Lurk, Leap, Loot (2023 7DRL)
Sneak into mansions, map them, steal all the loot and escape! Coffee-break turn-based stealth inspired by Looking Glass Studios' Thief games.
The thieves' guild has tasked you with mapping out ten of the most opulent mansions in the city, for future big heists. In the meantime, you are free to keep any loose valuables you may find. The game's final score is based on how much of the loot you have collected and hung onto.
Created by James McNeill and Damien Moore for the 2023 Seven-Day Roguelike Challenge. Source is on Github.
We started from ThiefRL2, a previous 7DRL entry of mine, so it will be familiar if you've played that. Here are some of the changes:
- Player movement changed from 8-way to 4-way, plus a "leap" mechanic
- Guards patrol routes now instead of wandering randomly
- New tileset by Damien Moore
- Voiced dialogue and sound effects
- Torches that can be lit or doused; guards can carry torches
- An ending. Can you get all the loot?
NOTE: If you like this, try our greatly expanded follow-up game, LLLOOOT! It's packed with even more of the thiefy flavor you love!
Development log
- 2023 7DRL: Lurk, Leap, LootMar 11, 2023
Comments
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Awesome game, very thoughtfully done!
Thanks! We are working on getting a second version out; hopefully soon.
Gameplay video of your game.
I had fun with it, though played almost entirely to the end before learning that you can leap anytime you want, including to outrun pursuers, or simply past them, which makes it a *lot* easier. Good choice for making a 7drl more finishable though--more balance can come with any future updates :)
I liked the mapgen, and especially playing without rampant leaping there were some good tactical moments. Special ending music is also really fun :D (overall good audio in general! rare for a 7drl to have a bunch of voiced content...)
For anyone who might be interested I checked it out recently on stream: timestamped link.
Hi James, excellent work as usual! Even my fiancee likes ThiefRL 2, I wonder if she will like this one ;)
Any chances for standalone windows build?
Love the art style man.. The gameplay is fun and clearly a lot of effort and love have been put into this game.. If you get some time we would love to hear your feedback of our own little game.. either way.. take care man and again.. great job!!
it got a lot easier when I realized I could dash at any time
This one is really neat. Kept getting smoked. Fun to play.
Really enjoying this one! Played all the previous versions and it's my favorite. Very nice to see the concept evolving! Btw, in firefox the zoom function doesn't work because / is quick find. Also, do you plan to make a downloadable version available?
Thank you for creating this! ☮️
Thanks! I thought the zoom keys were the square brackets [ and ]? Slash (/) brings up the help, but Esc will also work if your keyboard has that. I just tried all three keys in Firefox on my machine and they seem to work? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are describing?
No you didn't misundertand me, forget I said anything, I just realize that I misread the control. Thanks for the reply!
Hey, this is the first time i have managed to beat one of your games and it was a fun ride!
Patrolin guards made a big difference for me, this way i had kind of a relationship with some of them. ( There was one pesky one in the 9th level that was always guarding the front gate :D )
The leap mechanic was very interesting as it made me feel quite powerfull, maybe a bit too much? It made me more daring, as i felt that i could always escape the gards as long, as spamming the leap key would make me move double their speed and even leap "through" them. I think this has its pros and cons as on hand it made the experience feel more managable and helped me push through to the end on the other hand it took away some strategic / stealth elements. Maybe a cooldown timer for the leap would help? So that you have to save it and use it in the right moments for some spectacular jump back to safety.
Anyway, cool game!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Damien pushed to have patrols. It does let you observe, form a plan, and then try to execute the plan.
The other big design challenge I set myself this time around was to go from eight-way movement to four-way movement. When I've tested games on people, quite a few are not familiar with eight-way movement and it's also hard to do on some keyboards. The dash is kind of the opposite of the corner-cutting that my eight-way-movement versions have had: dash gives you an advantage in open space, while corner-cutting gives you an advantage in tight spaces. I'm not sure I've really come to grips with all the implications yet. I liked how it cut down on the overall keystroke count for completing a level; it feels like you want to do it all the time. I did try out a stamina model but I tend to think of stamina meters as "fun meters" that make you stop having fun periodically. I will probably keep experimenting with that though to see if I can find a good balance.
Nice game! I enjoyed this. It took me a long while to realize I can leap anywhere, not just through doors/windows, and after that leaping did kind of feel like "god mode". But I think leaping is an interesting balance choice instead of diagonal movement which hasn't been explored much.
I don't think the leap removes any strategic / stealth elements. With the new light mechanic + less places to hide, to me the game is harder than the previous versions, which I like. So I think the leap is a nice addition. Does it need a cooldown? That's a good question. I need to play more, I haven't finished a run yet, maybe when I do I'll have an answer.