Teudogar is a historical CPRG; it's available for download & purchase.
DARGHUL is a fantasy CRPG that's still under development.
The following lists what is new to DARGHUL (in comparison to Teudogar):
plot:
- The new DARGHUL is a remake of an old German MSDOS CRPG I wrote many years ago and which became a sort of classic; there still remains a surprisingly large fan base here in Germany; however there has never been an English version of it so far.
- Plot: Evil King Gibur's supernaturally strong orc armies threaten to conquer the entire world; obviously, several powerful magical items must be procured to put and end to this.
- It's really stupid, but astonishing numbers of people tell me they love it; and well, it's actually great fun, in a carefree way, not as intellectual, earnest, perfectionist as Teudogar has been.
game world:
- There were no cities or castles or large dungeons in Germania; consequently there are none in Teudogar. There are, however, in DARGHUL.
- Teudogar's game world consists of a couple of individual locations and nothing else; DARGHUL has a large continuous game world, i.e. not just the main cities but also all forests, swamps, orc villages, caves, temples, tombs, ruins and so on that can be found between the cities; so you can basically walk all across the continent without interruption.
- Teudogar: traveling via a travel screen; DARGHUL: travel either by simply walking from one end of the game world to the other end, or by using the services of wizards who can teleport you to most locations, or teleportation scrolls (will teleport you to one specific location), or teleportation anchors (using one anchor will teleport you to the place where the 2nd anchor has been placed), or teleporter fields (all destinations), or the teleport spell (all destinations). (All of these means of teleportation can be acquired over the cause of the game; when you start the game, you have none.)
- The game world is HUGE (185 maps/locations (each 255x255 fields) plus about 360 subterrean maps/locations with caves and dungeons).
graphics:
- Teudogar screen resolution 640x480, DARGHUL 800x600 (
screenshots). Things no longer look edgy in this resolution, i.e. you can't discern individual pixels anymore.
- The higher screen resolution means that individual tiles, objects, NPCs etc are now smaller than they were in Teudogar; on the other hand, you can see a larger section of the game world within your screen; that makes orientation much more convenient.
- Due to its fantasy world, DARGHUL offers much greater graphical variety than the historically accurate Teudogar, which was quite restrained by the fact that Teutons everywhere built their houses in exactly the same way and materials.
gameplay:
- There are some new game elements such as levers, switches, teleportation fields, as well as magical scrolls and potions and so on.
- Repairing weapons, weaving and so on remains available. Additionally, you can now smoke fish, or brew magic potions, etc. (Forging weapons, cooking food, etc is not yet implemented but will be.)
- More than 50 unique magical objects (Goram's sword, fireball sceptre, cup of healing, teleportation anchors and many more) that can be found and fought for at several locations all across the continent.
- Historians can tell you what kind of magical items exist and where they might possibly be found.
- If a place such as a dungeon, ruin, tower or tomb is locked, seers can often tell where the key can be found. You can also ask seers about the whereabouts of any special/magical object you've heard about.
- You can consult geographers about locations you've heard about; they can draw these onto your map; this is useful since you need to know where a location is in order to get there via teleportation.
- There are dungeons with lots of monsters and treasures. Typical fantasy creatures such as Orcs, Goblins, Demons and lots of others exist and are plentyful, at least below the surface of the earth.
user interface:
- There's no longer just one single inventory bag window; instead you can carry several more bags with you; this makes it easier to sort the stuff you're carrying around.
- Within the inventory bag window, items can be freely placed, just like in Teudogar; however, identical items are grouped in one single field and their number is displayed next to them; i.e., instead of displaying 25 individual pieces of meat in your inventory window, the new system will display just one, with a "25" next to it.
- When you drag&drop one of several identical objects, you'll be asked how many of these you want to move.
- Chest and box windows now offer a "take everything" button; clicking on this will empty the chest and place its contents in your inventory, automatically placing items into bags where there already are similar items (i.e. food into your food-bag, gold or gems into your booty/valuables-bag and so on).
- In addition to sword and spear (or throwing axe), you can now carry up to 8 more weapons or other items on your belt or in your pockets; different from your inventory bag window, you can access these items even during combat mode; i.e. you might carry a sword on your belt, a throwing axe in your hand, and up to 8 more throwing axes on your belt/in your pockets, and hurl them at approaching enemies one by one during combat; or let's say, 4 throwing axes plus a healing potion, a teleportation scroll, a fireball sceptre, and a wizard's-eye-crystal. This adds a lot more variety to combat.
- Bartering: in Teudogar's barbaric environment, even merchants accepted money only as a bartering good, meaning you had to drag&drop lots of items; in DARGHUL, merchants will simply tell you the price they want for the goods you've marked, or the price they'd be willing to pay for the goods you offered; so after clicking OK payment in gold/silver coins will automatically be taken from the pile of coins you're carrying in your inventory (or added to your coins if you're the one selling something). (Of course non-merchants are still willing to barter goods for goods; and many merchants and craftsmen also buy used goods.)
- Since there are a lot more keys in DARGHUL than in barbaric Germania, I introduced a key-ring: You can put every new key you find/acquire on this key-ring; when you come across a locked door, you no longer need to try every single key individually; instead, simply double click on the key-ring and then click on the door; if a fitting key is on the key-ring, the door will be unlocked.
- Actual player stats numbers are now displayed, e.g. "Strength: 100 (average)"; same with weapons, armor etc.
Well, that's basically all there is, for now. The game world is mostly complete; the dialogs as well (though not yet translated); and one can play the plot from start to end. However there's still am awful lot of work to do until it can be released, or until I can even release a beta. Among others I still need to program several spells, fine-tune monster combat values, fill several still-empty dungeons, fine-tune robbers and random generated caves, check propery and production in all locations, do some programming on about 250 minor issues with user interface/data/npcs/etc, fix a few bugs, and do some more in-house-testing. That will take some more time.
