Schatz-Jäger
From Spheriki
Schatz-Jäger is primarily an action RPG, containing elements of treasure hunting, house building, and some mini-games. It could almost be described as a simple action roguelike game.
The game was a collaborative effort of Krypt and SDHawk, and though abandoned at only 50% completion, a substatial amount of gameplay is present. Though there is no official message indicating the time the game was last worked upon, file timestamps suggest that last progress was made on May 24, 2004.
Contents |
Story
From the official project website:
- You wake up shipwrecked on an island filled to the brim with ancient ruins and deep forests, brimming with treasure across every acre. Upon your arrival you're informed by the greedy owner of the island that if you want to get off it you'll have to work for it- by dragging up as much treasure as you possibely can.
Features
The version of the game available includes:
- collection of over fifty unique items, weapons, and other treasures
- the ability to buy materials for, design and build your own house from a plot of land
- combat monsters in both pregenerated level sequences, and in randomly generated tropics, swamps and caves
- a number of mini-games: one for each of the two implemented bosses, plus one for fishing
- ASCII art style, seemingly inspired by the roguelike computer game genre
Gameplay
The game is played mostly in top-down 2D action-adventure style.
The Player
The player is constantly referred to as "you", another nod to the roguelike genre. They have a simple set of numeric stats, an inventory, and a bed to start the game with.
The player is represented in the game as a graphical '@' symbol, again, a reference to roguelikes.
Stats
There are three statistics that represent the player's power at any particular point in the game's progress: STR (strength), DEX (dexterity) and LCK (luck). STR has a direct influence on the damage caused by the player when attacking monsters. It is unclear what effect the other two stats have in terms of gameplay.
Stats are raised individually by spending experience points. The cost to raise each stat by one point depends largely on how high that stat already is. The levels of the other stats also have a minor influence of the cost of each individual stat.
Combat
Being an action RPG, the player must defend themselves from harm by wielding a weapon. A weapon can be wielded by choosing it in the inventory.
Attacks will drive enemies away, giving the player extra distance between themselves and harm. Different weapons have different attack ranges:
- Swords swing a forward arc in whatever direction the player was last moving.
- Axes swing a larger area than swords, but are considerably slower to use.
- Spears stab straight forward over a fair distance.
A gameplay demo viewable on the official project page suggests the existence of other weapons, such as a crossbow with long range.
Each weapon has stat modifiers, which are made known in their descriptions. The modifier takes effect as long as the weapon is wielded.
Attacking enemies will cause a number to appear out of them. This number indicates the level of damage inflicted upon the enemy. Similar numbers appear from the player when they are hurt. After a certain amount of hit points are lost from the enemy, it will die and give the player experience points, which can be spent on stats. The enemy may also drop a treasure, or gold.
Levels
There are two varieties of levels: predefined and randomly-generated. Both sorts share a time limit, which is the time before which the level must be completed or returned from, or the game will end. Both sorts are usually populated with monsters and treasures as well.
Predefined Levels
There are three combat zones in the game. The first time the player visits a particular zone, they will have to complete a sequence of predefined levels, at the end of which a boss is fought.
The key feature of predefined levels is the switch-gate combination. Gates will impede the progress of the player, while corresponding switches will open gates. The player can only move forward to leave a predefined level, so finding switches is a must. Switches appear as white dots, while gates appear as walls, coloured lighter.
Switches can be activated by attacking them. Attacking them again will not close the gate.
In the first zone (south-west fork of the path in the main field), an axe will be axquired. This axe can destroy certain obstacles, and also doubles as an adequate weapon.
Predefined levels will have the same layout of map tiles, enemies, treasures and switches if the player ever has to return to them.
After such a sequence of predefined levels, a boss is then confronted. See the Mini-Games sub-section for more details.
Due to the incomplete nature of this game, only two of the three zones have levels of this type. Subsequently, there are only two bosses.
Randomly-Generated Levels
Once a zone has been cleared once through the pre-defined maps, the game switches the zone into a randomly-generated area. The player may enter such an area three times for every day (one day elapses for each time the player chooses to sleep in a bed).
As suggested by the title, levels are randomly generated, and scattered with enemies and treasure. One major difference between this and a predefined level is that randomly-generated levels tend to have a great deal of treasure to be collected.
The other major difference, apart from the obvious, is that randomly-generated levels tend to be much, much larger than their predefined counterparts. Beware, the time limit still exists, and it is easy for the player to reach a point where they cannot return to the town before it expires. This causes the game to end, without a chance to save. Such a situation should be avoided. The music will speed up to indicate that time is running short.
Randomly-generated levels are good grounds for both gaining experience to boost stats and collecting treasure. Of the latter, it is profitable to gather both treasure left lying on the ground, and that left behind by fallen foes.
Compass
The game features an ASCII-based compass in levels. This serves as a rough indicator as to where the exit of the level is. It points to the direction of the exit relative to the player's position on the map.
