What is total.party.kill?
total.party.kill is a post-apocalypse roguelike heavily influenced by lite-rpg boardgames like Warhammer Quest, Heroquest and Castle Ravenloft. You have four characters, not just one, and it's about tactical choices in randomly generated dungeons.
Your party can get totally killed.
How To Play
Unlike the other rogulelikes I know, you can use a mouse with it. A lot of the things you interact with are context sensitive - right clicking on a monster lets you attack it, right clicking on a door lets you open it.
Your characters are:
The Mercenary: a soldier, (s)he's accurate but packs a smallish punch.
The Rogue: a finesse fighter, (s)he's good at distance and good at noticing traps.
The Barbarian: a brutish fighter, (s)he does the most damage.
The Shaman: a healer and magic user, but squishy.
total.party.kill has a crappy user interface. I know. Even I have trouble figuring it out sometimes.
So bear with me, here's how you play:
First, maximize the window. I'm such a lazy programmer I didn't even do that for you.
You're going to start on your mercenary's turn. The character whose turn it is listed in the upper left.
The easiest way to move is using the Q,W,E,A,D,Z,X,C keys.
There are traps. If the Rogue moves next to one he'll see it. Anybody else will blunder right into it.
Once you've finished moving, you can do something. Open a door (the '#') by right-clicking on it. More of the tunnels will be revealed. If you don't want to do anything, hit 'S' to pass.
Your characters always go in order: Mercenary, Rogue, Barbarian, Shaman. This can be annoying, because you'd really like to move the rogue first. Well, that's just part of the game! (Ducks.)
Soon, probably in the next room, you'll see some letters that aren't you guys. Those are monsters. You fight them by moving up to them, right clicking on them, and choosing 'attack.' Or you can walk into them like in Rogue.
If you kill them, they might drop some loot ('$'). Right click on it to see what it is and get it. If you have enough Carry, you'll be able to hold it in your inventory. Your character's inventory is in the lower right.
To equip something new, right click on that thing in your inventory and choose 'Equip.' If you're already wearing something in that slot, you'll automatically unequip it.
So what are all those stats?
- Offense is how good you are at hitting.
- Damage is how much damage you typically do.
- Evasion is how good you are at not getting hit.
- Resist is how much damage you stop.
The first number is your natural ability - the second number is your ability adjusted for the weapons and armor you have equipped.
- Max. Health is how much health you have when you're perfectly healthy.
- Health is how much health you currently have. When it hits 0 you're unconcious and need healing in two turns or you're dead. Characters that are close to 0 turn red.
- Max. Offense, Damage, Evasion and Resist indicate the biggest weapons you can hold. The Barbarian has Max. Damage 5, so he can carry the badass war axe. The Shaman, with Max. Damage 3, cannot. The Shaman, with Max. Resist 0, cannot wear any armor.
- Carry is how many items you can carry.
- Max. Power, Power Reserve, and Power Surplus only matter for the Shaman. Power Reserve is how much mana he has saved up. Power Surplus is how much mana he has extra. Every turn he generates a surplus - if the surplus isn't used that turn, it's lost. So if you have a surplus of 5, get your lightning on. But if your Surplus is low, casting a spell will use up your Reserve.
- Gold is a useless stat. Maybe I'll do something with it someday.
- Experience is earned by killing monsters, just like the good old days. When you have enough experience to increase a stat, a [+] will appear next to it. Click it to increase it, and the experience will be spent.
To use spells and some items, you don't click in your inventory, you right click on what you want to use them on, and the option should be available in the context menu. Some of the things in the shaman's inventory are his spells: they have numbers listed next to them. That's how much power it costs to use that spell. See above on what the power surplus and reserve mean; they're important.
The spells are:
- healing touch: can only be cast next to someone. Heals them.
- paintouch: can only be cast next to someone. Hurts them.
- lightning: can be cast at a distance. Does damage.
- web: can be cast at a distance. Makes them lose turns.
The medistim is your 'healing potion' - you can use it once and its gone. Every player starts with one.
Some more confusing stuff: You can left-click on someone that isn't your active character to see their stats. But then you might forget whose turn it is. Look in the left hand corner to see who's supposed to go next.
I think that's all I should tell you, to leave some surprises. Get in, get the McGuffin, don't die. You probably won't make it on the first try. And then, once you've made it, there's not much reason to play again, but at least you were entertained for an hour or two, right?
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