The Darkness Below: a retro CRPG in the making - now available on Early Access

[vlzvl]

There's no new version as of yet, but decided to post a nice list of screenshots from recent work, that is mostly shops.
Those shop/vendor mechanics takes a lot of our crpg time and they can really push a game's system to the limits and they need to have enough development so the entire game don't suffer later by mediocre work on this development. Plus, given the game's size, those shops needed to be both variant and flexible enough. New NPCs added, new voice sets were associated with them and most of their services has been implemented already & prototyped. This will tremendously speed up content production.

The whole system is about 80% complete, so I decided to throw a screenshot or three, which may be also be a subject of change, although not major changes. Those screenshots is but a glimpse of the work overall. There's a huge changes.txt file for lots of fixes / addins but this will come later, along with the new version. I am taking my time with this final version to fix as many things as I can before continuing the content's production. Everything is done in favor of gameplay. Enjoy

shops / vendors

new spells

Short videos





Again, excuse this in-between update.
This version is by far the most difficult and content-wise is the most packed with fixes / addons. Since there wont be any other version after it, except the final release, I am striving to make it fully playable, killing lots of annoying bits here and there.
Hopefully you're liking what you're seeing. Please comment your thoughts.

 

[Luzur]

Get it out so i can play

 

[Darth Canoli]

Hopefully you're liking what you're seeing. Please comment your thoughts.

Amazing work, I'll play your next/last demo version if you need more feedback.

I wonder if it wouldn't look better with centered numbers on the upper right corner under the minimap?

 

[vlzvl]

Hopefully you're liking what you're seeing. Please comment your thoughts.

Amazing work, I'll play your next/last demo version if you need more feedback.

I wonder if it wouldn't look better with centered numbers on the upper right corner under the minimap?

Thanks man!
Yep, feedback is what I am mostly after these weeks/months and have already exploited a handful of them from older versions.
I really expect (and hope) this last version to bring me enough feedback material since it would be sad to keep building a large world on false conclusions. Plus, there are many changes on newer version.
That's a nice observation actually. I didn't thought of this, thinking that "right alignment" seems just right.
Noted it down for more testing!

 

[Darth Canoli]

That's a nice observation actually. I didn't thought of this, thinking that "right alignment" seems just right.
Noted it down for more testing!

Or right alignment with a small margin?
The one which looks weird is the time (hourglass).

 

[Chris Koźmik]

I see you are using "one 'of' enchantment type per item" combined with "flat +X to item level" thing? Interesting choice to list "of" as a seprate line... definitely solves the name length problem.

 

[vlzvl]

I see you are using "one 'of' enchantment type per item" combined with "flat +X to item level" thing? Interesting choice to list "of" as a seprate line... definitely solves the name length problem.

Hey Chris thanks!

Yes, I am using a 'of X' enchntment type to magical items, which I found to be a convenient way to boost any kind of attribute(s) under a fitting name. The evolved variations of items are just adding a bonus to base properties of the items i.e. a weapon will deal more damage, an amor will add more protection etc.
Yep, some of those names / enchantments ended quite long and had to find this convenient way to have the best of two worlds i.e. still showing a large portion of the "shop" while focusing on the special properties of the items. There are other items that can be long without enchantments i.e. Potion of Cure Paralysis. Tried to keep it dead simple here, as there's also a nice detailed rulebook about the game

 

[Darth Canoli]

Yes, I am using a 'of X' enchntment type to magical items, which I found to be a convenient way to boost any kind of attribute(s) under a fitting name. The evolved variations of items are just adding a bonus to base properties of the items i.e. a weapon will deal more damage, an amor will add more protection etc.
Yep, some of those names / enchantments ended quite long and had to find this convenient way to have the best of two worlds i.e. still showing a large portion of the "shop" while focusing on the special properties of the items. There are other items that can be long without enchantments i.e. Potion of Cure Paralysis. Tried to keep it dead simple here, as there's also a nice detailed rulebook about the game

On that note, do you use some more interesting and complex enchantment types?
Like vampirism, explosion, swift (from M&M) and the likes?

