New Mac RPG: Dungeon Diver

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello, I've written a fairly simple RPG for the Mac (works on Windows too, should even work on Linux but is untested) called Dungeon Diver. It doesn't have a story, but that hasn't stopped people from telling me that it's fun to play. I would very much appreciate your feedback - I will use it to improve future releases.

It requires Java 5 (and therefore Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later with all the Java updates installed). It works perfectly on Leopard. If you want to try it, here's where to find it: http://dungeondiver.worldwizard.net/

 

[chinarider]

Can you tell us a bit about it? How about some screenshots?

thanks.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Dungeon Diver was inspired by Legend of the Green Dragon, and is modeled on it. It contains the following features (not all features are listed):

• Randomly generated dungeons to explore
• Monsters to fight
• Shops to visit
• A big, bad boss to fight, once you get strong enough

Attached are some screenshots from the Mac version.

EDIT: Updated screenshots - from the Mac version now

 

[Lucy Brown]

Guess I dont need a high end graphics card to run this. lol

 

[Padraic]

You come to a Mac forum and post screenshots from windows? You're not selling youself or your game very well... Just sayin'...

 

[wrldwzrd89]

You come to a Mac forum and post screenshots from windows? You're not selling youself or your game very well... Just sayin'...

I know, at the time I posted those screenshots I was stuck on a Windows machine... nothing I could do about that.

EDIT: Screenshots updated.

 

[bassism]

Tried playing for a few minutes.
The interface drives me crazy. Firstly, I dislike having to use the mouse with all the dialogs. Secondly, they don't line up... so the experience amounts of click, click, move mouse to the right, click, move mouse to the left, ad nauseum. If you could unify the interface into a single window and implement keyboard controls, it would be a lot more enjoyable to me.

That said, it looks like you've got all the basics implemented.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Tried playing for a few minutes.
The interface drives me crazy. Firstly, I dislike having to use the mouse with all the dialogs. Secondly, they don't line up... so the experience amounts of click, click, move mouse to the right, click, move mouse to the left, ad nauseum. If you could unify the interface into a single window and implement keyboard controls, it would be a lot more enjoyable to me.

That said, it looks like you've got all the basics implemented.

Thank you for the feedback! I have already started on implementing this suggestion, because I agree with you. I don't know how I failed to notice this until now, though.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I have implemented the suggestion that the interface be "unified" more, use fewer dialog boxes, and have more keyboard navigation support. The interfaces that have been redone are Battle, the Main Menu, and Help (the three biggest offenders). These changes, along with others, are in the as-yet-unreleased Dungeon Diver V1.4 development build.

I am also looking for beta testers. If you are willing to help test the latest betas, please send me a forum private message - I will reply with the details.

 

[RedTomato]

well I had a quick play, and got down to level 25. There seems to be no end of game boss.

The map needs to be bigger, I found it hard to tell the difference between the various houses.

Also, can the light diamonds stack - i.e. eating 2 increases field of vision by 2x?

Would be nice to see the monsters in the map instead of invisible monsters.

Recommend having the stats window open at the same time as the map window. I had to keep going backwards and forwards to check things like money.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

well I had a quick play, and got down to level 25. There seems to be no end of game boss.

The map needs to be bigger, I found it hard to tell the difference between the various houses.

Also, can the light diamonds stack - i.e. eating 2 increases field of vision by 2x?

Would be nice to see the monsters in the map instead of invisible monsters.

Recommend having the stats window open at the same time as the map window. I had to keep going backwards and forwards to check things like money.

Thank you for the feedback!

There IS a boss - you have to gain levels until you reach level 20, then you will meet him instead of the regular monsters. The monster difficulty is based on what level of the dungeon you are on, not what level you are currently. Therefore, it is possible to reach dungeon level 25 when you are still level 5, for example, by going downstairs enough times.

As for the map - there are several things I could do to make it bigger. Which of these did you mean (more than one is acceptable too):

• Bigger object graphics (current graphic size is 32x32 pixels, except the boss, which is 64x64)
• Bigger dungeons (current dungeon size is 20x20)
• Bigger viewing window (current viewing window size is 7x7)

Making the diamonds stack would certainly be doable. However, maximum vision radius is limited also by the size of the viewing window. If I enlarged the viewing window from its current size of 7x7 to, say, 11x11, then such a change would make a lot more sense than it does now with the viewing window fixed at 7x7.

I like the idea of having monsters visible on the map, but I suspect not everyone will feel the same way. Therefore, I will implement this as a preference, though I'm not yet sure what the default setting should be (on or off).

As for the stats window suggestion, that is also a good idea. What I am considering doing to implement this is attaching the stats to the side of the dungeon window. Which side (left or right) will be another preference.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

It's high time I posted an update on Dungeon Diver, as I've neglected this thread for a while.

I've released version 1.60, which implements the feature request of visible monsters. I'm working on version 2.00, which implements the other feature request of a floating stats window, as well as a bunch of other changes that I'll reveal later

 

[RedTomato]

Nice to see you're still working on it!

