Death and Rebirth

Dead Ends

Turns out I was wrong about dead ends. After building many rooms I realised that a lot of them didn't require you to engage with them unless you had to backtrack through them. And what causes backtracking?

Dead ends.

So I've worked on a new basic dungeon structure, incorporating a key at a dead end, a loop, and a gate leading to the next loop. A lot simpler than before, but you always backtrack which increases the threat of monster rooms.

Death

Like any roguelike interested in consistency, death is a part of the narrative. Your kobold experiences resurrection at the hands of the priests who want the dungeon to fail. Sending you back in to finish the job, but always through a new entrance to face a different selection of traps. The game now draws only fresh stories. Unlike normal roguelikes I can't repeat the same content. It just sounds weird and robotic. It means the game has a limited life span (unless you take a break for a few months), but it makes it a lot easier to write.

Quest

I have an outline for the full story, which can be seen in the redrafts of certain rooms. The quest room will go in the dungeon that is traversed after the demo-dungeon. When a player starts Kobold Dungeon Tester they don't know how big a dungeon can be. Escaping a small dungeon gives them an idea of the risks involved. It tells the player how much stamina is worth and perhaps how long their luck can last. The bigger story doesn't need to get involved at this stage. I've already started drafting the main quest, but it's a big job. Best to focus on more important things like saving progress and maybe some nice things like customising the layout.