If all goes according to plan, the Dungeonmans Preview Build will be available to you here next week. Knowing game development, that likely means 11:59 PM on the last day of the week, but I will strive to do better. So yes, work continues at a most unhealthy pace, but I can’t pretend that it isn’t exciting. Seeing all the good old Dungeonmans monsters back in action after a long hiatus is really motivating.
To get most of the new combat systems up and running, the way monsters stored information and calculated attacks had to change drastically. That meant that old monster data from 2010 Dungeonmans no longer worked. Once I got the systems working well enough to be able to fine tune them, I knew I’d get those old beasts back into shape. Now I’ve been able to add more ability and creativity to both the monsters you fight as well as the items you loot.
Going Fast and Getting Rings
Take a look at the rings below. Magical gear can have lots of things attached to them. Usually it’s based on random rolls, like finding a [Prefix] [Gear], like Flaming Longsword or Frosty Hat. There’s plenty of room for unique items though, and these are two of them.
Rings are the wild card gear right now. Early tier rings may seem pretty tame, but near the end some of the more rare rings are quite powerful and can even go so far as to give your Dungeonmans new powers while wearing them. In fact, the Icy Graveshard power is normally reserved for monsters, and right now this is the only way to get it. Surely no one at the academy would teach a power so clearly outside of the curriculum, right?
You’ll notice the AP bonus on the Ring of Jungle Fighting. AP stands for Action Points, and as of right now Dungeonmans uses a pretty simple system for taking turns:
* Actions of any type take 100 AP.
* When you have less than 100 AP, you’re done acting.
* Once all active creatures are done acting, everyone gains 100 AP and the next round begins.
So if you gain an extra 40 AP per round, your math will look something like this:
1: Start with 100, spend 100, gain 140
2: Start with 140, spend 100, gain 140
3: Start with 180, spend 100, gain 140
4: Start with 220, spend 100, spend 100, gain 140
Which means you end up with an extra action every few rounds. Not bad!
Now, one of the questions I’ve heard is “But a dagger is much faster than a greatsword, why do they both take the same AP?” and that’s totally fair. I think that’s a great mechanic and lots of other roguelikes use it to their benefit. For Dungeonmans, I’m aiming to keep speed equal in almost every fight. Some enemies have haste buffs or slowing debuffs, and sometimes you’ll get an edge with speed, but speed getting out of hand often becomes the deciding factor in a lot of fights. I’m aiming to have positioning matter in Dungeonmans combat, and that matters much less if you can take three actions for each one action by the enemy.
A Battle!
Here a battle rages in the twisty tunnels of an underground cave! The Bandit Pyromancer (buffed by his Villain Cloud) is fooming with impunity upon poor our Dungeonmans. The Gelatinous Cylinder froze him in place, which means he can’t simply walk out of the tile. He can fight, use movement powers to break free, or just wait a few rounds until it ends. He really wants to close in on the Pyromancer, but that Orc Warrior next to him is going to keep up, landing Danger Shuffle when he can, which is an attack that switches places with the target.
That’s all I got for now, I need to get back to work!
One more week!