Tactics > First Person? (Well for Dumbest Dungeon)

We have not been working on the game for a while and that is mostly because we can not really find a good way to solve the gameplay loop issues we are having.

To summarize the issues we have with the game’s design now.

• In almost all situations it’s better to stay in a corridor or doorway and battle from there.
• There is no decent tactical use to movement, other then blocking yourself off in a corner.
• Adding area of effect cards is pretty narrow in meaning as they almost always need to be cast right in front of the player.
• It’s tedious moving from room to room through the passages where nothing happens.
• There is simply not enough variations to make battles interesting when movement is removed from them.
• Exploring is tedious and not part of the core gameplay loop.
• Character turns are all locked together making cards the effect Turn Points less interesting to play.

We can (if we jump through enough hoops) solve some of these issues but nothing we have considered leaves us with what we think is a compelling game loop.

Tactics Dungeon Crawler

So we have reconsidered this from the top view. Where each of the player characters moved independently and had it’s own turn sequence. This has the potential to bring a lot to the game loop.

• We can add additional mechanics to card types allowing each play to pass or adjust the next plays options.
• It allows for movement and casting for each character giving more meaning to choices made.
• Area of effect spells can now play a much larger roll in damaging or even protecting characters.
• Brings the visuals and animations of the characters you play to life on screen.
• Reduced the gameplay down to the core loop of battling.
• Brings in a whole new aspect to cards that can effects movement or movements speed.

This would be a changes predominantly in the presentation and allow us to move the characters independently as apposed to moving them as a group.

Comparision

Reviewing the current game play from first person as seen below.

This is a screen shot form the post jam version of the game

In this version the battles are more about attrition and survival as apposed to clever use of environment and timed opportunities.

Some concept images of the new direction.

The images shared are just concept as we are still working on the tools to design these levels.

Dungeon exploring

We would still want the dungeon exploring to happen. Each completed rooms would branch out to others letting. Dungeons will also include shops, rest areas and some non combat encounters.

What’s next

We are building a level designer to allow a tighter integration of the art pipeline and the combat levels. Our current goals are.

• Keep all battles on one screen.
• Remove clutter and focus on core gameplay loop only.
• Make sure levels can be build in a pseudo random fashion for more variety.
• Add new card types that make more use of the area.
• Create new inter-card mechanics that allow cards to change the gameplay loop.

We working on a prototype for this. Just a single battle to see how it plays out.