 

[vlzvl]

Yes, I am using a 'of X' enchntment type to magical items, which I found to be a convenient way to boost any kind of attribute(s) under a fitting name. The evolved variations of items are just adding a bonus to base properties of the items i.e. a weapon will deal more damage, an amor will add more protection etc.
Yep, some of those names / enchantments ended quite long and had to find this convenient way to have the best of two worlds i.e. still showing a large portion of the "shop" while focusing on the special properties of the items. There are other items that can be long without enchantments i.e. Potion of Cure Paralysis. Tried to keep it dead simple here, as there's also a nice detailed rulebook about the game

On that note, do you use some more interesting and complex enchantment types?
Like vampirism, explosion, swift (from M&M) and the likes?

I have developed about ~50 named enchantments at this point but they're not super exotic. There are enchantments like "of Savant" (X% increase additional experience gained) or "of Hydra" (X toughness, +X HP / turn) but this is the kind of boost one can expect from the game. I did that way to first test the system against the "easier" stuff. The game got more advanced though and there are many hooks / triggers in there that I could incorporate something more exotic, perhaps something closer to D&D as well. Although this is just a note to the back of my brain. I am sure the lists will get bigger as the world gets bigger as well.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You should really add some artefacts/ legendary weapons with unique enchantments at some point, loot you only find in some remote and dangerous places.

Like a weapon with X% chances to hit twice (25? 50? more?) Or an axe dealing 50% damage to enemies adjacent to the target...
A ring restoring some mana when killing a magic user.

There's a lot of examples of interesting unique enchantments in the best RPG.
Eventually, you can add some debuffs to "balance" the most powerful effects.

 

[vlzvl]

You should really add some artefacts/ legendary weapons with unique enchantments at some point, loot you only find in some remote and dangerous places.

Like a weapon with X% chances to hit twice (25? 50? more?) Or an axe dealing 50% damage to enemies adjacent to the target...
A ring restoring some mana when killing a magic user.

There's a lot of examples of interesting unique enchantments in the best RPG.
Eventually, you can add some debuffs to "balance" the most powerful effects.

Yeah, I agree to all that.
Actually, the game already contains a lot of base items, enchantments and variants and dynamic items can be constructed with practically any combination of them. Some of those enchantments are being implemented through carefully placed hooks / triggers so creating more of them is basically adding more hooks / triggers. However, I will try not to do that at this point. The code really requires tons of refactoring. However, I completely understand your point.
In fact, I like more the idea of adding lore and purpose of such items. I mean, I liked the idea of "Artifacts" in M&M6:
https://www.magicgameworld.com/might-and-magic-vi-the-mandate-of-heaven-artifacts-and-relics-guide

However, finding one randomly doesn't really give me the expected joy. I mean, how about building some lore around those divine items, the same way we build lore around deities and stuff. Both should require some exploring and common sense, right? I really like them to convert into their own quests, paths and stuff, associating them with wandering with purpose. In essence, those legendary items are simply base items with very high enchantments after all.

There's also the idea of adding "Feats" to learned skills which, based on skill expertise (adept, master etc.), one will have access to specific feats. In turn, those feats will provide passive bonuses when someone uses the right item. This is an older idea in fact, and I believe I have already developed such feats for a number of skills -> items. Will need to revisit. I mean, some of those "enchantment" would be great if they could be tied to skills rather the item itself.

Instead of other cRPGs, I tend to like reading some D&D modules such as D&D 5E "Artifacts of the Guild" and creating items in this manner. I would like them to differ than usual magic items while at the same time making them extremely hard to acquire i.e. getting out of any "rarity" concept. Lots of things to do here.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

However, finding one randomly doesn't really give me the expected joy. I mean, how about building some lore around those divine items, the same way we build lore around deities and stuff. Both should require some exploring and common sense, right? I really like them to convert into their own quests, paths and stuff, associating them with wandering with purpose. In essence, those legendary items are simply base items with very high enchantments after all.

