KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now available on Early Access

[rohand]

I believe certain doors should be breakable to offer an alternative to finding a key.
Since it is the "easy" solution it should come at a potential cost, that makes up for some of the effort you just saved. Because otherwise everyone would just break every door.
Which is where we get to "risk and reward". If there is a certain risk in breaking that door, you might reconsider it. Taking that risk is the fun part.
And then you gotta ask yourself, how to design that risk and/or potential punishment appropriately.

You could say "It will attract enemies" and for a Thief that might be a risk.
But what if you play a warrior? Then enemies might not be such a problem.
So you gotta add some extra spice to the whole situation.
So your weapon could break, or you could take damage from hitting too hard, or you could give doors extra defense so it takes really long, or you could damage the door in a way that it doesn't open anymore at all, etc etc.

Looking at it closely, breaking doors is definitely a gimmicky feature - but it's been part of fantasy games (especially tabletop RPGs) for such a long time, that it's just become commonplace.

You could have a progressively dangerous broken door - i.e. the more the character tries to break it, the more splinters and sharp ends protrude, dealing more and more damage back to the character until it's finally shattered. Perhaps a state/condition with the splinters?

 

[hello friend]

What if magically locked doors can also be magically forced, but violently explode as a result?

 

[RatTower]

Quick update:

Been sick the last week so unfortunately a lot of free time I had wasn't necessarily spent the way I wanted to.
However I've been blocking out further parts of the first level and compiled a todo list for the alpha.

There is still a fair amount of work but it's actually getting there. Most of the time will be spent on level design I guess.
Loading takes a bit but performance seems good so far (running the standalone editor version on a 2014 laptop without any problems).
Gonna deploy the whole project testwise later.

I also implemented a couple of smaller features like loot tables for monsters and a compass, which you will probably need navigating the dungeon.
The way it looks right now, I wont implement an automap feature. There will be maps but they'll be simple sketches you'll find here and there (imagine Thief combined with early Zelda or Silent Hill).
Beyond that I also fixed some parts of the AI and added a way to persist puzzle states.

Speaking of puzzles:

In your opinion, what level of difficulty is appropriate for puzzles in a dungeon crawler?

I've always been alternating between Arx and Myst for this, with the latter being the high-end. But I know there are some dungeon crawlers/RPGs that can become pretty obscure when it comes to puzzles.

 

[Thal]

In your opinion, what level of difficulty is appropriate for puzzles in a dungeon crawler?
I've always been alternating between Arx and Myst for this, with the latter being the high-end. But I know there are some dungeon crawlers/RPGs that can become pretty obscure when it comes to puzzles.

I've been thinking about an ideal first person free movement crawler, and it sort of struck me that maybe design should incorporate elements from point and click adventures more.

I'd focus on the nature of puzzles instead of the difficulty level. Namely, how they integrate in the game world. You don't want to make the player stop and think "oh this is a puzzle section". UU had something like this with the room where you'd raise stairs with levers. I didn't particulary like that one. On the other hand, lizardman language is probably one of the most memorable moments in that game and it certainly is a puzzle. This is also the challenge level I would aim at.

So rather than conceptualize them as puzzles, maybe present problems. it's how do I open this portcullis or get past the drawbridge, if the mechanism is on the other side of the chasm? How do start this machine, when there are parts missing (Find the parts or jury rig it somehow?)? A trapdoor opened beneath me, how do I escape? There are shitton of monsters between me and my goal, can I draw them away from the door? It can be as simple as getting and item from somewhere else and using it, or combining items to make a new one. This would also allow some characters bypass a puzzle if they have to skill or an item to do it.

One of the great things AoD did was that your inventory was truly special. When you got an item, it had a special use or many special uses. It played a bit like point and click in that sense. I would also look into how power tubes were rationed in that game and how different character types and paths had an access to more of them than others.

Having said that, obviously puzzles shouldn't be too easy. I'm thinking about Skyrim and its moronic dragon claw "puzzles" or the statues that you had to turn to match the images exactly beside them.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I also implemented a couple of smaller features like loot tables for monsters and a compass, which you will probably need navigating the dungeon.
The way it looks right now, I wont implement an automap feature. There will be maps but they'll be simple sketches you'll find here and there (imagine Thief combined with early Zelda or Silent Hill).

