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[Derakon]

I've been giving some thought to trying to make a roguelike game. My interest is in relatively small-scale tactical combat, where you need to carefully consider your positioning with respect to your opponent as well as which techniques to use. I also like the concept of terrain deformation and manipulation, and want it to be a key aspect of that tactical approach. That is, the player should need to control terrain to do well in fights, either by positioning himself advantageously or by outright changing the terrain.

So the thought is to have a procedurally-generated 3D cave system composed of chunky cubes (vaguely Minecraft-style). Each cube has a terrain type (e.g. dirt, rock, river, ice, magma) and the types need to be able to interact with each other in meaningful ways. The player would have abilities to create, destroy, and shove cubes around. Some examples:

 * Being above your target gives you a comparative advantage
 * Raise a maze of stalagmites to interfere with enemy motion
 * Undermine a cliff to collapse it, causing a landslide
 * Punch a hole in a wall to unleash an underground river
 * Place landmines which, when activated, not only explode but also remove terrain, trapping the victims in pits
 * Stand in magma, assuming you can survive it, and enemies attacking you get hurt while your own attacks are imbued with heat
 * Superheat yourself and jump in a river to blast nearby opponents with steam

So what I'm looking for is ways to adapt these concepts to actual mechanics. In particular, I want more terrain manipulation abilities, and more ways for different terrain types to interact. Let's say for the sake of argument that the following terrain types are in:

 * Dirt, also encompassing sand, clay, etc. Sort of a chunky liquid, in the sense that it needs support or it will cave in. Also supports life.
 * Rock of all types. Solid, dependable, nothing beats rock.
 * Water, in the form of pools and rivers. Basic, chunky fluid mechanics will be needed (Dwarf Fortress-style).
 * Ice as a static form of water.
 * Magma, like water. Magma + water = steam + rock.

Some possible interactions I could see:
 * Dirt + water -> plant life. But what would plants do? Trees could provide cover and stabilize the dirt to prevent it from collapsing...beyond that?
 * Magma eats dirt, and could slowly consume (limited types of?) rock as well
 * Ice + magma -> explosion of ice shards

But this really doesn't seem to be enough depth to base a game on. Of course I also have the basic shape of the terrain to play with, so there's things like height advantages, lines of sight, cover, etc, but I'd like the actual terrain to have more meaning as well.

As far as combat is concerned, I'll probably stick to the fantasy staples -- melee, bows, and spells. Of course each will have some special abilities for manipulating terrain.

Some things I would like to avoid:
 * Mobility and teleportation abilities. Getting trapped should be bad; giving the player easy escapes lessens tension. The player will have the ability to slowly climb walls, so getting stuck in a pit is tactically problematic but not an automatic death sentence.
 * Healing abilities. I want the player to soldier on regardless of their current state, so there is no resting, no "natural" recovery. Killed monsters drop essences that instantly recover you a bit on being picked up, and you have three slow full-regens that are only restored when returning to town, but otherwise you're on your own. The better you are at combat, the more self-sufficient you are and the longer you're able to go without bugging out.

I'd love to hear any suggestions y'all have.

[JasonPickering]

one thing many of games have done is adding stuff to make the gameplay bigger. (wow that's a dumb sentence) What I mean is play the game and see what you think of. when they were making super mario 64 a lot of the objectives were things the designers challenged each other on. like wallkicking up a huge set of walls. I say playthrough what you have and see where the game feels lacking. Maybe you find its really easy to use trees to make cover. add a fire guy that can burn the trees down. I bet if you sat down and played this, you would end up with like a huge list of ideas.

[Geeze]

Yup, that idea won't be quite deep if enemies can't play the same game with the player!

I'd imagine there could be an enemy that always terraforms land into a shelter and throws rocks etc over it. If you break his shelter he'll quickly make a new one.

Only limit is your imagination.

[baconman]

Looks to me like first of all, somebody should play (or at least watch a "Let's Play" vid or two) of Terraria.

Because while not all players implicitly use it, terrain-manipulation is a fundamental part of gameplay, especially where constructing and using doors is concerned. And while teleportation abilities is understandable, "mobility items" are actually quite crucial to comprising a game like this with the tactical depth you're looking at creating.

