Would Arcen Consider a Dungeon Crawl game?

[Teal_Blue]

Just saw some old playthroughs of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 on YouTube and it looked pretty nostalgic and wonderful and thought i would just ask if Arcen might ever consider doing one?

Though perhaps with the good fortune with AI War and TLF it might make more sense to stay in that area for awhile.

And even at a small title, like say Skyward Collapse,  a dungeon crawl might not generate enough for you.
I am just a fan of the old titles, like HOMM3 and i just thought a new version, or take on it might be cool to see.

Thanks anyway,

-Teal

[x4000]

I never played HOMM, but I was a huge fan of Demon Stalkers (1989).  I also like boardgame dungeon crawlers.  The problem is that there are really a lot of them on the market, I'm not sure there is room for us or enough interest in what we might cook up.  But you never know!

[Draco18s]

Make it a dungeon crawler in the same vein as Master of the Monster Lair:
The player both builds the dungeon and cleans it out.

Your dungeon is a medium sized map that's broken down into a grid. The level can be cleared off one square at a time with your magic shovel. Once the areas are clear, you can then begin placing items that you purchase from the “furniture shop” in town. Once you have placed these items, they will eventually attract monsters, which you can then go into the dungeon and fights for gold and items.

It's a direction that very few games have gone, and combined with the kind of procedural generation that Arcen loves to use, I'm sure that something interesting and unique will result.

[keith.lamothe]

That description reminds me strongly of Skyward Collapse, actually.  Not in a bad way.

[Draco18s]

That description reminds me strongly of Skyward Collapse, actually.  Not in a bad way.

Heh.  I really should play some of your guy's other titles.  Just that, generally, it hasn't been what I've been looking for lately.

But Master of the Monster Lair isn't quite like that.  You literally have a magic shovel and dig out the dungeon ah la Dungeon Keeper: pick a tile, make it air.  Your limited in size and you need to have a certain amount dug out before you can dig the "down stairs" to the next layer.  Well, actually, you need to have a certain number of monsters, if I recall correctly, but as they all take up space and you want to be able to walk past them all without fighting in order to get to the stairs, then yeah, there's a functional limit on how tiny the floor can be.

So, you dig the tiles, you place objects, you fight the monsters for money, either when you die or you decide to leave the dungeon, you go home and have dinner, which raises your stats.  Dinner is based on the food you buy with the money you got (along with other things, like the objects or better gear) but no matter what there's always a basic soup your mom can cook that will still increase something.

It's not so much a "balancing act" of opposing force, but more...self-imposed challenge (you CAN design your dungeon to force you to fight every monster every day, but you don't HAVE to, and it's a long-term bad decision, as eventually you'll be too high a level for those monsters to pose a challenge, and once you dig the down stair you can't change the floorplan).

Kind of what I see as "Arcen doing Dungeon Crawling" with this idea in mind would be something like Rogue Legacy...except that the player also builds all of the individual rooms (but the engine arranges them to make a castle).  You can design a room that's hard to navigate and fight in, but the rewards for beating it are greater than a simple empty room.  Etc.

Either way, whatever you guys do, this genre or another, I'll be excited to see it.

[x4000]

Clever!  I like the description of that game a lot, I might have to check that out.

[Draco18s]

Clever!  I like the description of that game a lot, I might have to check that out.

It's great for a short while, as its quite unique.  But it gets repetitive quickly.  And not in the Roguelike way of "make a new character, clear a dungeon, die" kind of repetitive, I mean you could "literally write a macro to play the game for you" kind of way.

[x4000]

Ah.  That's a shame.

[Draco18s]

Ah.  That's a shame.

Yeah, I was kind of disappointed too.  The game had great potential and a unique strategy, but succumbed to some very basic flaws.  Still worth renting/borrowing/watching a lets play to get a feel for it though.