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Introspection

  • narcodis
  • 03/05/2011 10:44 AM
  • 1127 views
Over the past several months, I've taken time away from this project to sort of re-evaluate exactly what I want to do with this game. I've been carefully considering the storyline, trying to play out a sequence of events in my head and figure out how the hero gets from point A (the beginning) to point B. But most importantly, WHY he gets from point A to point B.

So I've been creating new characters and working with a pretty rough outline of a story. I've got a few good ways for the game to end in my head and on paper, and several ideas for how the player gets there. It's incredibly difficult to talk about these things though, since I really don't have solid constructed ideas. But the point I'm making here is that I've determined I don't want my game to be "just a dungeon crawler". I want there to be motivation, to have a relationship with the world in this game, and to have the player want to finish it because he cares that shit has gone south and wants to make right what has been made wrong!


I've also done some actual WORK on this project. The 2nd "floor" of the Spire is nearly finished... and have started piecing together a new tileset to serve as an underground city/castle, where civilized and sentient creatures dwell and have built a society for themselves.

As for new puzzles, after acquiring the Frost Rune, the player is able to interact with magical "orbs", which will have drastic effects on the environment in the dungeon. Currently, it's used to turn water into ice, which then you're forced to hammer through a SLIDING ICE PUZZLE!

How painfully drab. Regardless, I think it's badass, so shut yer mouth. To rectify the pain endured by ice puzzles, I have plans to create an item that allows you to traverse across ice without sliding... "Ice Treads" or something. This will encourage and allow people to backtrack through the dungeon and explore the big icy rooms they had to solve before and collect secret treasures and find new areas and stuff. That's the kind of shit I absolutely love!

Oh, I've also made some changes to the way equipment works. There is no longer a way to increase your damage output through equipment. I want the player to utilize all the equipment they find, and it just seems like there is no reason not to use the armor that gives you +STR, so I removed all the strength stats on all the armor and replaced it with equivalent amounts of +INT and +AGI, and added amounts of +DEF.

However, in the place of armor increasing your damage, there are now special Ore you can collect throughout the Spire... 6 in all! If you find these, you can take them to a blacksmith in the trade district of the Spire and have him refine your weapon for a slight fee. More collecting and treasure hunting! Woooo~


Anyway, it's almost 4 in the morning and I am done with my drunk rambling. Just wanted to let the kind people who are following this project know that it's STILL KICKING. And I'm pretty happy with the way things are going.

Posts

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a) I like tower-based dungeon crawls (azure dreams, anyone?). Especially if you have to keep going back to home-base/a village on the bottom floor only to attempt to get higher the next time (azure dreams managed to do this to great effect and had lots of village npc events and development in the village between tower-ascension attempts).
b) The ice thing sounds awesome. I'd try and make something happen with each one of the runes though! Make them all more puzzle-interactive.
On the story part, you dont need to have story to make people progress game. If the story will be cliche or such people will be ussally turned off, I think bigger motivator is mystery in this case, big abandoned tower, hero an traveller/treasure hunter/adventurer/monk/novice mage with some background, dark secrets of the tower, would work better in my opinion then save the world or any such. For me dungeon crawling is about going deeper and depper unsolving mysteries, dark secrets to be unearthed, because mystery is easier to create than caring. Again in my opinion,this game gives me the old mystery adventure, retro vibe wich is really really really hard to find in any game.
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