One nifty healing item system that derives from Rogue is that you consume food, and it fills your "belly" meter, which then slowly drains into your vitality (in Rogue, as you perform actions, being turn-based and all). So you could have a variety of food items, some with a variety of interesting effects, and have that "slowly" fill your belly (and indirectly, your health; provided you survive long enough for it to be useful!). Forbidden Cave mode in Ehrgiez takes this as a Diet System, where each food group contributes to your statistics too, rather than direct "Level Ups," but I don't know if you plan on featuring stat-grinding or not.

One system I'm planning to use in a 2D context (<-2D/3D would help a LOT to know, here!!) is to basically put the mobility function into the weapons. I'm going with 4 main melee-weapon-tools:

Swords are all-purpose cutting tools, and do extra damage to bleeding enemies.

Axe-Hammers are for breaking various terrain types (like Zelda bombs, but not consumable), and do extra damage to non-bleeding enemies (stone, bone, etc.).

Whips are for added range/reduced overall damage, manipulating switches and swinging around on terrain, and do a extra damage against undead.

Staffs/Spears have medium-long range/damage, and can be used with a jump command to pole vault for additional momentum in the air. The opening of it is considered an attack in whichever direction you're vaulting, and then after that you get your normal jumping momentum added on.


I also suggest you consider some interesting trap types (since RL's always have that creepy tension about them from traps), including things that can be manipulated in the player's favor (IE: trigger has a cause-effect that's not always exactly on that space), and factor that into your tool-building selection, but I'd still keep it fewer than 5 per type if possible.

Also, it sounds to me like you need to work out a system of crafting ground types. Water/Dirt + Magma = Ore/Stone.

[Derakon]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. Looks like this idea wasn't quite fleshed-out enough to post here yet. Let me provide some clarification as guided by your questions:

The plan is for a 3D roguelike -- so instead of 2D tiles being the basic unit of space, we have 3D cubes. Each cube has a composition -- dirt, rock, water, etc. I am indeed looking for a "crafting system" which combines different terrain types to make new ones. The difficulty I have is that most terrain types are solid and thus don't really seem like they could combine with each other, and there's only so much you can do with magma and water as your two liquids. You get a bit more variety if you add temperature to the mix:

 * Wet stone + freeze -> shatter, creating rubble (dirt?)
 * Magma + freeze -> stone
 * Magma + water -> steam (also water -> boil -> steam)
 * Dirt + water -> bush (partial cover)
 * Bush + water -> tree (full cover)
 * Tree + steam -> jungle (impassable)
 * Dirt + heat -> sand (reduced movement speed? Fluid? How would it interact with other terrains if so?)
 * Rock + heat -> glowing hot rock (causes heat damage)

But can anyone think of a way to have two adjacent solid terrain types interact? Should they interact?

My comment on movement abilities was mostly in that I don't want the player to easily be able to bug out of difficult situations. Stuff like teleporting large distances or instantly leaving the level entirely are pretty common in many roguelikes (including games like Diablo and Torchlight here, though they're far from the only offenders). This reduces tension. Movement abilities when used for positioning are fine, though they can be taken overboard -- for example, I think it's probably too easy in the Disgaea series to put your characters where you want them, much as I love the concept of tossing party members around the board. Mostly you just need to pay attention to how the movement abilities you've provided affect the tactical game and make certain they're useful without getting out of hand. So yeah, some limited movement abilities should probably make it in.

As for regeneration, I really, really don't want the player to be able to "rest" to recover. It's boring and and overplayed concept. The ideal I'm shooting for is that the tactical game never really stops except when the player finally does concede to attrition and flees the level. A skilled player should be able to steady-state by taking advantage of the instant-recovery items monsters drop, but otherwise you get those three restores which have to be rationed across the entire dive. Maybe there could be random one-shot fountains to give you a boost, but they shouldn't be able to be relied on.

Certainly once I have the basic mechanics in place, it should be straightforward to add more ways to take advantage of them. Monsters and traps that can manipulate the terrain are an obvious outgrowth of having an interesting terrain system (though tweaking them to be fun and interesting themselves will doubtless be an iterative process).