Getting to xp lvl 20 is a bit of a drag - there isn't much difference between the various xp levels. Perhaps you could scale down the game so that the final boss is met at xp level 15 or even xp lvl 10, and focus on making it a more interesting journey?

e.g some special level maps where you've laid out the level yourself to make it more interesting to get from the spawn point to the end of level stairs?

You'll get more players that way, and you can always add more levels on later in a part II.

A shorter game also means that people who played it before are more likely to replay it after an upgrade.

re: bigger map

yes I meant a bigger viewing window. Having diamonds stack and the viewing window go up to 11x11 or bigger would be good.

Also an option for slightly bigger icon size - I find the houses difficult to tell apart - they have very similar icons. Maybe having different house designs would help e.g. church, castle, bank etc.

good luck!

xt

Thank you for the feedback!

There IS a boss - you have to gain levels until you reach level 20, then you will meet him instead of the regular monsters. The monster difficulty is based on what level of the dungeon you are on, not what level you are currently. Therefore, it is possible to reach dungeon level 25 when you are still level 5, for example, by going downstairs enough times.

As for the map - there are several things I could do to make it bigger. Which of these did you mean (more than one is acceptable too):

• Bigger object graphics (current graphic size is 32x32 pixels, except the boss, which is 64x64)
• Bigger dungeons (current dungeon size is 20x20)
• Bigger viewing window (current viewing window size is 7x7)

Making the diamonds stack would certainly be doable. However, maximum vision radius is limited also by the size of the viewing window. If I enlarged the viewing window from its current size of 7x7 to, say, 11x11, then such a change would make a lot more sense than it does now with the viewing window fixed at 7x7.

I like the idea of having monsters visible on the map, but I suspect not everyone will feel the same way. Therefore, I will implement this as a preference, though I'm not yet sure what the default setting should be (on or off).

As for the stats window suggestion, that is also a good idea. What I am considering doing to implement this is attaching the stats to the side of the dungeon window. Which side (left or right) will be another preference.

 

[Arkhan]

Man where to begin...

the screens too tiny, the mouse and keyboard alternation is tedious, the combat has alot to be desired...............

i played for maybe 5 minutes before I just went back to playing rogue..... theres nothing new here, and it plays worse than the games of the 80s....that are of a similar setup.

 

[AoWolf]

Man where to begin...

the screens too tiny, the mouse and keyboard alternation is tedious, the combat has alot to be desired...............

i played for maybe 5 minutes before I just went back to playing rogue..... theres nothing new here, and it plays worse than the games of the 80s....that are of a similar setup.

I am sure your being honest to the OP but you could have posted something more constructive.

I wish the viewing area around the player was larger. Right now it moves one square with the player and it can be confusing to keep up.

 

[Arkhan]

I am sure your being honest to the OP but you could have posted something more constructive.

I wish the viewing area around the player was larger. Right now it moves one square with the player and it can be confusing to keep up.

yeah I was meaning to come back and elaborate.....

for starts, the color scheme is dreadful. Its 2008. monochromatic setups are a bit... done. I realize there are SHADES, but this is like, gameboy quality color.... it leaves a bit to be desired...

it's disorienting. its what a 5x5 tile screen?... each move results in very choppy and confusing movement.

to me it functions like the following classics, only far inferior in terms of playability, visuals (...which is kind of .. scary), and overall fun factor...

Starting with my all-time favorite of this style

Gateway to Apshai, and the other Temple of Apshai games...
Telengard
Sword of Fargoal
Rogue
Ultima


It plays like a dumbed down version of the above. I say this because well, all of the above mentioned are from the mid 80s. Key things these games have that yours is lacking: (I will be omitting the epic 100+ hours of gameplay from Ultima, for obvious reasons... but the tile based engine is vastly similar to Dungeon Diver...... I speak mainly of Ultima 1 and 2 since they contain the single character hack slash . 3 and on involve turn based strategic battles with multiple enemies....)

anyways:

All of these games have more color depth, even on the commodore 64 release. Gateway to Apshai featured blue walls, red doors, gold unwalked-on dungeon areas, FULL motion as opposed to tiles...

Telengard again featured coloration, and it really has similar gameplay to your game... only it's got more staying power...

Rogue, in it's IBM release, featured more color, more visibility, more to do, and more depth..... with ASCII characters.........

and they all utilized the full screen. not a crummy JFrame



not to mention, the playability is better because you arent going from mouse to keyboard, and what have you.


Rather than use JButtons to do battle, why not use action listener's for key presses..... you appear to be attempting a retro game, yet make it more cumbersome to play than need be. The combats themselves are somewhat useless given that there is only an Attack option. defend, items, and magic would lend more to it. For your setup, simply attacking the little blobs would suffice. The dialog boxes seem useless.


Bottom line I guess, expand visibility, add some color, get rid of the mouse....

