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[gambrinous]

Gamecity, Nottingham
If anyone's going along to this we'll be there showing Guild of Dungeoneering in the open arcade on Sun 26th and Mon 27th October. Come say hi!

Launch date
I now have a tentative launch date in my mind of April 2015 for the PC and Mac versions. Will update as it gets closer.

[Morashtak]

Just a small annoyance to look at eliminating;

The Dungeoneer and Fire Demon have been going back and forth for the last 30 mins or more.

Stats;
Dungeoneer 5/2/-1/6
Fire Demon 10/6/6/3

The fight commences, neither can harm each other so after a few rounds the Dungeoneer is ejected from the space, the Fire Demon immediately pursues, rinse, repeat endlessly.

Possible solutions;

If the tie goes to the Dungeoneer they need to be awarded an extra move before the Fire Demon moves.

Or an armor decay mechanism could be implemented in the FDs attacks. This would eventually allow the FD to kill the Dungeoneer.

Otherwise this game has some of the best of "Simple to pick up, difficult to master".

[gambrinous]

That bug with both sides in a battle having too much armour has been there for quite some time. When it's vs the fire demon boss it's worse because right after a draw it triggers his turn again and you get into that infinite loop. The way I want to fix it is to change how battles work entirely, so there isn't a 100% chance of a draw in any particular matchup.

Tactical Battles
The basic idea is that you will choose a combat move each round (mighty swing, block, fireball, etc) and then it will be compared against the combat move chosen by your opponent. Some moves are stronger against others (melee vs ranged vs magic for example). Once the two cards are resolved you then deal damage, and if both sides have survived you move onto round 2. There are 5 rounds total before a draw happens.

The twist here is that the combat moves you can choose from come from a new Battle deck. At the start of combat your Battle deck is shuffled and you get 5 cards from it, which you will then have to use over the 5 rounds of combat. The monster you are fighting will also do this!

The cards in your Battle deck are mostly linked to your stats. So if you buff up your melee stat (note: we are changing the stat names at the moment) you will get better melee-oriented combat moves added to your Battle deck, and so on for the other stats.

We can also do some neat things with Battle decks like adding negative cards to your deck depending on your situation. Eg you could have battle wounds which add bad cards, or monster abilities that do the same (example: the spider adds a few 'stuck in web' cards to your deck while you fight it), or even terrain-specific cards (so battling on the rope bridge adds some special cards to both sides).

This system should make things more tactical at a basic level, making it possible to take on harder monsters if you play your cards right, plus add a whole new strategic layer (the Battle deck itself) that can be linked into the rest of the game's systems.

Here's what the battle screen will look like (I've just flipped one card each to show both sides)

[gambrinous]

Oh, this devlog has now been in business for over a year! 

[DunamisStudios]

I really like the idea that you have for the combat. At this point, I felt like there was not enough strategically that I could do within the framework of the game. The great thing about card games is the deep strategy that it allows. Nice work.

[Morashtak]

Is there a maximum number of placed items? I managed to build a fairly large dungeon with few loops, FD chased me around and around, then after a large number of monsters were placed;

I could not place any more items or monsters,
Discarded three cards,
Two remaining cards turned small,
Dungeoneer froze.
After clicking around randomly dudette Itany unfroze but then no monster fights would start even tho' they were into and through (were still placed but no fights commenced).


The battle cards look interesting. Looking forward to testing them out.

Has anyone suggested stairs leading down (ala the original text-graphic game Rogue?). They could be a bit far away (much farther than the pre-placed treasure chest) but if you can reach them and descend your dungeoneer could start with a clean board.

Of course, this could lead to enchanted armor, powerful weapons, and maybe trinkets. Tougher monster cards would be added at every level descended. Etc, etc.

[Oddball]

Gamecity, Nottingham
If anyone's going along to this we'll be there showing Guild of Dungeoneering in the open arcade on Sun 26th and Mon 27th October. Come say hi!

