Monsters Belong in Prison (VR Dungeon Crawler)

MichelMohr · Apr 7, 2020

Monsters Belong in Prison is a VR dungeon crawler with pixel art low poly graphics, gesture spellcasting with a wand and an emphasis on environmental exploration.

I'm developing this game on my own, with a little bit of help from freelancers for organic models/sprites such as the characters.
Currently it's only got a VR version, but I intend to develop a 'pancake' version as well. It's still relatively early in development as VR interactions have little precedent to build on and take a long time to get right.

I've created my own inside Unity to help speed up development and allow myself to create a persistent world instead of generated rogue-like rooms strung together. Demonstrated here: https://twitter.com/fusedotcore/status/1116676193770668034

Here's a few pictures I've made during development so far.

If you're interested in following development, you can follow me on Twitter, I tend to be sparse on retweets and such: https://twitter.com/fusedotcore
And if you'd just like to hear when a 2D version is coming out, or the game is released in VR or whatever I have a newsletter on this page: http://www.michelmohr.me/MonstersBelongInPrison/

I'd be glad to discuss any point of the game here, I'll do my best to keep up.

Darth Canoli · Apr 10, 2020

Hi, i don't have the hots for your graphics but i guess it's alright.

The Arx Fatalis spellcasting, on the other hand ... And about that, i'm not sure if that's how it works in your game but what about being able to spam a spell once you drawn its rune, as long as you don't cast another one ?
Of course, it has to be mitigated somehow (more mana consumption, temporary drained int, the need to cast different spells, ... )

MichelMohr · Apr 10, 2020

Darth Canoli said:
Hi, i don't have the hots for your graphics but i guess it's alright.

Fair enough, it's a rather polarizing style.

Darth Canoli said:
The Arx Fatalis spellcasting, on the other hand ... And about that, i'm not sure if that's how it works in your game but what about being able to spam a spell once you drawn its rune, as long as you don't cast another one ?
Of course, it has to be mitigated somehow (more mana consumption, temporary drained int, the need to cast different spells, ... )

I need to give the way the spellcasting works another design pass, the only thing set in stone is the fact that they are cast by motions of the wand.
Currently I have it set up that you can get multiple charges.
You cast fireball, and 3 fireball charges will circle around your wand tip, ready to be fired.

One option would be, you find ammo-like charges of spell elements. Say 'fire' & 'projectile', you select the spell by drawing those runes and can keep casting it until you run out of either one, if you still have 'projectile' and 'ice' you could swap over to ice bolt. I like that idea, thanks for making me think about alternatives!

A big upside of this would be that the player has a reason to explore and find charges by interacting with the environment.
Minecraft mod Thaumcraft comes to mind where you scan elements in the world with a thaumic lens to gather elements they consist of.