DMNet : a Dungeon Master multiplayer remake

[Kroah]

Hi all,

DMNet is a C# project of creating a multiplayer version of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back.

It's heavily based on the resources made available by the community, and especially the stunning work of ChristopheF with ReDMCSB.

http://bringerp.free.fr/Files/DMNet/DMNet.png

Here's a preview video of me & Koin playing the first level over Internet :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYn9Wma8Q4Q

Teaming up with a friend, your child or your boy/girlfriend, to let him/her discover this incredible game is really fun and entertaining.

DMNet is actually in (closed) beta-testing and will be released in the near™ future, stay tuned!
Kroah


PS : You may already know me from my multiplayer remake of Colonial Conquest (CoCoNet) and some reverse engineering works on various Atari & Amiga games (http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/).

[The Journeyman]

omg, I like this! It'd be a dream come true
How about using the DM knight's graphics as a replacement for the other party? It might make it look more realistic without much additional effort being necessary.

[Kroah]

I can't edit my original post (the image is hosted on a http server, instead of https).

Here's a ingame screenshot :

[Kroah]

How about using the DM knight's graphics as a replacement for the other party? It might make it look more realistic without much additional effort being necessary.

We have tried several graphics and we felt having a "transparent" one was less obstructing in the dungeon view.
I agree this is less immersive than a solid graphic.

But the limitation of the engine prevents having different graphics in the group, so the same graphic would apply to the 4 characters (being a fighter, mage, etc.). Maybe some people would like having a mage oriented graphic ? (but then all the group will share it).

I haven't actually found an "all purpose" class-less graphic to test with. I've browsed many game graphics (like EOB, LoL, etc.) but nothing was suitable enough imho.

So for now, we stick with this, any idea is welcome

[Kroah]

If you can't access YouTube, here's a small animated gif :

[oh_brother]

Very cool!

[m1ckey]

Looks awesome!

Something I always dreamt about back in the day.

[Paul Stevens]

Wonderful. This opens many possibilities.

A cooperative race to fusion. How much can the record times
be improved? Complex strategies seem possible, especially in
Chaos Strikes Back.

A competition between two players. Tiggy versus Halk.
What are the rules?

I see there is a server and a client. Can there be a server
and multiple clients? Is there any possibility of recording games
CSBwin-style? In CSBwin, the record/playback feature was
rather trivial to implement.

[The Journeyman]

in RTC George Gilbert introduced monsters that can roam around independently from their group. Now, thanks to Kroah, we may get champions that can roam around independently from their party

Also...to make it a little bit absurd: if there were 23 clients and 1 server, then the complete Hall of Champions could gang up on Lord Chaos. Would serve him right..what with him keeping 24 champions around and all...

BTW...are there sideways attack frames for the monsters? I think not...a shame, though. *cough*gambitwherearethou*cough*

[ChristopheF]

Interesting!
One can imagine custom dungeons where cooperation or competition between players is required.
Is it possible to have two (or more) full parties of 4 champions wandering the dungeon? or is this limited to a total of 4 champions? (I notice there are no blue and red champions and rather two green and two yellow).
What kind of interactions do you plan between parties? chat, heal each other, fight,...

[The Journeyman]

Bloodwych had some interesting co-op maps. You even had to go your seperate ways for a while at some point. Interestingly enough you could not occupy the same tile.
The dungeons in Bloodwych seemed bigger, though. I guess because they were always fully lit and you had +1 vision (like in DM2).

[Antman]

This looks great! Co-op is a great idea, is there also PvP? Can you "accidentally" lob fireballs into your teammates?

I also saw you did some reverse engineering with three of my other favourite Amiga games: Speedball 2, Gods and Magic Pockets!

[The Journeyman]

@Antman about PvP
check out the video...they are lobbing stuff at each other until they both end up dead
youtube video at 22:20

[Kroah]

I see there is a server and a client. Can there be a server and multiple clients?

Yes, there can be multiple clients. The server is in fact a client too, but runs the server logic in another thread.
There's actually a limitation in the way the party is rendered in the dungeon view :
the party is in fact a fake "monster group" added just before rendering the dungeon view and removed just after. So the render logic handles it like a monster group... unfortunately the engine can handle only 1 group in a cell, so you can only see 1 party in the same cell of the dungeon view.

Because the dungeons aren't built with multiplayer in mind like in bloodwich, we allowed the parties to move in the same cell. You can see sometime that 2 characters are in the same sub-cell (when several parties are in the same cell, you see the other characters in grey top right).

Is there any possibility of recording games CSBwin-style? In CSBwin, the record/playback feature was rather trivial to implement.

Recording isn't actually implemented.
The server could record all the inputs (with the frame, etc.) on top of sending them to the clients.
It's not on top of the todo list, but technically doable.

[Kroah]

BTW...are there sideways attack frames for the monsters? I think not...a shame, though. *cough*gambitwherearethou*cough*

No, there aren't sideways attack frames, the engine does not handle it. But you hear the attack sound.

To help other parties understand the fight and what the other parties are doing, i have added a flashing red color when a character is hit, and green color when a character has the action disabled (casting a spell, attacking, etc).

