Tales of Akash 9 guide [the free RPG]

As some of you may have read I released my single-player/shared screen MUD/dungeon crawler half a week ago. It got whopping 20 views which is twice as much as the previous game, thank you all and keep on sharing&playing!

I thought for the sake of not being an a#¤hole I'd write down some things about the game.

First of all, the character creation system works so that upon choosing:

• Human, STR +3

• Elf, STR +2

• Dwarf, STR +4

• Human, INT +3

• Elf, INT +4

• Dwarf, INT +2

• Human, DEX +3

• Elf, DEX +4

• Dwarf, DEX +2

• Human, WIS +3

• Elf, WIS +4

• Dwarf, WIS +2

That covers the race selection. Then the class-specific stat modifiers :

• Fighter, STR +5

• Mage, STR +3

• Rogue, STR +2

• Bard, STR +1

• Fighter, INT +2

• Mage, INT +3

• Rogue, INT +3

• Bard, INT +4

• Fighter, DEX +3

• Mage, DEX +2

• Rogue, DEX +4

• Bard, DEX +3

• Fighter, WIS +2

• Mage, WIS +4

• Rogue, WIS +3

• Bard, WIS +3

That's about it. I tried to make it somewhere in-between balanced and some classes being better in certain things like healing etc but the randomness of the game makes it very exciting if you have a tactic.

Player max health is calculated using the formulae STR * 10 + lvl.

Then, to the damage modifiers. Basically, the game creates a weapon in the database and it is represented by four digits from 0-2. The prefixes are :

• 0 for Common

• 1 for Balanced

• 2 for Perfect

Then there is the actual weapon number :

• 0 for Wand

• 1 for Quarterstaff

• 2 for Staff

And a suffix :

• 0 for empty

• 1 for for "of Wisdom"

• 2 for "of Akash"

Finally, the tier :

• 0 for empty

• 1 for (Rare)

• 2 for (Legendary)

Of course, the best combination would be 2222 which is Perfect Staff of Akash (Legendary). However, this is a very rare drop. So, how do these prefixes and suffixes etc modify damage? Well, every time the player attacks in PvE there is a function that reads your equipped item. Then for each number it finds it creates a damage modifier :

• Empty means +1 dmg

• 0 means +2 dmg

• 1 means +4 dmg

• 2 means +6 dmg

So basically with a Common Wand which is 0000 you get a weapon modifier of 8 (in v. 1.0.1 and 1.0.2). There's also a roll modifier which adds to the PvE damage. The formulae is STR * dice (1-6) + weapon modifier.

I won't go in depth what are the drop chances or encounter damage modifiers/health etc, you can always skim through the source code and fork/recompile if needed to adjust the game. I was thinking of writing a config app that could be used to alter these things though but no one wanted one so I guess people are just busy with their IDE's and enjoying the game (or some other game, who knows..)

About the plot; the player is set to explore the Akashic Dungeon which entrance is discovered in the realm of Endor. The dungeon is partially instanced, and randomly generated. There are so called "common" grids in which the player may barter with other players, heal and set PvP markers. These PvP markers act as a signal that the player may participate in PvP with the CLI (Command Line Interface). The script then checks whether both the players are in the same grid and initiate combat. This is based on a roll * weapon modifier + DEX.

The marketplace works so that there can be one item in the market. Adding another overwrites the previous, this is something I'm trying to look into in the upcoming patches.

Then there are item drops. The "syntax" for them is there are a number of items in a list and a function rolls one of them. This far there is no other use than to brag that the drop was the rarest etc but I had a plan of making it affect damage or PvP. After all, I designed them for novelty but figured out they could be used for a game mechanic.

Another thing there is a Tarot deck implemented within the game. With the Minor Arcana cards the number of the card dictates what happens:

• Cups boost healing

• Pentacles boost gold drops

• Wands give a number of rolls, each with 25% chance for a 1 or 2 modifier random weapon

• Swords boost the attack modifier

That's pretty much it! There is quite a lot in the game code I've forgotten but this should cover most of the basic rules. As you can see I haven't played the game much, as I was delving in the source code but a lot of changes have been playtested during development.

Anyway, the summer is over but I'm continuing to update the game, and have been studying React and other API's to make a true online game. So far I haven't gotten around to writing any code though, as the syntax looks confusing. Maybe one day I'll cobble it together.

I wrote this guide because it removes the idea that players should read the whole 2000-something lines of code in order to play the game, and for their enjoyment, for comparison and most importantly..

For Endor,

-ef

PS. If you want the legacy version it is no longer in the internet unless someone actually downloaded it. In ver 1.0.1 there's version control and some minor fixes, a larger update is on it's way once I get it done.

PPS. Last night I finished working on an update, ver. 1.0.2. It includes the Hall of Fame and some balancing fixes. Here's the Dropbox link :

Tales of Akash 9 ver 1.0.2 (84,4Mb)