It’s my birthday today, and here’s my gift to my readers and kickstarters: the Dungeon Robber video game beta is now available!
I’ve talked before about this game. To recap, it’s a free Flash web game, a final bonus reward to cap the Random Dungeon Generator Kickstarter. It uses the original D&D rules to construct random dungeons and then lets you send in characters to die.
As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to contract featuritis. I always end up jamming a few more things than I planned in all of my projects. As I’ve mentioned before, that’s how this game ended up with pets, extra classes, and the textbook sign of feature creep, a fishing minigame. Well, since then, I’ve added new weapons (including D&D classics like the bastard sword), new treasures, new class abilities, new town buildings, and, based on many hours of alpha testing, new conveniences.
Here’s one: Dungeon dead ends, the curse of any randomly-generated labyrinth, are now semi-safe locations where you can eat food, rest and recover a spell or two, and even send a henchman back to town to sell some of your inventory-clogging vendor trash. All of this comes with a risk. While you’re sitting in the dead end, munching your iron rations and keeping watch down the hallway, you might be ambushed from behind by a monster passing through a secret door.
I’ve also implemented every trick and surprise in the original 1979 random-dungeon charts, including ones which are vanishingly rare. If you happen to find a magic pool that grants wishes in the dungeon, email me and let me know, and tell me what you wished for and how it turned out.
This game has a lot of moving parts, and it’s sure to be buggy. I’d like to hear about any bugs you hit. Also let me know what parts are fun, what parts aren’t, what you found confusing, and what grisly end met your 2nd level Dungeon Robber who somehow found himself on level 7 of the dungeon. My email is paul at blogofholding.com.
And finally, some challenges to you: I’ve been playing this game, in some version or other, for months, and I have never become King. And on the perma-death Advanced mode, my record is even worse. I’ve never made it to level 5, Knight. If you break my records, let me know.
Wow. Just wow. What a neat little game.
Is there a spreadsheet that contains the same info as the map and, if so, how can someone who missed the Kickstarter get it?
Duh, just found the Buy Stuff button and answered my own question. Time to pull out the ol’ credit card.
Wow this email notification freaked me out because it is ALSO MY BDAY! yay us and yay Dungeon Robber!
Aug 2, the sweetest birthday of all!
This game is excellent. I do have a bug to report though, I’m unable to rest at home when I have exactly the amount needed to rest.
Great game, I’m having a lot of fun! Definitely will look at the KS. How do you eat food though?
So, the fishing pole costs 10 GP and allows you to fish. But so does the 10 foot pole, which only costs 2 GP, and also allows you to probe for traps. What am I missing here?
Hm, how do you turn off test mode? And http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Happy_Birthday_Song_Contest/The_New_Birthday_Song_Contest
Great addictive game! Some bugs:
* High level monsters do not have very scary amounts of hit points. Just fought a minotaur that had 3 HP.
* Sometimes henchmen don’t have a name and fight as “undefined”
I ended up with a bunch of “undefined” stuff in my backpack. It told me I had to drop something to do anything, but it wouldn’t let me drop the undefined stuff.
Aside from that, I’m having a blast!!
Also, now its asking if I want to reroll stuff.
Wow! Nicely done. This is a really cool game. A mobile app version would be super cool. Just saying.
I’ve only played a little so far. I got lost and low on HP and had a tough time retreating. Can you actually map where you’ve been?
Thanks for making a great game!
Thanks for making this, it’s lots of fun!
When you use a scroll of animate dead, instead of using it up it gives you another one. Endless undead army!
@Terren: Good catch! I’ve made a fix which will go in my next uploaded version.
@Mezz: You can only eat food in some safe areas in the dungeon: dead ends where you don’t have to worry about ambush. An “eat (f)ood” will pop up if you’re hurt.
@William: A ten foot pole with a string on it catches worse treasure and has a greater chance of attracting sea monsters. I’ll put this in a tooltip so people will know!
@Rantharon and @David: “Test mode” is a debugging button I forgot to remove before I launched it. I’ll take it out.
@David: The next version will remove the possibility of having undefined stuff.
@Aaron: Hilarious necromantic bug! I was tempted to leave it in but I removed it.
@Matthew: Mapping doesn’t actually help because, right now, the game doesn’t remember the map of where you’ve been – it’s different every time. I’m planning on real mapping and a mobile version for if I do a version 2…
@Roger: Yeah, that was a tweak I made to D&D rules. I thought that having monsters have high AC and low HP would increase the randomness of fights, which is what I wanted: most fights can end in one hit. Rocket tag is actually to the advantage of a crazy desperate peasant who runs into a hill giant. About the undefined henchman name: I THINK I fixed that in my latest version, but I haven’t been able to make the situation come up.
