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[crowbarska]

Dungeon Deathball
turn-based, tactical bloodsport with permadeath

Out now in Eartly Access!





Update highlights:


28th April 2018


21st April 2018


17th April 2018


13th April 2018

Overview:

• Turn-based & grid-based tactical bloodsport game with permadeath.
• You're enslaved by nasty monsters and forced to play ball. If you win, you go free.
• Your goal is to take the ball to the opposite end of the field.
• You can do 2 actions per turn, which are limited by a stamina meter.
• ...But your available actions are randomised. When you use one, it's replaced by another random one.

That's all for now! Subscribe to this thread for more updates, or come and follow me on...

• Twitter
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• itch.io

More about me:

• mglanville.co.uk

[crowbarska]

Some gifs from the week to get things moving...



Enemies indicate what they intend to do next turn. I added visualisation for this on the floor tiles. This is inspired by the same mechanic from Into The Breach.



You can now throw the ball! This is your only ranged offensive move and can damage enemies or knock them back. But it comes at a cost: you'll have to go and retrieve the ball in order to score.

[ashtonmorris]

I really like this!

Will there be any incentive to move at a fast pace, or will you be able to take as much time as you want?

 

[crowbarska]

Thanks! Right now there is no incentive, but I think I should add some.

I'm thinking about making it vary from game to game though, so no two games are exactly alike. In some games it could be a hard turn limit (fail to win within X turns = defeat), or it could be that the left side of the field starts to become deadly, row by row.

Plenty of ways I could mix it up! Let know if you have any ideas :D

[ashtonmorris]

I think that timed moves would make it kind of a "think fast" kind of game which would be fun, but taking your time would also be pretty fun. So I guess it depends on the feel you are going for.

Games with balls usually have some type of timed play involved though, so my vote is for something that uses that. 

[crowbarska]

New camera animation I added to the ball throw action:



The last day or 2 has been spent overhauling my core 'action queue' system so that it's more robust. It's been a bit of a slog so I wanted to throw out something quick and flashy. I put this camera animation together in no time using Cinemachine (very useful free plugin for Unity).

I think that timed moves would make it kind of a "think fast" kind of game which would be fun, but taking your time would also be pretty fun. So I guess it depends on the feel you are going for.

Games with balls usually have some type of timed play involved though, so my vote is for something that uses that. 

You mean like a real-time timer? That could work and would be easy to try. It would change the feel of the game a lot but it's already pretty fast paced, so it wouldn't be out of tone.

[Jesse Ko]

Looks like a fun project! Seeing as how it's a bloodsport game, I think you should eventually have a variety of death/knockout animations (or at least a couple quality ones). They don't necessarily have to be gory, just flashy. Speaking of which, how gory were you planning on making the game? I can see it going both directions with the bloodsport theme vs. the cute aesthetic.

[SamLouix]

Is this it?
https://twitter.com/crowbarska/status/984805339928449024

It looks awesome!!!!! Following.

[crowbarska]

Woah, the last 2-3 days has been a bit of a slog!

On Thursday I decided to start overhauling the codebase so that every action performed in the game gets processed through an 'Action Queue' system. What this means is that everything is considered to be a 'GameAction' with some associated data, instead of just generic methods thrown around willy nilly. Every GameAction must be queued and processed in turn, so nothing gets out of sync or slips through the net.



It turned out to take a lot more work than I thought, but it's finally done! And the game code is way more robust as a result.

A great side-effect is that it won't be too difficult to add a full Action Replay system, so you can watch your games back after they've finished (without all the decision-making downtime).

So anyway, next week you should start seeing new gameplay features and new art. Back to the exciting stuff!

Looks like a fun project! Seeing as how it's a bloodsport game, I think you should eventually have a variety of death/knockout animations (or at least a couple quality ones). They don't necessarily have to be gory, just flashy. Speaking of which, how gory were you planning on making the game? I can see it going both directions with the bloodsport theme vs. the cute aesthetic.

Thanks! Yeah, I'd like to play up the gruesome character animations eventually. Right now I'm using some simple squash & stretch as reusable placeholders for any character, but some nice pixel art animation would be great. I'm thinking I can get away with it being kinda gory, what with it being cute as well. I mean, call me sadistic but I think there should be heads exploding at the very least.

Is this it?
https://twitter.com/crowbarska/status/984805339928449024

It looks awesome!!!!! Following.

That's it! Thank you!! 

[SamLouix]

Also, awesome work for 1 week! Hit me up if you need music [email protected] .

Working for free because I am sick of money, and would just like to focus on working on projects I enjoy.

Do you have any expectation of game length / when you'd like to finish? Or are you just working on it indefinitely?

[crowbarska]

A few new things, in chronological order of when I made them...

1. The GUI now scales and re-positions nicely based on the resolution and aspect ratio. Hooray for Unity Canvas! I've also drawn some proper GUI art for the buttons, replaced the text with icons, and there's also some new art for the field tiles.



2. I made a proper sprite for the enemies (the old one was a placeholder taken from another project).

Look at these lads:



I livestreamed the pixel art process as well! Here:





3. I've improved the monster AI, so they're more aggressive. They can also be outsmarted now, so you can trick them into attacking each other. Here it all is working together:



Super happy with how it looks now that I've got a tailor-made sprite in there! But, after a playtest with friends today, I'm definitely starting to think that the 3 randomised action buttons causes more problems than it's worth, so I'm going to timebox trialing a more traditional system where you just have all actions available at all times (perhaps with some cooldown when you use one).

Also, awesome work for 1 week! Hit me up if you need music [email protected] .

Working for free because I am sick of money, and would just like to focus on working on projects I enjoy.

