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BattleBeard
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« on: July 15, 2011, 06:34:51 AM »

 Okay, so I'm making this game, after Intelligent Frog Family is over and done with. Basically, you create your own little weird alien/demon looking thing. Now, after that, you spawn at the surface world, near your little cave house, with only a iron sword. There's only one way to go--down a hole that you are only a few feet away from walking to. Once jumping down, you're into the dungeon. Each level is randomly generated, and it never ends. Although, every 10 levels goes deeper down underground, the 90th level bringing you to HELL.

To get to different levels, just get to the end of the one you're at and you'll see a staircase to the next level. Think Spelunky. Once you're in the staircase, you have two choices, go to the next level, or leave the dungeon and go back to the surface. Leaving is good if you have a lot of stuff. Because, if you die, you lose half of your loot.

Where do you get loot? Well, you can mine it out of the generated stone that the dungeon is made of, or from uncommon treasure chests. And, rare big treasure chests. You can find gold, diamond, iron, alllll kinds of stuff.

Every three levels. There is a shop. This shop is where you can buy stuff, or for a small fee, craft things. You can make hats to protect your wimpy head. Armor...weapons...crafting can be fun.

The shop is where you can buy stuff. Materials, weapons, hats.

So, you have an inventory. With that, you can store up to 20 of each item, up to 10 stacks of different items. So if you have 20 skulls, you might want to craft skele-armor or something.

And once you go back to the surface, you can craft there, or store your items in your chest with unlimited space. :D

Oh, and there's enemies of course.

And that's the end. Any advice?
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njm1992
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« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2011, 07:41:05 AM »

look into roguelikes
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BattleBeard
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« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2011, 08:13:38 AM »

 Do your research. There ain't no permadeath, turn-time battling or anything.

I guess the randomly generated dungeons do make it -like- one though. What's wrong with it being a rougelike anyways?
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njm1992
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« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2011, 08:33:15 AM »

Didn't say anything was wrong with it being like a roguelike, I just meant that you should look into roguelikes for advice and ideas.

I'd say - from your description - it's more like top-down terraria, but with roguelike maps.

Try to find out what would be fun to do with the roguelike aspect, if you want the players going down +90 levels in an infinite dungeon. Unless going down is easy, of course.
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BattleBeard
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« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2011, 08:38:27 AM »

It starts out easy, but gets harder.

Hmm, I want to bring something else to it that isn't you know, DUNGEON CRAWL, CRAFT, EQUIP, DUNGEON CRAWL.

There could be random bosses every 10 levels...that'd be interesting. But it's still dungeon crawl.

Well, I was planning for it to be either a platformer, something like Cavestory. Platforming could bring more danger as you could fall off ledges, but you'd also get a nice view, while with topdown, you can't really get the same dangers.

 I'd plan multiplayer.

Okay, so maybe there could be some surface exploring? Nah...this is a dungeon game. Maybe...house decorating and upgrading could be...kinda fun...
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« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2011, 09:20:39 AM »

you should make it a massive multiplayer minecraft.
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« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2011, 09:59:56 AM »

Hmm, I want to bring something else to it that isn't you know, DUNGEON CRAWL, CRAFT, EQUIP, DUNGEON CRAWL.

He's right, though. Even if the pace you're aiming for doesn't match up one hundred percent with most roguelikes, they offer some valuable lessons in what is satisfying when it comes to procedural generation and variety.

Also, your game sounds very much like a dungeon-level-based Terraria. Not that there's a problem with that.
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« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2011, 10:13:02 AM »

You got me curious.

How would the random level generator works ? Level design is very important for platformer (is it for every games but even more for platformer I think). How are you going to randomly generate levels that can always be finished and still be all completely different ?
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BattleBeard
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« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2011, 10:19:32 AM »

 Well, there would have to be a way to make sure there is no walls blocking the path to the staircase to another level.

The levels would have randomly spawned enemies, and maybe certain special areas that are randomly, and uncommonly, spawned.
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« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2011, 10:22:26 AM »

You got me curious.

How would the random level generator works ? Level design is very important for platformer (is it for every games but even more for platformer I think). How are you going to randomly generate levels that can always be finished and still be all completely different ?