Thanks for the Terraria recommendation, baconman. I'll have to check it out.

[baconman]

Well, you could always "Dark Souls" the health concept: Just place a restorative fountain at your starting point for the level (and that's it), but using it respawns all of the enemies in the area as well. This allows you to tactfully retry areas without completely reloading the level if you make a completely obscure level of screwup; but you could arguably limit that usage as well. Perhaps the 3x you mention before.

The whole reason I suggest the food system is because it's explicitly not passive. If nothing else, you're always on the move to find food, and having the occasionally generated stash/cache of food gives the player somewhere to go (or search for!) when they're down on their health - they're not helpless. If you go with the belly system, you can have a quick-digest key (like maybe a funny bathroom break, complete with a "pee" or "poo block") that will insta-move 25-50% of your belly meter into your life meter, so you aren't just waiting for it to happen or pacing in circles.

Holy shitbricks!

Solid types don't have to interact, but tiles at different states absolutely should. You can make buoyancy a key factor by mixing your solids and liquids, and although it's not always visible in real life, you can also do different "air" blocks as well!! Like heat, steam, stinky gas, cloud/vapor, wind. You could also try marsh and quicksand blocks, like super-thick liquids that are more dense; and try thinking of other liquids you can add to the mix as well. Toxic goop is a good concept, for instance, or maybe tea/coffee (which can also play into consuption/effects, along with your water, and lava... maybe some players/characters like it hot?). Chocolate blocks, in all their forms (gemstone/solid/liquid/gas), are also essential.

Making assets like those will also focus more attention on manipulating liquidity to the player's benefit, not JUST the terrain; although they'll still have to use terrain blocks to do so.

But seriously, who wouldn't LOVE to devise an automated river of sugary tea?!


EDIT: You should also voxel-graphics this game, just for kicks.

So I hear you like virtual building blocks, huh?
Well I built this game where you use building blocks to build building blocks,
so you can build more stuff with more building blocks made of building blocks!

[Derakon]

Gotta love your creativity, baconman. <3

I do want to stress that my goal isn't to create a sandbox / construction game like Minecraft. Minecraft itself (and apparently Terraria) have that well in hand. Terrain manipulation is a means to assist combat and possibly to improve navigation of the dungeon; anything beyond that is "just" flavor.

A food system done well puts the player under continual pressure to continue exploring lest they run out of food. Done poorly, food becomes sufficiently plentiful that it turns into a "press X to not die" mechanic (or overly-available healing, depending). The problem is that the inexperienced player either finds the game punishingly hard because they can never find enough food, or finds there to be an adequate supply...but in the latter case, the experienced player has more food than he can use, and steady-stating the game becomes more or less trivial. That's one reason why I'm favoring going with a strictly limited carryable "food supply" -- be you veteran or newbie, you'll find yourself having to decide between pressing on despite being hurt, or spending your limited healing now. Veterans will last longer but they'll still have that pressure.

Good call on additional gases and "flavored" liquids, though. They don't necessarily need to interact with other terrain types to have gameplay effects; poisonous gas would create a handy damage field, for example.

[baconman]

Why let them take the food at all? Just have a cache here and there where they can dip in and utilize their limited resources from there. This way, even their "adequate" food supply is far from unlimited, basically forcing explorative endeavors, while avoiding that "press X not to die" dynamic?

You could also spawn a few other counter-characters, competitive explorers that can raid the remains of said stashes and encounter the player as well. Give them a "retreat tolerance" so that if you happen to whittle them down enough, they'll dart off in search of food as well. This will make terrain manipulation quite the handy tool, as you can then seal off your stashes in hopes they WON'T find it, and leave little landmarks reminding yourself of where they are.

Plus, they'll excavate other potential areas for you as well, so you aren't always digging around.

[Geeze]

If I had an AAA-Studio at my disposal, I would make it like:
- Basic fighting like in Dark Souls
- Lords of Uberdark- like terrain engine
- Of course terraforming abilities
- Rival excavators/explorers.
- Slow digestion (No insta heals, but you still need food)
- co-op/vs mode
- Online multiplayer
- Character customization
- HD GRAPHICS!

Working title: "Deep Souls"
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