Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411283 Posts in 69325 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 29, 2024, 01:36:06 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignMaking a linear/one-dimensional dungeon cralwer
Pages: [1]
Print
Author Topic: Making a linear/one-dimensional dungeon cralwer  (Read 2461 times)
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« on: March 16, 2014, 12:18:07 PM »

Hello everyone!

I've decided to make a roguelike/dungeon crawler. Here's a quick (WIP) mockup:



So, I've got a basic sort of system worked out.
(Warning, small wall of text)

First of all, fighting enemies. When you encounter an enemy, you really have only 3 options: Attack them, in which you hit the monster and it hits you; Flee, which means you run away from the fight, taking no damage; and use spells (more on spells later).

If you kill an enemy, you get various rewards, such as gold and items. Gold can be used in shops later to buy items to increase your health, damage, and whatnot. Items, well, are items. If you flee from an enemy, you take no damage, but you don't get the drops that the enemy has. Over time, if you flee too much, you make become too weak to deal with some of the stronger enemies. I might also limit fleeing to only once or twice per floor, so you can't just flee from every enemy until the end.

Finally, spells. There will be various spells that you find within the dungeon. These will include fireballs to kill enemies with, healing spells, etc.

There will also be other little things in between the enemies. You can buy items and upgrades at shops, pray to gods at altars for some boons, get extra items from treasure chests, etc. But ultimately, you can only really go to the right. The game sort of becomes about managing your resources, deciding when to fight and when to flee, choosing which items to pick up and which to leave behind (since you can only carry a few at a time), and which items are worth buying.

(end of wall)



I've tried to strip down dungeon crawling and roguelikes to their very basics, which is pretty difficult considering a lot of it involves exploration. However, I think I've done a fairly decent job. Obviously, it's hard to be sure what's "good" or "fun" without actually having a prototype to test; something that's sounds really cool on paper might be terrible in practice. However, I'd like some general feedback before I get started on making the game.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Any and all ideas are welcome!  Smiley
Logged

HellaciousPuppy
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2014, 04:56:49 PM »

Hi there
I think it's a great idea. I love the mockup.
How about having several levels or 'tracks', vertically stacked, with different party members?
Perhaps enemies can move between levels, or players can heal each other, it would add more strategy.
Anyway, great stuff! You have my permission to proceed with the development of this game Wink
Logged

Impmaster
Level 10
*****


Scary, isn't it?


View Profile WWW
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2014, 06:53:28 PM »

Dammit Password stop being so talented.
Logged

Do I need a signature? Wait, now that I have a Twitter I do: https://twitter.com/theimpmaster
RyanB
Level 0
***


FIRE + SKULLS = AWESOME


View Profile WWW
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2014, 08:51:00 AM »

I've tried to strip down dungeon crawling and roguelikes to their very basics, which is pretty difficult considering a lot of it involves exploration. However, I think I've done a fairly decent job. Obviously, it's hard to be sure what's "good" or "fun" without actually having a prototype to test; something that's sounds really cool on paper might be terrible in practice. However, I'd like some general feedback before I get started on making the game.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Any and all ideas are welcome!  Smiley

Artwork looks great.

You might want to consider doors (push up to enter) for rooms and branching via ramps up and down.  Just going right continuosly would be maybe too linear.
Logged

Muz
Level 10
*****


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2014, 08:16:19 AM »

Sounds like something's missing. I think Desktop Dungeons did a good job about stripping dungeon crawling to their basics. There are still more elements of choice than fight/flee/spells. ADOM and Crawl did a good job of defining elements in a roguelike.

Artifact guardians: An exceptionally difficult enemy that also comes with an exceptional prize, based on how tough they are.

Altars: Kill or sacrifice for long term piety points.

Vaults: Plenty of monsters. Sometimes tough monsters. But plenty of loot too.

Tension rooms: You're hinted that one of the rooms might be more dangerous than usual. Your choice whether you're at the HP or power level to handle it or just skim the level.


I think a lot of roguelikes aren't about exploration. They're puzzles, about choosing what your next move is based on the cards you're dealt. 3 choices seems a bit too shallow.

A huge part of something like ADOM is deciding the order of dungeons to go into and whether to stay in a dungeon to grind (and risk corruption) or go on.
Logged
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2014, 12:23:15 PM »

Thanks for all the comments everyone! I've began to work on a prototype, and I'll alter it as I see fit.

