41 replies to this topic

[MrFalcon]

Loot - A Random Dungeon Game

This game is finished! You can instant-play it here.

This is my attempt to make a casual random dungeon game that can be played easily in one sitting. I've decided to make it in the form of a traditional table-top card game. Tutorial hints will guide you through the game, but here are the rules if you want to read them:

The object of the game is to collect as much loot as possible and then return to the entrance without dying

Click on flashing tiles to reveal rooms in the dungeon. Each room contains one of the following:

• A trap, in which case you lose one of your three health points (top-left corner). If you lose all your health points you die and get no points. The trap will be triggered every time you enter that room, so it helps to remember where they are.
• Loot, in which case you draw a loot card, either a treasure worth points or a magic item that does whatever it says on the card.
• A ladder up or down. Levels get larger and more difficult as you go down, but also have better loot.

The "Good Fortune" card increases your multiplier by 1 every time you cast it, but if your health drops to 1 heart, then your multiplier drops back down to 1.

You can end a game prematurely by pressing "Space".

DOWNLOAD THE GAME (v1.00 -- 3.0 MB)

Optionally, you can download some background music that I wrote. Just put it in the same folder as the game:
DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC (2.9 MB)



Troubleshooting
Some people are getting errors about non-existent surfaces. This is probably caused by surfaces getting erased from video memory. The only way I've been able to duplicate it is by changing the screen resolution during play. So don't do that. Also, if you have screen-savers popping up during play, try disabling them. It might also be caused by old videocards. If you get this error, please report it with as much information as you can about when it happened and anything you may have been doing when it happened.

Edited by MrFalcon, 28 August 2008 - 10:24 PM.

[MrFalcon]

Uploaded WIP version 2
- added card art, better graphics
- added more cards
- new game over effect
- more sound effects

[Taxa]

woah, this is awesome! I like it! I do suggest a main menu however...

Did you make these graphics? I love the work on the cards!

Is there a limited dungeon? If not, I think you should make check points, because there would be some people out there that would want to keep on going deeper and deeper.

Edit:
Oh, and I got a score of 1000, but then I died...

Edit:
I just got a score of 4000! Those crowns give you 1k points! Man, this game is so awesome! You have to add a checkpoint system though....

Edit:

13K score!!!

Edited by Taxa, 19 June 2008 - 10:17 AM.

[Warmachine]

I like the idea of people making fantasy card games.

[-Oakleaf-]

Damn, only 450 points... I'm a chicken :D

[MrFalcon]

woah, this is awesome! I like it! I do suggest a main menu however...

Yeah, the only thing that would be on the menu is "start" so I thought it was superfluous. It will have a title screen eventually, but it'll probably be one of the last things I make.

Did you make these graphics? I love the work on the cards!

Most of the graphics were cobbled together from a tileset by the incomparable Danc at the Lost Garden blog. He very graciously gives away the 2D art assets from defunct games he's worked on. They can all be found on this listing and they are awesome. I should really post it to the graphics forum.

I did draw the two rolled scrolls, which I'm rather proud of, and I did the crown, gems and necklace in 3dstudio. I'm not so proud of them , but they are workable for now. I also wrote the music, which I think turned out well.

Is there a limited dungeon? If not, I think you should make check points, because there would be some people out there that would want to keep on going deeper and deeper.

There is, theoretically, an infinite number of levels, but each lower level has an increased percentage of traps, but no increase in helpful items, so you're prolly not going to get much deeper than level 6. After level 6, no new cards are added and the levels don't get bigger. The engine supports 2 larger level sizes, but they seemed a bit unweildy. I think 6 levels will continue to be the framework that the game uses.

This is all by design, though. I wanted to make a game that could be played, in its entirety, in one short sitting. The value is all replay, and the fact that each game plays out differently. One of the reasons for the short playtime is precisely so that I don't have to add checkpoints and saves, which I think would detract from the tension of the game, which was also a major goal. That's why I made the requirement of getting back out. If you've played Nethack or any other rogue-alike game, you'll know what I'm going for: a more light, casual rogue-a-alike game.

As it stands right now, I think its heading in the right direction, but there isn't enough replay value. There isn't enough variety in the way each game plays out. You've already matched my high score, which tells me that the optimal strategies are pretty obvious. This is probably just a matter of adding interesting new cards to make the strategy more complex.

What I might also do is just release the source code and then anyone who wants to take it in a different direction can do so. Its not really well documented and the game uses data structures, you you'd need the registered GM, but I don't mind sharing the code.

Thank you, everybody, for your comments and interest!

Edited by MrFalcon, 20 June 2008 - 01:17 AM.

[Scyler_27]

This was actually very fun! Quite addicting! The only problem is that my highscore wasn't added. It showed me the highscore table, but didn't add anything. Great work on this, good graphics, smooth gameplay. Could use a little bit more eye candy perhaps when mousing over/click on cards, but besides that it was perfect! 9/10!

[MrFalcon]

This was actually very fun! Quite addicting! The only problem is that my highscore wasn't added. It showed me the highscore table, but didn't add anything.