If you are going to have physical in-game maps then an automap feature isn't required. And combining thief's maps with the zelda approach is indeed a very good idea.

Speaking of puzzles:

In your opinion, what level of difficulty is appropriate for puzzles in a dungeon crawler?

I've always been alternating between Arx and Myst for this, with the latter being the high-end. But I know there are some dungeon crawlers/RPGs that can become pretty obscure when it comes to puzzles.

That's a harder question, one which I'm sure everyone here will have a different view. In my case I don't really mind the difficulty of the puzzle as long as the answer isn't very obvious or depends on some gimmick. Another problem you most watch out is if the puzzle, or puzzles, harm the overall pacing of the experience.

I really can't be much of help, since I am not very familiar on puzzle design. Still here's some some videos that may help you out:









This last one is a video series on the dungeon design of the Zelda games and later the Souls games and Metroids. I recomend watching at the ones until the Oracle games (since those are the games were Nintendo excelled at level design, specially Majora's Mask).

You might find this one about Ico interesting:

 

[V_K]

In your opinion, what level of difficulty is appropriate for puzzles in a dungeon crawler?

I've always been alternating between Arx and Myst for this, with the latter being the high-end. But I know there are some dungeon crawlers/RPGs that can become pretty obscure when it comes to puzzles.

I think if puzzles are too easy, there's no point in having them at all. Although I thought Arx did a very good job with its puzzles, so if that's your ground level then you should be ok either way.
But I think there are several things in puzzle design that are more important than difficulty:
1. First and foremost, they should be varied. BT4 is a very good example of what not to do - i.e. paste the same puzzle with minor differences over and over again.
2. On the other hand, it pays to have a certain puzzle mechanic appear first as relatively simple challenges, then in more complex problems - just don't overuse it, 2-3-4 times should be enough. 7 Mages did a very good job of that, as well as the next point.
3. Don't make them separate from your other systems. Environments, monsters and character abilities should, ideally, all figure into puzzle solutions to some extent.
4. Make sure that the player has other stuff to do while he figures out a particular puzzle. It's a pitfall of many adventure games, to block progress behind a single puzzle without offering alternative venues - effectively, it forces the player to quit the game until he comes up with a solution. Never bodes well.
5. My personal prefernce are puzzles with alternative solutions, especially ones depending on character build (it's an RPG after all). Or at least when you're blocking some path behind a really difficult puzzles, it might be wise to offer an alternative path to the same goal gated by an equally difficult battle - so that the player had at least some build-appropriate choice. It's also a good way to differentiate builds, I think, by making some of them more puzzle-oriented, and others - more combat-oriented.

 

[RoSoDude]

I've seen a distinction made between "riddles" and "puzzles", and I think the former is far more relevant to this sort of game.

Let us define Riddles in contrast to Puzzles: In a riddle, players can not validate a mental model before they need it, or make much use of it after they have arrived at the correct one. They can only guess the meaning of potential actions. Riddles make the player stop and think and understand, but require different cognitive tools: We arrive at the answer to a riddle through lateral thinking and analogies. Riddles do not present clear information, but vague clues. Sometimes they rely on background knowledge from outside the game.

Riddles make the player take one big leap of reasoning or faith at a time. Puzzles require the player to think through a longer sequence of individually straightforward actions. Riddles may seem nonsensical, in bad cases even in after having found the solution. Puzzles should always make sense, both in hindsight and before you find a solution. With physical puzzles, we can take different sequences of actions - start with different pieces - and arrive at the same result. Riddles usually have a single pre-designed solution, while any sequence of actions leading to the goal solves a puzzle.

Point&Click, or to a lesser extent text-, adventure games are mostly made up of riddles and not puzzles.

Thinking about Ultima Underworld or System Shock, a lot of the progression through the game comes in the form of investigating the area for clues, and using the information you gather during exploration to make inferences about how to combine various game elements (which often are in the same category as non-critical elements that make up other aspects of gameplay) to solve problems. The purpose of these riddles is not to develop a working forward model for the interaction of particular puzzle elements and then invert them to construct successively more elaborate puzzle solutions, but rather to apply real-world intuition to problems which are in line with the rules of the game world at large. There's wiggle room here, of course -- System Shock's main objectives are all riddles but it also has generic wire and grid puzzles; Ultima Underworld's Lizardman language can be largely learned by analogy to basic human conversation as simulated by the dialogue system but is still fundamentally composed of puzzle elements as Thal noted; and Myst toes the line with problems that require both lateral thinking but also constructive model generation and inversion to solve, and often the model-forming process itself is what leads to lateral thinking. But still, note that in all of these cases, there's not a huge focus on learning a puzzle toolkit with increasing complexity, but on more grounded problems that require cross-contextual thinking.