Sounds like something's missing. I think Desktop Dungeons did a good job about stripping dungeon crawling to their basics. There are still more elements of choice than fight/flee/spells. ADOM and Crawl did a good job of defining elements in a roguelike.

Artifact guardians: An exceptionally difficult enemy that also comes with an exceptional prize, based on how tough they are.

Altars: Kill or sacrifice for long term piety points.

Vaults: Plenty of monsters. Sometimes tough monsters. But plenty of loot too.

Tension rooms: You're hinted that one of the rooms might be more dangerous than usual. Your choice whether you're at the HP or power level to handle it or just skim the level.


I think a lot of roguelikes aren't about exploration. They're puzzles, about choosing what your next move is based on the cards you're dealt. 3 choices seems a bit too shallow.

A huge part of something like ADOM is deciding the order of dungeons to go into and whether to stay in a dungeon to grind (and risk corruption) or go on.

Good advice! I do think that only having three choices when fighting monsters can be a bit shallow, and wouldn't provide much depth. However, without the ability to move, it's a bit hard to come up with ideas. I was thinking that the overall strategy and "puzzle" element wouldn't be in fighting a single foe, but rather going through a bunch of obstacles in quick succession, whether it be enemies, shops, altars, etc., and deciding how you want to deal with each one. With enemies, it's the choice whether or not to fight it for loot, or flee to save your health. With shops, you decide whether to buy the item (if you have enough) or save it for something better. And etc.

Oh yeah, and one thing I sort of forgot to mention: This is going to be a mobile game (though I may have an online version as well). So, it's best not to have anything that requires a bunch of keyboard controls and stuff, since I want the interface to be optimal for touch devices.

(Also, I played desktop dungeons before, and I loved it. Even in a such a simple-looking game, there's so much choice and strategy. In fact, it was part of the inspiration for me to make a simple, linear dungeon crawler)


I do think altars would be a great idea, but I'm not sure how it would work specifically. I have a few ideas:

A. Altars have a list of boons that you can choose from when you reach it(more damage, more health, more mana, etc), but you can only choose one.

B. Altars have boons that you can take if you'd like, but they also have a negative side effect (etc: more damage, but less max health).

C. Altars allow you to pray to gods and get boons with piety. When you reach an altar for the first time, you can choose from a list of chosen gods. Each god likes and dislikes certain things (For example, the God of Strength doesn't like it when you use spells, but likes it when you are able to kill an enemy in one hit). You can then buy boons from them when you reach another altar, or decide to switch out to a different god.
This one is really similar to desktop dungeons tho.

D. Killing enemies occasionally drops, I dunno, animal sacrifices or something like that. You can choose to pick it up, but it's basically useless outside of altars, and takes up a valuable space for loot. Since I only plan on having 4 inventory spaces, even having one less is a pretty big deal. However, when you reach an altar, you can grant the sacrifice to get piety, which allows you to buy some boons. If you can give multiple sacrifices in one altar, you get bonus piety (For example, the first sacrifice gives you 10 piety, second gives you 20, third gives you 40, etc). This means that if you decided to fill up you entire inventory with sacrifices, you can get a bunch of boons when you reach an altar; however, you won't have any room for potions, spells, and other valuable resources.

If you have any other ideas pls tell me!

Also, I like the idea of vaults/tension rooms. I'm thinking sort of like there's a door that leads to the vault room, and you can choose whether to enter. If you do, you have to fight a plethora of enemies that you can't run away from, but you get a lot of loot.


Sorry, this post was bit long, but I really liked your suggestions and has some ideas I wanted to address!


