[Custom dungeon] Hellgate Tavern II - Hack & Slash [RTC] [Zed5Duke]

[Zed5Duke]

Version: V1.0 for RTC V0.49
Platform: RTC
Author: Zed5Duke
Date published: 2010, January 24
Date last updated: 2010, March 12

Story:
Your task is to find legendary treasure. Each areas looks small and empty but they all contain dungeons underground, and you must solve puzzles to enter them. Difficulty and game size is much larger compared to Hellgate Tavern I!




History:
What is new in part 2:
-new graphic (menu,interface,wallset,items,scenery,monsters)
-new sound (background music and many new sound everywhere)
-more puzzles (you have few clues but still difficulty)
-more dungeons (now you travell between many locations)
-better balance (armors,weapons,supply,char stats)
-brand new inventions (my most innovate dungeon ever)
-and some secrets (game contain more than you thought)

Download:
Download this dungeon from this Shared OneDrive (in the 'Custom Dungeons' folder)
(its finished and tested, fully playable everything works ok)

[Jan]

Wow, great! I'm looking forward to it, Zed! Keep us informed about the progress. And, if you need any betatesters for feedback before releasing it to the general public, I volunteer!

[RAF68]

I await your new Dungeon impatiently zed thank you

[Zed5Duke]

Already am mostly add new graphics and sound. Have new wallset, its cave from DM2 with modified colors (saturation -7)



Beside this am think about dungeon style, already i see few options:
A-12x12 size levels with larger caves around it, one dungeon very deep
B-30x30 size levels, but player may explore only 1/3 in one game (many ways down, always situation when you can chose only one from few)
C-many dungeons, you have map or menu and travell on country, each dungeon in different style and size (better treasures = tough monsters and more traps)

About story: similar to hellgate begin in tavern and search herezy artifacts

[Jan]

I'd vote for B.

[Adamo]

(first for B, but...) I voted for B, but I think the last option would be good too.
I guess you would build a necesarilly "logical frame" first, and then adding "optional" sub-quests or extending existing functional game..?

If I might propose something to your dungeon, that`d be a big role of randomness. Like hidden mechanisms teleporting some nasty monsters with usefull "extra" items (or even necessarily, like keys) onto strictly specified areas (on the beginning monster A is being secretly teleported by game mechanisms onto either A, B, C, D or F place, wchich player doesn`t know). That means each gameplay would be a bit different, that would confuse a player in a positive way (will I find a vexirk with the important key in dungeon A or dungeon B? Element of randomness is element of risk). Of course, this can be dose carefully, not to make a dead-end situations.

[ian_scho]

I'd work on a variant of B or C.
B) The 'END' won't be at the bottom. As the player descends they pick up artifacts and keys that will help them get back up again! The end would be near the start, and they would have completed 2/3 of the dungeon - and there'll be 1 of 3 endings.

Here's another idea for you Zed (or anyone else) ask someone to work with you sharing ideas and create a dungeon with a story or plot-line.

[Zed5Duke]

Already i made some progress on C method

Behind tavern is stable with horse, and travell menu on wall. Click on option activate teleport, from this location you may only return. Already solved problem of teleportation (activate/deactivate) Another difficulty is in balance, but here also have few idea.

[Adamo]

Good side is that i can relase game with few dungeons, and maybe later instead of build brand new game, just add more dungeons to the same game world.

You can already do that, by including existing dungeons you already done to the game, along with their stories but of course it would need a huge differentiation of difficulty, if all has more or less the same difficulty level.

[Zed5Duke]

I dont known how do that. It is possible to use few rtc files in one game? Or for example i have all new graphic load in X rtc file, then import Y dungeon which i made using DM1 gfx and put there all new stuff (update old dungeon with new graphic)

Already in this game have 50 quick levels 12x12 size, but they have no puzzles + 1 old modified level from hellgate. In very fast style i could fill it with monsters and items and thats it (pure hack slash) It still could be interesting because new items like machine guns, grenades and other stuff from future. Already have grenade which is modified fireball potion.

[Jan]

Already in this game have 50 quick levels 12x12 size

[Zed5Duke]

I almost finished new interface, but anybody known how remove/modify these interface shadows? They are on arrow, spells and weapon boxes, especially i want remove it from weapon box.