If you get the time, find a copy of Weapons of Legacy(D&D 3.5e) and skim through it. It's pretty much entirely about this idea and has a bunch of examples(50 or so iirc) you can steal ideas from.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

I see you are using "one 'of' enchantment type per item" combined with "flat +X to item level" thing? Interesting choice to list "of" as a seprate line... definitely solves the name length problem.

Hey Chris thanks!

Yes, I am using a 'of X' enchntment type to magical items, which I found to be a convenient way to boost any kind of attribute(s) under a fitting name. The evolved variations of items are just adding a bonus to base properties of the items i.e. a weapon will deal more damage, an amor will add more protection etc.
Yep, some of those names / enchantments ended quite long and had to find this convenient way to have the best of two worlds i.e. still showing a large portion of the "shop" while focusing on the special properties of the items. There are other items that can be long without enchantments i.e. Potion of Cure Paralysis. Tried to keep it dead simple here, as there's also a nice detailed rulebook about the game

Withold your complaining till you start localization, especially to German :D The real fun with text length starts then :D

BTW, you can shrink the font a bit I think.
I also use fallbacks in some places (if text len > MAX then set font to -1 and try again, if still too long set to -2 and try again). Useful for edge cases.

 

[vlzvl]

I see you are using "one 'of' enchantment type per item" combined with "flat +X to item level" thing? Interesting choice to list "of" as a seprate line... definitely solves the name length problem.

Hey Chris thanks!

Yes, I am using a 'of X' enchntment type to magical items, which I found to be a convenient way to boost any kind of attribute(s) under a fitting name. The evolved variations of items are just adding a bonus to base properties of the items i.e. a weapon will deal more damage, an amor will add more protection etc.
Yep, some of those names / enchantments ended quite long and had to find this convenient way to have the best of two worlds i.e. still showing a large portion of the "shop" while focusing on the special properties of the items. There are other items that can be long without enchantments i.e. Potion of Cure Paralysis. Tried to keep it dead simple here, as there's also a nice detailed rulebook about the game

Withold your complaining till you start localization, especially to German :D The real fun with text length starts then :D

BTW, you can shrink the font a bit I think.
I also use fallbacks in some places (if text len > MAX then set font to -1 and try again, if still too long set to -2 and try again). Useful for edge cases.

It's funny, but this game project is the first one that I never consirered to translate it, probably because most of the fonts couldn't have all the required characters, although my engine fully support unicode characters. I believe I could get by german translation, perhaps with a few quirks but I understand what you're implying here

Actually, I much prefer to increase the graphic bar to a fixed width to cover them all rather scaling the fonts; I tried this already numerous times and the graphic result is a bit awful, distortion and missing pixels here and there. Perhaps rendering to a texture (what my engine does) is responsible of that, but I so prefer to pre-load the same font in a smaller font-size and use that as a last resort rather scaling by an algorithm. I have a thing with pixel-perfect output, perhaps of this

If you get the time, find a copy of Weapons of Legacy(D&D 3.5e) and skim through it. It's pretty much entirely about this idea and has a bunch of examples(50 or so iirc) you can steal ideas from.

Damn, this is one of the best reads that I had in a long time reading D&D modules. This one reeks of inspiration and will definitely use a thing or three from this one! Thanks man!

 

[vlzvl]

This was probably the longest period between any update, excluding some breaking hiatus some years ago...
I had to fix issues and implement loads of necessary functionality and also revisit lots of stuff here and there to fine tune everything.

In short, I am pretty much satisfied with current technical level of The Darkness Below ; in fact, I have already developed some real D&D inspired content for the game, some screenshots of which you can check in the end of the update. Given this progress, the upcoming "demo" will never come. Instead, I decided to release a smallish version of the game, a "prelude" if you like, which will contain everything you might expect from this game, except for its duration..

