With version 0.5.102, Dance of Death reached a stable point and is ready for its next major features: the world map and wilderness. I definitely have my work cut out for me for 0.6, and though the goals list below is short, it is a meaty one.
In addition to wilderness generation, v0.6 will begin to reflect the results of a recent discussion in r.g.r.d. regarding gender bonuses and the social responsibilities of game developers at large. What begun as a simple disagreement regarding gender bonuses evolved into a source of inspiration that helped me define where I want to take the gameworld as a whole, the fruits of which will be seen throughout the next releases.
The following are the goals for Dance of Death v0.6:
- World generator.
- Wilderness area generator.
- Ability to move between wilderness areas.
- Ability to move between a wilderness area and the world map.
- Moving at the world map level.
- Entering a wilderness area from the world map.
- Entering a dungeon from a wilderness area.
- Exiting from a dungeon onto a wilderness area.
- Improved name generator.
- Gender bonuses tweak.
- New playable races.
- Rework main quest to include the wilderness.
- Saving the world map.
- When the game loses focus, add a “Paused, click to continue.” overlay to ensure the keyboard focus is always correctly active.
Thanks again to everyone for your support and meaningful discussions; you have played a crucial part in keeping the development momentum strong!
Sounds like another good step forward indeed, best of luck knocking it out.
Heh, for some reason I’ve wound up creating an arbitrary competition in my mind between Dance of Death and Menace of the Mines as of late—probably due to the odd fact that both projects seem to manage about the same pace and you both recently hit a v.5 milestone!
Great game ! I particularly like the very intuitive UI. My only concerns about version 0.5 :
- too much useless identical items. It’s kind of depressing finding its 5th leather belt
- too easy. I won the first time (though the ogre almost killed me). Maybe there should be one boss per level, delivering an item unlocking the next level.
Thanks for the compliments! An intuitive UI is a large focus for Dance of Death, and I’ll be revamping it to streamline it further in a version or two.
Both the items and monsters are placeholders for now. I’ve hardcoded a handful of them to have a playable game, but have not yet fleshed out a robust item generation system or a monster generation system. I plan on dedicating a release to rewriting each of these features and fleshing them out.
A large part of the ease of the game comes from the rapid regeneration. I’ve consciously left this in, because, in these early stages of development, I want players to have a relatively easy time getting through the game, to facilitate feedback. As I introduce different ways to heal, through food, potions, spells, etc., rapid regeneration will be removed.
Development has been spotty in the past two weeks, with vacation and a heavy workload, but I plan on having 0.6 out for the September 19th ARRP!