WIP Dungeon Crawler

[bananaHUNT]

One of the most entertaining and impressive games I have played in a while. I didn't know the levels were randomed after I played it and read it here. I must say it's amazing because it looked like there actually was a design for each level. The drawback however was that I got quickly bored of watching the same walls over and over again. There were no doodads whatsoever, which is difficult to create right when you random every dungeon, but it does make me wonder why you chose to randomize it. It could be so much more visually appealing and you would be able to create a way better atmosphere.

I absolutely loved the controls. Using the mouse to aim your spells is something I have never seen before and it worked perfectly. The items/spells are very easy to use and learn. Also I loved the fact that there was no health bar. It gives an unwarcraftish feel which was very nice to have. Maybe cause the units to spurt blood would be an option (or/and move and attack slower), but please dont show health bars. It rocks! The spells itself were also nice and cool to use, I hope you plan to add more heroes and spells in the future.

The only comment/suggestion I have is to make it look better and add some variety to the dungeons and hero picking. But I see you're already working on that. Great game and I'm really looking forward to updates in the future!

 

[Bloodcount]

Uh Mr. Strange? can u please put a mode for some testing perposes or what ever, so I can see what u mean by random? As one mode for my mini game map, I must create randomized dungeons, then when a sertain action is made destroy the dungeoun and re-create it again, so I want to see how you've made it work.


And.... I have a sugjestion, I mean, sure, having different heroes with different abilities rocks, but players always wish stuff like "Why doesn't this hero have fire ball ?!" and so on, so I'd sugjest you to make about 20/30/40 different spells, whitch evry hero can use. In the begin of the map you pick a hero who's stats are going to be different. For example mages wil have more mana, warriors more hp and last but not least rangers will have better movment speed. You can also add a "racial" skill to each hero. For example the mage can have arcane explosion witch regenaretes his mana for evry creep it has hit and deals dmg to the creeps hit by it bequal to regenerated mana x 1.2 The warriors can have a rage ability witch each 5-6 atacks gives them XX bonus dmg to their next atack. The rangers can have the active skill Table Hopper, witch is like leap, but you knockback the enemies when you land. And I'd love to give some creep item ideas. Just tell me the stats of a normal creep and. ofcourse, if u want to hear some ideas or not

 

[Builder Bob]

One of the most entertaining and impressive games I have played in a while. I didn't know the levels were randomed after I played it and read it here. I must say it's amazing because it looked like there actually was a design for each level. The drawback however was that I got quickly bored of watching the same walls over and over again. There were no doodads whatsoever, which is difficult to create right when you random every dungeon, but it does make me wonder why you chose to randomize it. It could be so much more visually appealing and you would be able to create a way better atmosphere.

The reason for randoming the dungeon, while not obvious, is an important one. As, you I too love the controls. They come with a drawback however, since many trackables mean I need either to have an uber powerful machine, or a very small map size so I require less trackables. To expand the size of the map, I could not increase the map boundaries, but instead opted to recycle the map area I had to work with. Thus, random dungeon!

As much as I'm glad you thought there was a level design, which it is, kind of. I too get bored of the same walls without any doodads to lighten the depressing mood. Worry not, all will be taken care of! It will just take a lot of time. The game has been in development for just over 3 months now, so I am not going to abandon it any time soon. My last project kept me interested in about 14-15 months.

I absolutely loved the controls. Using the mouse to aim your spells is something I have never seen before and it worked perfectly. The items/spells are very easy to use and learn. Also I loved the fact that there was no health bar. It gives an unwarcraftish feel which was very nice to have. Maybe cause the units to spurt blood would be an option (or/and move and attack slower), but please dont show health bars. It rocks! The spells itself were also nice and cool to use, I hope you plan to add more heroes and spells in the future.

The only comment/suggestion I have is to make it look better and add some variety to the dungeons and hero picking. But I see you're already working on that. Great game and I'm really looking forward to updates in the future!

Having units spurt blood when damaged is a great idea! Ideally I'd like to have every monster make a monster specific sound every time they take damage, but I will require a sound maker for that. (Any takers? )

I have an idea that sounds very fun in my head for hero picking right now, so I'm going to work on that today.

Variety will also come in time. I'm studying color theory at the time, and I'm getting better. As with everything else, time is my greatest enemy.

Uh Mr. Strange? can u please put a mode for some testing perposes or what ever, so I can see what u mean by random? As one mode for my mini game map, I must create randomized dungeons, then when a sertain action is made destroy the dungeoun and re-create it again, so I want to see how you've made it work.

