemies, and sometimes lets you detect enemy units which are out of sight. Your war horn can be used to make more noise.
There is currently no handling of range (except the screen) or accuracy (except that trees and machinery have a chance of blocking fire).
You can choose from four mech types to play as, with a tradeoff between speed and number of weapons. Faster mechs can be a significant advantage.
If you prefer the keyboard over the mouse for targeting, then you may want to try the alternate targeting mode available in options.
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Development log
- Scaling factor and UI fixes 1.0.4, 1.1.330 days ago
- Scale web canavas to window 1.0.3, 1.1.232 days ago
- Key binding fixes release 1.1.137 days ago
- Key binding fixes release 1.0.237 days ago
- Consistency and difficulty progression release 1.1.042 days ago
- Quality of life bug fix release 1.0.143 days ago
- 7DRL success49 days ago
- 7DRL days 1-254 days ago
Comments
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Got through my first couple runs so far, I like it! (big fan of mech games myself)
I noticed the keybinding system doesn't seem to work past the first page (at least via keyboard access, since I can't use the mouse)--the reference letters don't move down to new options while scrolling, which I'm thinking was probably the intent (I had wanted to rebind the wait/skip key, but it was down further).
Really liked the innovative alpha-based target selection, haven't seen that one before, although I do wonder how the letters are chosen since it seems kinda random. Would've thought that the first or only enemy in view would simply be 'a' and go from there. (I realize that enemies you've seen before would want to retain the same letter, although probably no need to assign them letters until you've seen them?)
I like the noise system, knowing where enemies are (and enemies knowing about you) based specifically on the amount of sound made during movement and shooting. Fun how you can't generally hear infantry and this plus the louder enemies sometimes mixes things up in terms of optimal tactics.
Already decent atmosphere here running around a city (and destructible terrain!), though would of course be nice to see more development adding things like enemies with better weapons worth upgrading to. Good sound effects would go a long way, and ambient audio... man this is making me want to make a game like this again xD
Obviously endless other possibilities, but as is it's a 7DRL so can't expect to have all that, what's here is already pretty solid. Nice job! Planning on doing much more with it?
Thanks! The key binding window is definitely an issue I had missed. If I hadn't just helpfully broken mouse support, you would also be able to click to rebind. You can also save bindings once and then edit the JSON in web storage if your browser lets you do that.
In principle the key targeting does take letters in order for enemies in view (or in hearing) but there is some bug that's preventing it -- actually now that I look at it I think it's effectively randomizing the initial queue after 'a', so I can probably fix that.
I would really like to work on this enough to add some differentiation and progression to weapons. I would also like to try to adjust infantry so they have more specific advantages but are less overwhelming. Unfortunately the code base is currently pretty messy, so I'm sure how far I'll get with improvements.
Ah, 7DRL coding :P
Every time I do 7DRL I think I will come up with a clean architecture based on past lessons, and have somewhat succeeded for UI and some other supporting code, but not at all for core game logic.
Really wanted to try this out, but I use Windows so can only play the browser version, and the font is only available at the original size? It creates a tiny window--I love the classic IBM font, but it'd be nicer if it were scaled like the screenshots if that's possible.
I've actually just been using normal browser zoom when I play it myself, which seems to work ok. But I'll see if I can improve the default scaling for the browser version.
I've just changed it so that it scales to the browser window -- which may make it too big on a big monitor but seems to be an overall improvement.
And as soon as I published that I also discovered that it semi-broke mouse support.
Ack yeah that's an easy way to break mouse support xD
Thanks though, and actually "too big" technically wouldn't be much of an issue since you can always set the browser window size to whatever, which works fine. You mentioned using browser zooming, which I had tried first, but for me that did not change the size of the game itself, so I had assumed there was no easy way to use the browser to do that.
Also, rather than dynamic scaling I would certainly prefer having it crisp/pixel-perfect (as in the screenshots!), to maximize enjoyment of playing with one of my favorite fonts ;)
But anyway, at least it's visible now, and works, and I am going to try this out. I can just use keyboard mode, although I imagine examining things is faster via mouse without any quick way to tab between targets and so on...
I'll try to come back to scaling when I get a chance. I'm using bracket-terminal, which is generally good but can be finicky in working out how to set up the terminal.
I've updated to use a scaling factor instead, which defaults to 2 (I think the same as the screenshots, although obviously browsers are handling things a bit differently here). And have hopefully fixed the UI bugs you found (thanks again!).
Awesome, looks beautiful now, and also the mouse works! I don't really need the mouse, but I tested it out to see, and noticed there is one issue: You have to move the cursor after entering firing mode for it to register your proper line-of-fire, which otherwise defaults to targeting the origin (yourself). I discovered this because I'd be quickly moving the cursor to targets while firing, and if my cursor was already on the target when I began to fire and select a weapon, it wouldn't shoot them :P (on selecting a weapon it should then immediately calculate the initial LOF to wherever the cursor is at that moment)
Now to do some runs in the heavier mechs I haven't tried out yet.