I'd say the games you're targeting as a reference are definitely a good starting point, I just thought I might help clarify what we mean by "puzzle" and what features of such are suitable for this sort of game. You might also consider reciting the Warren Spector mantra "Problems, not Puzzles" at a shrine to level up your skills in open-ended problem design but... I don't think puzzles/riddles with a single solution are always a bad thing either.

Oh, also, hi there RatTower , I've been dimly aware of your project for a while but only recently started paying more attention. Dungeon crawling is basically my favorite aspect of games at their most abstract level (I would even claim Doom as an example), and your inspirations represent my favorite games and design philosophies (studying and incrementally expanding the design of LGS et al games is a passion of mine), so I don't know why I wasn't keeping tabs on this earlier. A lot of what you've posted definitely resonates, and I'm quite encouraged by your ideas for systems in Monomyth. I'll be sticking around for sure.

 

[RatTower]

Thanks for the suggestions

Can't promise anything but this weekend there might be a little surprise (it's not the alpha - but that is also on a good way).

 

[RatTower]

Surprise.

 

[Siveon]

Wishlisted, now on top of list.

 

[CyberWhale]

Looks better than that new Ultima Underworld wannabe.

 

[Murk]

Looking better and better, and in stark contrast to the disappointment that Underworld Ascendant is.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

As the sun sets on the empires of mankind and civilization crumbles under great storms ravaging the world's surface, the people of Ariath retreat to the underground.
Amidst the chaos of this dying world, you are sent to the fallen fortress city of Lysandria to retrieve a sacred object. In the ruins of the city's clerical district stands an unremarkable chapel, holding a seemingly plain stone.

It is that stone your contractor wants, but the fortress is not as deserted as it seems..

RatTower

 

[DJOGamer PT]

By the way RatTower, I've seen in the OP that you enjoy Dark Souls. So you might wanna Severance: Blade of Darkness. It's more akin to Nioh - not open-world like a Souls game, but level based where you select on a map screen, and like Nioh it has a greater focus on combat and the gameplay associated with it is much better than a Souls game - but it's still a very underrated gem and what's more impressive is that it is from 2001.
I posted some images of it in the screenshot thread:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/screenshot-thread.72409/page-902#post-5760211

Spoiler

 

[RatTower]

Got it on GoG some years back. A fine game, though I haven't played much of it. I might give it another try
Same with Enclave which seemed very similar.

I also remember Severance as "that one game that was demoing on a shop's computer screens while me and my brother were returning a damaged disc for diablo 2". It was just showing the character selection, which was pretty cool (and still is, even for today's standards). Took me quite a few years to find out its name.

 

[Max Heap]

You know: I have my doubts on single programmer projects and everything, but after playing UA yesterday, how terrible could Monomyth even be? Hell, at least you got the right ideas.

Godspeed and lets hope this will turn out better!

 

[Max Damage]

Added this to wishlist, wish you luck and success!

 

[EnthalpyFlow]

It looks pretty nice, I'm adding this to my wishlist as well. Good luck RatTower!

 

[RatTower]

Since it has been discussed a lot lately:

Is anything besides a free save system even desirable?

I ask this because Monomyth currently works like a mix between King's Field and Dark Souls.
You save at quitting the game, but when you die you are set back to the last save point (progress resetted).

As you know, Arx and UU had free saving. Technically that shouldn't be much of a problem.
It's just that save scumming could be more of an issue then and death might have way less of an impact.

I could imagine adding something like the saviour schnapps from KCD, but people weren't too happy with that either.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Well you could have 2 difficulty options.

One with free manual saving and loading. Where the players could save scum to their hearts content - but you could restrict manual loading when in combat encounters and/or in certain areas (so that players had to deal with their mistakes).

