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[michelmohr]

[reposting the thread as a new one, as this one is dead]

PLEASE GO HERE








Imagine Minesweeper as an adventure game, in Dungeon Squeaker you play as a mouse who finds a magical compass which points to the nearest threat. Oh and the mines are cats.




Please play! I desperately need feedback!




Gameplay

The gameplay is very puzzle oriented.
• You can move adjacent & diagonal.
• Adjacent tiles become revealed.
• Your compass points to the nearest enemy.
• Step next to an enemy and they hurt you.
• Step on an enemy to defeat them.




Story

A mouse finds a magical compass which is bound to it by a touch.
The compass has a soul powering it, which wants revenge on the dark mage who bound it.
To achieve this, the compass grants the mouse increased intelligence and a more humanoid form.
It deceives the innocent mouse into 'returning' it to the wizard.


History

Dungeon Squeaker started in 2015 as DungeonThing, a 51x92px 16ish bit gameplay prototype while I was finishing my education.
After many redesigns, breaks because of internship and work, and now in between freelance jobs it has become something more.




Editor

The game includes the level editor I use to create the game content. In the final version the players will be able to create and share their own adventures. Currently you can view and edit the levels. This doesn't save in the build yet, so experiment away.




Platforms

My greatest hope is to release the game on the Nintendo Switch.
Failing that it will be released on Steam / itch.io / mobile (premium).

State
The game has a playable demo ready, which I'm showing to potential publishers / investors. I would love to work on this full time instead of after freelance work hours. But unfortunately I don't have the savings to afford that on my own.


Please play! I desperately need feedback!

[michelmohr]

Updated the build to 1.2.
Added a bunch of animations like hp loss sparkles, shield shattering and gaining, a hand that grabs items from your inventory when you use them.

Next up:
- More tiles such as switching spikes, lava, water, fire vents.
- More levels.
- Adventure selection, with a special powerup at the end.
- Powerups, - orb of foresight: show one tile extra in the direction you travel.
            - longspear: attack one step in front of you
            - spikeshield: shield also takes spike damage
- Introduction implementation

[michelmohr]

Version 1.3
Added a bunch of little polish things.
A step between the main menu and the game for adventure selection.
Not yet implemented, but made room for the special items that the adventures award.
Tapping the play field was too high up, so moved things that don't need tapping up. (compass, shield, special slots)
Added a pause menu when you press the "?" that allows restart etc.

Only the intro adventure is available atm.
File updated in original post

[joaorequiao]

I like the concept! Seems to be simple and fun! But the dowload link is broken... I wanna try it!

[michelmohr]

Ohno, that was silly of me. Forgot to place it in my public folder.
It should work now! :D

[michelmohr]

I added spear wielding enemies that push the player away from them.
Would be a shame if there was another on the other side, or lava.
Would be a shame.

(added gif to first post)

[firstordergames]

This is super cool. I really like the concept.  (haven't downloaded the build yet, will soon)

[joaorequiao]

I'm playing it right now! I reeeeaaally like the way it's going! It's not easy but it's a great thing to play! Keep it up!

[michelmohr]

Thank you firstordergames and joaorequiao!

More changes:
- Welton King emailed me with a bunch of really helpful things. The undiscovered tiles were too similar to enemies, they are now darker. And different adventures will have different fog texture.
- In the gif you could see me having a full inventory, using an item, stepping elsewhere and back to the item. Now the current tiles is checked for a pickup if an item is used.
- Added the base for animated tiles, in this case magma.
- Added a level transition screen and death screen.

Version 1.4 updated to the main post.

[michelmohr]

I added magma, water, tiles that toggle damage like retracting spikes and on/off flame vents.
The levels now randomly flip horizontally / vertically to not always have the same layout -seemingly- yet still allowing me to make proper paths. And some tiles now have a not-visible graphic that still allows the player to know where they are.

I also added a webgl build link at the end of the post for easier testing.

http://michelmohr.me/testbuilds/DungeonThing/

[michelmohr]

I have now most of the tiles I want implemented.
So instead of placing pixels in photoshop to build the levels, I thought, hey lets make a level editor.



So on top is the actual level, the tiles on the bottom are selectable, the yellow corners are placed on the selected tile.
When you press a tile in the level it will change it so the selected tile, or place the entity on top of it, depending on what is selected.

Every time you change a tile, this is written to the image you see on the middle right which is 2 times the board size to allow for tile type, entity, tile state and something extra.

When you press the encoded image, it will save it so my project folder as a new image I can drag into my levels folder.


Possibly later on I can let players make their own adventures like this, but I'm considering that a stretch goal as I haven't figured out how I would share the images or if I'm even allowed to write to an android device's storage.

[michelmohr]

The editor is mostly implemented now.


Problem is that it works on my phone, but my tablet will not let me save using "/sdcard/dungeonthing/", possibly because it has sdcard0 and sdcard1, I'll need to find the right directory thing for that. Probably something easy like Directory.BaseDirectory or something.

[jmakegames]

You cram a lot of detail into such tiny sprites - awesome work!

[michelmohr]

Thanks jmakegames!
I'm very pleased with some, but others definitely need to be remade. The liquid and switch spike tiles are my best at the moment I believe.

I worked out a proper start screen now!

[michelmohr]

I decided that for the sake of reward and drive the game needed more risk and reward.
Enemies now drop gold, which you use to unlock the next adventure.
Dying halves your gold, finishing an adventure doubles it, and you can retreat to keep the gold you have during a level transition.

Furthermore I added a stamina system, I initially didn't want to because the game that inspired me to make this also has that, but I simply need to, it fits too well. My first mockup for this was simply a bar like the health but I cannot think of a better system than using the haunches Minecraft uses. Most people should understand that.
Moving makes your food go down, killing an enemy grants you some food and there's food pickups that.

Together, food and gold, will allow me to make more interesting levels like a larder or a treasury and give the game more pacing and drive.

Here's a new GIF showing two levels with the new gold and food systems, and the first gif showing the 7x9 instead of 6x7 layout.

[Christian]

Only for Android? No iOS version planned?

[michelmohr]

Only for Android? No iOS version planned?

Sorry Christian, I have no iOS devices to test, no mac to build and no money for an apple appstore account. 

A desktop/web version isn't out of the question though if the game feels deep enough. And I feel like it's heading there with the addition of gold and food.

Furthermore a windows phone version is also doable as I have one of those lying around, if windows 8 plays nice.

[michelmohr]

I've added a whole bunch of new things.
The editor is now complete, with saving and loading tested on several devices.
Your saved adventures are now playable from the Play -> Custom window.

Adventures don't have an 'end' yet, that's on the todo list. You'll just end up with an empty level for now.

Added a bunch of things like better timing, more particles, animations etc.
The help button now works, if you press it you can tap a tile to see what it is.

And I've added an alternative movement method. Instead of tapping tiles you can switch in settings to Swipe mode with a swipe distance slider determining how far you need to swipe before it is picked up. (normalized to the size of your device with device dpi)
You can then swipe in 8 directions to move, or return your finger to the center of your swipe to cancel. It has a fancy arrow thing that is displayed where your swipe started.



[updated apk]

[Christian]

Some coverage of the game on Pocket Gamer

[michelmohr]

Whoa, thank you very much!! :D
I'm honoured you did an article on it!

A shame the gif doesn't seem to work.