Logged

s0
o
Level 10
*****


eurovision winner 2014


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2014, 05:50:38 PM »

Quote
Good advice! I do think that only having three choices when fighting monsters can be a bit shallow, and wouldn't provide much depth. However, without the ability to move, it's a bit hard to come up with ideas.

you could add a simple action element like timed attacking and blocking to your game.
Logged
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2014, 11:07:06 AM »

Busy with school, so didn't post for a while. Back tho
Quote
Good advice! I do think that only having three choices when fighting monsters can be a bit shallow, and wouldn't provide much depth. However, without the ability to move, it's a bit hard to come up with ideas.

you could add a simple action element like timed attacking and blocking to your game.
I could, but that would make the game more of an action/skill based game rather than a pure puzzle/strategy kind of game. That's not necessarily bad, but I'm not sure it's the way I want to go.
I updated the mockup a bit:


As you can see, there are 3 main sections.
1. The player HUD. This includes the health, mp, damage, and gold. There's also a small character portrait, the skull portrait is just a placeholder.
2. The items. You can have a maximum of four items at a time. This also includes spells.
3. The current obstacle. At the moment, it's an enemy. It shows the health and damage (not there yet). It also shows the amount of gold it drops and the item that it drops for defeating it. I'm debating whether or not you should know how much gold/what item is dropped. One one hand, this could give more of a strategic element rather than random, because if you knew what would drop, you could decide whether or not it was a good idea to flee (ie: this enemy only drops 10 gold and a mana potion, and i don't have any spells right now, so I should flee). On the other hand, it might be too easy to know what to do, and actually reduce the strategy instead.

Also, since this is a mobile game, I don't want any game element to be too small to see or tap accurately. Do you think everything is big enough?

As always, if you have an suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Logged

Uykered
Guest
« Reply #8 on: April 06, 2014, 03:48:59 PM »

Looks beautiful aesthetically!

If you want to make it more strategic than puzzlish (single solution) then try and have all the player's actions be as balanced as possible so that each time a player makes a decision any of the given actions could maybe be useful at any given time (rather than useless, so that the player is never making obvious optimal moves).

Also you have the right idea with keeping the enemy's statistics open rather than hidden, if you want the player to make an informed efficient decision (rather than a random guess, or making it the standard memory-based/wiki guide game).

Quote
you could decide whether or not it was a good idea to flee (ie: this enemy only drops 10 gold and a mana potion, and i don't have any spells right now, so I should flee). On the other hand, it might be too easy to know what to do, and actually reduce the strategy instead.

You're drawing the wrong conclusion, this just means your game is shallow and needs more balance / better actions — you can hide the fact like most games do by throwing a huge amount of new content at the game or by yeah just hiding as much information as possible so that the player is making random guesses.

Having the inventory limited to 4 is quite good, if the items are balanced then it could force some interesting choices. I'm not convinced the "flee" action is interesting so far, maybe if you do as you say about it being a "resource management" game then you could tie fleeing/actions into a limited resource like MP/HP (as long its usage never becomes obvious as to when it should be used). I also like how it seems as if the line of upcoming enemies is randomized, that will help prevent and keep the game from becoming a solved puzzle.
Logged
valrus
Level 3
***


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2014, 05:06:52 PM »

Distilling things to one dimension is great.  So's the art.

Two thoughts, which are entirely personal opinions but that might combine into something neat:

  • Roguelikes really shine when the randomization of game objects causes them to interact with each other in interesting ways, and this still can work in one dimension.
  • One of the things I didn't like about some recent minimalist dungeon crawlers is that gameplay choices just came down to "engage" or "flee".  Didn't feel like an empowering choice, or lend itself to interesting strategic consequences.

This suggests to me a slight change.  What if, instead of "attack" or "flee", your choice were "attack" or "throw"?  A basic attack damages the enemy but doesn't move them, meaning they get to counter.  But there's also a "throw" and/or "push" that does no damage but moves them N spaces away from you.

The neat things happen when the thrown enemy/object interacts with the one in the space:
  • If there's another enemy on the space, the target enemy attacks and the thrown enemy dies, but you get nothing.  So it's functionally the same as the "flee" mechanic.
  • But if there's a buff potion there, the thrown enemy drinks it and *they* get the buff.
  • A few enemies, however, combine.  Like a Skeleton thrown into a Gel gives structural support to the gel and they emerge as a stronger Geleton Smiley But a Geleton is good XP so you might want to do this.
  • You may not want to pick up a weapon, but if you throw it you can damage the enemy in the target space.
  • The knight has a shield, or the turtle a shell, that give them really high defense, unless you crack it with something thrown.
  • If you throw an enemy onto an altar they "accept the sacrifice" and do their thing.
  • If you throw an enemy onto a bomb, both adjacent enemies are damaged as well.
  • There are spike pits that you can't cross without damage, so you need to throw an enemy onto them.  But not the spiked turtle, because that just continuees the problem!
  • If you throw an undead into a space with a torch, they die and you *do* get their loot
  • If the floor is ice, they continue sliding after landing until they hit a space with something in it.  If the floor is bouncy, they go another N spaces.

