DarkDale: Betrayal -- new indie RT blobber

[Metro]

About a month old so might have been posted but a search for 'darkdale' didn't yield any results. Anyhooo...

http://www.darkdale.net/2013/04/announcing-darkdale-betrayal/

Welcome to darkdale.net, home of DarkDale: Betrayal.
What is DarkDale? Well, here we are to announce it: an indie computer role-playing game developed by Montreal-based See Roman Play. Inspired by oldschool classics such as Dungeon Master, Might & Magic or Wizardry, as well as new reincarnations of the genre such as the formidable Legend of Grimrock, the game will feature a storyline/quest-driven gameplay set in an original medieval fantasy universe. While true to the tile-based spirit of the dungeon crawler genre, the game is developed in 3D with modern platforms in mind.

A couple of other blog posts on design, itemization, etc. on their blog.

 

[octavius]

Real time or turn based?

 

[Metro]

I believe it's real time, proceed to rage.

 

[octavius]

Too bad. Making a good real time blobber is a lot harder than making a good turn based blobber, since real time makes it so much more open for abuse.

 

[Metro]

As we mentioned last time, the relative power of armors and weapons (but also accessories such as rings, or necklaces) will be based on a material system. The material an item is made of will influence its rarity, power, value, properties, skill requirement to use or affinity to magic. There will be two scales, one for metals/hard materials and one for organic/soft materials. In each scale, there will be two common materials (low tiers), two uncommon (medium tiers) and two rare (high tiers) ones. Here’s a the “hard” scale at a glance:

• Iron (tier 1): The most common material in the world of DarkDale. Iron weapons and armor are of crude making and hold little value. Items made of iron cannot be enchanted.
• Steel (tier 2): Still very common but a bit more valuable are the items made of steel. Heavier and more robust, steel equipment will form the bulk of the party gear once they can afford it. Steel items can hold one lower enchantment.
• Silver (tier 3): A bit more uncommon are silver weapons and armor. A magical alloy of pure silver and steel, this material can make light but solid armors and sharp, accurate swords. Silver equipment also has a greater effectiveness against undead, both on attack and defence, which makes it still pertinent in the late-game when the player has access to higher tiers of equipment. Silver items can hold one lower or medium enchantment.
• Skaalstone (tier 4): Skaalstone is a special material that carries the flexibility of steel and the hardness of stone. It is a relatively scarce material in the world, but one of the few know sources is found in the northwestern area of the Kingdom of DarkDale, which makes it easier to come by, provided you have the gold to pay for. The Skaalstone Mountains and the Skaalstone Mines are pillars of DarkDale‘s economic and political struggles and will both be important stops on our main quest. Skaalstone weapons and armor are strong, effective, and can hold one lower or medium enchantment.
• Black Ice (tier 5): Very little is know about the origin of this material, first of the high tier ones. Some tales tell of a Vindáar explorer (more on races another time) who brought pieces of it from the northern wastes, centuries ago. Others tell of a magic rain of ice that fell from the sky. Others yet tell of darker – and unspeakable of – origins. Truth is, more cannot be obtained, and the items sculpted out of this material are rare and very valuable. Dark and translucent, always icy to the touch but never melting, Black Ice has the sharpest edges and is unbreakable. Items made out of it can hold one lower, medium or higher enchantment, with the restriction of no fire-based enchantments.
• Firebronze (tier 6): When magic energies of a cataclysmic scale are invoked, the fabric of the world itself is shaken and for a short while, matter and energy become one. When the storm calms, one may find slag or golden ashes, magical energy residue in crystallized form. Melted into steel, these ashes give the material a fiery gleaming color. Feeling way heavier than they should, Firebronze armor and weapons are the rarest and strongest available in DarkDale, unbreakable and with a strong affinity for magic. Like Black Ice, Firebronze items can hold any enchantment with the exception of frost-based enchantments.

