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[Droqen]

is this the right place for this

I've always sort of thought that Design was for, well, general design topics and such, and this is more specific because it's for one game that I'd like to make. One day.

Anyway.


PART ONE: DELVING

You go into dungeons with equipment of varying levels, up against obstacles that can be bypassed by various means. Enemies can be fought or avoided (or maybe bribed? tricked? outsmarted?), and most obstacles have such similar ways of dealing with them.

I'm imagining old Zelda-ish combat, top-down with a variety of equipment. You can switch between them easily.

Something more beat-em-uppy or even occasionally bullet-hellish might work too, but I'd like some tactical decisions to be made.

PART TWO: DUNGEONS

Dungeons themselves have a 'level'. This does not, however, represent difficulty: it represents reward. The trick is, every dungeon also has a heart which is the super fucking amazing item that supports the whole place. Escape with it, and the dungeon falls.

At level 10 you might get level 10 item drops, but the heart will be more like a level 100 item. Crazy.

PART THREE: DEATH

At any time you can leave the dungeon with your loot! However, if you die, all of your uninsured equipment will be lost.

When you enter the dungeon, you pay X per item you wish to insure. Any other items are lost to the dungeon, should you die.

When you leave the dungeon safely, that insurance goes to waste.



PART FOUR: THE BIG PART: CONSTRUCTION

People build these dungeons, and they exist on a globally online scale.

Dungeons rise in level by killing adventurers, and as they rise in level, they attract more adventurers (delvers, whatever). Some adventurers will be in it for the low-risk low-level loot (which can still be cool! The idea is that there will be lots of very interesting possible effects), and other adventurers will invade the same dungeon over and over to get ever closer to the heart.

Whoever builds a dungeon needs to make some kind of investment (not sure what!), and is rewarded by collecting all of those lost items. They also set the price for insurance, and can even set up a shop (for healing items, or other things like power-ups that last until the adventurer leaves).



I guess that's all I've got! I've been sorta hiding this idea and I don't know why

Anyone have anything to say? I should probably go to bed. Work in the morning. Aaaaaa

(note :: should I make this more generic? oh well)



LAST NOTE TO OPEN THIS UP A BIT MORE FOR REAL DISCUSSION

lots of games have level editors, but to my knowledge there aren't many mmoish (persistent stuff in an online space) games (note that this would all be single-player interacting with a shared database) that allow you to alter the world.

Of those, even fewer allow you to create a small designed pocket world.

And of those, even fewer (are there any at all?) want you to actually design a level rather than just whatever crazy sandbox you want to make.

[Geeze]

That idea is just awesome and many people would probably want to help making it (at least me).
In facebook it could work quite well (unless you want to actually sell it, not by micro-payments)

Would it have a hub or overworld or just a menu to select dungeon and manage other stuff?
MMO's aren't powered by player-made levels just because they would be then quite likely unbalanced, but with this concept the game would balance itself. Greed of players is a great way to get harder dungeons made by people. But Co-op is a must, like that dungeons have fixed player amount, to make puzzles functional.

[Droqen]

I think that part of the idea is as follows:

Rather than necessitate dungeonmakers design crafty puzzles (it's hard to make tools that are really good for that sort of thing) -- the problem is it's rather easy for them to make impossible puzzles!

So, instead of that, allow dungeonmakers to make silly, nigh-impossible levels.

Then, give players the ability to 'break the game', basically.


Dungeonmaker peeps then make it their goal to

a) Make the dungeon actually fun to traverse (if it's not, you won't be able to level it up to attract more adventurers!), but

b) Make the heart really hard to get to (and I mean realllllly hard).

---> note that for part a) you can of course make fun crazy functional puzzles.


I think that for something like this an overworld with really quick travel would work well, plus some kind of search system.
Microtransactions would work nicely too!

I think I have a secret desire to game-i-fy the act of level designing.

edit :: also player-made levels are pretty awesome things to sift through <3

[leonelc29]

maybe you can make it like a so-called social game style, like:

1) The player can have 2 role, one is dungeon crawling, and another is dungeon building.

2) Level limit the building material, so to get a stronger trap or harder wall(maybe the wall can be break by using bomb) the player will need to level up their dungeon building role(in this case, kill dungeon crawler.)

3) (This maybe a little bit hardcore) When the dungeon crawler escaped with the dungeon heart, the dungeon will collapse, and the dungeon will VANISHED FOREVER

co-op, as mention by Geeze, work quite well, in my opinion.

I really like this idea of yours, so the above are just some suggestion.

[_Tommo_]

A friend of mine is working on a game that looks exactly like the one that you described, but with crafting and without the power to damage host dungeons...

Each player has an account; each account has a Character that is your typical RPG character with stats, items, etc.
Then each account has also a Home Dungeon, that is a dungeon that you can build using the money and loot stolen from other dungeons.

The idea is that each dungeon "levels up" just like its owner, and there are rules that make it worth to attempt only dungeons at your same level (eg: higher breaks you, lower is worth nothing).
Attackers can team up with other players, and the dungeon master can team up with the mobs placed by his dungeon's Spawners.

Yeah, it is awesome :D

[Geeze]

...
2) Level limit the building material, so to get a stronger trap or harder wall(maybe the wall can be break by using bomb) the player will need to level up their dungeon building role(in this case, kill dungeon crawler.)

3) (This maybe a little bit hardcore) When the dungeon crawler escaped with the dungeon heart, the dungeon will collapse, and the dungeon will VANISHED FOREVER

2) I kinda dislike level requirements when building stuff. Some sort of level-system is ok, perhaps the item's prize is just higher if your level is too low. Or items for traps. Like trading items (shops/vendors) for traps. Bow for arrow traps and so on.

