Blogs - EmanuelMontero

Some days ago, there was great news for all indie game developers: 8-bit funding was just launched, being the first corwdfunding website dedicated to indie game developers! Of course, DungeonQuest is already in 8-bit funding, trying to find some contributions so I can hire a great artist which makes the game look really epic.

Now, let's see which are the game goals, where's the game development right now, and what's my next step:

• Each player controls a character in a party of up to four heroes. Now the game works only for 1 or 2 players using the same keyboard. It's great to play hand to hand with another friend, but the next step is adding XBOX 360 controller support.
• Players can choose between 10 heroes of high-fantasy: warrior, elf, dwarf, thief, wizard, cleric, palladin, assassin, barbarian, and necromancer. Warrior and elf are already implemented. Thief and dwarf are at 50%.
• Each hero has different initial stats for movement, jump, health, magic and damage. These stats can be leveled up gaining XPs. Stats are already implemented. Next step is implementing the level up system.
• Players can customize the colors of the hero hair, skin, clothes, armor and weapons. The coloring function is already implemented. There's a little glitch with skin colors, but I hope it will disappear when the pixelart is replaced.
• Players fight hordes of the following enemies: goblins, orcs, fimirs, chaos warriors, ogres, shamans, skeletons, zombies, mummies, harpies, specters, minotaus, spiders and lesser beasts like rats, and bats. There are no enemies implemented. Enemy pixelart is 25% completed. My intention is to re-use the coloring system for enemies. So I can add and color new enemies directly from the level editor.
• Dungeons are filled with traps, secret passages, treasure chests and many surprises. Floor traps and spikes, secret passages, and doors are implemented. Dart traps, chests and switches are the next things to do.
• Big boss enemies wait in the end of each dungeon. I want huge bosses with weak points, attack patterns and some clever puzzle solution instead of large HP bar. For now, big boss fights are in my list of things to do, somewhere behind lesser enemies.

There's a lot of work to do, so let's get going. I'll keep you posted ;)

Cheers!
Emanuel

Indie game developement is exhausting. Especially if you're a standalone indie with a non-game-related part-time job to pay the bills. Hey, I belong to this category: working half day as a researcher (they actually pay me to write papers!) and half day as an inde. That's what I call...

Being Indier than Indy

Oh, crap. I just came at home after work and there's a ton of work to do for the game: programming that last feature I left half-working yesterday, pixelart some more backgrounds and enemies, and playtesting gameplay to see if combat is right... am I forgetting about something? I've read some articles these last days about promoting your XBOX indie game. Seems like everyone says you have to promote your game at least a month before launch. And I don't even have a development diary to stay my audience tuned (ha! I don't have a real audience anyways)... so let's start kickstarting that development diary.

DungeonQuest development diary officially started!

But is it really possible to keep a development diary while being a standalone indie? Well, that certainly means adding a new item to my indie to do list: take some time off the game, and write about your progress. Seems fair to me. Just two more constraints: I'll try to make it weekly to be reallistic with my development schedule, and I'll try to make it as fun and visual as I can (I know we all prefer to see a screenshot or an in-game video instead of these lenghty blog entries...sorry about that).

Here's a bit of development history:

Last year I started a project for Dream-Build-Play contest (you know, that Microsoft contest for XNA games). The game (Pixel Dungeon) couldn't make it to the contest (you can read a full post-mortem in my Gamasutra blog). However, that gave me the opportunity to try the core gameplay of the game, which showed me the game has some potential (despite the infinte list of bugs, unwanted features, and the overall lack of polish).

About a year after that failure (and after some other indie projects), I gathered energies and spent about the entire christmas holidays working in a second version of the game. Here's where the game was born with a new name: DungeonQuest.

HeroQuest + Super Mario Bros = DungeonQuest

Remember that old board game called HeroQuest? If you can't remember I'm sure you haven't played it. Here's the english TV trailer for those who missed that instant classic:

In case the video didn't make it clear enough, we can say that HeroQuest is 4-player board game about medieval fantasy. Each player controls a hero (a Conan-like barbarian, a wizard, a dwarf and an elf) that team up to adventure into a dangerous dungeon to defeat an evil mage. Wouldn't it just be great to play HeroQuest in your XBOX 360? But wait, there's more to come...

What if the game can be as simple and catchy as the first Super Mario Bros? Wow, that's a lot to ask. And here's how DungeonQuest came to life.

After 2 months of part-time development I have a full spec of the game in a cool game design document, a working and playable prototype with an embedded level editor, and a ton of work to do. Want to see more? Please, post a comment (I'll post it anyways, you know. But you can make an indie feel good with a simple comment. Isn't that great?)

Next time I'll show you the development roadmap and how's the game so far.

Cheers,
Emanuel