These are exciting days at Gaslamp Games. Publicity is kicking up momentum and the game is nearing completion. A handful of sites have been writing previews for Dungeons of Dredmor (hey, if you’re a writer, drop us a line to the contact email in the sidebar). Our beta testers have been furiously breaking things as well and I’ve got a few thoughts on that to share.
And here’s a diggle.
But let’s have a look at those previews first eh?
…With commentary.
Our Dredmor version numbering system has run off the rails a bit as we’ve done a lot of builds in a short time period due to quick turnaround on tester feedback. Regardless, I just did a little playthrough with a focus on our smithing craft skill and took screenshots as I went along. I’ll even try to remember what I was doing at the time of each shot.
Let us begin this tour. Be sure to click on any thumbnail to view it full size.
1. The title screen. I’ve still got to do a polish round on this art (and I think we’ve got some work to do on wherever that tutorial button is supposed to lead).
2. Choosing the difficulty of the game. I’m still amazed at home readily certain-people-who-know-who-they-are have beaten Going Rogue. It does help us find out which skills to nerf, thankfully. … I’m going to go medium, because I’m really in this for taking screenshots.
Official Friend-of-Gaslamp Alex Mosolov just released the first alpha of his indie space-combat/rpg/sandbox game “Starfarer”, now available to customers who pre-order the game (at half price!).
Congratulations to Alex for shipping this release!
There is some Gaslamp involvement with Starfarer, I should add: All graphics were done by myself (David) and SF’s sound was made by our own Mr. Matthew Steele (who made all the sound and music for Dredmor).
I want to thank Alex for having me work on his game – it’s incredibly fun to draw spaceships and planets and it’s been a project I’ve wanted to do since I was 10 years old. It should be said also that in part Alex has made Gaslamp Games and Dredmor possible by hiring me to work on his game.
We also owe a lot of thanks to Alex for helping us test many painfully early in-development versions of Dungeons of Dredmor.
So best of luck to him on sales and the future of Starfarer and Fractal Softworks!
You can pre-order Starfarer from the Fractal Softworks page here. It runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
You can read more about the game’s features and planned development in the features section and the faq as well as follow development on the Fractal Softworks blog (which I occasionally post to as well). Additional screenshots and videos can be found in the media section.
Yes, this is the post on stairs alluded to by Nicholas a few days ago! And it is actually just about stairs. … But it might well tell a story which informs all manner of gameplay design processes carried through the development of Dungeons of Dredmor.
To start: Dredmor needs stairs. They’re the classic portal between dungeon levels in roguelikes, and as much punk-rawk pleasure as I’d take in flouting convention, this is one we’re rolling with. (Portals to sub-dimensions and doors to sub-rooms will have to come in the expansion.)
Here are our wonderful stairs being wonderful at us; on the left some down-stairs, on the right some up-stairs:
They’re lovingly cut into the dungeon walls and use of the stairs is implicit in walking onto them. Simple enough. It was not always so.
It turns out I haven’t put any new screenshots on the front page since Dredmor v0.90. Considering we’re about to hit Dredmor v0.95 in the run up to release, something had to be done. Let’s get to it!
Click on the image to view full-size.
Here (in the above shot) I’ve found a Diggle Nest room absolutely full of junk. (The over-clutter is due to an issue in the dungeon building that’s compressed all the items in a full level into a space smaller than intended.)
Diggle Eggs? Good eating. And I’m getting some good use out of my Thaumite Infection wand to kill these guys.
As discussed on the, uh, “Live Design” portion of our interview on the Immortal Machines podcast back in February, Dungeons of Dredmor is going to have a difficulty level selectable at the start of the game. This should make it a bit more accessible to players both new-to-the-genre and those that play only roguelikes and love only pain.
I have answers for a few questions that may be kicking around. Read on! (And here’s an image of various skill icons to distract you.)
So how is Dredmor coming along?
More slowly than we hoped, but steadily.
A mighty sewer-brew toast to the birthday of Matthew, our esteemed sound-crafter who toils in a meat-abusing quest to please your auditory needs!
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