Given that the current ETA was to release this before the ending of 2022, I decided to dedicate the remaining time to complete as much content as possible and release this minor version, to serve both as a "big demo", as well as a "small release". There's simply not enough time to produce all of it, test everything, do the planned crowdfunding before 2022, getting greenlights and stuff while working a full demanding job as well. Doing my best is not enough, so I have to take some shortcuts.

Yet at the same time I don't want either to get out of ETA and frustrate even more the game's fans. So, those are my reasons and why I concluded this is the best solution. Regardless, enough of reasoning and theories.

The highlights of this update are numerous (some of these may have appeared in previous updates so bear with me as my changes.txt is huge now), just showing for information before the small release:

• added: increased maximum spell number to 280, 40 spells per element, 8 spells per expertise per element. Hopefully, the majority of them implemented in the final game.
• added: ability to cause damage against all targets, instead of only a single target (previously), for some spells (party) and actions (monsters).
• added: new town textures and multifloor capability, allowing a bigger variety on town levels.
• added: implemented all shop types, fully tiered (4 levels), with a matching soundtrack per shop, as well their associated owner(s). Buy and sell is implemented, as well as shops dealing with specific item types i.e. weapons only.
• added: weapon slash effect to all weapons, similar to spell effects, increasing the immersion. Now every attack / action has an animation.
• added: character generation step by step, adding to previous 'prebuilt characters' mode.
• added: implemented 'special' and usually more powerful actions to monsters that can be used sparringly by chance. Think of those 'recharge' actions on D&D, which allows the bosses to kick butts more efficiently.
• added: completed the game's introduction sequence, which shows when the player clicks the 'Start the Game' button from title screen.
• fixed: entrances and exits to dungeons are now more immersive. Specifically, exits are now showing a part of the "outside" i.e. some forest or similar, in the likes of Lands of Lore.
• fixed: added active skill checks, along with the passive ones. On active checks, a roll is made and skill expertise bonuses are applied against the challenge expertise difficulty, making the final outputs a lot more random than passive checks.

..and lots more.

Some screenshots or twenty to follow this boring wall of text:

NOTE: this is obviously fake, this is just a quick tribute to the best crawler of all time. You wont fight that.. or would you?

NOTE: The following shots are directly taken from game's real content !

• https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-darkness-below-a-retro-crpg-in-the-making.118437/page-8
• https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37837&page=4
• https://patreon.com/thedarknessbelow
• https://discord.com/invite/XerEseQ
• https://vlzvl.itch.io/the-darkness-below
• https://youtu.be/KpKqWn8y7dQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYBLShKTDY

That's all
I will now continue producing stuff so I can deliver as per ETA.
Hopefully you like those shots and will give it a shot when it's released, there's a lot of bloody work on it (nearly completed about ~4000 working hours on it already, give or take)

Please, comment your thoughts as well
Thanks!

NOTE: The next major update will probably be after the short release.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It looks amazing, I can't wait to play your next demo.

A couple of questions:

• You spoke of skill checks, is there going to be weapon skills and non-combat skills?
• What about weapon special attacks? Backstab for daggers, Cleave for swords, etc. For example, Prelude to Darkness unlocked weapon special skills once you reached a certain weapon level.

 

[vlzvl]

It looks amazing, I can't wait to play your next demo.

A couple of questions:

• You spoke of skill checks, is there going to be weapon skills and non-combat skills?
• What about weapon special attacks? Backstab for daggers, Cleave for swords, etc. For example, Prelude to Darkness unlocked weapon special skills once you reached a certain weapon level.

Thanks man!