[Gambit37]

Nice, is that from Perihelion? Don't forget that when you pick up an item, its description will be displayed over the eye of the eagle, you might need to add something here to make it more readable.

You can't remove those shadows, they are automatic.

And to answer your other question from last week: No, you can't combine .RTC files together and you can't make connected 'episodes' -- because there is no way of importing the game state from one RTC file to another, only the champions (minus all their gear). We asked for this but George isn't doing anything on RTC anymore so you have to work with what you've got.

[beowuuf]

Well technically you could combine the text files together, as long as each text file had different alphanumeric references, and the level numbers were all different. This would not create episodic content, but would allow a game world to be built up - I think that was the actual idea, wasn't it?

That would not create episodic content, but it would create a rolling dungeon where a newer player could explore all the dungeons as one, building up his champions, and the more explerienced player could download the new dungeon each time and only play the new parts, each time with forced to use new champions however.

Obviously, in this second case, the party import could at least ensure the champions (if not their items) were restored in each new iteration.

[RAF68]

ZED when your dungeon new will be ready? And why george does not answer? Or does not want to improve RTC gambit???

[Gambit37]

George is taking a break and might not continue with RTC -- he's been working on it for nearly 10 years!!!!

[Zed5Duke]

ZED when your dungeon new will be ready?

Its complete, and now am testing.

[Zed5Duke]

Dungeon available to download

version 1.0
ok tested, changed and add few details, should be fully playable

[Joramun]

Is there magic in this one ?

[Zed5Duke]

Thanx for alternate download link

Anybody finished this one? maybe too hard puzzles?
(dont mistake "hack and slash" with genre, its not brainless game!)

[Jan]

Sorry Zed, I didn't have time to play your new dungeon, I've been to busy at work...

[Chaos-Shaman]

that is just so different, wonderful zed5duke, and you get soft drinks i have to play this soon

[beowuuf]

Only briefly started it, I liked the travel mechanism, as simple as it looks. Will try to get back to it this weekend.

[Adamski]

Despite I don't really like the hack'n'slash genre, I'll try, but unluckily this month I don't have free time.
I played the first chapter and in my opinion it is a huge improvement compared with your last little dungeons, too repetitive and without atmosphere. However you are still far from Dragon Tomb. I don't understand why you have stopped this project: that's the right way to make a great dungeon.

[the master]

I now have 6

Spoiler

of the moonstones

. I am stuck in Darkmoond where I have found a keyhole

Spoiler

behind a banner

but can't locate the key anywhere. Can anyone give me a small spoiler?

[the master]

Further to my previous mesage I now have

Spoiler

7 out of the 8 moonstones

I have found the key for the

Spoiler

keyhole behind the banner

. I am now completely stuck as to where to locate the

Spoiler

skeleton key

and the last

Spoiler

moonstone

. I think I have found the

Spoiler

treasure

but am not quite sure what I should do with it.

[Lunever]

Looks very interesting.

Since this is a pretty new dungeon and the latest of your many creations, it probably makes sense asking here:

I'm currently updating and consolidating the custom dungeon list here and at the Encyclopaedia, adding version information and backupping al dungeon data available.

Can you confirm that your dungeons have been completely created with RTC V0.49, or did you create some dungeons with an earlier RTC version?

Would you maybe be willing to provide source files for some of your dungeons? Of course you'd still decide alone what would be just backupped nonpublicly and what could be released publicly.

[Lunever]

I've added your dungeons to the Encyclopaedia custom dungeon list.
If you want, Christophe can give you editing rights for the threads there.
Since I only added links and version information you might want to add a couple of edscriptive lines.

[ian_scho]

I can do it this time, Lunever
I'd still recommend that Zed asks Christophe for an account though!

[Lunever]

Hey, good to hear that. Downloading dozens of dungeons, some from slow external filesharing spaces, testing them for their version compatibility, asking around for missing files and source files, and properly rename and repackage them for the backup upload already took the better part of my spare time for 2 weeks. Although none of it is very complicated it adds up. I just couldn't take the additional time to properly describe every dungeon, so instead I just inserted each dungeon's link to its forum thread here. But certainly many dungeons have deserved better than that.

If you edit the encyclopaedia posts, please leave the links to the proper forum thread in hints&comments anyway.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to best update the other clones, so it might take a couple of days until I actually start with it.