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v1.19 (June 8th)
-New icon for 'Rock Skin' and 'Fighting Spirit' Monk abilities;
-Warlock now can spell 'Dark Storm' much more continuously;
-Warlock's 'Incinerate' range has been reduced;
-The dungeon automatically resets once all monsters are dead;
-The dungeon has 9x9 rooms currently;
-New 'spawning location' icon, inside the dungeon.

Known issues:
-The capital 'S' text icon_state is missing, so players with 'S' in their names will have a void in their name overlay. (XSky RiderX)

I'm proud to say that the development for this game has, ever since it began just under a month ago, been rocketing through achievements and accomplishments. I am absolutely loving the way the game is playing out currently, and cannot wait to see how it'll end up playing out once it is polished.

But enough about the past: let's talk about the future.

My current objectives for the next few builds are as follows:

-New control scheme: Several players recently have complained that the current control scheme isn't quite comfortable, and so, I'll be planning on re-designing it, along with the F1 help popup.

-New stat system: Currently, much of the stat system (health points, armor, attack, etc.) is very much invisible. I'm currently following a design philosophy in which the most important thing about development is its visibility: players should know what their stats are and how they affect the game, otherwise those stats will have no value to the player (I'll explain this more thoroughly on a later post). How I plan to fix this is rather simple: the right side of the current interface will display the stats available for your character and their current value, similar to how Realm of the Mad God, a fellow free Fantasy MORPG game, handles it:



The fact that the player can actually see how each stat affects his character greatly enhances the player's interest in becoming involved with and enhancing his character. Definitely something I'm looking forward to implementing to Deep Dungeon.

A few other long-term goals for my game, so far, are:
-Random equipment dropping: Similar to Diablo II, I'm planning on having an array of equipment that can be randomly dropped by slaying monsters. While I'm currently thinking of starting off with only 4 instances per type (4 armors, 4 melee weapons, 4 bows, 4 cloaks), I don't intend on expanding up to the hundredths in this case: having an array of 10/12 instance of equipment per type feels more than enough to me, and would probably make it easier for players to spot and identify whether or not the drops are useful or valuable to them without the need to stop by an item, pick it up, read its description, and then drop it. More difficult monsters will drop more powerful items; weaker items can be gathered and sold; rare item drops may occur when killing a Boss.

-Dungeon Bosses: Each dungeon not only has its own array of hundreds (yes, at the moment, there are over 100 monsters on the map) of enemies, but also has its own Bosses the players can come together and battle against. Such bosses would, amongst many other features, provide great loads of experience, drop the aforementioned rare items, and unlock different dungeons.

-Different dungeons: I'm planning on having different themed-dungeons with varying structures and layouts, similar to Diablo II, once again. The current pre-sets and tilesets I have in mind are:

  • Jungle: Lower-level dungeon with lightweight enemies such as Goblins and Orcs. Not much detail is needed in this one: has to be flashy, easy to navegate through, yet dangerous if you're not cautious.
  • Castle (current): A more deadly dungeon, with more dynamic creatures such as rotworms (fragile, yet quick and deadly), dwellers (slow, but stubborn) and dustmonsters (no intelligence or speed, but loads and loads of armor). The Barracks level from Diablo II is a great representatoin of how I picture this.
  • Dragon's Lair: I picture this as a sort of ruined cathedral, similar to the first level of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or the Monastery in Diablo II.

    I'll elaborate upon some other topics of interest as development progresses, and I hope you've enjoyed this first entry of the Deep Dungeon blog!

    I'd love to hear from the community, be it suggestions, criticisms, complaints, or anything that would, in any way, help me out with this project.

    Don't be afraid to post in the comments section; this blog's comment box doesn't bite... yet.
Nice work!
can't wait, in particular for the varied dungeons. instead of generic square and rectangular rooms, i want cool looking scenery
Sounds really cool.
Sounds like fun. I'll have to give it a try over my Summer break :D