3) Well I quess that is ok for players, but disliked by dungeon builders. If dungeon masters are able to save the dungeon layout, so they can quite easily remake and modify it, it would be just fine.

If there is an overworld, IT NEEDS TRAINS! and perhaps ships.

How about having dungeon sites? So to build a dungeon you need proper site and a dungeon heart. Which is acquired be defeating some other dungeon completely.
Sites would have different properties like material, size, maximum depht etc. Dungeon master btw needs advanded terraforming abilities so outdoor dungeons are possible. This (and amount of d-hearts) would of course limit amount of dungeons, but owning a dungeon would then be more rewarding just cause it proves your good player, i think.

3d could be sweet. I played LoZ: Majora's mask halfway through on wednesday, and 2 first dungeons are so cool.

[Eclipse]

sounds awesome! As tommo said I'm working on a very similar concept :D everything started here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=17350

I hope to have something to show very soon  

I like your hearth idea, don't know if you got it from Dungeon Keeper or not I have a treasure room that works the same way.

@Geeze I'll have trains :D

[Xion]

if dungeons gain levels by killing players, wouldn't making a subtly impossible level be the most rewarding dungeon of all.

perhaps it could be some ratio instead, like dungeons gain levels to a certain limit by killing people, but to gain levels past that limit at least one person must reach the heart, and to gain further levels they must escape?

or perhaps levels could keep track of players' positions and locations of death, etc. like those level analysis tools, and if people die at the same part every time it might give diminishing returns towards leveling up the dungeon?

how does a high dungeon level benefit the dungeon maker anyway, btw?

[Eclipse]

yep, and a dungeon also needs to be doable, it should be beaten at least once before being publisher or there should be a sort of automatic magical check

[_Tommo_]

yep, and a dungeon also needs to be doable, it should be beaten at least once before being publisher or there should be a sort of automatic magical check

In a dungeon you have what the player brought there from the other dungeons... so if the player is at level 10, he won't be able to loot lv20 dungeons, and his own dungeon will be mostly at level 10.
"Mostly" because you can choose to buy many lv10 items or save for a single lv20 one, it is up to you.
Makes sense?  

[Droqen]

Note that the idea evolved

1. Originally, each player would build a dungeon they could slowly build upon, maybe that they needed to bury their stash in somewhere (and it could stolen too oh god)

2. After that, it changed to a permanent dungeon that could be worn down over time. Also, perhaps they shouldn't level up? I'm not sure x3

---> After the dungeon heart is stolen, it is gone.

A dungeon keeper will want a higher-leveled dungeon because it'll attract higher-leveled players with sweeter loot!

... although it's possible that there are no levels. Items have levels, of course, but each player will just have equipment. I'm debating leveling up.


Also, every dungeon will be doable. Every one of them, seriously

Players will be able to get ridiculous items that allow them to break the game (I was serious!). Such items may be limited in use and quite expensive, but more than worth it if you get the heart.

The only limitation on dungeon makers is that they have to dig out the earth (not sure about outdoor dungeons, but they'd probably be more expensive to make?) so there will always be an open-air path to the heart (and to everywhere).



The dungeon heart should definitely, definitely be ridiculously amazing and valuable.

I don't know how to limit players who want to create dungeons, and I don't want to limit it too much...

One last thing is that unvisited dungeons should turn into ruins, even if it's only for visual effect :3

And you should be able to wander away from the 'popular' dungeons and find some cool out-of-the-way ones.


Dungeons will be big scary puzzles to get to the heart, but in their own weird way.



"3) (This maybe a little bit hardcore) When the dungeon crawler escaped with the dungeon heart, the dungeon will collapse, and the dungeon will VANISHED FOREVER"

<3 yup. in general stealing the heart is a pretty dick move, but everyone wants it. everyone!

[VirusN (as seen on TV!)]

yep, and a dungeon also needs to be doable, it should be beaten at least once before being publisher or there should be a sort of automatic magical check

Regarding this, I would suggest a system like the one EdmundM added to Time Fcuk (And Super Meat Boy, I think)
Players can rate a dungeon after playing it. So if 344 players vote "unbeatable", you know that you might will be facing a very hard challenge. 

[leonelc29]

hmm...i like the idea to let the player's character digging their own dungeon, so that every part of the dungeon are accessible. Maybe you can add a pvp system so that the player can defend their dungeon by themself other than depending on the trap and puzzle? Well, the puzzle and trap will definitely help if the player are not online, though.

And perhaps an alliance system? So that the player can help his mate to defend and maybe loot the dungeon together.

that's the idea i ripped from Ragnarok Online though...  

edit:
just realize that you wan to make a single-player game that interact with the other player's dungeon, silly me 

[Droqen]

RE: RATING DUNGEONS

Every dungeon has to have a front gate, right?

Buy spray paint, and you can leave a comment on the front wall of any dungeon. (This ensures you feel somewhat strongly about it rather than just rating it because you can -- of course the consumable spray paint item will be cheap, but that's still a fraction of your hard-earned moondollars down the drain!)

Note that the dungeon owner can always hire someone to come by and wipe it clean.


PVP AND STUFF

It seems to me for the most part you won't really see enough opportunity to defend your dungeon -- I'd be totally up for making it more than shared-database single-player despite bonus technical nightmares, but it would unfairly benefit those who waste their time on the most exciting job ever: standing around waiting for other people to do stuff.

Co-op would be sweet; balance would need to be considered; the experience would be vastly different.

[Tumetsu]

I read this topic earlier on my Ipod but decided to drop one idea now I got when thinking about this.

I suppose that you have some size limits for dungeons? If so, maybe acquiring a new heart and placing it in your dungeon allows you to build larger dungeon and at the same time gives some discounts for traps etc. This way hearts would be valuable as one can use them to fortify their own dungeon even more efficiently and at the same time makes it wanted target for crawlers.