Thanks for the rave review! As for your highscore, did you get out of the dungeon successfully? If you die in the dungeon, it reduces your score to 0. It will always show the highscore list at the end, but if you died it will say something like "You died! No points for you!" in the highscore title. I'm going to make it easier to read at some point, because I'm sure nobody reads window titles anyway

[lo_lord]

Kewl. This game was pretty awesome in my opinion. I like the whole concept, and for some reason having cards makes it awesome. The only real problem i had with the game so far was lack of new and interesting things further in the game. It would be good if it had more cards and also more random treasure and maybe even cards showing interesting rooms. Or key cards to unlock doors. The possibilitys are endless and thats what make this game so awesome. Anyway i hope you continue to work on this, cant wait for the next update.

[MrFalcon]

Kewl. This game was pretty awesome in my opinion. I like the whole concept, and for some reason having cards makes it awesome. The only real problem i had with the game so far was lack of new and interesting things further in the game. It would be good if it had more cards and also more random treasure and maybe even cards showing interesting rooms. Or key cards to unlock doors. The possibilitys are endless and thats what make this game so awesome. Anyway i hope you continue to work on this, cant wait for the next update.

Yes, more card are definitely in order. I'm also starting to think about things like unlockables, achievements and ultra-rare cards that might not show up on the first few plays.

[Warmachine]

I really like the idea of fantasy card games. Do you do the art yourself?

Edit: One thing: I got the card that says it reveals all traps. It didn't show traps, but I ran in 3.

Edited by Warmachine, 21 June 2008 - 12:55 AM.

[Marcling]

This game is awesome!i've been playing this for an hour straight.My best score is 3600

Edited by Marcling, 21 June 2008 - 01:30 AM.

[Hecore]

The Insight Potion (or whatever it was called) revealed all traps to me, so I'm not sure if the problem is isolated.

If I were making this game I would take a cue from Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. What I would borrow from that game is three things -

A. Classes. At the start of the game you could choose to be a Rogue, Warrior, or Wizard. Rogues start with 3 health and can avoid some traps (damage tiles), Warriors have 4 health and no benefits, and Wizards have a measly 2 health but can decipher items to gain a 1.5x bonus to item value.

B. A time limit. Basically the adventurer has only X many turns to make it back to the start or they start losing points. A finite dungeon size also works well.

C. Ranking. For example if you exit the dungeon with 0-500 points your ranking would be 'Part-time Explorer', 501-1000 points might be 'Hack and/or Slash', 5501-6000 points might be 'Dungeon Lord', and so on.

Something else I would consider adding is a magic item slot that can have a single piece of equipment in it. For example it could be filled with 'Leather Armor', which absorbs the next 2 points of damage before breaking, or a 'Dousing Wand' which may reveal any adjacent traps. These items could also have a point value and be held in the hand to add to your score when you escape the dungeon, but they take up a slot that could otherwise be filled with scrolls and potions.

Below are a few of scrolls and potions that wouldn't be hard to implement into your existing game:

Escape Scroll - Reveals the location of all ladders on a current floor.
Transfer Scroll - Warps you either up or down a floor, to a random room.
Minor Riches Scroll - Adds 25 points to each treasure you pick up for the next 10 turns.
Major Riches Scroll - Fills any empty rooms on the current floor with treasure.
Unlabeled Scroll - Random scroll effect.
Fools Gold Scroll - Halves all treasure value until the reader enters the next 10 unique rooms.
Bad Luck Scroll - Adds 4 random traps on a current floor (replacing treasure if necessary).


Invisibility Potion - Avoid all traps for the next 5 turns.
Unlabeled Potion - Random potion effect.
Blindness Potion - Tiles don't flip over until the imbiber enters the next 10 unique rooms.
Confusion Potion - All tiles (except the one the user is in) flip over to black.
Fleetness Potion - All temporary effects are extended for double the remaining time (5 turns of Minor Riches become 10, ect).
Life Potion - The next time you would die you instead come back to life at 1 health.


This is the kind of game I would love to see more of, so I hope my ideas were of some use!

[Marcling]

OMg,found glitch,in the place where it shows the most recent card you got that gives point,you ca keep clicking take and it keeps giving points XD

[MrFalcon]

I really like the idea of fantasy card games. Do you do the art yourself?

If you look up at my response to Taxa, it gives the breakdown of original/borrowed work.

Edit: One thing: I got the card that says it reveals all traps. It didn't show traps, but I ran in 3.

That is definitely a glitch, but I can't even begin to think what would have caused it. I will meditate on it

If I were making this game ...

Wow. Awesome ideas. Believe me, I have more ideas than I could ever implement, but I might make room for some of you suggestions. Thanks for taking time out to write all that!

OMg,found glitch,in the place where it shows the most recent card you got that gives point,you ca keep clicking take and it keeps giving points XD

HA! Good one. That should be an easy fix. Good to see someone really putting the game through its paces.

[Stryke]

There's a glitch if you click Take for the Jewel card like 20 times, you points are so maxxed out you crash lol

[Marcling]

mr falcon this is one of the best GM games i've ever played......my msn is spottymouth@yahoo.com.....i wanna talk to you soon

[Marcling]

i see you're online........message me.......also what is your msn?

[negen99]

Sweet game! Only complaint I have is that it is way too short. Graphics look excellent!.

[grandhighgamer]

Just a tip while it downloads on my crappy connection, zip it in future, it's alot faster to download generally (Right Click > Send To > Compressed Folder).

The game is really nice although the disarm traps card seems a little useless unless you need to backtrack.
Bugs:
You could continuely click on Take Loot while the card was in your hard to get an unlimited score.
After a while I also got this:

ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_card:

Trying to use non-existing surface.

Edited by grandhighgamer, 22 June 2008 - 10:31 AM.