What do you mean by "mode for some testing perposes" exactly?
I started with studying maze generation, and later expanded it to include rooms and doors when making my dungeon. My algorithm is messy in my opinion, and by far complete. I stopped working on the dungeon algorithm when I had something playable, and plan on revisiting it once I have more graphic art in place. (again, an experienced modeler and/or texturer to help me would help me immensely)

And.... I have a sugjestion, I mean, sure, having different heroes with different abilities rocks, but players always wish stuff like "Why doesn't this hero have fire ball ?!" and so on, so I'd sugjest you to make about 20/30/40 different spells, whitch evry hero can use. In the begin of the map you pick a hero who's stats are going to be different. For example mages wil have more mana, warriors more hp and last but not least rangers will have better movment speed. You can also add a "racial" skill to each hero. For example the mage can have arcane explosion witch regenaretes his mana for evry creep it has hit and deals dmg to the creeps hit by it bequal to regenerated mana x 1.2 The warriors can have a rage ability witch each 5-6 atacks gives them XX bonus dmg to their next atack. The rangers can have the active skill Table Hopper, witch is like leap, but you knockback the enemies when you land. And I'd love to give some creep item ideas. Just tell me the stats of a normal creep and. ofcourse, if u want to hear some ideas or not

In early development I wanted every character to be able to use every spell, but went away from it. As cool as it might sound, it also has it's problems. At this time I'm not going to let characters share skills. They can have skills that look different, but does the same thing though.

Following this, it doesn't matter if all characters have the same amount of mana or not. I balance the skills depending on how often I want them to be cast, so a better way to look at it is that every character has 100% mana.

Leap is in development. The systems to control it are already in place. The next character I'm making will use leap extensively

Complicated spell damage calculation depending on this and that will not make it into this game. I'm aiming for simplicity. All spells shall be so easy that you don't have to read the tooltip again to understand what the spell is doing exactly. The graphic representation of every skill shall also be so clear that you know exactly what's going on at all times.

Sure I'd like to hear your skill ideas for enemies I don't know what knowing stats has to do with it though, as stats are a matter of balance. When I design skills, I never think about how much damage a skill does. I just think how it is going to be presented, and in what pattern the damage will be dealt. If it is going to be more or less powerful than the average skill you have already. For monsters that translates to, how powerful will the attack be compared to other equal level monsters. Is it going to be fast cast? Does it travel a long distance? Is it dodgeable? Does it require a line of sight to the target? Is the damage steady or fluctuating? Etc. Stats always fall into place at a later time. They always change repeatedly throughout the process.

If you absolutely need stats, I can provide you of course.

 

[Bloodcount]

Yes, I totaly need stats, I want to createbalanced, ready to be inplemented creeps

YOu and I share a bond somewhere I think that you are going to enjoy my project (but sh... I am not supposed to talk about it untill I have polished it absolutely )

 

[DKigorDK]

ohh now it worked, when i turn on the sound, but i must stay, it is still 10 out of 10 gj mate this is fun to play

 

[Builder Bob]

Skeleton Warrior: 10 hp, 32 size, 250 speed, 62 range, 1-2 dmg, 0.6 atk speed, lvl 1 small drop
Skeleton Archer: 5 hp, 32 size, 250 speed, 500 range (projectile can go up to 1800 if not taken by gravity), 800 proj speed, 1-3 dmg, 1.0 atk speed, lvl 1 small drop
Ghoul: 15 hp, 32 size, 180 speed, 90 range, 3-13 dmg, 1.3 atk speed, lvl 1 medium drop
Scarab: 30 hp, 32 size, 350 speed, 90 range, 1-5 dmg, 1.3 atk speed, lvl 1 medium drop
Patchwork (abom): 93 hp, 48 size, 180 speed, 128 range, 12-48 dmg, 1.5 atk speed, lvl 2 large drop
Ghost: 20 hp, 32 size, 270 speed, 400-600 range, 600 proj speed, 5-10 dmg, 1.5 atk speed, lvl 2 medium drop

That's some of the early monsters in the released map. Now that I'm working on a story, I will most likely change it all up though. Monsters need to make sense when put into the story's setting.

More than ideas for monster stats, it would be useful with ideas for what type of attacks and you'd like to see graphically.