• Yes, definitely. In fact, there are no "combat" skills that require checks. There are skills such as "Awareness", "Lore" and even language-specific ones (think of Insight, Investigation, Religion as D&D equivalents) where they can be used for both active/passive checks on certain occasions to reveal additional pieces of content. There are a lot of weapon-based skills which are used entirely on combat but they're equally easy to be used on per-event basis, if that is needed; it's simply a matter of whether if I see it fit on events. For example, I can simply check for the highest "Dagger" skill expertise in the party and provide an additional "Backstab" option to use in an event against some strong, yet super slow boss-like monster which may deal a substantial damage before the actual battle; such stuff can happen on per-event basis but not per-skill / item "feats".
• I tried to stay away from this kind of advancement / special attacks i.e. that can be simply acquired per-level, as used on Prelude to Darkness and mostly D&D. Instead, I am all about finding the right trainers and learning those actions as "Feats", given the game is 100% an exploration one and you have to find / acquire everything. Those will probably be acquired by some special trainers, if you have the necessary skill level / gold etc. For example, if you happen to reach the "Master" expertise on Dagger, you may train on additional feat(s) by another person, in the same way you train / advance the skill itself, and use the feat passively in background, whenever appropriate. At the moment, the only automatic "feats" acquired per-weapon is to ability to use weapons with modifiers i.e. +1, +2 etc. which simply provides additional damage per expertise. I didn't explored this territory much, though but I do have a note or three already for possible feats.

 

[Dorateen]

Looks great! I would put this right up there with Sovereign and Amberland among the other Might & Magic clones/inspired cRPGs, which I am most looking forward to. One thing I noticed, in the temple screenshot. The expression should read: "Make yourself comfortable". Unless it was intentional as a manner of speech.

 

[vlzvl]

Looks great! I would put this right up there with Sovereign and Amberland among the other Might & Magic clones/inspired cRPGs, which I am most looking forward to. One thing I noticed, in the temple screenshot. The expression should read: "Make yourself comfortable". Unless it was intentional as a manner of speech.

Hi Dorateen! thanks a lot man, I love Legends of Amberland and expect Chris's sequel to surpass this in every term I know Swords and Sorcery and the next game seems a lot improved than the first game, giving all the right vibes in every turn. Glad that you put my work in same sentence with those games <3. Yep, you're correct, there are going to by typos such as this I am afraid but hopefully not many Thanks for spotting that out, fixed. I am definitely going to use some editor / writer in the end.

 

[Luzur]

Jesus Christ get the game out NOW

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW

 

[Kliwer]

Maybe it's a stupid request but... I think it would be nice to change the cursor to a more stylized one. Armored/leather gloved hand, sword or wand... Something like that. In this type of retro-games, such details matter.

The game looks great. Can't wait. I hope dungeons will be more interesting than in (e.g.) Legends of Amberladns. With puzzles, navigational challenges, etc.

 

[vlzvl]

Maybe it's a stupid request but... I think it would be nice to change the cursor to a more stylized one. Armored/leather gloved hand, sword or wand... Something like that. In this type of retro-games, such details matter.

The game looks great. Can't wait. I hope dungeons will be more interesting than in (e.g.) Legends of Amberladns. With puzzles, navigational challenges, etc.

No request is stupid But honestly, these changes wont do much to a game if the game is already good or bad... I am all about the "Dungeon Master" approach, keeping it simple with with cursors. At the moment, I only use two (2) cursors, outlined and shadowed, the known arrow and a hand for anything allowing "handling" i.e. lever, talking to NPCs, picking items from ground etc.

I make it sure that those cursors will be big enough to give the impression of a "lower" resolution (the game is built on a 800x600 resolution and expands to whatever desktop resolution the game runs) but that's about it. In truth, there's not much need of multiple, elegant cursor sets as the game works on simple clickable options and its a pretty much simply game, when it comes to UI.

I mean, an attack is made by clicking the appropriate item slots, not clicking on monsters, a spell is cast by clicking though a list. Not much to do with special "cursors" etc. But there are some nice spell effects / weapon slashes to compensate, so do not worry about retro effects, they're all there already

Perhaps I will give the option to change the color to base cursors i.e. changing the color from whte to yellow/blue whatever the player feels more retro, but that's stylish and currently am deep into a lot of D&D inspired content to do such changes, my plate is pretty full But we'll see later, after this thing lands properly.