I'm actually working on this in my current project right now. Spelunky's source code is a good place to start if you're interested in random generation tailored for a platformer's needs.  It takes predesigned blocks and cobbles them randomly together based on a schematic that can either be based an a pathfinding algorithm or be predesigned itself. This method gives you a level of control over what your levels look like while maintaining randomness.
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« Reply #10 on: July 15, 2011, 10:40:06 AM »

this game doesn't really sound like top down terraria to me, more like powder meets realm of the mad god with a few terraria/minecraft elements.
sorry if noones heard of either of these, but you can google search realm of the mad god and it will probably be the first to come up. and i think powder is based on nethack.
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« Reply #11 on: July 15, 2011, 11:00:16 PM »

No worries. RotMG started as a TIGS Compo entry so most of us are familiar with it. I friggin' love Powder.

@Battlebeard:
Why infinite? Why not make a compelling end scenario? Infinite dungeon != infinite interest. The carrot on a stick mentality only works for so long.
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BattleBeard
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« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2011, 08:27:01 AM »

 Considering that you know, dungeon crawling is the main part of the game, there's no point in adding an ending. Well, maybe it can go down to 100 floors, and then you get big reward for doing that? I dunno.
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baconman
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« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2011, 09:30:55 AM »

It's not unheard of. Samurai Warriors does this to the very same extent, and IMHO is one of the most compelling game modes on it. You can look to that (or some Survival Mode playthroughs) for some inspiration as well.

But you should really ask yourself, how many different ways can dungeon-crawling be interesting? Space exploration and treasure hunting? Strategy-game style battle tactics and scenarios? It doesn't have to just be you, and the stairs, and the enemies. There's a lot of different gameplay mechanics you can play into to keep the game fresh and compelling, not simply difficult. Adding difficulty is as simple as multiplying the enemies, actually.

Likewise, a game doesn't have to be infinitely long to be infinitely compelling. Sometimes starting over from scratch and recollecting your powers (differently?) can be more fun than simply exploiting them. And many people like playing games for short or custom-length spurts, anyways. What I'd suggest, where game length is concerned is an approach like so:

-How many gameplay mechanics can you come up with? And how well could two of them combine?

-For simplicity's sake, let's stick to 10s here. Let's say every 10 levels plays like so: 3 sets of 3 sublevels (IE: gameplay dynamic changes), and then a boss or special encounter, kind of like a half-baked plot that unfolds every 10th level. You may even have three or four different plots, considering.

-The number of max levels (tens per plot) should depend on how many gameplay mechanics you can come up with, and ways to keep your gameplay interesting. If you're going for replay value, you can also consider that you should have at least twice the number of mechanics as your game would use in any one, non-extended session.

-A save/continue option every 10th floor would be killer too. Or if you want to streamline it even further, you could do 2 sets of mechanics for 2 floors apiece, and then a miniboss every 5 stories, and have a shop/save/continue point there.

-Give each floor (or two... or five) *something* worth digging around to find. Don't JUST award cash, arms, or max life increases simply for completing floors and beating bosses - make players dig around a bit to get them. Keep it balanced by making it too tough for them to progress very far while avoiding all of them, but so collecting 2/3 of them or so might keep the player's ability fair with the most of the enemies' (and so being thorough may grant you a bit of an edge).

-The occasional "generous item cache" is not a bad idea, either. Perhaps once in every batch of levels, there's a sometimes-hidden cache full of one or two particular items, which will effectively "flavor" the game somewhat. It can also act as a beacon of hope for players regardless of their condition, as you never know when you'll find one or what it may contain. Hope is never lost!

-After the first couple batches of levels, give the floors some kind of serious threat that's far above your usual threshold - something beatable, but barely so. This will incentivize players to continue moving forward, and put a big risk/reward twist on exploration that keeps it tense and exciting. Maybe give the players a fair amount of time before it "awakens" so they aren't helplessly pincered by it at random; and that players in some way or another can outmanuever it, or blockade it. (It doesn't have to have a lot of HP, necessarily - it just has to have a way of doing huge damage, and incurring a major hit reaction.) A selection of different enemy types along these lines would keep things exciting, too.

-Be FUN with your traps!! These are often hilarious sources of both "yet another stupid deaths" and domino-effect delightfulness which sometimes works to the player's advantage! Both of which are key in creating "fun factor" in this type of game. Stepping on a sleeping gas tile that puts you to sleep is boring. Stepping on a rolling-boulder tile that crushes a few enemies, grazes by you, and triggers a couple other traps along the way? Fun. A trap that sends you or an enemy flying a certain direction (and tripping any traps along the way) can have plenty of fun (or fatal!) outcomes as well. You don't need a lot of different types - Spelunky for instance, uses fewer than 10, but to great effect.

