Thoughts about a Dungeon Crawler made in GZDoom

[Cherno]

Inspired by Enjay's Eye of the Beholder texture pack, I spent some time creating a Dungeon Crawler, mainly the step-by-step movement and 90 degree turning. It's based on the movement style seen in Legend of Grimrock and similar games, with smooth moving and turning and locked mouselook. However, just today I stumbled upon gameplay footage of a new Dungeon Crawler called Operencia: The Stolen Sun which also has step-by-step movement but free mouselook, so the turning is done via mouse. This in turn (no pun intended!) got me thinkimng about design chices that have to be made when one is creating a Dungeon Crawler in GZDoom.



First of all, during the main gameplay, you have no mouse cursor which practically all Dungeon Crawlers (DC) have, so free mouselook allows you to interact with items. switches etc. just by looking at them and pressing the use key. So I think this is a very good way of doing things. Alternatives with locked mosuelook would be some system that checks if there are any interactable objects in front of the player, and also auto-picking up items on the ground (which for an RPG, is not always desired).

Next issue is combat. DCs commonly have real-time, semi-turn-based combat, meaning that (melee) combat is fairly slow with long cooldowns between attacks so in effect both the party members and the enemies can onyl take about one attack per "turn", which is a span of time running in the background, but still in real-time. A sub-class of this is seen in the earlier Might & Magic games where each action by the player, be it moving one step or firing arrows, triggers a turn advancement, so all enemies react to your actions tit-for-tat. The other major way of resolving combat is by entering a special combat screen or "arena" when melee combat is initiated, where you will see a generalized view of the environment and the enemies before you in set positions, possibly moving on a grid. Examples are Operencia mentioned above and Ambermoon for the Amiga (new new Bard's Tale game features this as well, I believe). The downside to this system is that ranged combat, if possible at all, is disconnected from melee combat.

My initial ideas are these:
Have the free-look turning system
Real-time combat where you can, curtesy of the free mouselook, just aim at the enemies you want to attack (remember that enemies often appear in groups of up to four per cell). If the classic system of two party members in front, two in the back is used, you could make the front row attack with the left mouse button and the back row with the right mouse button.
I'm not sure how equipping items and the user interfact as a whole would work without dabbling in the black box that is zScript menus

Thoughts & comments are welcome!

[Matt]

Some hackery with weapons and layers can mean that you can use numbers 1-4 to switch the player camera between the four party members (leaving any applicable AI to handle the one you've just vacated).

One way to avoid ZScript menus is to bring up a weapon that displays some HUD stuff based on player button/pitch/yaw input, the way HD does backpack and ammo management. If you go all the way with managing inventory like this, you can even turn the inventory bar into a "menu" where you can switch between inventory, spells, xp spending, etc..

The biggest problem I imagine is just... where is everyone standing and how do you configure that? But I guess that can be abstracted away (or forced into convenient presets) easily enough if you insist on the tile-by-tile movement rather than just letting it all go wherever it will.

[Enjay]

I'm sure that this won't come as a surprise but I think a step-by-step old-school dungeon crawler in GZDoom would be amazing.

[gramps]

Heh, apparently opinions differ on what "dungeon crawler" really means.

My own idea of dungeon crawlers is probably shaped by being a long-time DCSS player. While those old TSR games are undoubtedly dungeon crawlers, I tend to think of "dungeon crawler" as being almost synonymous with "roguelike," and much more toward the roguelike end of the spectrum than the RPG end of the spectrum.

That is, a focus on replay value, anti-grinding, hard (non-obvious) choices. Specifically, replay value comes from procedurally generated dungeons, many different possible character builds that play differently (stealth vs. melee tank vs. glass cannon caster), and of course permadeath... but much less focus on plot or theme. "Go get the Orb of Zot, then come back" is all the plot you need when all the focus is on gameplay.

You play a single character; any allies are temporary, they come and go.

Hard choices means you don't just swap your weapon out for a better weapon, or your armor for stronger armor. Different equipment has different advantages and drawbacks. The equipment has as much variety as the enemies... everything is in the game for a reason; everything brings something different to it.

You may have to train for a particular weapon, or skill tree, or whatever, but there is a limited amount of training you can do in your character's lifetime. You have to *choose*, you can't just grind away and max out all the skills. And of course, you never savescum your way out of a tight spot. When death is permanent, the choices become that much more meaningful. Better luck next game...

This is the kind of dungeon crawler I'd love to see in gzdoom. None of those game mechanics rule out blasting away at monsters in real time, in a first-person view, in a good old Doom port!

The only tricky part here is the procedural dungeon generation, but thanks to some sweet new features in the dev branch, this is finally possible, and will hopefully only get better in future releases.

[Enjay]

You've just described everything that puts me off playing rogue-likes.

[gramps]

Replay value isn't for everyone.

Seriously though, DCSS is the one game I've consistently played for many, many years, and never once gotten bored of. I am perfectly happy telnetting into the nearest Crawl server and playing anytime, in all its ASCII glory.

It may not be for everyone, but when done right, the genre has replay value like nothing else. When a game is based on storytelling instead of based on a strict gameplay philosophy, it has a much more limited shelf life, in my opinion. You can only hear the same story so many times before it gets old.

[Nash]

A long-ass time ago, I did this, though it was built with ACS. Should be much, much, much easier to recreate with ZScript these days though... if I still had any interest, heh.

[Enjay]

It may not be for everyone, but when done right, the genre has replay value like nothing else. When a game is based on storytelling instead of based on a strict gameplay philosophy, it has a much more limited shelf life, in my opinion. You can only hear the same story so many times before it gets old.

You're probably right but I find that I prefer immersing myself in a story driven game versus just something randomised with no over-arching reason or bigger world logic.

/considers how many times I've played Doom maps without any real story driving them at all...

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[Enjay]

video

I remember you posting that - and have gone back to that video a few times. Shame that it isn't going to come to anything. Fair enough if you aren't interested though.

[Nash]

video

I remember you posting that - and have gone back to that video a few times. Shame that it isn't going to come to anything. Fair enough if you aren't interested though.

I can make a basic "starter kit" like I did with that platformer/sidescroller starter kit thingy, but I can't say I'd be interested in making a full game. :)