So what’s all that with enchantments, you might ask? Well, all normal items can have one enchantment applied to them, while unique items will be able to hold many, or particular ones. The player will have a small random chance of finding enchanted gear in dungeon loot, they will be able to buy some at shops or off particular NPCs, and they will be able to apply custom enchantments at the enchanters’ shop. That last option will not however be available before mid-game at least, as enchanting is expensive and requires precious gems, consumed to channel and bind the magical energy into the object.
Modding-wise, adding new materials or replacing basic ones is easy by calling defineItemMaterial{} in items.lua. And defineItemEnchantment{} does what it says on the tin. We have also a clear vision of how the organic material scale will look like, but details need to be ironed out, so we’ll talk about it when we know more.

http://www.darkdale.net/2013/05/items-first-look/

 

[Lady_Error]

Why tile based? Well, we fundamentally believe that restrictions stimulate creativity rather than impede it. Constrained movement allows gameplay to articulate itself around a set amount of easily comprehensible basic rules, yet opening near-infinite design space by the combinatorial possibilities of those basic building blocks. A system that is simple and complex at once, and which has proven its value in the past. We believe it still remains relevant today, and refreshing in a video-game world obsessed with the idea of giving the player more and more freedom. Do not forget that sometimes less is more, as they say.

Step-based walking.

DarkDale will feature cities, NPCs, quests and role-playing decisions in a kingdom where – you’ve guessed it – betrayal has changed the nature of the game.

DarkDale will feature both exterior and interior environments, in many different settings, from sewers to high towers, from forests to icy mountains, from caverns to towns.

Cities & NPC's.

We'll also be going for real-time, not turn-based combat - I feel it suits tile-based RPGs better for a few reasons, although I'll reserve that discussion for a good blog post later when we get to implementing monsters & combat.

http://www.grimrock.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5329#p58352

 

[Excidium]

Yet more of this crap.

 

[Metro]

Fuck all y'all.

 

[evdk]

Grid based RT blobber you say?
*Updated my bookmarks*

 

[octavius]

Well, it can still be good even if its real time. After all Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back are among my all time favourites.
But it's so much easier to go wrong with real time compared to a turn based blobber.
The last thing we need is yet another game with boring level design, and most of the game play consisting of "dancing" around the monsters.

 

[Lady_Error]

As far as Grimrock clones go, we already got Deathfire and Space Shock over to the turn-based side. So with enough outcry from people, there may be hope they will reconsider and choose TB combat too.

 

[evdk]

 

[Lady_Error]

Yeah, evdk, not everyone likes the RT mambo dance as much as you do.

 

[evdk]

I don't like dancing either - it's shit design. But I do like RT blobbers.

 

[Metro]

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Another Grimrock clone, this genre is so limited in possibilities, there's a reason it disappeared so fast.

 

[felipepepe]

When indie developers are more popamole than fucking Ubisoft...

 

[Blaine]

It's not a coincidence however that after Grimrock's success, new RT blobbers are suddenly beginning to crawl out of the woodwork.

On a semi-related note:

 

[octavius]

I saw what you did there, Excidium.

 

[Excidium]

 

[theSavant]

Couldn't these people crawl out of the swamp 10 years ago? There was a total lack of blobbers since the last Might & Magic over 10 years ago, and now every blobber looks like a fucking Grimrock clone. This one and the other game called "the correction-house"...

 

[GeorgesDimitrov]

Hi guys!

First post here, even if I've been hearing about and lurking on these forums for awhile.

I'm the guy behind the DarkDale project, so I can give a bit of insight on some of my design decisions, and also welcome comments and suggestions if you have any. First of all, some context: I'm new to the game developpment scene. 10 years ago, I was in a swamp of studying music composition and am today a professor at a university in Montreal. DM was one of the first computer games I ever played on an Atari ST (8-9y old) and it shaped my imagination durably. I think I can probably sketch CSB's maps by heart. The games finished, I spent hours drawing new maps, inventing stories, creating dungeons that I tought would never come to life. At 10-11, I couldn't even dream to program computer games this complex but the dungeons lived in my imagination. 2-3 years ago, I tried my hand at RTC, but didn't had the time to delve deep enough in it. Then I jumped on Grimrock's editor as a dream come true, but eventually felt limited in what I could do, despite managing to push the engine to its limits with scripting feats.