Do you have any expectation of game length / when you'd like to finish? Or are you just working on it indefinitely?

Thank you for the offer! But I am quite set on using a chiptune pack that I paid for recently, as it fits my needs perfectly. I'm also trying to keep this project as short as possible, so adding another team member isn't something I'm keen to do right now. Your music's nice though!

As I just mentioned, yeah, I'm aiming to release something ASAP. I just went full-time indie and this is a project to get something released with my name on it that I can point to and say "I made this!".   The first MVP is gonna be short and simple, and I'll look at extending it if it gains traction.

[jctwood]

Interesting idea having the randomised action, interested to see what system you decide to go with!

[crowbarska]

Yo yo yo! I'm back with some tasty new gifs!

So, I took the plunge and decided to remove the randomised action system I mentioned in my last post. The initial tests I did with a more straightforward system worked pretty well, and I got some good ideas from a friend with how to carry it forward. So I'm committing to that now, and you can see it in action here:



So instead of 3 random buttons at the bottom, you now have 6 fixed buttons (4 directions, Wait and Throw).

However, there's also a Stamina system now. Each action you perform costs stamina. Using the Wait action replenishes all your stamina. If your stamina depletes, you're forced to Wait on that turn.

(Also, I'm thinking of combining the Stamina meter with a Health meter. So taking a hit would reduce it by say 5 points. If you're fully healthy, you can survive it, but if you're weakened it could be the end for you. What do you think?)

So in addition to this design change, I've added new sprites for the Slaves. They're randomised a little so you get a different Slave each time.



Here's the pixel art process:



And finally, I definitely had huge problems in early playtests where people would not have the slightest clue what they were supposed to be doing. So I added a simple "How To Play" screen to the start of the game.

Version 1
Initially I went with a numerical points system, where you could get a maximum of 100 points per game.



Version 2
But then a friend of mine suggested a star rating system. Makes perfect sense, since I have 3 core objectives for the game. I like this change a lot, it's much clearer and I think being awarded stars just feels nice??



Anyway that's all I've got for this week! Thanks for checking out progress. I hope to having something playable released in the next few days. I'm aiming for an MVP version (Minimum Viable Product), which I'll put out there, get feedback and get a feel for whether I should spend more time on this game or move on to my next project.

If you like it please check out my other stuff here: http://mglanville.co.uk/
Or give me a follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crowbarska

Bye for now!

[crowbarska]

Quick little update as I need to spend a day or 2 working on an arcade cabinet port of Switch 'N' Shoot.

I reworked the floor tile FX in two ways:

1. The yellow hazard stripes are a little clearer and more vibrant (I had tinted them grey at some point and forgot to change it back, oops).
2. I've added some arrows to show which direction each monster is moving in the next turn.



Pretty happy with that!

I've also done a little video DevLog about a design problem I've been facing. The audio is a little garbled but it should be just about listenable. I'm still learning all this video making stuff.





Hope it's insightful anyway!

[crowbarska]

Hello again!

I've managed to make good progress on the game this week despite doing taking a couple of days to work on Switch 'N' Shoot. So let's dive right in.

The changes are quite noticeable ones.

1. I've added support for multiple slaves (the human players... not ACTUAL human players in real-life, but the humans in the game. wow this is already confusing). I'm sticking to just 2 slaves for now but the system supports more. I'm thinking maybe you could rescue them as you go, to replace ones that die along the way.

2. I've added some 'HUD' panels to show stamina and status for the characters. The stamina bars counts down as you perform actions.

3. Maybe most noticeably, I've finally added some environment art! Woop! The dungeon actually kinda looks like a dungeon now instead of a grey void.

Throwing the ball at a Mad Lad to stun it:



Passing the ball to the other player before getting waxed:



Getting rated for your performance at the end:



That last gif was implemented pretty quickly last night and I intend to expand it. Here's what I'm thinking for the overall game loop:

• Start a game... get 1 or 2 randomised players.
• Play a round
• When you reach the other side, get rated.
• Start the next round, and pick a randomised handicap (difficulty modifiers that stack up to make the game harder).
• Play another round. Maybe free a slave to add to your team.
• When you die, it's permadeath. Game over!
• If you make it through all X stages, you win! Your slaves are free!

This coming week I intend to focus on more of this meta-game structure, getting the loop working and hooked up to a title screen. Let's get this game releasable!!!

[crowbarska]

Demo now available!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

This thread doesn't seem to be very active so I'm considering migrating the dev log to itch.io. Let me know if you don't want that to happen.



In other news...

1. I've added full progression now, so you can start a new game from the title screen, progress through all 6 stages and then get spit back out to the title screen. Full game loop!!

2. I learned how to combine textures and bake them all down into a single sprite. See my random character generation in action here: https://imgur.com/WI6qjVF

3. I'm now working on some player character persistence, so that your unique random slaves carry over into the next stage and you get a run-down of who lived and died at the end.

[DGSpitzer]

Wow I actually just downloaded your game by random browsing on itch.io.
It's an awesome game bro!

[crowbarska]

Wow I actually just downloaded your game by random browsing on itch.io.
It's an awesome game bro!

Oh haha, that's awesome! Thank you so much.

[DNcrystal]

Ahhh this looks great. Makes me wanna play the old Atlus dodgeball game for GBA.

[crowbarska]

Hey everyone!

This is a quick update to announce that Dungeon Deathball is out now in Early Access!



You can get it here:

• Steam
• itch.io

There's a lot of new stuff in the game since I last posted here including a new enemy type. I started posting devlogs on the itch.io page here as it was a little easier to maintain: https://crowbarska.itch.io/deathball/devlog
Hope you like the direction the game is going! Amazing to think how much it's changed since I made this thread.