YOu and I share a bond somewhere I think that you are going to enjoy my project (but sh... I am not supposed to talk about it untill I have polished it absolutely )

I'm looking forward to it

ohh now it worked, when i turn on the sound, but i must stay, it is still 10 out of 10 gj mate this is fun to play

Thank you! I'm glad you found it enjoyable even without the black screen covering up everything

 

[Bloodcount]

Well.... I have a coupple of neet, origan and eye candy hero ideas. But first let's take care of those monsters I promised
1 skullpile. This is a passive monster. It is formed either by 2 skeletons dying close to each other, or it is spawned.
Skeleton Builder. This skeleton can build new skeletons from the skull pile. He has no atack oof his own, but when near a skillpile he can shoot spikes at you. the spikes deal 7dmg. If you are hit by 3 spikes a skeleton is summoned infront of you

Bats. A horde of bats that Drains your healt and heals enemy units.

Bat Monstrosity. When a horde of bats has stolen moore then 20hp of you, it will become a bat monstrosity (vampari model, but transperant and black) The Bat monstrosity eats you alive, meaning that it heals when it hits you, but it is quite fragile.

Shadow Fiend. Model...... Shade . A monster that hides in the shadows, and uses them as spikes to atack you, if it is not hidden. A monster that is invincible if you are not near a candle ot another monster. It atacks with spikes. when killed, it drops a big healing item.


Now for the hero ideas. One is a Dark Slayer hero. this is a mix of warrior and a mage. He is speedy agile, with a sword, but his spells are different types of Dimentional controll. The art for his atacks shloud be something like this
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80669
Anyway, my idea for this hero, is that he will have different slashes. One that just deal dmg, others that make a dimentional hole that pulls monsters to a point. Other that knockbacks enemys away from him, and a charge spell that makes him moove insanly fast, at the cost of mana. I think that it i s going to be cool to have that kind of a warrior for once.

Second is a Trapster hero, that can build traps and lead the monsters into them. He shloud ofcourse have atleast 1 ability that just deals dmg.

Illusionist. A hero whos ability is to scatter the creeps into small groups and kill them one by one.


Those are my ideas for now. Hope u like em.

 

[Builder Bob]

Thanks for the ideas. When I go back to work on monsters and heroes, I'll be sure to see what I can use of it.

I'm a busy with plot, wall models, ground textures and more complex dungeon algorithms for now.

 

[Bloodcount]

So.... any updates comming soon ? THis is really adicting (maybe because I am a reall SUCKER for Diablo 2.... such a nice, nice , nice game.... I don't regret spending 9 months of non-stop playing..... *tears of good memories*

 

[Ninja_sheep]

Just played it, and it's kinda awesome

Just a few things:

Please make monsters no spawn within your vision range. Just 3 seconds after I reached level 3 an abom spawned beside me. I was like wtf and died in 3 strikes <.<

And make drops a little less random. It's so annoying if you kill tons of monsters, collect lots of mana rechargers and (useless) spells but never get a heal. dead #-.-
Maybe make every kill you get increase the chance on a drop increase whenever you kill some monster. So not just 2 heals spawn in a row and get wasted.

 

[Builder Bob]

So.... any updates comming soon ? THis is really adicting (maybe because I am a reall SUCKER for Diablo 2.... such a nice, nice , nice game.... I don't regret spending 9 months of non-stop playing..... *tears of good memories*

All I can say is it's coming. I'm spending a lot of time in photoshop and 3Ds max since dungeon variation as well as a story was requested. I didn't feel I could make a story around the single torture chamber wall I was using all over the place, so I'm making new stuff. It's going slow, but I'm getting there. Maybe I'll give you guys a sneak preview soon.

I've also got a large update to the random dungeon algorithm in the works. It's going to include cavern rooms, room within rooms, hallways, doors, less maze structure.

All I'm saying is, the update is not coming soon, but it will be good!

Just played it, and it's kinda awesome

Just a few things:

Please make monsters no spawn within your vision range. Just 3 seconds after I reached level 3 an abom spawned beside me. I was like wtf and died in 3 strikes <.<

I totally agree. That's on my to-do list. It's in there along with changing up how the entire monster AI works. Just know that it will be getting an overhaul at a later time. For now I must focus on the graphics of the game.

And make drops a little less random. It's so annoying if you kill tons of monsters, collect lots of mana rechargers and (useless) spells but never get a heal. dead #-.-
Maybe make every kill you get increase the chance on a drop increase whenever you kill some monster. So not just 2 heals spawn in a row and get wasted.

I doubt I'll make some psaudo-random drop algorithm. I could give certain monster types a very high chance of dropping healing, or even give them multiple lower chances of dropping healing items. That'd give you some focus when you're low on hp in the midst of battle. Mostly I think it's up to balance though.

 

[Ninja_sheep]

How are you doing ?