So I'm not a "professional" like Guido Henkel, and can't promise his level of pro-work. But I can promise a work of passion and dedication. DarkDale is essentially a one-man project, with a friend helping as consultant on some design decisions. I've been working on this for the last 4 months in my free time, over 25h per week, unpaid, and will probably continue that for the next 6-10 months at least, doing programming, writing, modeling, animation, art... I'm not doing it to "surf" on the Grimrock hype and make some quick cash, but for the fun and love of RPGs. Obviously, if ever it manages to be somewhat successful and I can devote more time to game developpment, then all the better, of course!

For TB vs RT. I have been discussing this issue a lot already on CRPGaddict's blog where I have been a regular commenter for the last 2 years, and have a few ideas. Here's a quick answer I did to someone who asked the question on my website:

Yes, I’m aware of Guido Henkel’s project, which I’m looking forward to, and from what I heard the new Might & Magic will also be turn-based. I personaly enjoy both turn-based and real-time combat, and would probably even say I generally prefer the tactical aspects of turn-based combat.
Why settle for real-time then? Well, I think that it suits the first-person view dungeon crawler better, as it creates a smoother and more integrated experience without creating an artificial interruption between combat and exploration modes. It also allows the player to dynamically use the dungeon architecture (pits, fireball launchers, etc.) in combat, flee/rest & heal/re-engage and allows monsters to be used beyond combat purposes, like puzzles for example.
Turn-based combat is best I think when you can work a strategy with characters acting individuallly rather than as a party “blob”, usually in top-down mode, like in classic Gold Box series (Pool of Radiance), Infifity engine games, more recently the first Dragon Age…
Either way, there really is more to Grimrock or Dungeon Master combat that the plain “two-step dance”. I’m actively thinking about how to address the shortcomings/exploitable part of it, and have a few ideas.

Some of these ideas:
- Make armor/evasion/protection spells/etc. have a more important effect, to encourage standing ground in fighting and making armor valuable. Because in DM/Grimrock, if you just dance around monsters, having a shirt or a Plate armor doesn't change anything, so it's no fun.
- Make stun/paralysis/etc. effects more prevalent to stop running around.
- Give to-hit penalties when moving (eg. to hit moving monsters). Again encourages standing fighting.
- Make monster with special attacks/AI which plays around the two-step dance. Grimrock had the side-attack for example, which was a good idea. More of the sort.
- I'll think of more stuff.

If Deathfire and MMX are both turn-based, that's one more reason to do another RT one. I'm open to discussion however. I don't think I would drop RT, but I may think about developing a TB option if there is enough demand. It's just that I feel it hard to balance, in most games where you have both options, one is clearly better.

Anyway, I welcome any comments you might have!

 

[Lady_Error]

One other thing about RT combat is that it often becomes a clickfest where strategy does not count as much as how fast you can click all the necessary buttons. All this creates a sort of stressful and not really enjoyable gameplay. A big advantage of any kind of TB combat is that you can relax, take your time and actually create a good strategy for every encounter.

I do not understand why "everyone" wants to recreate the Dungeon Master gameplay lately. What about other classics such as Wizardry, Might & Magic, Realms of Arkania - all of them had TB combat (or phased based). Personally, I enjoyed those games much more than Dungeon Master or its clones.

 

[evdk]

I do not understand why "everyone" wants to recreate the Dungeon Master gameplay lately.

Grimrock has (perhaps erroneously) shown that there is a market for the games and there is money in it.
You have to admit that he can see the biggest flaws of the genre and is attempting to correct them, which is a nice change of pace form Grimrock's wooden adherence to all the sins of the past. Whether his quest will lead him to TB combat (probably not, by his description this is not a purely business decision, but a culmination of a life long DM love story) we shall yet see.

 

[Metro]

Good stuff. It is possible to make real-time combat in blobbers more balanced than Grimrock and it looks like you're well on your way to finding viable solutions.

PS -- I really love the overland map. Like the old days of flipping through D&D almanacs.