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[jlauener]

What is it?
Whack-A-Dungeon is an extremely fast paced dungeon crawler that mashes up elements from Diablo and Whac-A-Mole. Kill monsters, loot ton of gold, destroy barrels, fight bosses and more!

The game use a very simple input system where you touch objects to interact with them: Touch an enemy to attack, touch an item to collect it, touch a potion to drink it, touch a door to open it and so on. Because there is a time limit you have to act quickly, take fast decision and prioritize your targets. There are also traps and dangerous enemies so don't mindlessly touch everything!

It will be available on iPad and iPhone. Android/wPhone release might come later.

We don't care, we want to see!

The sprites are from the Oryx's amazing 16bit fantasy sprite pack! I'm only doing the UI/title art.







There is also

.

When?
The current version is a prototype written in HaxePunk. I'm now starting to re-write the whole thing in cocos2d-x. So the most realistic answer is: Soon (tm)

Why a devlog?
I still have lot of decision to take regarding progression, collecting of resource (gold), items (or not) and special powers. I will be posting my worries, thoughts and design decision here. If I can get feedback and constructive criticism that would be very helpful.

Who are you?
An hobbyist gamedev (working on that) living in Switzerland. This game is being develop aside from my day job and the time I spent with my family. So expect very slow progress!

Links
- IndieDB
- Twitter

[Derqs]

Love the concept and pixelart!

[jlauener]

Thanks Derqs!

Currently I'm doing a lot of thinking about the progression of the game and how to 'introduce it to the player'. In its current form it's a bit brutal for newcomers :D

Here is how the core of the game progression works. There are 3 worlds: undead, fire and forest. Each world has 3 rooms that are randomly chosen (so each session is a bit different) and a final room with the boss. In order to beat the game you have to finish the 3 worlds and the final boss that appear a the end. So basically it's a mix of random content and pre-defined content (the order of the worlds and the bosses are always the same). With this system I hope to have a good replayability while still having enough control over the balance/gameplay.

The game is (very) fast paced so each session is very fast. Like 30 seconds.

Now I believe this system will work. However I don't know how to present it to the player. So far the options I brainstormed are:
- None. Player learn by dying and gets better over time. Pure rogue-like way.
- After each session you receive something upon dying (gold, xp, ...) that can be used to improve your character. RPG style but still rogue-likish.
- Have a map with different small levels that introduce the player to various aspect of the game and unlocks other parts of the game. Arcade game flavor.

Any though? I think none of them are better than other, it's more a matter of taste. Some player like rogue-like, others like RPGs and some enjoy Arcade. What would YOU prefer?

Aside from that there will be some extra game modes in the form of mini games. Those will be unlocked in an "achievement way". Doesn't really matter for now.

[jlauener]

Currently re-writing the whole game in cocos2d-x so there is nothing to report gameplay wise.

To break with code monotony I did a UI mockup. Because lot of space is needed for the game (you have to touch the elements) I'm trying to integrate the user interface within the frame.



Frame size is 144x106 (upscaled 3 times)

UI elements:
 - score (top left)
 - time left (top center)
 - lives left(top right)
 - menu button (top bottom)

[CasePortman]

Oh nice, the gameplay looks awesome! I imagine getting super addicted to this.

[The_Otherworld_Agency]

Woah! I would have never thought of this concept for a game. It looks awesome! Nice one 

[LuisAnton]

Cool concept! Makes me wanna clone it and it's not even finished 

No, seriously, I want to play this :D

[fuguelike]

Good to see someone else on here using cocos2dx. Curious how you are handling the upscaling with the engine.

[JosephElliott]

I love the look of this. Simple and perfectly suited for its platform. I dig that certain items, like treasure chests take more than one click. It looks like you really have to balance getting your rewards and dealing with enemies. Hope I get to try it someday!

You say you're planning on having a set number of levels and a final boss, which if cleared would end the game. What happens then? Just give it another go? It looks fun enough to work that way, but I wonder about progression.

I know ideas are easier to share than to implement, but I wonder if having not having a definitive end might be a good idea. You could play through a certain amount of levels, beat a boss, and then jump right back into more levels. Perhaps they'd be harder? Faster? The game could keep speeding up, and the goal would be to see how far you can make it, with a highscore/leaderboard kind of reward. Sort of like Super Hexagon meets a roguelike.

Whatever you're doing looks fantastic already! Just an idea I thought I'd share.

[Blambo]

Filing this under "wish I thought of this first".

[jlauener]

Wow thanks for all those answers

Fuguelike:
I simply use design resolution size and set the alias parameter on each texture.

JosephElliot:
Thanks a lot for your feedback. I'm still not sure about the overall progression of the game and this is slowly driving me nuts Currently you beat the final boss, game finish and remaining time is converted into point. So finishing the game faster mean higher score. As well I have been thinking about having different difficulty levels or different dungeon levels. For now I'm still focusing on having a MWP with one dungeon/difficulty but that's something I will have to address soon.

dev update
The C++ re-write is going well. I'm slowly reaching the same feature set as the old Haxe version but with some added goodies

1) Played around with fragment shaders to add a curvature effect. Still need to be optimized for iPhone 4 though.

2) Added projectile which mean monsters can throw fireballs, arrows or whatever at you. The projectile can be stopped by touching it. Unstopped projectile deal damage.

[Bandreus]

Hey jlauener. Game looks incredibly fun, well done!

I have one simple question: why did you opt to go from Haxe to C++? Is that personal preference, or you needed anything very specific not featured into Haxe?

[jlauener]

Hey Bandreus,

Wished I could stay with Haxe but I had to move for performances reasons. I was using HaxePunk (tried HaxeFlixel as well) on top of openfl and even when using atlas (--> should batch draw calls) the performances were poor. And I was not even display the scrolling texts. So considering the fact that I would have to spend quite some time hacking around to optimize and considering the risks of the Haxe option I preferred to move cocos2d-x.

Still HaxePunk/HaxeFlixel are amazing frameworks, really. But I prefer to use them for Flash/Desktop only.

[jlauener]

Necro news: Whack-A-Dungeon has been resurrected directly from the grave!

I'm currently looking for a pixel artist to replace Oryx sprites. So if you happen to be a freelancer looking for paid work don't hesitate to contact me.

[jlauener]

Whack-A-Dungeon just got itself a new fella!

[Rebusmind]

Sweet looking game, will follow.

[tjpalmer]

Thanks much for sharing your experience with Haxe and C++, by the way.

[jlauener]

Some cool (?) attack effect I have been working on.

[Rebusmind]

I like it, I think it's a good amount of visual feedback.

[michelmohr]

Very cool, I look forward to this coming out!