All: These changes will be uploaded soon, maybe Sunday or Monday after I do a little more testing.
Love this game! Any ideas on how to play it on an iPad?
@john payne: Flash doesn’t work on an iPad? That’s … an interesting feature. I thought Apple stuff “just worked”.
Also, in the game:
It isn’t explicit whether retiring with enough XP for filling the Tier 4 town position will also fill any Tier 1, 2, and 3 positions.
This is highly amusing. Thanks!
When the market sells 10 items, I couldn’t find any way to buy the 10th item.
Nice catch, Greg! A fix for this will be in the next version.
I played this earlier this morning, got a second-level retiree, closed out of my browser, came back this evening . . . nothing remains of my previous adventures.
Opera was the browser, latest flash version.
I flat out don’t have the kind of time necessary to play if I have to start from scratch every time.
“The floor tilts, spilling you down a chute going down 1 level. It’s too slippery to climb back up.
To level 2 of the dungeon!
Will you (e)xplore this level of the dungeon? go (u)pstairs?”
I went up and back down.
Woo temple! Cleric bugs:
* Sanctuary spell doesn’t end when you attack – it’s essentially an invulnerable shield.
* Cure light wounds heals both you and your henchman off the same cast, which may be intentional, but then if he is wounded and you are not you get no opportunity to cast cure.
With the low hp monsters, I see what you are saying but in practice this means that level 4 is not any more scary than level 1; level 10 monsters can easily be handled by a level 3 character; and my starting character has the hit points of two purple worms, which doesn’t seem right.
@Thomas: I’ve seen that happen if the Flash client crashes. Did that happen for you? I hope to add a backup of games to the server so that it can be restored if Flash crashes, but that won’t be in the Monday build.
On the tilting floor: great point. You should be lost somewhere on the next level when that happens.
@Roger:
You know, I TOTALLY FORGOT that’s how Sanctuary is supposed to work. I’ll fix it – although I wonder if Sanctuary will now be the weakest cleric spell? Cleric players, what do you think?
You’re right, it is intentional that it acts like Mass Cure, and i should have the opportunity to cast it when the henchman is injured. I’ll add it.
It didn’t crash in any visible way. I will try it in another browser, just in case Opera closes in a way that flash doesn’t understand.
Fun game! I retired one character to the temple (with gauntlets of ogre power and +1 plate mail). A couple of things I’m curious about –
I don’t think there was an AC bonus for +1 plate mail – my AC was 18 with it and a shield (and maybe +1 for Dex) – I think it was the same with just non-magical plate mail.
I ran into a red mist that increased my damage while I was in the dungeon, but there was no added bonus – did this do anything, or did it increase the chances of getting a high roll or something?
I’m confused about how the classes become unlocked – after retiring this character, which should have unlocked the cleric class, that doesn’t seem to be an option for new characters.
Thanks for any feedback!
@Matt: The AC bonus for the +1 plate mail is there, but it seems to conflict with regular shields. When and if you get a +1 shield, they should add up properly. I’ve reached 20AC in my last game with a +1 plate mail, +1 shield, ring of protection, but no dex bonus, which is the correct amount (16+1+2+1), maybe the dex bonus is the one messing things up?
To be able to play the cleric class, you need to have a high WIS on character creation, be it with the randomly chosen first high stat, or the one you choose. Same goes with the wizard (need high INT), the thief (need high DEX), and the fighter (need high STR).
@admin: I’ve sent you an email with the 20 bugs or so I’ve found during my playthrough! Good luck fixing all that!
Thanks BlackGyver – that makes sense.
And suddenly my town has an inn and temple (which I didn’t see before) – cool.
Are all the villages named the same thing?
Yeah, Basileus for the Basic village and Advent for the Advanced village. I had a third level of difficulty, Old School, with a village named Oldhawke, but I removed it.
It would be cool if every person got to name their own, maybe using your village name generator.
Also, how do I load a saved game? I was doing really well this morning, but now the only option it gives me is to start a new game. Did my game from this morning disappear?
That’s a good idea, I DID write a village name generator, didn’t I?
If the savegame’s not to the left of the dwarf, then Flash ate it, for which I apologize. I’m working on a way to save data to the blogofholding server as a backup for the native flash data-saving stuff, which seems to crash sometimes.
It’s a lot of fun. But man, the market should sell sacks. My first guy stumbled into a big pile of loot but had to leave it behind because he didn’t have a sack . . . and I didn’t get one until I eventually looted one from a monster. I mean, come on . . .
