Dungeon Master Forum

Hello,

I'm an Indie developer (owner of Mana Games website) ; so far I mainly created tennis games, but since long time I wanted to try to do a RPG, and I finally started to do a Dungeon Master clone. It's still in the early development stage, but the game just reached the Alpha (ie: it's far from complete, but external testing is possible & required to be sure it's headed where I want ).

A screenshot ; visually, nothing is final (ie: this is mostly programmer art, only placeholders till some artists actually create all the needed stuff), but it gives some idea of what's going on :


So would you like to test it ? If so, let me know and I'll send you a download link by Private Message (for Windows : require a Shader 2.0 compatible 3D Card ; ie: any gamer 3D card since 5 years).

Mainly, I'd need to have answer to these 3 questions :

1) so is it fun as it is, even a little bit ?

2) with a better IA (ie: smarter monsters with more variety in their behaviours and a lot more abilities), more abilities & Talent trees for our Party, more weapons, gears & stuff to loot, better graphisms, all that through 20 levels for about 20 hours of gameplay, will it get tremendously fun ?

3) How long time did it take you to finish the 1st level ? (total time is shown of top left of the screen, but it includes the time spent in Menus)

Note: Dungeon Breaker is a project codename, not the final name of the game.

EDIT:
Alpha 2 is out ! More info below in this topic (download link in this 1st post also leads to Alpha 2)

I wrote the previous message a bit too fast, and I forgot some details :
- this Alpha features a level (or an half level) that should requires between 30 and 60 minutes to finish
- the combat system is very different from Dungeon Master and it's the main thing that needs testing
- there's an integrated full featured visual map editor ; although there's no documentation, so it's not easy to use it completely, as it has a lot of advanced features

Little additional notes :
- you can move & turn with the keypad 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 keys ; you can re-assign these keys in the config tool that pops-up at start-up
- you can press the right button to enter mouse-look view ; without unpressing the right button, you can now press the left button to advance
- if the FPS are low, lower the quality in the config tool at start, and then press 'Esc' during game and lower "View Range" in "Video Options"

The main bugs & issues have been fixed so now I can post a public link to the Alpha :
http://www.managames.com/download.php?D ... er_dmr.rar (~40MB) .

I'd still like a couple of reports, so if you didn't try it, now is a good time !

Thanks in advance for your comments !

This looks like an interesting game from the screenshot you posted, I'll definitely want to try it out before too long. I'm a bit busy with projects of my own so I probably wouldn't be able to give you the time you deserve as a major tester at this time (that may change later though) but I though I'd give you a little encouragement for now.

and welcome to the forums!

Seriously Unserious,
thanks !
Late report is better than no report at all so if in the future you have some free time, don't hesitate to give it a try !

Time passes in another scale here, so don't worry manuton, there will be more replies, I bet.

Yup. When you posted that I think a lot of the forum regulars (myself included) were distracted by the Chrismas story thread (an annual December tradition here) and actual Christmas.

looks good manutoo.. yes, i some how missed it as well... welcome.

will the dungeon have a story relation to the originals?

Chaos-Shaman,
no, the story won't be very important (although it'll have a bit more story telling than in the original DM) and it won't be related to the originals.

Basically : you're a new guard or staff recruit in a dungeon prison ; the 1st night you're there some bad & mysterious stuff happens, and when you woke up all the prisoners escaped. The warden is scared & hurry to runaway so he appoints you to get back the escaped prisoners and let you pick 3 other prison personal to help you for that while he's leaving through the dungeon lift with the remaining staff.
So you'll have to get the prisoners back & discover why they could have escaped in the 1st place.
After that, it'd be spoiler (and it's still unclear in my head ).

sounds right, you're staying on the RPG style i remember. i just grabbed it, keep up the great work, i'll have a go at it.

Hello,

here an update on the development of my Dungeon Crawler : I just finished the 2nd Alpha !

Here a new screenshot, that illustrates some of the changes in the GUI :


The goal of this Alpha 2 is to find a few people willing to do Beta testing during the development of the game.
It's important for these people to have :
- good analysis skills
- played at least some MMORPGs, and/or RPGs, and/or Dungeon Crawlers (preferably Dungeon Master from 1987, Might & Magic saga from the 90's, World of Warcraft, or Legend of Grimrock), or possibly some Hack and Slash games
- could do about 1 hour of test per month till end of this year (if only 50% of this, it's still ok, though)

I'll need mostly feedback on :
- level layout (ie: is it interesting to explore the dungeons, level after level)
- combat system (ie: is it fun & challenging)
- puzzles (ie: are they too hard or too easy)
- boss fights (ie: do they bring a plus)

So if you're interested, let me know in this topic or here (if you prefer private reporting) : http://www.managames.com/mail_en/?subje ... %20Testing .

Download link for the 2nd Alpha, featuring a test level that should offer you between 30 minutes to 1 hour of gameplay :
http://www.managames.com/download.php?D ... r_dma2.rar [~43MB]

If you have any comment about this Alpha, don't hesitate to write them in this topic !

Notes:
- you need a good 3D card to play it ; a 6 years old $300 card, a 4 years old $200 card, or a 2 year old $100 card should be ok
- if the FPS are low, lower the quality in the config tool at start, and then press 'Esc' during game and lower "View Range" in "Video Options"
- as you may already have noticed, it's not a Dungeon Master "clone" per se ; it's more an "alike", as a lot of stuff will be different

New features since Alpha 1:
- a bunch of new stuff in the editor, but only 1 made it to the test level : a secret door ! (but almost all mechanisms are in the DevTest dungeon, if you want to check it)
- enemies are smarter, can do more stuff (strafe, attack from far, ...)
- the final boss fight is actually a boss fight ! That means it takes more time to kill him and it's somewhat hard
- semi-random loot : some enemies now drop random loot for your party to equip
- attributes & secondary attributes
- talent trees (at least the basis of them, the talents themselves still need to be done)
- chat log
- auto-mapping
- HP & mana potions
- Difficulty levels (you can change it anytime, in case you have trouble to kill the boss )
- And some other little things

So now the game engine is done at ~90%. It mostly misses :
- all handling of special abilities & talents
- hotkeys
- color highlighting in tool-tip (bad stuff in red, good stuff in green, etc...)
- a few little stuff here & there
- slightly better animation system for the enemies

And of course, it still misses all the content :
- some decent dungeon environments (I did the current ones and I'm not an artist, in case you didn't notice )
- 20 different kind of enemies
- a bunch of bosses
- a ton of equipment and enchantments
- 20 levels to explore
- 4 classes & all the talents & abilities for your party members
- menus
- more sound FX
- a good bunch of visual FX

New screenshots, much more beautiful, can be seen in this new topic => http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... 71&t=29904 ..!

Hello,

here some screenshots from the "Beta 1" (the whole game isn't in a Beta state, but the 1st part is, or almost is ).

Visually, it's close of the final result, although it still needs some serious works on the GUI and the visual FX.

They're taken from the first 5-10 minutes of the game.







Last 2 pictures are taken with the Frozen time effect, that occurs when using the Active Pause.

I'm still looking for a couple of beta testers.
Let me know here if you're interested (requirements are explained 2 posts above) : http://www.managames.com/mail_en/?subje ... %20Testing