Ludus Mortis - party-based dungeon crawler from The 7th Circle devs set in dark fantasy Roman Empire

[Infinitron]

https://www.68kstudios.com




https://af.gog.com/en/game/ludus_mortis?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Story​

Over the centuries the Roman Senate has become corrupt and has progressively lost power and influence, while the Emperor Diocletian and his army ruled unchallenged outside the eternal city.
Seeking to return to a dominant position, the members of the Roman Senate decide to use necromancy to increase their power, creating an army of undead and demons to fight against imperial soldiers.

By waging war on its own emperor, the Senate has caused a rift in the Roman population, that slowly began to live in fear.
Year after year, the armies of undead summoned by the Senate have taken over, imposing themselves on the senators and enslaving the Roman population.

In this climate of chaos, an ancient gladiatorial school continued to train soldiers for the games. But the purpose of these gladiators is now different: to rid the city of the undead and invaders...to allow Rome to return to its former glory.

Gameplay​

Ludus Mortis is a Grid-Based First Person Dungeon Crawler inspired by classic cRPG from the 80s and 90s.
It's a party-based RPG ("blobber") with turn-based combat.

KEY FEATURES

• Create your characters choosing from 14 classes
• Manage and develop you Ludus (Gladiator School) by improving facilities, acquiring gladiators, crafting new equipment.
• Explore dozens of catacombs and dungeons.
• Manage your party changing formation, equipment and skills: you can try different combination for every different dungeon.
• Turn-based combat: think carefully and use your Action Points wisely.

 

[CryptRat]

Now that's super cool, I've not finished it but the lack of a party is really the thing which prevented their last game from being truly great, their exploration was good enough and their combat was too, just both lacking the excitement of party management, and I'm all for fantasy with just some little non-retarded twist which allows for a slightly different bestiary from the very most usual one.

 

[Grauken]

I don't like that the automap shows everything, I prefer it when you uncover it by walking around. But the theme looks pretty interesting and different than what we get usually

 

[Lord_Potato]

Such an interesting setting wasted on a blobber. Sad.

On the other hand it seems to be more than a simple blobber, with base (ludus) building and gladiator management.

 

[Jermu]

 

[68kStudios]

Hi, developer of the game here.
Here are a little more "in-depth" elements of the game, let me know what you think about them:

• Every action you take increase the risk of being attacked by the enemies. When the risk is over the limit, random enemies will attack you. However, you can change on the fly how fast the risk level increases. Next to the minimap you can see a circle that goes from green (you'r safe) to red (upcoming combat) and a little skull: clicking on it you can change the rate of encounters.
• Some enemies (mostly champions and bosses) are visible on the map and you can choose when to fight them.
• You can select the catacombs/dungeons to explore from a "world map": once completed, you go back to your ludus to level up you gladiators, forge new equipment and other stuff. You can visit the same dungeon over and over again if you want.
• You can upgrade facilities and services from your Ludus to obtain benefits for your party.
• You can hire mercenaries with specific skills. You will pay them with a share of any sesterces found in the catacomb.
• XP are used as currency to develop your characters: use them to increase Level (raise max HP and SP), Masteries (passive abilities like "One-handed Weapons" or "Heavy Armors"), buy Skills (active and passive), increase Attributes (STR, INT, etc).
• XP gained are shared between party members and the amount is calculated when you leave the dungeon.
• You can't use any consumable during combat other than you Divine Potion, that will restore HP and SP and has a limited number of uses (kinda like the Estus Flask in Dark Souls). You can upgrade the potion effects and its number of usages.
• If a gladiator dies in the dungeon, you can resurrect him using Ambrosia (a resource that you can collect exploring catacombs). If you don't have enough Ambrosia, you can save the gladiator anyway but he will lose any unexpended XP. If you choose to activate Hardcore Mode, any gladiator that is not saved using Ambrosia will be lost forever.
• You can use the Stamina of the party to perform certain actions: jump to avoid traps, sneak to avoid sentinels (that cause instant fights), charge fixed enemies. You can eat to recover Stamina.
• The map is hidden in the beginning: you need to see a square/object to mark it on your map.