I'll be at GameCity all week. I'll look out for you.

[gambrinous]

I'm now a dad! We just had a lovely little baby girl, our first. I'm sure this will in no way impact my sleep in the coming months     

Is there a maximum number of placed items? I managed to build a fairly large dungeon with few loops, FD chased me around and around, then after a large number of monsters were placed;

I could not place any more items or monsters,
Discarded three cards,
Two remaining cards turned small,
Dungeoneer froze.
After clicking around randomly dudette Itany unfroze but then no monster fights would start even tho' they were into and through (were still placed but no fights commenced).

Hrm. I'll have to try and repo that myself. Not a nice bug though.

Gamecity, Nottingham
If anyone's going along to this we'll be there showing Guild of Dungeoneering in the open arcade on Sun 26th and Mon 27th October. Come say hi!

I'll be at GameCity all week. I'll look out for you.

Cool would love to have a chat! I used your sprites in my initial prototype :D

[knifeySpoonie]

I'm now a dad! We just had a lovely little baby girl, our first. I'm sure this will in no way impact my sleep in the coming months     

Congrats!!! this will have no adverse effect on your sleep patern I predict  

[Fenrir]

I'm now a dad! We just had a lovely little baby girl, our first. I'm sure this will in no way impact my sleep in the coming months

Congratulation and welcome to the club! For my daughter I was really lucky, she sleeps a lot and started to do full nights at 3 months. The second one is on his way, I hope to still be lucky...

[gambrinous]

Submitted to the IGF. Fingers crossed! It would be so amazing to get nominated

And here's a little shot of something coming in the next build (I'll put it up in a few hours time). The AI takes your first turn for you, so it's a 10 second tutorial, basically showing you that you drag cards out to the board to play them :D

7MB animated gif

[gambrinous]

Update: v0.6.32 Oct 22nd

Changes since the last version
- when you drag a tile onto the board we show a little preview of it in-place in all the valid positions for it (used be a little question mark). If you drag it over a valid position it snaps nicely into place. Let go and it draws it in!
- DEMO MODE. This is primarily for when we are showing the game at exhibitions and the like. If you leave the game in the title screen for one minute it starts playing itself! As seen in the screenshot below the AI doesn't always do that well
- AI-controlled first turn. This is like a mini tutorial. It drags out the first three cards for you so you know how to play the game.
- updated the instructions screen to be a bit nicer looking
- you now view the full details of a card by hovering over the scroll with the title on it at the bottom of the card
- made the boss jump onto the board generally not as near to you as before
- fixed an issue with the boss leaving mini-bosses in tiles after battling him ends in a draw
- cleaned up some leftover pen marks on some of the tiles (visible in the two-pass draw animation)
- you can now scroll the map while dragging a piece to the board by holding it near the edges
- fixed an issue with flickering during the two-pass tile drawing animation
- fixed an issue with card dragging not triggering if you started really fast
- took out one of the music tracks (adventurers tavern)

Play this version:
Browser (Flash)
Installable (AIR)

[Morashtak]

Great job re-doing the first move - Was kinda grating on the nerves to see the moppet move with no upside to it.

Even better news today - Managed to make an even bigger dungeon than the one that locked up and scored 1300 points after beating FD. Seems with FD "eating" the monsters this has the added benefit of reducing the number of placed objects.

Still a bit unforgiving RNG at times dealing out unbeatable monster cards in the first few turns but it's fine.

And FD making his entrance farther away from the moppet is very much appreciated.

Looking forward to the next update.

[RatPatrol]

 


Fantastic little game I have played about 10 games already ....

One question Healing ?

this game would work well on an Pad / Tablet

[gambrinous]

Even better news today - Managed to make an even bigger dungeon than the one that locked up and scored 1300 points after beating FD. Seems with FD "eating" the monsters this has the added benefit of reducing the number of placed objects.