Thanks for your good words. Regarding dungeons, designing and building the world, I am following D&D module practices. So expect a lot of passive/active skill checking, encounters, lore, traps, puzzles, hired NPCs, different paths, consequences, revisits etc. The game engine already allows complex puzzling in the likes of EOB/DM as well but, as M&M, it will be a grinding experience, meaning lots of monsters and lots of exploration. Graphically, expect nicely decorated dungeons, with lots of webs, props and creepy inhabitants. On open areas, expect a colorful world, with lots of planting and deadly monsters. I plan to provide a number of "environments" on this release: village, town, forest, desert and perhaps a few more.

The level cap is 100 and there are a lot of skills to find/learn/use, each with their own level/experience/expertise. There are still one or twenty things that I would like to add into my content making machine but unfortunately, not everything will be there in the end. Still, it will be enough for this small release. My goal is to provide a good content of "about everything" implemented.

Hopefully, I will made it (ETA is 2022-12-31) but I may postpone it a bit if I feel any content/feature/bugs concerns are still there, as I am all about feedback here and respecting my years in working this

Regardless, here's a screenshot from an early quest, enjoy

 

[newtmonkey]

Looks great so far! One request: is it possible to select aspect ratio when playing the game? I ask because the interface and artwork were clearly drawn for 4:3, but the screenshots show it stretched to 16:9, and it looks a little awkward.

 

[Nikanuur]

I wonder if making the characters/architecture/trees etc. stick out a bit—similar to the way the UI elements do—would give the game view the same feel of pleasant plasticity. Is such a thing possible?
Anyway, awesomely looking game, I'll make sure to buy and share info about it.

 

[vlzvl]

Looks great so far! One request: is it possible to select aspect ratio when playing the game? I ask because the interface and artwork were clearly drawn for 4:3, but the screenshots show it stretched to 16:9, and it looks a little awkward.

Hey thanks

Unfortunately, it wont be possible to select aspect ratio / resolutions on play the game. The game's engine is built around a "dynamic resolution" shader which renders everything in a scaled pow2 non-filtering texture on whatever resolution the end user has. Otherwise, I would be forced to those unwanted options:

• change the resolution to 800x600 (original), which is super non-compatible across all systems / OSes that I plan to support the game.
• provide a number of proper aspect ratio resolutions, that is 4:3, but showing black left/right on screen which I find disgusting if you ask me.
• play the game in windowed mode if you're after original aspect ratio.

I think the 3rd solution is the best / most compatible, especially if the end monitor is monstrous, as those are the trend now.
I guess there can be neverending discussions about this topic but I am so used to the output above that I have no issues anymore But I understand the problem here. These things can always get improved / fixed anyway if many people feel the same way, no worries.

I wonder if making the characters/architecture/trees etc. stick out a bit—similar to the way the UI elements do—would give the game view the same feel of pleasant plasticity. Is such a thing possible?
Anyway, awesomely looking game, I'll make sure to buy and share info about it.

I am not sure that I understand.
Obviously, its pretty hard to match the game world assets to the UI ones, as the world and all its assets can be pretty variant to the static UI. The UI is a lot more worked out but dont forget its 3D project to 2D; the world is 3D. It would need massive improvements to feel as pleasane / plastic as the UI. But I am not after it, honestly. There are a lot of games that provides that super polished, clean style that I am not a big fan myself. This thing can only be achieved by top-notch 2D pixeled art, in the likes of Lands of Lore I guess. However, I am after M&M in this department. Hopefully, I am on spot and understood what you were referring to

Having said that, I will never add graphics that looks ridiculous or be totally inconstistent to the UI. "Good enough" is what I am after. Don't forget that the game is a 3D one and graphics are always rotated / scaled (although, never filtered). Some assets may look totally pixeled, in the likes of Wolfenstein 3D or Ultima Underworld. It's a 3D first person dungeon crawler, can't do much if a low-res sprite splats too close in the glass I can only combat inconstistency this much and take it from there.
Thanks a lot for support, man, appreciate it