If you have any question, please ask and I will try to answer

 

[Grauken]

The map is hidden in the beginning: you need to see a square/object to mark it on your map.

To add to this as it confused me initially, this works by line of sight and not by stepping on a square, which is pretty unusual in a dungeon crawler. Not sure how I feel about this personally, its more realistic in a sense but I think I prefer uncovering the map by stepping on each square individually.

 

[Darkozric]

Gud, a blobber for non paper graph autists. If it runs on W7 I'll give it a spin.

 

[68kStudios]

The map is hidden in the beginning: you need to see a square/object to mark it on your map.

To add to this as it confused me initially, this works by line of sight and not by stepping on a square, which is pretty unusual in a dungeon crawler. Not sure how I feel about this personally, its more realistic in a sense but I think I prefer uncovering the map by stepping on each square individually.

I've always hated it :D : if I see a chest 2 steps in front of me, why I have to move over it to mark in on the map? I've already seen it!

 

[Grauken]

The map is hidden in the beginning: you need to see a square/object to mark it on your map.

To add to this as it confused me initially, this works by line of sight and not by stepping on a square, which is pretty unusual in a dungeon crawler. Not sure how I feel about this personally, its more realistic in a sense but I think I prefer uncovering the map by stepping on each square individually.

I've always hated it :D : if I see a chest 2 steps in front of me, why I have to move over it to mark in on the map? I've already seen it!

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map, if it works by line of sight you take away my control to fill out each and every square by hand. That's one part.

The second and more important part is that a lot of older crawlers have relevant stuff happening on a square that you don't see, but you need to step on that square and do a search for example to activate an event. But if your map works by line of sight, you don't see which squares you already stepped on and which not, so line of sight makes things more confusing.

That said, if your crawler is designed around line of sight it might not be too bad

 

[Darkozric]

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map

if you want to fill the map take your faggly fingers and play another game.

 

[68kStudios]

The map is hidden in the beginning: you need to see a square/object to mark it on your map.

To add to this as it confused me initially, this works by line of sight and not by stepping on a square, which is pretty unusual in a dungeon crawler. Not sure how I feel about this personally, its more realistic in a sense but I think I prefer uncovering the map by stepping on each square individually.

I've always hated it :D : if I see a chest 2 steps in front of me, why I have to move over it to mark in on the map? I've already seen it!

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map, if it works by line of sight you take away my control to fill out each and every square by hand. That's one part.

The second and more important part is that a lot of older crawlers have relevant stuff happening on a square that you don't see, but you need to step on that square and do a search for example to activate an event. But if your map works by line of sight, you don't see which squares you already stepped on and which not, so line of sight makes things more confusing.

That said, if your crawler is designed around line of sight it might not be too bad

Yes, don't worry: for example, there are events in the dungeon and they will be marked on map. You can choose when to trigger the event once you have found it.

 

[Darkozric]

you still fill out the map by line of sight you galaxy brain

I know it autist.

 

[Glop_dweller]

If you have any question, please ask and I will try to answer

Did you initially (or ever) consider using Spine Pro or Dragonbones with your (nicely illustrated !) enemy art?

 

[68kStudios]

If you have any question, please ask and I will try to answer

Did you initially (or ever) consider using Spine Pro or Dragonbones with your (nicely illustrated !) enemy art?

I'm not a huge fan of this kind of animation but, apart from that, illustrations and artworks are the only things that I don't do by myself in my games and I don't think that the my artists are familiar with these tools

 

[Nortar]

If you have any question, please ask and I will try to answer

When?
Just don't say "when it's ready".