Still a bit unforgiving RNG at times dealing out unbeatable monster cards in the first few turns but it's fine.

That's a great score! We'll be giving glory numbers a proper look at once we make it meaningful with the addition of the guild management side of the game (where you'll be spending glory on upgrades).

Agree on the RNG'ness. We might solve it with dungeons of varying difficulties, or with a gradual step-up of difficulty level (eg via the dread meter). Need to play around with it for sure though.

One question Healing ?

this game would work well on an Pad / Tablet

Healing potions will certainly make their way in, but as a rare-ish find. Winning should be possible but not certain, and 'going infinite' is something I want to avoid. You should win or lose after enough play.

Agree on tablet play - that's in the pipeline shortly after finishing the PC/Mac version!

[Morashtak]

I am not using the "dead end" Seek cards (those with only one entrance/exit) - Reason is that except for the two pre-placed Seek cards (Start and Hope chest) they are a death trap if/when FD makes it's appearance. A player can simply discard all dead end Seek cards and only use connector cards. By doing this a dungeon can be made of loops and Hope cards can be used to lure the moppet away from the two dead end areas.

Suggest that some type of reward is given for using these cards (surprise bonus loot, extra points, etc) so they do not wind up as slugs that are quickly discarded.

There is already a penalty for discarding Dread cards so an additional penalty would not be helpful.

[del]

Wonderful aesthetic! Short and simple!
*Wish there was a way to click and skip some dialogue.
*Was a bit unclear on goals (if any).

[gambrinous]

Had a lovely time over in Nottingham at GameCity last weekend. What a nice festival. Only wish I'd got to stay longer - hopefully next year!

I am not using the "dead end" Seek cards (those with only one entrance/exit) - Reason is that except for the two pre-placed Seek cards (Start and Hope chest) they are a death trap if/when FD makes it's appearance. A player can simply discard all dead end Seek cards and only use connector cards. By doing this a dungeon can be made of loops and Hope cards can be used to lure the moppet away from the two dead end areas.

Suggest that some type of reward is given for using these cards (surprise bonus loot, extra points, etc) so they do not wind up as slugs that are quickly discarded.

There is already a penalty for discarding Dread cards so an additional penalty would not be helpful.

Yeah I really agree. I want the dungeon building to have some sort of function beyond looking nice, no specific ideas on this yet though. But I certainly don't want any cards to be pointless - you are right dead ends are at the moment.

Wonderful aesthetic! Short and simple!
*Wish there was a way to click and skip some dialogue.
*Was a bit unclear on goals (if any).

Thanks! Already looking at adding clicking past dialogue as well as changing the timing of everything to be a bit more snappy. Trying to make it possible to absorb everything as a first time player (so it isn't too fast) but also not frustrate everyone else with it's slowness.

The goals thing is a real problem. I have some ideas to help with that, more on that soon.

[gambrinous]

Recorded a new gameplay video to include with my IGF entry. It's just a quick 5 mins showing the latest build off:

[gambrinous]

Who wants to come up with some monster ideas for the game!?

To whet your appetites here's some sketches from Fred of some new monsters we're adding..





Our full list of monsters we want to include, many of which come from time spent playing tabletop dice games back in the day:
Sorceress, Skeleton, Rubber Ducky, Gray Ooze, Mummy, Zombie, Bandito, Cyclops, Fire Demon, Djinn, Gargoyle, Ghost, Giant Bat, Giant Spider, Wurm, Goblin, Vampire, Golem, Minotaur, Orc, Owlbear, Rust Monster, Gelatinous Cube, Mimic, Kobold, Gnoll, Ghoul, Nymph, Pixie, Rat, Snake, Dire Wolf, Lich, Elemental, Dragon, Ettin, Beholder, Harpy, Hellhound, Lizardman, Ogre, Wererat, Scorpion

Got any more signature dungeon-crawling monsters? Got any silly monsters we could include for the laugh?