Treasures
As the description suggests, treasures can be collected over the course of adventures. Most items can be classified as either wooden, steel, bronze, silver or gold. A number of items fit outside these categories, the varieties of fish, or the healing potions, for example.
Treasures can be found scattered about in the randomly-generated levels, and in certain places in pre-generated levels. To collect a treasure, simply walk over them.
Most treasures are only valuable to sell to one of the store-owners, who incidentally retain those items if the player ever feels the need to buy back their items. Generally, gold items are the most valuable, followed by silver, follwed by bronze. Most other items are priced based on their usefulness.
Mini-Games
There is a mini-game each for the two bosses, plus one for catching fish.
Fishing
In order to fish, the player must have the 'WF.Spear' item (wooden fishing spear). Going to the coast south of the village, right up to the waterline, will allow the player to use the 'WF.Spear' to enter the fishing mini-game.
The mini-game itself consists of the player along the top, with the bulk of the screen filled with water, where up to two fish swim around. The player must press 'a' to throw their spear. If a fish is hit, the mini-game will reward the player with a certain type of fish, and end.
There are a number of different types of fish, so it is worthwhile for the player to try their hand at fishing multiple times.
House Building
House building has no gameplay effect, and serves no purpose other than to support the ego of the player. Nevertheless, a well-designed house can lend a decorative, personal touch to the game, and make the character feel more at home while on the island.
The First Bed
When starting in the game, the player will be asked to place down a bed. This will be most likely the first of many house building elements they will lay down, so they should choose carefully. This bed can be placed on any green tile with a white dot.
The most obvious position is the large plot in the south-east corner of the village. However, since house elements cannot be replaced or removed once laid, it may be wiser to choose another position, to save house planning for later, and to avoid future house design issues.
Other places to put the bed are the smaller plot with walls just north-west of the large plot, the centre of the village (if the player wishes to be oddball), and a plot in the north-west corner of the village.
Getting Started
The very first step to making a house is for the player to think out the general layout. The player will most likely wish to build their house in the large south-east plot, which has the most room to build upon.
Players should generally not consider house building until they begin earning a sizeable income from regular treasure hunting. All of the materials needed to make a house have a considerable price tag tied to them.
With the above conditions satisfied (or patience burnt short), the way to build houses is via Wolfgang's shop. This shop is located in the south of the village, opposite the large empty plot.
Wolfgang's Shop
Wolfgang is one of two tradespeople in the village. If the player wishes to sell items, it is advisable that they sell to the other shop owner, since the player will want to keep Wolfgang's inventory reasonably clean.
Wolfgang is important for two reasons:
- He regularly sells and restocks building resources.
- He allows the player to lay down materials on land.
Materials on Sale
Wolfgang restocks on a day-per-day basis. The actual new materials that appear in his inventory are randomly selected, but are based loosely around the combat proficiency of the player character (or seems to be). This means that higher levels will be required before 'G.Walls' and 'G.Chairs' appear (gold building blocks).
Wooden materials are by far the most common encountered in Wolfgang's inventory. They are also the cheapest, which makes it suitable for most of the rooms in a house. 'W.Walls' and 'W.Floors' are common and can make a room in a matter of days.
Trees, water and sand may also appear. They make very good decoration materials for the outside of the house, and the inside for the more creative players.
Gold Building Materials
Gold materials are the most expensive to acquire, and start with the 'G' prefix.
In the most recent release, they are unfortunately lacking collision data, which makes even walls walkable. The only known solution is to open the map in the Sphere IDE, and modify the tiles in the tileset to include the blocking data. This is done by right-clicking in the tile palette and choosing 'Properties'.
Building Interface
Talking to Wolfgang will show the option to 'Build'. This allows the player to use the materials that they have purchased. The editor is mouse-based, and controls are summarised in the relevant section.
The editing principle consists of:
- Planning out a room or wall.
- Right clicking to cycle to the desired element to put down.
- Left clicking to place down the element. This is a permanent action.
- Repeating from step 2 until out of materials or room complete.
- Pressing Escape to exit the interface and resume normal gameplay.
The arrow keys will scroll the display so that the mouse can put the tiles in the right places. It really is as simple as that.
Controls
- Left-click - Choose menu item, place house building element.
- Right-click - Cycle through available house building elements.
- Cursor keys - Move.
- A - Attack.
- D - Bring up main menu.
- Enter - Choose menu item.
- Escape - Cancel a menu.
Gameplay Movies
The following are animated GIF samples of the gameplay of this game:
Player Comments
- I've clocked hours on this game. And it isn't even complete. My mansion is my proudest accomplishment in the game! Very addictive, as many thumbs up as I have thumbs! --Tunginobi 16:13, 8 July 2006 (PDT)
Links
The following links no longer work:
- Download self-contained game archive (requires Sphere engine, ZIP, 2.9 MB)