 

[68kStudios]

Other info about the combat

• It's turn based. Every turn, the round order of every fighter is given by his Initiative value (based on the Agility of the character and modified by equipment and status/ailments) + a random value.
• If you "Charge" a fixed enemy, all your characters will attack first for the very first round.
• Every character has a certain amount of Action Points to attack, use potion, use skills and move between lines. The number of AP also depends on the Agility of the character.
• Changing line during a combat is encouraged: you can have a fast character in the back line and use his action points to move to the front, attack and go back.
• You have to "equip" the active skills that you want to use during a combat. You have 4 slots to use, and you can always change skill between combat.
• Enemies will act in a different way: every turn they can attack a single character or choose to Defend themselves. Every turn their "Special Gauge" will fill (faster if they are defending). When the Special Gauge is full, they will use a special skill (Offensive or Difensive) or they will attack 2 times in a row. You can see their Special Gauge under the health bar. Depending on the enemy type, the Special Gauge will increase faster. Some enemies tend to Defend more often and use more Special Skills instead of standard attacks. You can choose what enemy attack by judging his behavior and his Special Gauge.

 

[68kStudios]

If you have any question, please ask and I will try to answer

When?
Just don't say "when it's ready".

My goal is late Spring / early Summer 2023

 

[68kStudios]

Here is a gameplay video: you can see the character creation phase and the exploration of the first dungeon.
Let me know what you think about it



note: skills are barely sketched, so you will not see many of them in the video and what you see is missing sound effects and animations.

 

[Bad Sector]

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map, if it works by line of sight you take away my control to fill out each and every square by hand. That's one part.

A few years ago i made a small crawler for fun where i had a combined approach for this: the autorevealed squares were shown in the minimap as light yellow but the game also tracked the squares you visited yourself and showed them in white. This way you could both know what was around you but also which exact squares you have touched (i did that exactly because i wanted to have triggers and such):

Spoiler

Sadly due to a mistake i lost the source code, the two shots above and this "pyre maiden" enemy sprite are all that remained.

Regardless, i think such an approach could work with Ludus Mortis, at least judging from the screenshots in the Steam page.

 

[Grauken]

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map, if it works by line of sight you take away my control to fill out each and every square by hand. That's one part.

A few years ago i made a small crawler for fun where i had a combined approach for this: the autorevealed squares were shown in the minimap as light yellow but the game also tracked the squares you visited yourself and showed them in white. This way you could both know what was around you but also which exact squares you have touched (i did that exactly because i wanted to have triggers and such):

That's a pretty cool approach to this, yeah, I really like the idea

 

[68kStudios]

The best explanation of why I prefer stepping on a square is manual control and mapping, part of the enjoyment of a dungeon crawler for me is filling out the map, if it works by line of sight you take away my control to fill out each and every square by hand. That's one part.

A few years ago i made a small crawler for fun where i had a combined approach for this: the autorevealed squares were shown in the minimap as light yellow but the game also tracked the squares you visited yourself and showed them in white. This way you could both know what was around you but also which exact squares you have touched (i did that exactly because i wanted to have triggers and such):

Spoiler

Sadly due to a mistake i lost the source code, the two shots above and this "pyre maiden" enemy sprite are all that remained.

Regardless, i think such an approach could work with Ludus Mortis, at least judging from the screenshots in the Steam page.

Thank you for your suggestions.

I've used the "uncover on sight" solution because in Ludus Mortis every step you take increases the chance of starting a combat, so if you want to save a couple of steps to mark on your map that in front of you there is a wall that you are already seeing, you can do it. Also, if you see any object or event, it will be marked on the map as well. If you open a chest or trigger an event, the icon on the map will change. So I don't think that I really need to mark some squares as seen but not visited, because you have other icons on the map that can give you all the info you need in case you want to go back in that location later. Nevertheless, your solution is pretty good , but maybe not perfectly suitable for my game.

 

[68kStudios]

Hi, a small update with some details about the game mechanics here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2197650/view/3656394088566034823?l=english

The demo of the game will be available in the next few days

 

[Infinitron]

New trailer:

 

[68kStudios]

Hi! The demo of Ludus Mortis is now available. Any feedback is welcome

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2197650/Ludus_Mortis/