[Kroah]

Interesting!
One can imagine custom dungeons where cooperation or competition between players is required.
Is it possible to have two (or more) full parties of 4 champions wandering the dungeon? or is this limited to a total of 4 champions? (I notice there are no blue and red champions and rather two green and two yellow).

Hi Christophe,

Thank you for your hard work.

There are no limits in parties, and up to 4 characters per party.

In the video, we took 2 characters in each party because :
- the monsters don't scale up to the number of characters
- the first party put both characters on the left, the other on the right, so we can easily throw items/cast spells without hurting the other party (when facing the same direction of course)
- to show you can see the other party in the same cell (top right grey characters).

What kind of interactions do you plan between parties? chat, heal each other, fight,...

The interactions are actually what the engine allows :
- throwing items/casting spells hit the other party like it would hit a monster group
- but attacking doesn't (the engine has no code about party vs party fight)
- you give items to the other party by dropping them on the floor

We haven't actually found an intuitive way to add interesting interactions like healing each others (and i miss it! any ideas are welcomed).
Maybe clicking with a healing flask in the top right grey characters when both parties are in the same cell ?

For chatting, we use discord, but we could add a simple chat system like in CoCoNet.

[m1ckey]

Imagine doing a "Leeroy Jenkins" with this one...

[Kroah]

Maybe clicking with a healing flask in the top right grey characters when both parties are in the same cell ?

I know this is strange to say it this way, but we can now "use" the other party character mouth by clicking on the top right grey character with a consumable (potions, food, etc.).
(both parties must be on the same square to see the other party grey characters)

This allows some interactions (heal/stamina/mana/shield/anti-venom potions) without needing the other party to click or do something to accept it.

[The Journeyman]

No, there aren't sideways attack frames, the engine does not handle it. But you hear the attack sound.

sooo..if there were pictures of sideways attack frames for the monsters...would you implement them, or is that totally out of the question?
It might do a lot for the atmosphere

[The Journeyman]

btw, nice idea with using the consumables on the other player while being on the same tile. Now there can be a fight were one party is doing the fighting, while the other party is doing the healing.

[Kroah]

Hi all!

Beta-testing of DMNet with Dungeon Master is done (now playing Chaos Strikes Back).

You can download the first release of DMNet (1.0.14) on my website:
http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/DungeonMaster/remake.php5
Check the files ReadMe.txt and Settings.ini.

You can leave a message here (or on my forum), i will try to reply if possible.

Have fun (re)playing Dungeon Master with friends or family!

[The Journeyman]

this seems like a high five-moment

[Antman]

Congrats!!

I had a play around my own local server and client and it worked well. I like how you handled the light between teams, and sleeping.

Now we just need to assemble a four person team to rush Chaos Strikes Back, one way each and meet at the pit!

[isamuu]

This is absolutely bonkers!

[Matzie]

This definitely look amazing.
It would be pretty cool to see some dungeons made with multiplayer in mind and even requiring it for puzzles and such.

With the classic DM dungeon, I can think of several pretty unfun situations where one party gets stuck and unable to rejoin the other one.

[The Journeyman]

I can imagine the conversation going something like this on Level 7:
You rest here, I'll go down to the dragon level real quick and'll fuse the firestaff..be right back.

[isamuu]

Hahaha^^^ that would indeed be hilarious.

Anyway so much innovative ideas and improvements being brought to DM over the recent years. It's awesome. Next stop....VR! What do you guys think the chances are of someone being able to port the game into a 3D engine that supports VR headsets like the Oculus? Could you see yourself walking around in the dungeon in VR? How would that look? And can a 3D dungeon replicate the original "Grey walls" look?

[Matzie]

I don't think Dungeon Master itself would make for a good VR adaptation, without massively altering it and losing what makes dungeon master dungeon master.

VR Dungeon Crawlers have some pretty good potential though; but mechanics like grid based movement, controlling a complete party of characters, extensive micro-management etc probably wouldn't fit. I can potentially see a rune combination magic system work though, floating in the air and you have to point a wand or something at it.

A "Dungeon master but in VR" game would probably only be a "VR dungeon crawler game with a Dungeon Master skin".

[Koopaink]

This is an incredible idea! I hope it releases soon! There should totally be DM parties set up here!

Have you ever played Materia Magica, the text based online MMORPG? The chat in that game is tied to it's text driven gameplay, but I know that several people opened a separate telnet to chat with each other. Do you think you could implement Telnet or a whimsical scroll delivery service (via throwing that scroll down the dungeon corridor) for multiple player chat?

[jayrshaw]

I've never played Materia Magica, but I used to play a text-based online RPG called DragonRealms throughout the mid-late 1990s and early 2000s when I was in high school and college. I just checked online and see that it still exists. You could talk to other people in the same room with you in the game or project your thoughts to people in the same part of the world using a special item, but you had to stay in character unless you were whispering to someone.

The main character I used to play in DragonRealms belonged to a snake-man race called the S'Kra Mur - in fact, that's the main reason why I decided to use the Hisssssa avatar in this forum...


--Jay