Hello, I am an independent game developer and I would like to present to you Dungeon Story, my upcoming Puzzle-RPG for iPhone and iPad. What you see here is just a preview of the current game. I intend to have an open dialog with the users and would love to receive your feedback as I plan to keep updating the game regularly with free new features after release! Dungeon Story will be released by end of September and will be available for only 0.59 £ / 0.79 euro / 0.99$ as a universal purchase. ---- The game is out! http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dungeon-story/id560744147 ---- Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel ---- Dungeon Story combines fast paced turn based RPG battles with match-3 puzzle elements to provide an amazing addictive experience! Your objective is to challenge hordes of powerful monsters and defeat them in order to level up to 999 and become the most powerful (and rich) hero of all times! To achieve this goal you need to match 3 or more of the same tiles in order to attack with your sword, cast spells, heal or gather coins. Apart from the really lengthy single-player mode, the game also provides multiplayer through Game Center. Use your character to challenge and defeat real life opponents online! Additional single player and multi player features are planned and will be provided for free in the nearby future. Battles in Dungeon Story are both strategic and dynamic as you can: (i) use special moves such as magic combos, (ii) take advantage of unique class abilities and (iii) gain energy that allows the use of special items such as a shield to protect you from enemy attacks, a potion to heal yourself and a bomb to deal a lot of damage. But be careful! The enemies will also use powerful special abilities to destroy you! There are so many ways to play Dungeon Story! You can play casually or not, short periods or longer! You will always want to do one more battle, gain one more level! And the best thing? Your character will always become stronger the more you play. So gather some gold, raise your experience and levels, upgrade your weapons and items, learn exciting new skills and become the best adventurer in the realm! Features: - Fast paced turn based RPG battle system featuring puzzle elements - Play in your own pace! The game is suitable for both causals and players who enjoy strategic thinking - 5 levels of progressing difficulty and a lot of replay-ability - Level up to 999 and create the most powerful character ever - Unlock 9 hero classes and exploit their unique abilities - Gather gold and upgrade tons of equipment and skills - Monsters become more powerful as you level up - *MULTIPLAYER* use your single player character against real life opponents - Optimised for Retina iPhone/iPad displays - Game Center achievements and leader-boards - Universal app - buy once and play in both devices - Game includes original music score - You can listen to your own music during the game Credits: Dungeon Story is inspired by some awesome games such as Dungeon Raid and Dragon Quest. The game is developed by a sole developer passionate about games with the help of some really great friends! ---- http://dungeonstory.wordpress.com Follow us in twitter and facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DungeonStoryRPG https://twitter.com/DungeonStory ----
A great goal, but there's a lot here to balance. If you always become stronger, and don't ever die, how do you prevent it from feeling monotonous and pointless, in that there's no risk and no tension?
This is a great question and has crossed my mind quite a lot! I have basically explored different progression options and what happens right now is that I have implemented an algorithm that scales the monsters depending on (among some other things): 1. The level of the character 3. The "dungeon" you are currently playing 2. The type of the monster Basically dungeons are levels of difficulty. As an example, you start the game in the Bloody Dungeon where you can fight monsters such as Skeletons and Zombies (among others). As you level up these monsters will also grow in power to keep the game challenging and fun (monsters with special abilities are introduced as you progress). After a while, the initial monsters start to get upgraded to more powerful ones (e.g. dragon becomes black dragon) that are harder to kill but give better rewards. Now when you progress enough and manage to unlock a new dungeon/difficulty you will come across new harder monsters. Lets take a hypothetical scenario: you are level 200 and you have 3 dungeons available (out of 5), you can choose to play the 3rd one which may be a bit too challenging for your current level/equipment/skills, or go to the 2nd one which is of "medium" difficulty and raise your character, or if you want to relax you can go to the first dungeon where the monsters should be now easier (but still scale according to your levels). As for the tension and risk, I believe the battle system offers a lot in this department! I will try explain it more in depth in an upcoming post, and maybe manage to get a gameplay video soon! I am currently in the balancing phase of the game, so got a lot of work going on for the next few weeks up to the release of the game. Most of the features are implemented but I am still working on some ideas! As I mentioned in my introductory post feel free to post suggestions Thanks guys!
As we get closer to the release of the game, I would like to announce that the game will fully support multiplayer though Game Center. The feature is fully implemented and being tested right now. This means that you can use your character from the single player mode to battle other players who are playing the game online (you fight against real opponents not just their characters). As mentioned the game supports other features of Game Center such as matchmaking, multiple leader boards and achievements. Hopefully I will have a trailer of the game soon, but it may take some additional time as I am still polishing features, improving some graphics and balancing the game. PS: Some of the screenshots above may have improved/changed in the final version of the game.
