– Just wishing Nicholas, our bold programming wizard, a very Dredmor birthday. Today we unshackle him from his hole in the Code Mines and allow him all the sewer-brew he can pour into his gullet. Cheers!
Author Archives: David
What is a Warrior to do?
Combat RPGs don’t traditionally offer much active choice to a warrior character: Do you attack? Do you not attack?
Maybe you get to quaff (but never “drink”) a potion every so often. A player’s agency comes more from the set-up to combat through having a much more equipment-driven character than, say, a wizard. It is compelling to collect and use equipment, but a warrior really ought to have something to do in combat aside from clicking “attack”.
But this is a known problem, and it has been dealt before, and cleverly.
Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Game Design |
Tagged art, game design, game mechanics, icons
7 Comments
7 Comments
The Nefarious Devices of Dredmor’s Dungeon
Or: Mortality & Happenstance via Mechanical Means
Traps are a bit of a conundrum because it’s not generally good game design to aggravate the player by having them randomly die. Aye, The Grand Tradition of dungeon crawlers demands traps in some form, but they pose the problem of being hidden surprise! damage-dealers. If a player is walking along and gets offed by a Dwarven land mine, hilarious though it may be to randomly explode, their agency has been taken away and this is frustrating to a player.
What is one to do with traps? Read on!
Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Game Design |
Tagged game design, game mechanics, gameplay design, rambling
3 Comments
3 Comments
The Essential Attributes of a Dubious Hero
In which David rambles about why Caddishness is a character attribute in Dungeons of Dredmor
I was listening to some podcast on RPG design a while back, I forget the name of it (killer opening, eh?), and there was a line of thought brought up that went something like: “What is your RPG about?” “Hope.” “Why isn’t that a stat in the game?”
And this struck me: A game is about the mechanics of the game, regardless of what overt theme is overlaid in stilted cut-scenes. The optimal gameplay path is the message.
Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Game Design |
Tagged at least I tag my posts, being silly, game design, game mechanics, rambling
1 Comment
1 Comment
Design Dialog
I’ve long since learned that it’s far better to present Nicholas with a fait accompli which he finds amusing to implement rather than a rational argument for a feature. Allow me to demonstrate.
Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor |
Tagged art, gameplay design, madness, quoting people without their permission, teamwork
9 Comments
9 Comments
Why Do a Job Once When You Can Do It Eight Times in Only Eight Times the Time?
Quiet? Only outwardly. Our Dear Leader saw fit to allow ye players to select your own resolution rather than be limited to a proper and traditional 800×600 screen. Oh, we have such things in store. You will be able to descend far deeper into the Dungeons of Dredmor than ever imagined previously!
Now come with me and perform a cheap analogue of descending into the dungeon by scrolling down past this large image which is a crop of the title screen painting, showing how I’m expanding it to fit higher resolutions!
Dredmor Comics: The Curse, page 1
Okay, done. With page one of five. (This is going to take longer than I expected.)
This is a comic I’m drawing to promote Dungeons of Dredmor which has been written by the talented Mr. Vining, our lead programmer, and illustrated by myself. I’m going to do these as a series so, uh, stay tuned for more in the next … some period of time.
Click the image below to view the full first page.
Pixelcraft: The Colors of Frogatto
For quite some time I’ve been intending to write about pixel art technique. Today I stumbled on a pixel-art platformer game called Frogatto & Friends which has inspired me to get on this because I was struck by the game’s lovely art. (I haven’t actually played the game yet, though it is available for free on PC/Mac/Linux, and the code, but not the assets, is open source.)
So let’s see if I can explain what’s going on with the pixels of Guido Bos and Richard Kettering (who it seems also lead the art for Battle For Wesnoth; neat).