And a Ironman mode where: the game would auto-save at checkpoints, when the player rests in a shrine, exists the game, buys/sells stuff from NPC's, takes a quest or makes a decision that alters the story's progression (and maybe even every 15 minutes); and finally manual loading is unavailable, the only way to load the game would be in the main menu (obviously) and when the playable character dies - again, this is to make the player deal with his mistakes and proceed, and manage his resources, smartly and with caution.
In this mode there only had to be 1 save game slot - the most recent one.

But if you don't want to implement both settings I recommend sticking with the latter.

 

[V_K]

I ask this because Monomyth currently works like a mix between King's Field and Dark Souls.
You save at quitting the game, but when you die you are set back to the last save point (progress resetted).

If I understand correctly, you'd have to have a realtively linear game for that, I doubt it's a good decision.
I think the best way to limit save-scumming, while allowing the player enough felxibility, is to make him pay for saving anywhere. For example, in Blade of Destiny you could save in temples for free, but if you wanted to save anywhere else, you'd have to lose a number of experience points for that. A more hardcore version of that was implemented in DarkSpyre - to save, you had to use a special consumable, of which there was a limited number in the whole game (usually, one per level). That way save-scumming might just cost more than it's worth.

 

[RatTower]

Taking a step back:
I'd like to make the game challenging by giving player decisions more weight.
This is the main reason why the save system currently looks the way it does.
Avoiding save scumming is probably more like handling a corner case there.

The core idea is: When you do something, you have to deal with the consequences.
That counts especially for dying. For now you lose progress.
May not be the best solution. In fact, it might be the worst.
The question is, what's the alternative?

I mean, the most obvious one is a full-blown Souls approach: You restart at a shrine and have to pick up your experience where you died. All progress is saved. That includes used items.
But that comes with a whole bag of implications. For one: Enemy respawn. No point in leaving experience lying around if there is no real challenge getting to it.
On the other hand: If you don't respawn enemies and for example, just remove experience on death, players might run into trouble in endgame, when they'are lacking character attributes from lost levels.
So the souls approach seems only really feasible with certain enemy respawn. That is, if the enemies actually give experience. If it is like in Arx, where most exp comes from quests then the situation becomes a different one. There it would be extra damaging if you actually lost exp on dying. In fact I think that would break the game.

Just like with breaking doors, the saving issue is really an issue about appropriate player punishment.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Just like with breaking doors, the saving issue is really an issue about appropriate player punishment.

Don't punish the players for playing your game.

Don't start thinking you are oh so clever and end up doing something stupid.

Zep--

 

[Avonaeon]

For me, dying by itself is a punishment. I do save frequently, especially when I know something might be difficult. The challenge is then overcoming whatever is difficult, be it a specific encounter or what have you.
It's tempting to want to create a specific experience for players, but by trying to work around allowing player's to savescum, you might end up pissing off a bigger segment of players. Don't be fooled into thinking every player savescums.

 

[V_K]

I mean, the most obvious one is a full-blown Souls approach: You restart at a shrine and have to pick up your experience where you died. All progress is saved. That includes used items.
But that comes with a whole bag of implications. For one: Enemy respawn. No point in leaving experience lying around if there is no real challenge getting to it.
On the other hand: If you don't respawn enemies and for example, just remove experience on death, players might run into trouble in endgame, when they'are lacking character attributes from lost levels.
So the souls approach seems only really feasible with certain enemy respawn. That is, if the enemies actually give experience. If it is like in Arx, where most exp comes from quests then the situation becomes a different one. There it would be extra damaging if you actually lost exp on dying. In fact I think that would break the game.

The problem is you're taking influences from two games that, despite similar looks, have very different gameplay loops. DS owes a lot to arcades and metroidvanias in its stucture, where you progress by trial-and-death with little in the way of strategizing. Arx, on the other hand, is an exploration-focused RPG with lots of puzzles and non-combat solutions. So Souls-like approach to saving and dying just wouldn't work with an Arx-like design that is more free-form and less focused.
I agree with Avonaeon, the usual RPG approach of dying and having to reload from last save is punishment enough. The only reason to limit saving in a more traditional western dungeon crawler is if you want to play a long game of resource attrition - but in such case, making the player spend resources for saving is arguably the best solution, as I wrote earlier.