Anyway, I think you could come up with a really rich set of interactions even with just two attacks and a one-dimensional dungeon.  I don't know if it'd work but it might be fun to try.
Logged
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2014, 08:15:36 AM »

@valrus:
Wow, that's... actually a really good idea. A lot of people have been saying that the "flee" mechanic is a bit boring, and I agree, but I didn't know what to replace it with. Pushing sounds really interesting!

Here's the new mockup:



So here's how I would imagine pushing. When you push, you push an enemy one tile to the right. They interact with whatever tile they land on. You can only push once; after that, you need to kill an enemy before you can push again. This is to ensure that you can't just push indefinitely.

Anyways, I brainstormed some ideas of what would happen if you pushed an enemy into various things.

-Another Enemy of the same type
They combine to form a SUPERENEMY. Then new super enemy has more health and damage, but drops more gold.
-Another Enemy of a different type
As you said, the thrown enemy is killed, which leads to similar mechanic as fleeing.
-A Treasure Chest
The enemy drops more gold when killed, since it loots the treasure chest. Since treasure chests require keys to open, you can do this when you don't have any keys.
-An altar
You sacrifice the enemy, which allows you to choose some boons.
-A shopkeeper
The shopkeeper kills the enemy and sells an item that relates to the enemy killed (ie: push a skeleton into the shopkeeper, shopkeeper starts selling a cursed skull).
Logged

sublinimal
Level 8
***



View Profile
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2014, 12:56:34 PM »

I've got to say, that pushing idea and its applications make this a huge deal more appetizing. The starting post had me worried with the almost satirically generic gameplay description.

I hope you don't feel like you must stick to merely "dumbing down" roguelike tropes. You've chosen a whole new environment for a roguelike theme, so make use of that opportunity! Grant yourself the freedom to redesign some interactions for a better fit and more personality. You've already had a, well, push to the right direction.
Logged
baconman
Level 10
*****


Design Guru


View Profile WWW
« Reply #12 on: April 20, 2014, 08:51:30 PM »

Alternate between two phases.

The first is like the overworld/path to where you're going. It's not overly difficult, has points like apple trees where you can recover, and is for building up supplies and cash.

The second is your dungeon, where you use your accumulated supplies to navigate through it. Who's to say you couldn't bribe a dungeon guard rather than outright smash them? In fact, with some tough ones, that could be the smart thing to do. But maybe there's someone selling upgrades later, and this could put you under - and having the resources to tank that toughie would leave you enough for a better upgrade?

Resource management will make or break this gameplay concept, I'm telling you now. Wink
Logged

valrus
Level 3
***


View Profile
« Reply #13 on: April 21, 2014, 11:46:53 AM »

Awesome, I'm glad you liked it.

I like baconman's idea too, especially if you can sometimes choose which of the two paths you're on by either entering or ignoring doors.  It'd be a similar choice to the core loop (risk less or risk more) repeated at a larger scale.
Logged
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« Reply #14 on: April 23, 2014, 03:13:56 PM »

Welp, I've finally got a working prototype.
http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/26000

At this point, it's really more of a tech demo (am I using that right?) than a real game, but it's fully playable. There is sort of strategy, but really not much. It's more of just a proof of concept sort of thing. I'll be updating the game often.

Right now, there are only Skeleton enemies and shops. You can push or attack enemies, and the shops only sell one item (two, if you count the special one). It shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to play, so I'll leave you guys to figure it out.  Smiley

The next update will probably include one more enemy type, inventory items (such as health potions), and possibly more items in the shop.

I also have a devlog here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=27.0

Enjoy!
Logged

snowyowl
Level 1
*


View Profile
« Reply #15 on: April 29, 2014, 04:31:21 AM »

This might be a bit video-gamey for your taste, but I'll suggest it anyway:

Combos. Make it so that you get more XP/treasure for beating monsters in quick succession. Then there's the choice "Do I press onwards and fight this next enemy in my current weakened state, or do I go back and heal and be certain of winning, at the cost of breaking my streak?"

