Elona (video game)
Encyclopedia
Elona is a roguelike
game created by Japanese developer Noa. Its name is short for "Eternal League of Nefia". Noa began developing Elona in 2006, and based it on roguelikes such as Ancient Domains of Mystery
(ADOM) and Angband. Noa had previously made two other role-playing games, Shade and Etherwind. A reviewer at Insert Credit praised Elona as "very well-made" and compared its character development system to that of ADOM.
The game is set in a fantasy world called Irva. The player creates a character, with one each of eleven races and ten classes
, to battle monsters, practice magic, perform music, or take on various other roles. It is possible to change a value in the configuration and play as special "debug" races, such as a god. The player first takes control of their character, who survives a disaster at sea, in the north of Irva's northwestern continent, Tyris. North Tyris contains many towns and dungeons, with randomly-generated elements, that the player can explore as they deal with or avoid creatures, townsfolk, other adventurers, and the corrupting effects of a seasonal phenomenon called Etherwind. The player can take quest
s and make their character believe in one of several gods to enhance their skills and earn various bonuses.
Elona is programmed in the Hot Soup Processor
(HSP) procedural language. Noa promoted the game with an Adobe Flash
shooter game
, Elona Shooter, released in October 2009 on Kongregate
.
Of particular note is that it is very difficult to play a full wizard. The player must successfully read spellbooks, which are very hard to obtain due to the randomness of the town vendors, which generates spell stock for a particular spell. Once the player runs out of stock for a spell, he is not able to cast it anymore, and mana to cast spells is extremely limited, even with a wizard friendly race and feats selected. Wizards also have to cast a spell many times to level it up to increase the damage, which can take a very long time due to limited spell stocks and mana, whereas a warrior simply has to complete a few dungeons to find appropriate equipment.
With the online setting chosen, players can also see other player's death messages(but not encounter them ingame) and the manner in which they die, such as starving to death in a dungeon or being killed by a rock thrown by an old man.
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
game created by Japanese developer Noa. Its name is short for "Eternal League of Nefia". Noa began developing Elona in 2006, and based it on roguelikes such as Ancient Domains of Mystery
Ancient Domains of Mystery
Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM, is a roguelike game by Thomas Biskup first released in . The player's aim is to stop the forces of Chaos that invade the world of Ancardia....
(ADOM) and Angband. Noa had previously made two other role-playing games, Shade and Etherwind. A reviewer at Insert Credit praised Elona as "very well-made" and compared its character development system to that of ADOM.
The game is set in a fantasy world called Irva. The player creates a character, with one each of eleven races and ten classes
Character class
In role-playing games, a common method of arbitrating the capabilities of different game characters is to assign each one to a character class. A character class aggregates several abilities and aptitudes, and may also sometimes detail aspects of background and social standing or impose behaviour...
, to battle monsters, practice magic, perform music, or take on various other roles. It is possible to change a value in the configuration and play as special "debug" races, such as a god. The player first takes control of their character, who survives a disaster at sea, in the north of Irva's northwestern continent, Tyris. North Tyris contains many towns and dungeons, with randomly-generated elements, that the player can explore as they deal with or avoid creatures, townsfolk, other adventurers, and the corrupting effects of a seasonal phenomenon called Etherwind. The player can take quest
Quest (gaming)
A quest in role-playing video games — including massively multiplayer online role-playing games and their predecessors, MUDs — is a task that a player-controlled character or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward...
s and make their character believe in one of several gods to enhance their skills and earn various bonuses.
Elona is programmed in the Hot Soup Processor
Hot Soup Processor
Hot Soup Processor is a programming language from Japan that was originally developed in 1994. It was originally based on BASIC, but has diverged significantly from those roots over the years. It is freeware as of 1996, and now is open source under the BSD licenses...
(HSP) procedural language. Noa promoted the game with an Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
shooter game
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
, Elona Shooter, released in October 2009 on Kongregate
Kongregate
Kongregate is an online games hosting website owned by Gamestop Corporation, which allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash or Unity3D games. It features an API that Flash and Unity developers can integrate into their games which allows users to submit high scores and in some games, earn...
.
Gameplay
While there is a main dungeon consisting of several difficult boss fights, the gameplay is very open ended and there are almost no references to the main dungeon. The player is free to explore the world and other dungeons at his own pace. Gameplay largely consists of performing random quests to earn money and platinum coins while searching dungeons for higher level loot. Like many rogue likes, gameplay is very random, high level players may be killed in a single critical hit from a low level monster, or low level players may suddenly encounter a boss monster beyond their ability. NPCs are also heavily randomized, they may suddenly read a cursed scroll, summoning monsters that set the town on fire.Of particular note is that it is very difficult to play a full wizard. The player must successfully read spellbooks, which are very hard to obtain due to the randomness of the town vendors, which generates spell stock for a particular spell. Once the player runs out of stock for a spell, he is not able to cast it anymore, and mana to cast spells is extremely limited, even with a wizard friendly race and feats selected. Wizards also have to cast a spell many times to level it up to increase the damage, which can take a very long time due to limited spell stocks and mana, whereas a warrior simply has to complete a few dungeons to find appropriate equipment.
Humour
Elona is known for its rather odd humour. For example, upon entering the first town, the player can choose a pet, which can be "A Little Girl", which comes equipped like a warrior. Drinking water from a well can cause random effects ranging from getting the ability to wish for an item to summoning high level monsters such as Aliens which attack the townspeople, getting them pregnant and generating more and more aliens, eventually overrunning the town. The game also makes multiple references to anime, video games and mythology, such as the cursed sword "Ragnarok" that the player can steal from an NPC, which when equipped sets the map on fire and summons multiple high level titans and dragons, usually rendering the location unusable.Online Content
Elona allows you to create custom maps and content and upload them to the server. These maps can be accessed via randomly spawning moongates in town. Caution should be taken when entering moon gates, there may be no way back except via dying, and many moongates contain a wide variety of bizarre ways to kill the player, such as ranging from cats that kill in a single hit to kamikazi monsters that sets off a massive chain reaction explosion when killed.With the online setting chosen, players can also see other player's death messages(but not encounter them ingame) and the manner in which they die, such as starving to death in a dungeon or being killed by a rock thrown by an old man.
External links
- Official website
- Elona Wiki at WikiaWikiaWikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...