Post by Christian Nava in DungeonSweeper comments

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I just added one-time use items, actually! You can buy a health potion that you use from your inventory, but I am looking to add a lot more. Adding an item-chest is a good idea!! Perhaps each level of the dungeon could upgrade the chest too so you can get more out of it. I lament that the shop occurs after you win a dungeon because you might not even get to play with the extra items. Adding a chest to discover could whet the appetite for it!

Different shaped dungeon layouts is also on my todo list -- I want to also add biomes so that maybe the monster variety could change with the map/biome. I can see a monster that only lives in dead-ends, or only appears in certain biomes.

Elia Oliosi148 days ago (1 edit)

I saw the health potion, it's a must buy!

Upgrading the chest seams a great idea and would allow the player to specialize its gameplay towards what he likes the most. One could specialize in rats while playing the piper class by buying all rats related upgrades. The same goes for chests, the player strategy could circle around the concept of upgrading chests and finding them as soon as possible via tarot cards and the such.

You are right about the shop. There's no hint to it and most player might not even experience it, which is a shame. Chests could give the player an anticipation for what's to come, thus motivating the player and keep them engaged, but I feel like this is not enough. A possible Idea, enter the gungeon approach: you let the player know beforehand that more items can be unlocked via the shop or after each game spending some kind of acquired currency. This way you build curiosity in them. So, initially, chests provide only a small catalogue of possible drops, but after reaching the shop you can not only buy an item, but that item might spawn from a chest in later levels/games. This is more of a roguelite approach, while your game is more roguelike oriented, so it might not be the direction you want to take.

The different biomes idea sounds interesting. This gives me another idea. You know when in games there are entities that not only damage the player but other enemies as well? Like carnivorous plants that eat whatever comes close to them? It makes you feel like you are part of something bigger. It might be that it is actually beneficial to keep an enemy alive for some time (eg. you have a poisonous fly enemy 3, and a carivorous plant 5. While the carnivorous plant is alive, nearby poisonous fly enemies have their exp/life reduced by 2) Enemies interact with each other in an antagonistic way. Food for toughts

Christian Nava148 days ago (1 edit)

I feel like you're in my head, hah. I do have some items about enemies that interact with other enemies in mind. I did the first one last night (in the latest upload) with the Gorgon. She spawns surrounded by bricks, she is 25 power, which is impossible to kill. When all surrounding bricks are destroyed she gets reduced to 0. But I like the idea of other interactions like you described. I can see "aura" effects on enemies, both positive and negative. I want to add more enemies in the next big update so shoot over any ideas you have like that! :)

Elia Oliosi147 days ago

I love designing so it would be a pleasure to give you some extra ideas to cherry pick! I already know Unity pretty well, but recently I started studying Unreal and as exercise I wanted to prototype a game inspired by your concept/take on mine sweeper since your idea is so clever and I love mine sweeper <3...
I can pitch the idea to you If you're interested and share your opinion. Anyway...

I've not had the time to try the last update yet, I'll give you my feedback asap. In the meantime:
I like the concept of the Gorgon. Making it impossible to kill forces the player to find another way by experimentation. It's a puzzle in itself, within a puzzle game. When the player figures out how to kill the gorgon, he'll actually feel smart for finding a solution by himself.

I like to concept of the lovers where their position actually hints about the position of another monster in the same row. It's similar to what one would do when playing Sudoku. Having said that, how about an enemy which power is the sum of nearby enemies? Although, I fear it's too similar to the gorgon...

New concept, enemies that should be killed in a specific order: for example, an enemy A protected by an energy shield that makes him inefficient to attack right on. You first have to find the enemy B who's casting the shield. Killing B removed the shield from A, now that A is weaker you can attack it.

An helpful building that's disabled while at least one enemy is nearby. Once all enemies surrounding it have been defeated, the building activates, helping the player in some way (revealing tiles in a X radius, weakening enemies in a X radius, etc...). On the other hand, one could destroy the building once it's no longer useful. A destroied building could drop an item or give some money for the shop.

Another helpful tile, the cook/alchemist NPC. By itself is useless, but if you bring him a list of ingredient he can cook for you a meal/potion that provides buffs/heals/exp to the player. Once a tile near him has been revealed, he's revealed as well. Once revealed, enemies killed count towards ingreadient being brought to him. The list of ingredients is displayed somewhere on the UI. eg: "Bring me a slice of pizza, some slime juice and some minotaur meat" or wathever

I'll think about other enemies later on, for the time being I hopes this are good enough

Christian Nava147 days ago

Good stuff in here, thanks for the ideas! I too need to learn unreal more, I'm just so comfortable in unity but I know I need to get there with unreal too

Elia Oliosi147 days ago

btw, maybe it's just me, but now that the first level is smaller in size I find it almost impossible to win. I had much more room before to complete the dungeon and overall i personally found it much more enjoyable before

Christian Nava147 days ago

Oh, interesting... Maybe the balance of the enemy/XP isn't lowered enough for the space. Maybe I'll get rid of some enemies on the level so it's for sure easier. The intent was to make the first level easy and get players into the shop more often

Elia Oliosi143 days ago (3 edits)

Actually, after playing it a bit more I do still find it more difficult at times, but overall I personally percive it as an improvement and it's not impossible to win. Having a quicker to solve first level is better in my opinion, but for some reason I do feel like it has gotten harder that it was previously. It feels like it got more difficult, but this doesn't mean it's difficult per se. Again, this is only my personal opinion and does not represent reality as a whole

Christian Nava141 days ago

I do think the first map should be a bit easier still... I will try to rebalance a bit. I think it feels harder because there's less "free" spaces, or easy to deduce spaces. My problem is that reducing enemies doesn't always mean easier, because ultimately that's how you get the XP needed. I do think less higher tier monsters and more 1-2-3's will make it more manageable for beginners

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