I have a Cleric character now – I keep losing the bonus to my +1 mace, when I stow it and re-equip the bonus comes back.
No XP was awarded for killing a medusa with a van helsing kit (is that right?)
drinking a quickness potion leads to an undefined item added to my inventory, but I still have the quickness potion.
When a boring beetle is encountered, the picture of a stirge is highlighted.
Is there an obvious way to save and quit? (aside from leaving the dungeon then leaving the page)
I’m still having a lot of fun with this game – I found a magic pool that turned all my gold to lead (no wishes yet).
@Matt: You’ll be glad to know that all these bugs are fixed in the version that I’m about to publish! (except a Quit feature in town, which is a good idea! I’ll add it to the queue.)
@PeterD: Yeah, sacks become available when you get a yeoman. It is a little implausible. What kind of store doesn’t have sacks? What are the goods stored in?
A couple bugs that I haven’t seen here yet:
Running a cleric, if I cast cure light wounds during a fight… well, let’s say I have 2 hit points, and cast cure light and it cures me for 5, and then the creature does 4 hit points of damage. I don’t know how many I’ll end up with, but it is NEVER 3.
Also: when the red mist comes up and made me stronger, it actually made my to-hit and damage worse, not better. I was already strong, AND had a pair of gauntlets of ogre strength, AND a dagger + 1. It took me from +3 to hit/+3 damage to +2 to hit/+2 damage. When I unequipped and reequipped my dagger, it took me back to +3.
Oh, and it seems pretty silly that you can rest and recover spells in some places in the dungeon, but you can’t CAST them there.
Good point! You should be able to cure light wounds when you’re camping. I’ll also give clerics/mist a test.
Whoooopsie. I just clicked ‘sell vendor trash’ and the wand of magic missiles I found disappeared too.
i figured out what happened with the clerics. It says ‘you are healed up to X hit points’. I figured that meant ‘your hit points are increased by up to X’ (less if you’re not that injured) when what it actually means is ‘you are healed UNTIL YOU HAVE X hit points.’ It is just inartfully worded.
Just made it to level 6! Having a hard time deciding if I should retire or keep going. I haven’t been below dungeon level 4 and I don’t think I even fought anything on level 4 before finding some sweet loot and heading back to town to cash it in. Plate and shield and a bastard sword, and I’m pretty tough to stop. Helps that I’ve lucked into two Jacinths of Inestimable Beauty and a few magic items that I had to sell because I couldn’t use.
I think you might have made fishing with a 10 foot pole a little too easy. I currently have 26 food in my possession.
You’ll never have enough food, trust me. Well, unless you’re the kind of guy using potions all the time.
You were right. I went down to dungeon level 6 and blew through that food right quick. Lived to tell the tale though…
“You are attacked by a sea monster!”
oh shit!
Oh, man! My level 3 DR had just returned with over 5,000 GP of loot. Sad that he’s lost forever. Oh, well.
One more thought about villages. If everyone gets to name their own, maybe that’s what your game is saved under, instead of the name of your character.
@Paul – yeah, I finally got someone to Yeoman and just retired him. Now my new guys can have sacks – but annoyingly my new guy had 0 GP and no bag, and scored a big pile of loose platinum and had to leave most of it behind and go back and buy a bag. Depressing.
I do like the 1d based lockpicking roll though.
Hrm, Sanctuary seems useless now. I tried casting it and then retreating but the monster just followed and killed me. Maybe later on it’ll buy me time to heal but for now it seems pointless.
@BlackGyver
If you get a fishing pole you can end up with LOTS of food. Is fantastic. My best character so far got that way via a +2 fishing pole. I sort of regret retiring them at bishop.
Woo-Hoo! I finally made 5th level and have a +1 sword and +1 platemail!
This is just beautiful! I had a blast playing this and it is very addictive. Love all the features (and didn’t unlock all of them yet, but looking forward to). Just unlocked the fighter. Brilliant design, all in all!
I played the 1.1 and didn’t encounter any bugs so far…
How do you exactly cast priest scrolls? I made a fighter char with WIS as second high attribute, but I wasn’t able to find out how to actually use priest scrolls. When I pressed (u)se during a fight with a sanctuary scroll in my inventory, the only option was to use (n)one. Am I doing something wrong, or are priest scrolls not working as they are supposed to work?
This is something I never made clear: only the Dungeon Robber class (and cleric) has a chance to cast cleric scrolls. I need to update the class and stat descriptions accordingly.