Thanks! Hope it will not let you down Right now it would take many days/weeks of playing to reach to level 999! (the exact progression rate is still being balanced and may be subject to change). As an example in an afternoon (a couple of hours playing) I could get around ~lvl20 which is where you unlock the 2nd dungeon (difficulty level) currently. In general what I am trying to achieve is a system where: (i) the character progresses quite fast (so the game does not feel boring or stale), but (ii) in the same time there should be a lot of replay-ability. This can be achieved, among others, by the levelling system (rewards the players who will spend a lot of time in the game) and upgrading equipment/skills/class ranks. Every time you play you will feel rewarded (even if that is 2-3 battles per day) as your character will become stronger bit by bit. And of course you can use this character to fight other people online which adds extra fun! Keep in mind though that the character progression and RPG elements is just one aspect of the game. The real fun, in my opinion, is in the combat system which combines the core puzzle gameplay elements well known from Dungeon Raid (matching 3 or more tiles in any direction) with the use of combos, special items and class/monster abilities to give a nice twist of strategy. Battle is its still fast paced though to not get boring.
Thanks a lot for the good words! Hopefully you will like the end result Updated the first post with some more recent pictures as I was working with some visual improvements (among many gameplay improvements) the last few days. Single player polishing is almost done and I am planning to spend the next couple of days polishing the multiplayer. Hopefully I will record a gameplay video by weekend!
Thank you for taking the time to communicate with us on the forum about your game. Based upon what you have shared so far it looks and sounds absolutely fantastic, incorporating many novel elements into tried and true core gameplay mechanics. The online multiplayer support is definitely a big plus also. I am eagerly looking forward to Dungeon Story's release.
Thanks for the support guys! About the communication, it is a very important aspect for me, as I plan to keep improving the game regularly based on player's feedback after release. After all I am a gamer too, so I am really trying to develop a game that I would enjoy playing myself!
Yes exactly! And this combined with monsters that scale depending on (i) your level, (ii) how deep you are in the dungeon and (iii) the dungeon (difficulty level) you are playing, hopefully will provide a very rewarding, fun and challenging experience every time you play the game! Some additional info about the monsters system. In general, there are three tiers of monsters (with each dungeon offering new more powerful ones): Normal, Special and Bosses. The normal ones do not possess any special ability, the special ones have more powerful stats and can possess random abilities from a pool of existing ones (each monster can have different abilities depending on its type, e.g. a Vampire can drain your life or absorb your energy and a dragon can use dragon fire among other). The bosses are similar to the special monsters, but much rarer and with much higher stats. But the harder the monster you manage to kill, the higher the rewards
As promised here is the first gameplay preview from the game! I had to record it from my mac's screen using the retina iPhone simulator, and its the first time I attempt to create a game trailer but here we are! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoYJdU4-e-Y Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Game is coming soon guys!
Hi guys, a quick update and some additional info on the battle items system: The game is reaching the final stage of development now (hopefully submitted to the App Store during next week), with (almost) all features implemented and most bugs fixed. I am still balancing the game until last moment based on the beta testing feedback and making gameplay improvements/optimisations. Multiplayer is 100% working now too, and its quite fun! To avoid confusion the item system is different from the equipment/skills system and is basically a gameplay mechanic that tries to add a very nice strategic twist in the core battle gameplay. So how the battle item system works. Basically you can have 3 items: the shield, the potion and the bomb. These can be upgraded/bought, you don't have them all unlocked from the beginning. During combat, you gain a secondary resource called energy (the rate of gain can be affected by stuff such as monster abilities). When one energy block (from the total 3) is full you can start using one of the items. The shield protects you from X% incoming damage during the next couple of turns (useful when you expect a lot of incoming damage during the next turns). The potion heals for a X% amount of your total health (useful if no hearts exist in the battlefield and you are almost dead). The bomb destroys the battlefield (all tiles are randomised) and deals some damage to the monster. Now depending on how much energy bars you spend when activating an item it can have an increased effect. This system fits very well in the overall design of the game and combined with the match-3 core gameplay it provides battles that are both fast paced but also require quite some strategic thinking (should you use your energy now or save it for a more challenging monster that should appear next turn). In other words both fun and challenging!
Thanks a lot! Fingers crossed, the last few days have been seriously hectic with coding and debugging almost non stop!
Thanks for the good words guys! Wrapping up the game quite well right now! Today, I am working on adding the achievements in game (the last feature left). I plan to add around ~80 of them (I have coded like half of them until now so its just an estimate guess from my draft). I will include from common/expected ones to some hidden / (very) challenging ones for the players who want to go one step further Moreover, I am making sure that even if you play offline the achievements are not lost. Got a system in place to automatically synchronise all your achievements whenever game center is available! Btw some of the above pictures are a bit outdated as i have improved a bit some menu's/gfx. I will keep you updated - we are getting close to the submission day!