I'm really looking forward to a new version wich is a little less random and has less annoying stuff

Played it once again and I had 5 health drops in a row *gasp*
Then I got pwned. Running away from one abnomation and then BAM another one just walks around the corner. dead :<

 

[Builder Bob]

How are you doing ?

I'm really looking forward to a new version wich is a little less random and has less annoying stuff

Played it once again and I had 5 health drops in a row *gasp*
Then I got pwned. Running away from one abnomation and then BAM another one just walks around the corner. dead :<

I've been working on completely new graphics as well as a more advanced dungeon algorithm. It's going to be able to create various room shapes, hallways, doors, rooms within rooms, walls within rooms, as well as decorate everything with doodads taken from the room types picked. This should give me the power to also create outdoor settings by creating a large irregularly shaped room ranging across the whole map with multiple rooms and wall sections within it.

After I'm done with the algorithm and have enough graphics to create an interesting first level (a forest scenery), I'm starting on a story system which will drive the story. It's not entirely clear in my mind yet how I want the story to be told, but I'm getting there.

In my last project I tried giving out small updates to show the progress along the way, and it didn't seem to interest many, so that's why I'm not doing that this time around.

Until I have something substantial to show, I'm probably going to stay quite silent. I'm always keeping an eye on this thread though, so any and all input will be read and considered. It is also very much appreciated

Thanks for showing your interest!

 

[Builder Bob]

For those who have tested the map, I'd like your input on something.

I'm considering changing up the controls to make handling items in the midst of battle easier. The last idea I've had is that spells could be cast using the inventory items instead of ability buttons. This would move your keyboard hand over to the numpad, which would also give you a shorter distance to travel to the arrow buttons.
Arrow buttons will continue to be used to navigate the inventory details in the top right of the screen.

Here's a mockup on some changes I want in the inventory details.

Instead of picking up items when you move onto them, you'll instead get a list of items that are on the ground close enough for pickup. You can navigate this list via the arrow buttons, and pickup items using an ability located in the lower right corner. (see pic 2) This ability will change in between pickup and drop depending on which item you have the arrow pointed at.

In this picture you'll see the pickup button, which will also change into the drop button when appropriate.

Additionally, you can see I've placed arrow keys in the inventory. I'm thinking that I want to expand the inventory so I can introduce potions, scrolls, staves, tomes, etc.


What I'm trying to achieve with this interface is less keyboard hand movement, simplifying dropping and picking up items, and removing auto pickup which can become annoying when there are a lot of items on the ground.

Any thoughts?

 

[Immolation]

That system might be a little complicated for new players, but, dude, it's awesome


You rock, and this map too.
I hope that the new version comes out soon =)

 

[Builder Bob]

That system might be a little complicated for new players, but, dude, it's awesome


You rock, and this map too.
I hope that the new version comes out soon =)

Yeah? So you think it's an improvement over the current system? About the complexity, I agree. It has to be complex to allow custom tooltips, and I'm trying to make it as intuitive as possible.

What do everyone else think?

 

[Immolation]

Really, it's really a good improvement. (wants new version)

By the way, I'm pretty good(atleast I think) at GUI triggering, if you need help, or even for ideas, send a PM.

Again, this map rocks.

P.S.: Add multiplayer and this will be more famous than Dota in a week

EDIT: +rep for making this awesome map

 

[Cohadar]

Item control system sux.

How about you not randomize items but make it quazi-random.
Items have user data right?
So you put a random(1..20) inside item user data.
Then you make spell with 20 levels.
Then when hero picks up item you do:

call UnitAddAbility(GetTriggerUnit(), GetItemAbility(item))
call SetUnitAbilityLevel(GetTriggerUnit(), GetItemAbility(item), GetItemUserData(item))

That way you don't have to use arrow keys and you can properly display tooltips.

You do know how to make dynamic tooltips?

<A00F,DataA1>
<A00F,DataB1,%>%
<A00F,DataC1,.>

When you decide to make this a 2 player map send me a PM.
I can help with multiplayer/GetLocalPlayer() coding.

PS: I could not play game until I cheated with iseedeadpeople because screen was all black for me.

 

[Daskunk]

PS: I could not play game until I cheated with iseedeadpeople because screen was all black for me.

Thats how it was for me, too.

 

[jaybles169]

Sorry if I'm just retarded or something but I can't figure out how to actually play the map? I can't open in WE (probably because it's protected) and when I try to start it up in TFT it says "Must have more than one team to start"

EDIT: Sorry, actually says "Must have an opponent to start"