Started work on this towards the end of January. Plans are pretty basic for this. A Downwell style difficult platformer with Roguelike elements where the player must progress through Procedurally generated levels, collecting coins, avoiding traps etc. I'm also going for a strictly Gameboy style aesthetic, limiting the UI,sprites etc to a 4 colour pallete.

I plan on having 3 Developer versions before I want people to start testing Windows/Mac/Linux builds abd eventually Android. These will be classified by v0.1 > v0.2 > v0.3.

With each versions completion I will list some screenshots/gifs and a list of completed features.

Tools I'm using

• Unity 3D
• Sublime Text Editor
• Paint.net (Image processing and editing)
• Audacity, FBXR and Bosca Ceoil (for Audio and Music)

v0.1 Complete

List of features finished

• Player controller and Physics
• Player Sprites
• Chasing Spikes (to influence Player momentum)
• Player Variables - Score and Health
• Coin and health pickups
• Base UI - Health Bar, Score recording
• Damage detection (flashing damage sprite effect)
• Basic Enemies
• Screenshake on Death
• Environment Spirtes (Stone, Rock, grass, vines)
• Procedural Level Generation (Although still needs some refining)

The above is from 3/4 days ago and here's how it looks as of yesterday (below).

Today I started work on v0.2 (Dev build). A good chunk of this is going to be the more complicated stuff. Items to collect, player hazards,High score recording, level progression, Procedural generation fixes and Shop stuff for the player. All topped off with some Basic sound implementing! So far I've made some items such as Keys and crates with treasure within and an exploding crate! (Which can be seen below)

About half way into v0.2 right now. Didn't run into too much trouble and haven't encountered any bugs just yet. But it's only a matter of time.

I'll be away for the next 3 days or so, so I won't be posting til Sat/Sunday. So here's a list of everything I've done the last 2 days :

• Level progression (eg 1-1 > 1-2 > 1-3 and so on)
• Crates (Some are filled with loot, others are traps)
• End game state with Retry and Menu button function
• Start game state with the player dropping from the ceiling to the start point with a "Ready?" and "Go!" prompt.
• Health, score and level resets on Retry.
• Visual 'fade in' on level start

Today I'll be talking a little bit about some things I added and about my "Dungeon" generator.

First things first let's talk about some of the things that were added in the little amount of dev time I had earlier in the week (a lot of personal work and stuff came up which kept me from my regular dev work).

New stuff added for Dev version 0.2

• Keys (these have quite a rare drop rate and stack once picked up. They'll be used to open chests in a Store section that I'll be adding soon enough).
• Separated Coin score from overall score. This way the coins can be used as an actual currency for purchasing upgrades and special items rather than just contributing to an overall score. But you still gain score points for picking up coins!
• Added a basic menu with keyboard/mouse functions.
• Random item generation on Grid templates

"Dungeon" Generation

As I've had some experience with procedural generation in the past with my games Deathbound, Cosmic crucible and devil below, I haven't had too much trouble setting up the Generation for "downward" dungeons. The generator itself still needs some tweaking so the dungeond feel more organic as right now they're a little too on the random side which I don't like. Below you'll see an incredibly crude diagram of my Generator's basic logic (that I drew in paint cos I'm stuck in an Internet cafe with some dude beside me that keeps looking over my shoulder).

You get the basic idea. But so far it's an easy generator to work with with lots of settings I set up that can be tampered with. My only dilemma right now is having set levels or a neverending dungeon.

But there'll be more to show this weekend. Hoping for a few more gifs and updated features as I move towards Development v0.3 and a playable build.

Quick update - Items and other things

Items have been added to the game. At first these were going to be Temporary items that woudl give the player a small buff over time that would eventually wear off. For the time being I've put the idea to the side and I've designed 9 core items that can be found throughout the levels but spawn at random. Once equipped they are kept until the player dies. They're mainly items that effect the platforming currently as the platforming is the main gameplay element. SO I thought it was necessary that the items would reflect that. The items are as follows

• Ground Speed boost
• Faster fall speed
• Double jump enable
• Disable Wall sticking
• Air Speed/Control increase
• Dash ability
• Jump height increase

• Luck Increase (increase in item score at random once picked up)
• Key Book (a book full of keys)

As you can see below the UI has also gone through some changes

What's coming

Aside from the items additions I've also added High score functions and have started adding some Statistics that track specific things the player has. I've also added a few stock sounds designed in BFXR for ease of use.

