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Dungeonlike

Turn based roguelike with an advanced health system · By Sheriour

The future of Dungeonlike (Updated on 25/09/2018) Locked

A topic by Sheriour created Aug 10, 2017 Views: 1,048 Replies: 4
This topic was locked by Sheriour May 02, 2019
Viewing posts 1 to 5
Developer (5 edits)

Current Roadmap

As the old "Future  of Dungeonlike" post was vastly outdated, I've decided to get this list written again, to actually reflect what are the features I plan on working next. I cannot guarantee that all of the items listed below will make it into the game, but I will attempt to get them all in, as I feel that they can enchance the game tremendously, if done right. The list mentions mostly bigger pieces of work, but there are many smaller systems which will be added/changed along the way, but I can't list absolutely everything in here.

This post is under constant maintenance and I will try to add new things as I go on and update progress on listed items once I get to them. Probably on a release-to-release basis.

Story and Setting

Dungeonlike is currently very weak with respect to story and I'm planning to rework that part quite a bit. I have an idea for a world, and it's a rather dark idea, with demons and undead all over the place. I want the world to be significantly more grim and gritty, and will attempt to make it clear by the story, by existing factions and general way in which people behave in the world. I will probably tweak the tiles a bit as well to be less cartoony-colorful, as I don't think it fits right now.

Races

So far I was going primarily with standard Tolkien approach with human, orc, elf races etc., but I might spice it up a bit and get slightly more creative than that. Humans and orcs are probably here to stay, but I can't promise anything with respect to other playable races. As the world becomes more menacing and dark, the races will probably also be a reflection of that.

On top of these narrative-related changes, I will also attempt to get races far more diverse in terms of playstyle. There are many ways to achieve that, and I will probably allow some race-specific powers and traits to allow for some nice combinations. So far races have been just "stat adjustments" and I can't help but feel that just adding more races won't change that, but sticking to a couple and making them different enough between each other should work wonders in the long run.

Quests

One of the features that seems basic, but in the end might need quite a bit of preparation is quest. In their final form these would be of at least 2 types, with Story quests and randomised Mercenary conracts. Story quests are actually quite a straightforward type and those will probably come quite soon, as the story becomes more granular. Randomised quests however, are quite a different beast and will probably require far more work.

Item System

The item system has been growing over time, with both new items, new item types and an enchantment system currently implemented. I am planning to expand this further, with players having an option to enchant the items themselves by following a crafting system. I actually have quite a detailed idea in my head about how this will look like.  There will be more tiers to items than just Normal -> Magic -> Rare and not all items will be equally enchantable.

Skills

I also have a bunch of plans for skills, with two big areas of change: defensive skills and magic.

Defensive skills are currently as boring as they can, there is really very little reason to not take armor skill, with shield also being a no-brainer most of the time. I will try to make the three defense skills (Armor, Shield, Acrobatics) a bit more mutually exclusive, and also a bit more pro-active with some abilities to provide additional protection. 

Magic is another obvious candidate for changes and I currently have plans for a couple of magic schools. I will also have to change Sangumancy to actually be more of a "bloody rituals" type of magic, instead of something that spawns poison clouds.

I was also thinking about creating some diversity in how melee classes can be approached, with some division into berserkers, shielders etc. with their respective  tactics, but I couldn't come up with a not-horribly-complex system so far.

Endgame

Currently the game is a dungeon grind for the sake of dungeon grinding, but it gets really stale. I have two ideas for some endgame content and ideally would really like to have both.

One would be Faction Warfare, inspired mostly by how such thing was handled in Mount & Blade games. Not sure how much of that I could translate into this roguelike-ish type of a game, but I want to give it a shot. Being in the middle of a 100 man battle is an amazing feeling, and tens of fireballs exploding on a battle field would only make it better. Having the option to side with a faction in order to take over the world also sounds like something cool for endgame.

For a more traditional type of content, I was thinking about extreme endgame locations, wouldn't probably call them "dungeons", but they would play a similar role. These would be inhabited by demons, who would have randomised bodies with mysterious body part names. 

This also means I need to have some kind of reward system and additional progression systems, and I'm currently exploring various possibilities here.

Open World Features

First will be additional structures/locations, which will include more friendly areas, quest-related locations and possibly overland structures like old fortresses and the like.

Second will be a sort of Dynamic Encounter System where temporary encounters will spawn all across the world, such as skirmishes between factions, demonic invasions, maybe some bandits robbing people on the road, a recent battlefield being discovered, and whatever other type of encounter I can come up with. These will be slightly different from current "you have been ambushed!" events, as player will be able to actually see them on the map and have the decision to simply ignore them.

Third, the world needs finishing, as the map is currently horrible, with invisible walls surrounding a square of grassland. There will be a bit more biomes to explore in the future, and the entire world will slightly grow in size, although I've decided that distances between places should probably be way smaller. Having a massive empty map is pointless, so at some point I will push everything a bit closer together.

Music

Yes, I know, it's way too silent within the game at the moment. I've been thinking about music for a while, but find myself unable to choose an artist. Need to finally make a decision here as from code perspective, music isn't difficult to add.

This is a very sweet list of features. I hope it'll come to life!

I'd love to see "fog" as an spell type. Like if you could just make a fog of whatever you want. Make it a fog of fire where people burns to death, or some unstable field based on locumancy that causes bash damage and of course the fog of decay, which would be a spell type: fog with a base spell from locumancy. As for physical combat more weapons, skills and combinations are always nice. Axes could let you go into a berserker rage for increased strength, while maces could have a exhausting stunning blow and swords some kind of riposte where you get to counterattack automactly every time you dogde, or just give you higher dogde as you parry with the sword. 

Developer

These are all great ideas! I think the fog of fire "kinda" exsists in the form of Wildfire spell at the moment?

And yea, there needs to be more variety and choice with respect to how melee combat is handled. Still need to figure out exactly what I want in there, but currently the open world aspect of the game is what I am mostly focusing on, and it proves to be quite a challenge.

Gonna DL this game later today... looks interesting and I love the old school look.

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