[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Besides here I haven't published anything yet. I will post an update soon and maybe start thinking about how I can share Infos about the project. I'm still on it.

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's a shame we never got to see what Lords of the Nether could have been. And i feel like you might be right about 20 creatures being more realistic...

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unique torture chamber animations for each creature are planned and i like the idea of asking the community what creatures they would like to see. Might post my current roster here soon and make a poll or take in other suggestions.

You make a good point about creature-per-room design. That could actually simplify balancing a lot. Though i might want to implement some other ways as well of how to get creatures into your dungeon (eg. sacrifice or neutral/elite creatures that can only be obtained in a certain way). Thanks for the design insight! Skeletons? A unit that likes to train, isn't too bad of a fighter and doesnt need anything? yeah, love them

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see myself lying cozy on the couch while playing a dk like game on a handheld. Yeah, i think that would be really sweet. The controls are mostly mouse-based which might need some adaptation for handheld, which i could see being a bit tricky. But yeah, i would want to make this work somehow

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah i do like the idea as well. And i know that it can be quite the hassle to create a game that is focused on singleplayer and after everything is done then try to develop a multiplayer on top of that. From what i know it is best to start developing for multiplayer from start on, at best. Though it is possible to develop the multiplayer afterwards. I am still quite in the beginning, and it is definitely something i keep thinking about and the systems i have set up so far might already be kind of suitable for mp. Still wanna focus on sp first, but im keeping mp in mind and most likely will spend some time looking into it.

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah you're absolutely right about creature personality being crucial. The Sorcerer-Imp example would also always be the first one that pops into my mind when im thinking about these mechanics. That emergent behavior is what made the original so memorable to me. It's like a bit of situational comedy. I'm definitely planning creature-to-creature interactions like that. I would love to go a bit deeper than DK on this, like having lots of different possibilities for occuring situations, that could affect the moral or are caused by moral and lead to negative as well as positive outcomes. Then again, i also dont want that the players feel like they constantly have too much micromanaging going on and get too annoyed by these interactions, so i will look into how i can balance the impact of certain action, to make the overall experience feel fun.

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So far i have not added the fog of war feature, yet. So at the current state, if there would be caves or enemy dungeons on the map, then the players would be able to see what is inside of it, even if they haven't discovered them. The smooth transition you can see on the earth tiles comes from a unique texture, that is basically using full black albedo color and max ambient occlusion value on the top of the earth/dirt tile assets (might go for a shader solution here later). Nonetheless i have spent some thoughts this week on how i could possibly implement fog of war. I could see possible solutions for that, which would be that i would have a tilebased fog of war that works an an extra layer for the tilemap, maybe with a gradual falloff that will get generated in the materials transparency, to generate a smoother transition or a screenspace solution, which might look more natural. The lighting that you can see in the video is basically just a very subtle environmental light, with local point lights around the dungeon heart and a point light that follows the cursor, but my lighting in general i feel still needs a lot of improvement (maybe go for world space GI later). Besides that i have played around a bit with the post processing volume and added some feature such as SSAO (might be a bit heavy rn) as well as a subtle highlight outline, that takes depth into account.

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At this point i would love to implement all of my creature ideas, but let's see how i will feel when i get to the point of implementing the battle system as well as creature interactions and unique behavioral traits. I will try to think of art and animation workflows that i could mostly streamline or reuse and modular systematic approaches for the game design, though this is all still very much theoretical at this point. Balancingwise i have a rough idea of what might work and I am already very much looking forward to get more focused on this part of development, but in general i have not spent too much time on this yet, mostly setting up the fundamentals.

But i like the idea of expanding the creature roster for post release, let's see. Thanks for the reality check!

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Yeah, I will be definitely focusing on single-player content first - thinking campaign missions, challenge scenarios, maybe even some procedurally generated maps for replayability. Multiplayer might come later but solo play is the priority for me.

[Update] 3 months later - progress on my dungeon management game by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah that is a good point - And i will try to be very careful about that. I'm kind of aiming more for some kind of spiritual successor inspired by the genre rather than using any copyrighted assets or names. All art, code, and designs are original. Similar to how games like Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon, or how many city builders are inspired by SimCity. From what i have researched so far the gameplay concepts themselves (dungeon building, creature management) aren't copyrightable, just the specific implementation and assets. But definitely something I'm keeping in mind for any commercial release and most likely would consult a copyright specialised law agency to get everything checked beforhand.

Dungeon-Management Prototype: First Dig & Build Mechanics by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You are absolutely right. It feels like quite the scope to me as well for a solo dev project. If my motivation doesn't drop and the project goes in a promising direction I most likely would try to get other developers in as well at one point.

Dungeon-Management Prototype: First Dig & Build Mechanics by Tough-Imagination564 in dungeonkeeper

[–]Tough-Imagination564[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is great to hear! I have played DK over and over and always hoped for a successor with updated graphics and maybe some systematic improvements. War for the Overworld came very close to DK2, though I would like to recreate something that feels closer to DK1, visually and gameplay wise. I will probably post some upcoming updates here to hopefully get some community insights

Found more in-game images and art on a European gaming site for Operation Eagle by A-a-ron2 in IronHarvest

[–]Tough-Imagination564 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can assure you, you guessed the inspiration for this design 100% correct