Once I finish up the items I'll be moving onto a Store. Where the player will be able to open up Chests with keys for Loot and treasure, trade Artifacts for Higher scores and much more.

Stay tuned via my Twitter : @daninfiction

Now working on v0.3!

Today I started working on v0.3 of my yet unnamed game! Which reminds I should probably pick a name soon. Anyway, v0.3 is all about the In game store, stat recording and other small tweaks. I've added items, keys etc and now I have a place where they can be used, picked up, offered etc.

Main Store functions

• Brief respite between every 3 levels and serves as the transition to the next area in which the difficulty heightens.
• A Health shrine (which can be seen further below) which will heal you back to full Health for a price.
• A Shrine where you can offer Artifacts for score
• Artifacts a new rare spawning item that has it's own counter (indicated by Skulls)
• Chests that can be opened for random loot or can be trapped
• Chests that may cost Keys. (eg x3 keys, x5 keys etc.)
• Sometimes, item combinations won't quite work out for you. So there's a strange creature that will reset your items for you for a price. (Still need to work the kinks out on this one, so it may change in future.

Chests and Artifact Offering

That's it for now. Be sure to keep up to date with what I'm doing on my Twitter! : @daninfiction

Version 0.3.4 Development Log

It's been a while! A lot has being going on outside of my game development the last 2 weeks but I've been back at it the last few days and moving down the seemingly never ending list of things I want to add to this game. Below is a full list of things added and things changed.

• Player has an air jump now. This means a player can drop off a surface and then jump mid air.
• Flying enemies now target the player and move towards them within a certain range.
• (Speeds of flying enemies may vary)
• Ground enemies can spawn on surfaces and patrol back and forth but will not follow player.
• Equippable items no longer appear in the dungeons but can drop from Chests.
• Some chests require keys (see gifs below). The higher the amount of keys required the better the reward.
• Added chest open effect.
• Spikes that are constantly falling from top will increase in speed as you venture further down.
• Depths no longer read as "1-1", "1-2", "2-1" etc but just as 1,2,3,4 and so on.
• Diamonds that come from broken boxes attract quickly towards player. May apply this to coins too but at a shorter range.
• Exploding Boxes explode faster.
• Game now logs and saves statistics (Deaths, coins collected, artifacts, wins etc)
• Menu has a Stats page.
• Stats can be reset.
• Added Settings page with Fullscreen toggle. Sound settings and more have yet to be implemented.
• New level theme "The Mines" added.
• New sprites added for The Mines.
• New enemies added.
• UI and camera changes colour upon entering Depths 4, 5 and 6.

Opening chests with Keys

The Mines levels and colour scheme

New Menu pages and Stats

That's it for now. We're slowly but surely approaching a testing stage, once I add one more theme and an end game! Keep yourself posted my visiting my twitter : @daninfiction

Development Update 0.3.8

Hey everyone! As you can see from above I am now up to version 0.3.8. The big news this week is we now have a name for the game- DELVEDOWN. It was one of the first that came to mind when working on this project and after lists and lists of possible names this one continued to stick out. So there it is!

There's been plenty of 'under the hood' work done these past few weeks. I've been cleaning up my code structure and rewriting some of the more complicated scripts I wrote that were confusing myself. Below is a list of some of the new features I've added!

• New "Ice Caverns" Stage Added ("Blue Theme")(see gif below)
• All Images, sprites etc shift to Blue palette
• New ice creatures which are faster (Flying and ground type)
• Coins now move towards player within a certain range to keep up player momentum.(see gif below)
• Enemies now damaged by explosions
• Settings page now works with Fullscreen toggle and Sound on/off buttons
• New sounds added
• Artifact pickup sound
• Gem pickup sound
• Key pickup sound
• Health pickup sound
• Chest open sound
• Health shrine use sound
• Artifact shrine use sound

The new ice stage (still working out some ground sprites)

Coins attracting to the player

Bosses

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while now. How would I but bosses into a game with fundamentally no weapons to damage them? So in implementing the bosses, I've decided that they'll be mainly optional. A boss stage will act like any other but without the constant threat of Spikes bearing down on top of you. Instead a boss will pursue you and try to kill you (of course). You can escape as normal by avoiding the boss and navigating the level. You'll be awarded as normal for completing a level. BUT if you manage to defeat the boss by luring it into exploding barrels and other hazards you'll be rewarded with a big points reward and a guaranteed random item drop. This is still in early stages and I only really have one boss started but I'll post progress as it develops.

