Friday, August 13, 2010

The next Dweller release and the future

Now that I (hopefully) got rid of most of the serious bugs introduced these last couple of release I hope to be able to work a bit more on (re)playability. I want each Dweller session to feel unique and fun, and the gameplay throughout a game should not be too repetitive. I've learnt over the years that writing new features is not the hard part. The hard part of writing a game is to make the game interesting and fun to play. I have a list of things I'd like to do in future versions of Dweller, but it is far from complete and I am by no means a game designer. Things I'd like to do:

User experience
  • Add more in-game help
  • Make Dweller translatable
Inventory
  • Add an option to Use Many (for instance use 3 Mushrooms of healing in one go, without having to go in to the menu between each use)
Map
  • Place stairs further apart
  • Perhaps add several stairs up/down, possibly to different branches ("You see a staircase leading down to the sewers", "You see a staircase leading down to a dungeon")
  • Sewers: Add junk that can be searched for items (can spawn monsters and/or cause disease)
  • New map type: Catacombs. Undead monsters mostly. Coffins that can be opened for loot/monsters
  • New map elements: Altar (sacrifice items to gain favors), Teleporter, Fountain (healing, antidote, mutation, poison)
  • Minimap
  • Evaluate Fog of War monster "ghosts" - remove monsters and keep only items?
Monsters
  • Add some kind of danger assessment to monsters (Harmless, Weak, Even, Dangerous, Deadly etc)
  • Named monsters (mini bosses)
  • Immobile monsters: Statues, Deadly plants
  • Show monster description at first encounter of a new monster
  • More monsters!
  • Monsters should avoid undiscovered traps (they already avoid discovered traps)
Items
  • Other lightsources (fires, torches)
Spells
  • Curse (decreases chance of attacking/casting spells or maybe preventing items from being removed)
  • Acid (damages inventory and/or equipment)
Death/Win
  • Improve "game over" screen
Gameplay
  • Investigate if a Rest command should be added (regain HP with the risk of monsters ambushing)
  • Possibly add difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard). Maybe prevent use of stairs up on Hard or something? No starting inventory? Separate highscore tables (or a single one with a score bonus depending on difficulty).

I am very interested in hearing some player feedback and suggestions on how to make Dweller even better. Do you have an idea how to improve Dweller? Please let me know!

2 comments:

  1. A few things from the top of my head

    -Passive Abilities on level up, knock back % for the warrior , ranger sometimes pins enemies to the ground, stuff like that
    -Enemies that are to stupid/crazy to run away when there hp is in the red.
    -Status ailments are aways a good addition, adding a bit more micro to the game
    -add a camp to level 1, where you sleep.
    Or even a small village with an inn
    -Lamp that uses Oil, adding micro

    o, Worgs have the mumie graphics.

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  2. Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I already have prepared the game for passive abilities, but never gotten around to actually implementing any (except for the farther field of view of the ranger). Fearless monsters is also a good one. I'll definitely add that.

    I have been thinking of how far to take the forest level. Adding the classic 'village at the entrance to the dungeon' is tempting, but I'm not sure if I should focus on that right now. I'll give it some more thought though.

    Thanks for all your suggestions!

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