-Give the player powers/abilities to collect... and THEN MAKE THEM USEFUL. Design your more advanced areas in ways where particular powers or items would be very effective for navigating or fighting, and even rewarding just for having and using them. Don't forget that stuff like weapons can be used for more things than just fighting enemies! Players can also have something in the dungeons worth healing other than just themselves, too.


Start your game short. Make it 10 or 20 stories long at most, and work in more details and gameplay mechanics. As you come up with and implement more design ideas, broaden your max level amount/game length accordingly; but keep options open for people that enjoy the shorter games, too.

Finally, remember that "procedural" does not HAVE to mean "random." Clearly you'll want some random factors in it, but also consider the ability for one thing to systematically create another, such as a key item creating something nearby to protect it; or a "problem" can be created along with a solvable element.

Giving the game a sense of directional flow (top to bottom, bottom to top, one side to the other) may demystify it partially in a mazelike sense, but it would also help to better organize such elements. Going from, say, a bottom-left corner to an upper-right most of the time still presents plenty of possible ways to get there. Or going from a random location on the left to a random one on the right still presents a "which way will be right this time?" predicament. In fact, basing each group of levels on a different type of directional flow can may even you get different effects from the same assets. Wink
« Last Edit: July 16, 2011, 09:48:41 AM by baconman » Logged

BattleBeard
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« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2011, 11:49:50 AM »

 Time Travelers would be interesting. They have about as much health at you, appear at 40-70 level, and you can either help them out by giving them certain things, or if you hit them...well, they can shoot you down, or even throw a "Time Grenade" and stop you from moving for a few seconds. This is why they're so useful to recruit, you help them, they follow you.

 But, it'd have to be a very rare thing...

And thanks for the tips, very much, baconman.

 I was actually planning to have dimension travel so you could perhaps travel to a "nega-dimension" where everything is pretty much backwards. Lava freezes you, for example. Or something.

 Gameplay mechanics. Well, I was planning different types of weapons. You could have swords, bow and arrow, spears...all kinds of weapons. But, you can combine them, to form a stronger weapon. Each weapon has a different attack speed. You can guard, counter, and everything.

 There could be status effects, like fire, freeze, and things like that.

Certain ground up minerals can make potions to cure status problems.

 Make pickaxes to...well, dig.

 Yeah, the boss idea sounds good, but I'll stick to a simple plot. This is supposed to be a game without end, really. Think Minecraft, except you're not trying to enjoy the landscape.

 Well, yeah, saving is obvious.

Something worth digging. Okay. At types, you can find hidden doors, buried, which lead to very rich ruins, full of dangerous monsters, but great profit. It'd be a challenge way above the floor you'd be at, but if someone's up to it, fine.

 I'd say that serious threats above your level would be fun, yeah.

Traps, hah, already though of those. It'll be fun, if this game is ever made. Tiles that send you flying, surprise spikes, clusters of rocks falling from the top of the dungeon, walls that crush you, slowly...yeah.

 And abilities, yeah, thought of some. Thing is, it'd depend of what you do. For example, want the ability to shoot fire balls out of your hands? Okay, find a certain item to make a deal with the Unholy Creed.

 Or maybe you want to heal others, so they'll become a temporary party member. I don't know about that one.

There'd be random direction flow, but it's most common to be top to bottom.


 
« Last Edit: July 16, 2011, 12:00:14 PM by BattleBeard » Logged
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« Reply #15 on: July 16, 2011, 01:38:27 PM »

I'd say to look at FATE and Torchlight for ideas. Both were made by pretty much the same team and focus on one infinite dungeon.
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« Reply #16 on: July 16, 2011, 08:22:54 PM »

you should look at Shiren the Wanderer for the DS. it is a roguelike with a set number of floors, each floor is a specific part of your journey(I.E. forest, swamp,mountains) there are pre designed villages along the way. After beating the main game though, you unlock like 6 other dungeons, hidden within the main dungeon. so for example you get to like floor 5 which is a village, and a cave has opened that cave is a 30 floor dungeon with special rules. it was procedural but had a static story. later on you get to a floor with a lost girl, if you take her home her parents open up a storeroom for you to keep gear in. that will be there for the rest of the game now.
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« Reply #17 on: July 16, 2011, 08:30:19 PM »

You may look at the grotto mechanics in dqIX:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/937281-dragon-quest-ix-sentinels-of-the-starry-skies/faqs/61151
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