Store

For the "store" stage I'll be adding a Vendor in which you'll be able to purchase/trade items. Purchasable items will be things like Keys, equip able items etc. Tradeable items will be Keys for Coins and artifacts for multiple keys etc.

That's pretty much it for now. But before I go, in the last dev log I talked about testing. Well we're getting real close to a testing stage. I'm hoping for Mid to Late April to start getting people on board for testing which will be a gargantuan task in itself but is essential to the games development and balancing. More details will appear here soon, so if you're interested and want to be a tester stay tuned!

Twitter - @daninfiction

Development Update 0.4.0 (finally!)

Hey everyone. Finally moved onto version 0.4 for development. So I'm currently about 40% (or thereabouts) through this project. Before I go into what I've added to the game, I've decided to hold off on testing until at least mid May(*edited). I'll be away this week so I have no time to work on the game so this gives me some breathing room to do a couple flythrough myself to check that everything is working until I get people to break it! However, music is being worked on this week and should be ready to roll pretty soon too!

Important note : I'll be looking for testers from May 1st for the Alpha of DELVEDOWN. How to sign up will be posted soon on both my Twitter, here and on my blog.

Now onto the update. So over the last weeks I integrated a few achievements, added some Bosses and put a small Vendor in the store.

There will be 10 achievements in total for the alpha to test, each of varying difficulty. The final build of the game is going to have some 25+ achievements so this is just a small test to see everything runs smoothly.

As mentioned, I have also added Four bosses to the game. A boss fight will begin after a player has visited the store. The boss will have to be escaped to progress to the next Level. Each depth theme has it's own boss (eg Green, red, blue, purple). Each boss room is devoid of enemies and coins/treasures but does contain a plethora of exploding crates that can be used to damage the bosses. This means taking a risk and luring a boss towards these crates. Risking both your health and your life.

For the Vendor I simply added 2 chests each with a price tag of just 25 coins. A purchase will guarantee an item, but it is random.

Here is a full list of everything I've added to version 0.4.0 :

Four Boss Fights (Green, Red, Blue and Purple)

• Added Purple world "The Pit"
• Added Two new enemy types. (Flying shooter, stationary turret)
• Added Vendor to the Store- items are now purchasable for 25 coins.
• Added end game condition (you can now actually finish the game!)
• Added Achievements page
• 10 achievements added for Alpha version
• Fixed some player reset bugs (some stats were not resetting correctly)

For the alpha I'm looking to clean up a couple more things and tinker with some of the equip able items as right now some are too powerful and some too weak. Want to get them just right for testers. So that's it for now. Be sure to keep an eye out for the Alpha signup!

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE - TESTING TIME

So first things first. Delvedown's development is still in progress ,it's now just going to be a little later coming out than I anticipated. This is mainly due to me getting a full time job recently. I had been looking for a job anyway but had not really been expecting to hear back from anyone( for a number of reasons) but I found something, which is both a good and bad thing. 

However, music is being worked on and is progressing nicely with a number of different tracks for each of the levels, including a store track, menu and other various sounds. Moving onto my next announcement :

YOU CAN NOW SIGN UP FOR DELVEDOWN TESTING HERE :

http://toothandclawgames.tumbl... 

You'll need to sign up via email and then you should be contacted within the next 2/3 weeks with a download link to a Delvedown alpha build. I'm working to have both Windows and Mac builds as soon as I can.

Delvedown Alpha features 

• All 4 world's + 4 bosses
• Statistics (High score, deaths, wins etc)
• Settings page (sound, resolution changes)
• Achievements page with 10 achievements to get (full game should have 30+)

Feedback forms will be sent out some time after you receive the Alpha download. You can fill out these whenever but the sooner the better. I'm mainly focusing on finding bugs, balancing issues and to find out if the game is actually fun or not. 

Also to those who receive download links, I'd appreciate you not sharing the private links (I'll know if you do). But if you want to make videos/streams etc feel free to do so.

Cancelled

Been a while since I've posted, but as you'll see from the title I've indefinitely cancelled Delvedown. The alpha never got around to being released for testing as the game just wasn't up to scratch. I spent a solid week or two playing it and it just was not fun. It was too derivative, frustrating and the code is a God damn mess. 

The game was originally supposed to take 3 months which then grew into 6 months and now nearly 9 months. 2 of which I spent moving out of my old house and into a new one with no access to a pc to even attempt to continue development. In this time I've pondered on rebuilding the game, rewriting the code or even starting from scratch.  But I've finally settled on cancelling the game. Although it sounds inherently negative, I think it's the best thing for me right now. I need to reevaluate what I want to do as a game designer and exactly where I want to go and Delvedown was not representative of a road I want to travel. 

In conclusion, I'm both happy and sad I cancelled the game. A weight of sorts has been lifted but now a void left in its place as I have no way of making games at this present time. I'd like to thank everyone who signed up for the Alpha and to everyone who supported me through this.

Thanks! 

-Dan

We're back! 90% completed!

Delvedown was cancelled quite a while back and I have decided to bring it back as seeing it sitting on my hard drive unfinished was driving me nuts. So I've chosen to clean it up, add some new things and release it (hopefully) before the end of july, but more likely the start of august. I'm not going to bang on about it for too long so I'll just list the games' features and post some gifs!

Features as of version 0.9.0

• New Spin Attack (see gif below)
• 4 bosses to defeat
• 4 areas
• Ranking system based off wins of the game that is displayed on the main menu
• Secret level and Rank to unlock
• 25 achievements to earn
• Full original soundtrack
  

Spin Attack gif

Achievements page

In Conclusion

I should be posting more here in the coming days as I still need to finish up a few things, squash a few bugs and touch up controller support. But please stay posted and stay tuned to my twitter where I ramble about all this kind of stuff @daninfiction

Thanks,

Dan.

Short clip of some Delvedown Gameplay

More on the way soon!

Delvedown Final Release Feature list

Hello everyone. So here it is, the final list of features before I put the game out. Haven't decided on an exact date as I've just hunted down the last few bugs and fixed them. Also need to fix up a trailer too but that shouldn't take too long. Please find the full list of Delvedown features below :

-Four unique biomes with various enemies
-Four boss fights (flee and fight mechanics)
-In game store with chests to open, chests to purchase for keys and items to purchase with in game currency. Also contains a healing shrine and artifacts shrine where you can offer artifacts for more points.
-High score system
-Statistics tracking screen
-25 Achievements to earn with an Achievements tracking page
-5 ranks to unlock for beating the game An extra secret stage that can be unlocked after hitting one of the above ranks.
-Controller + Keyboard support
-Settings screen with 3 resolution settings and toggle fullscreen option

Trailer is on the way which I'll post here pretty soon!

Final Blog before Release

Hello everyone. It's been a while since my last update on here. I've been meaning to finish Delvedown for the last 3 months but I've been encountering some pretty crazy bugs and fixing those along the way. I suppose the delay in finishing this damn game can be attributed to my normal day job. I've been put on a "special" project that basically leaves me very tired every day when I come home from work, so any motivation to code or bug hunt is pretty much gone by the time I get in the door. I usually just come home play some guitar, watch some tv or play my PS4. Pretty depressing stuff. 

Anyway. I've hunted down as many bugs as I can. I've pretty much killed all the game breakers, the only bugs that remain are perhaps only visual, none that should affect gameplay or the player directly. I have one last test build to play and hopefully once I play it through there'll be no major issues.

Once this is done, I'll put it out. No delay. I'll put out some videos of gameplay, some screenshots and gifs. Nothing major. It'll be here on Itchio and maybe Gamejolt. As for pricing, I might put it out for like €2/$2 or maybe pay what you want.

There's a full list of features for the game in my previous posts. This will all be available on launch. No definite date as it stands, just soon.

Once it's out, I hope I don't have to update it. This game took too long. 

I'll be moving on to other, more interesting, projects. 

If you like the game when it's out, tell your friends. I'll appreciate it. 

Hit me up here our on my twitter for any questions you might have.

- Dan.

DELVEDOWN COVER ART 

DELVEDOWN GAMEPLAY TRAILER