I know you're using Java, and using all the swing components like combo boxes and what have you, but cmon' what games honestly use stuff like that...

maybe you should switch to a different language.... you could honestly write a better game in assembly, or one of the many versions of BASIC, such as QBASIC, or Dark BASIC....................

as for your obvious desire to multiplatform... SDL is a good choice, as games like Daimonium use it and achieve multiplatform implementations.....

there is also OpenGL but that's a bit excessive, or Allegro.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

yeah I was meaning to come back and elaborate.....

for starts, the color scheme is dreadful. Its 2008. monochromatic setups are a bit... done. I realize there are SHADES, but this is like, gameboy quality color.... it leaves a bit to be desired...

Yes, this is deliberate. Remember Phantasy Star, for the Sega Master System, which used this kind of color scheme in its dungeons? That's where the idea to do this came from.

it's disorienting. its what a 5x5 tile screen?... each move results in very choppy and confusing movement.

Strange. I do not see this issue in my testing, on Mac OS or Windows.

to me it functions like the following classics, only far inferior in terms of playability, visuals (...which is kind of .. scary), and overall fun factor...

Starting with my all-time favorite of this style

Gateway to Apshai, and the other Temple of Apshai games...
Telengard
Sword of Fargoal
Rogue
Ultima


It plays like a dumbed down version of the above. I say this because well, all of the above mentioned are from the mid 80s. Key things these games have that yours is lacking: (I will be omitting the epic 100+ hours of gameplay from Ultima, for obvious reasons... but the tile based engine is vastly similar to Dungeon Diver...... I speak mainly of Ultima 1 and 2 since they contain the single character hack slash . 3 and on involve turn based strategic battles with multiple enemies....)

anyways:

All of these games have more color depth, even on the commodore 64 release. Gateway to Apshai featured blue walls, red doors, gold unwalked-on dungeon areas, FULL motion as opposed to tiles...

Telengard again featured coloration, and it really has similar gameplay to your game... only it's got more staying power...

Rogue, in it's IBM release, featured more color, more visibility, more to do, and more depth..... with ASCII characters.........

and they all utilized the full screen. not a crummy JFrame

The use of a window is also deliberate, mostly because I don't think you can do a full-screen game in Java

not to mention, the playability is better because you arent going from mouse to keyboard, and what have you.


Rather than use JButtons to do battle, why not use action listener's for key presses..... you appear to be attempting a retro game, yet make it more cumbersome to play than need be. The combats themselves are somewhat useless given that there is only an Attack option. defend, items, and magic would lend more to it. For your setup, simply attacking the little blobs would suffice. The dialog boxes seem useless.

I am - you can use the keyboard to do just about everything. Try pressing A sometime while in battle... or, for that matter, F (to flee). As for your other complaints about the battle system, you are right - it would be much better if it was more varied than it is now.

Bottom line I guess, expand visibility, add some color, get rid of the mouse....

I know you're using Java, and using all the swing components like combo boxes and what have you, but cmon' what games honestly use stuff like that...

maybe you should switch to a different language.... you could honestly write a better game in assembly, or one of the many versions of BASIC, such as QBASIC, or Dark BASIC....................

as for your obvious desire to multiplatform... SDL is a good choice, as games like Daimonium use it and achieve multiplatform implementations.....

there is also OpenGL but that's a bit excessive, or Allegro.

Dungeon Diver will forever remain a Java game, as long as I continue to develop it. However, I hear what you are saying, and I will keep your suggestions in mind for future games I develop. Oh, and regarding the visibility issue - it's set the way it is largely because of the combination of 2 factors: The way the gems work currently and the dungeon size (which is 20x20 tiles). If I wish to increase the viewable area, I must also change these other two things.

 

[Arkhan]

Yes, this is deliberate. Remember Phantasy Star, for the Sega Master System, which used this kind of color scheme in its dungeons? That's where the idea to do this came from.

Phantasy Star was first person dungeons.... granted they WERE somewhat 2 colored, ... they were first person so it was more do-able. Id up the color count on your game for visibility.


In terms of choppy animation, the game itself is inherently choppy / disorienting.

The problem could be solved if you make a larger JFrame, OR learn how to implement pixel based movement. It could still be tile based, but rather than immediatley jump 16 or 32 pixels or what have you over a'la Ultima, slide over that many pixels, a'la anything on a console, much like Phantasy Star


the main reason games like Ultima were good even with Tile movement was the color depth, window visibilty, and diversity of the screen so you could readily/comfortably tell what the hecks going on

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hey, all. I know I haven't made any updates to the game in a LONG while. I have picked up development again, and I am working on addressing most of the issues mentioned in this thread in Version 2.00.

Implemented thus far:

• Larger object size (64x64 instead of 32x32)
• Larger viewing window (11x11 instead of 7x7)
• Enhanced gem behavior - now, if you collect 2 gems of the same type you get an enhanced effect; collecting 3 or more extends this effect
• MP for you and for monsters - required for some features not yet implemented
• Game size shrunk - the boss is now encountered at level 13 instead of level 20
• Dungeon level is now capped at 12, so you can't go deeper than level 12 and fight tougher monsters than you could normally