On a larger scale, it could be something like baconman's suggestion: you can leave a dungeon and return to the overworld to resupply once the enemies get too tough, but it comes at a price. Maybe you have to fight your way back out, maybe your escape item has a limited number of uses, maybe the dungeon is less rewarding after you come back, maybe it's gone and you have to go find a different, harder dungeon.
Logged
Orymus
Level 3
***


View Profile WWW
« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2014, 10:31:59 AM »

I think there's a similar game out here in the devlogs actually.
Was pretty fun last I checked (sorry I can't remember the name, anyone feel free to chime in).
Logged
Password
Level 0
***


Troy and Abed in the Morning~


View Profile
« Reply #17 on: June 20, 2014, 01:06:56 PM »

I'm back!

The game (which is now called Rogueline) has been going really well. I've made some steady progress, and I made a devlog: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40232.0

Also, here are some screenshots:





Link to the game: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/26499



Lately I've been posting all the progress/info/etc. on the devlog for this game. However, I am in need of design help once again, so I have returned to this thread. So, without further ado, let's get to it.

Pushing was a really interesting mechanic (thanks valrus Smiley), but I've noticed that currently, it's not really being used to it's full potential. Since you can only push once before you need to recharge (kill an enemy), you really had to pick and choose what to push and when.

Sounds great, right? Except, some pushes were indisputably better than others. Here's a quick list of what happens when you push an enemy into something else:

Enemy of the same type: The two enemies combine to form a stronger enemy that drops more gold
Enemy of a different type: The pushed enemy is killed
Fountain: The pushed enemy is killed
Blacksmith: The blacksmith is upgraded, the pushed enemy dies
Chest: Enemy drops more loot when killed

Pushing an enemy into a chest, for example, was always the best option unless you had a key, since the enemy wouldn't become harder (unlike combining enemies), they would drop more gold, and after you killed them you could push again. Also, a lot of the pushes would result in basically the same result (kills the pushed enemy).

So, I decided to change the way pushing was handled. Now, there was no limit to pushing except when you reach the last tile on a level. You can effectively push as much as you want. This opens a whole new door of opportunities, but what happens when an enemy is pushed had to be changed accordingly.

Enemy of the same type: The two enemies combine to form a stronger enemy that drops more gold
Enemy of a different type: The enemy that was not pushed is killed
Fountain: ?
Blacksmith: ?
Chest: ?

As you can see, there are questions marks for some of them. I'm not sure what should happen when an enemy is pushed into those things. However, I do want to keep two rules in mind:

1. No two options should be the same. Before, there were two ways to kill the pushed enemy, which was kind of boring.

2. The option to push should never always be objectively better than not pushing, or vice versa; there needs to be some sort of trade-off (i.e. harder enemy, more money), so it isn't completely obvious whether to push or not to push.

So, what do you think I should do? What should happen when a pushed enemy collides with a blacksmith, fountain, or chest? If you have any suggestions on how the pushing mechanic should be handled, I'd love to hear it.  Smiley
Logged

valrus
Level 3
***


View Profile
« Reply #18 on: June 21, 2014, 09:57:38 PM »

Looking good! 

There was an instance, and I can't seem to replicate it, where I was able to walk right past a skeleton (possibly after pushing it or pushing soemthing into it) and then through some other encounters.  Then when I encountered another skeleton, both skeletons (the one I was fighting, and the one I passed) started doing the attack animations.

For pushing into a blacksmith, I think it would make sense if the blacksmith is killed, but the enemy now has half health.  (That is, it's a way to soften up an enemy but the price is not being able to utilize the blacksmith anymore.)

A softened-up enemy should then, however, lose the fight if it's pushed into another enemy/blacksmith.
Logged
Danny Hayes
Level 1
*


An Indie developer, co-Creator of PONCHO!


View Profile WWW
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2014, 02:21:14 AM »

It could be interesting to add rooms that have certain abilities, like glyphs on the walls that give bonuses to the enemy or yourself, or change the battle ruleset in some way. More random elements is always good! I also love the ideas on the push mechanic, like making super enemies. That would be awesome! Maybe you could even have a special type of enemy that appears on the right side of the screen, and actually walks towards you consuming things as you take turns to get closer to you. Every time it consumes a tile, it gets stronger... some kind of boss.

I quite like this idea, I've seen similar things but not quite done like this.  Grin
Logged

Pages: [1]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic