Dungeon Master Forum

Hello everyone I have been lurking for quite a long time (almost a year) and have been working in Dungeon Master Java. Thanks to solito and the new edits he has incorporated I'm able to add extra features and decided its time to register. Also Kelly's addon packs are excellent. Ian_Scho also usually has sound advice .

Firstly I'm Agoraphobic (Afraid of outside) and I've been locked inside the house for 11 months working on my Dungeon Master Game, so all I have is time and I'm about in the middle of my game. Game will be unlike almost any other dungeon master game you have played before.

Features I have included thus far:
+ Full Musical Sound Track
+ Over 200 Randomized Items(Much like the diablo Series items)
+ 40 Dungeon Levels Completed So far
+ Martial Arts Included
+ Unique Weapon Attacks (Backstab, Pierce,etc)
+ Linear Story Line as well of meeting npc allies.
+ Store
+ 45 Monster Types (not including mini-bosses and bosses)
+ Unique boss battles. (Has a puzzle with them)
+ Fun Riddles, Puzzles,etc.


Features Plan on including:
+ Multiple Endings
+ 2 game releases one for low end computer other for high end.
+ Graphic Increases
+ More Items

Known Issues:
- Sound Track can lock up game on low end computers
(Might use winamp streaming, also releasing 2 versions)

If you have any questions or what to know more just post and I'll be more than happy to answer. I'm always on Tues-Friday 8:30am till 7:00pm (United States time), as well as being in the chat, rest of time I'm on and off.


The basic game play is you start in a town
"The Village of Whispering Shadows" and there are several dungeons you have to complete each giving u a piece to the portal to get to the final dungeon (not wanting to give to much away). Here are some of the dungeons (each 3 levels in length with a boss). After completing each dungeon you can go back to town.

Dungeon Areas:
1)Festering Mines
2)Tomb of The Malefic
3)Vaults of The Forgotten
4)Bleeding Swamps
5)The Symbotic Hive
6)Stygian Expanse
7)The Arcanum
The Labayrinth
9)The Halls of Flame and Agony
10)Privateer's Hold
11)The Haunted Gallery
12) The Arena
13)Temple of Desolation
14)Dragon's Lair
15)Astral Plane

Wow. Sounds like a major work.
It also sounds like something I will
want to try. The overall structure
is interesting and provides that
feeling of having taken one more
step closer to success. I assume that
the individual dungeon can be
completed in any order one chooses?

Yes you can do the dungeons in any order but can't reach the medium level ones till all the easy levels unlocked, then can't reach the hard levels till all medium levels unlocked. This is to prevent a beginner character entering the Astral plane and getting pwned by Death Knights and Magi.

Welcome to the forums Broken_Paladin. I'm glad you registered to share this news, it sounds very cool.

I wasn't a big fan of DM Java as something didn't feel quite right about it, but your project sounds as if it will raise the bar and give something truly challenging to play. I look forward to it.

yes, like Gambit I have also - by reading your post - felt that DM java is being 'revived'
ultra cool

Ty guys for your good words, hopefully this game will get other people back into dm java.
I really hope it will do good and any suggestions is always welcome.

Broken_Paladin wrote:Ty guys for your good words, hopefully this game will get other people back into dm java.
I really hope it will do good and any suggestions is always welcome.

Any new fresh attempts are welcomed. Am I right? Continue in good work.

The game is coming along great, but is very slow. Basically to do the random item generator for monsters it is a very slow and long process. I'm trying to push the editor to its max and get everything from it I possibly can.

Oh one thing I really like is you start game with one character and as you progress you run into character events and you can choose who you want to join you. I am keeping in mind many of you love to train to your maxed, so you wont get a new character and be like wow a neophyte.
Also character will have dialogue interaction with player (this is long and fun process as well) and be able to devolop relationships with a character. Any suggestions or comments?

First of all, welcome to the forums! Always great to see new members here, and I especially like your avatar, as Final Fantasy 4 was my first Japanese RPG way back in 1993. I still get back to it occasionally every few years, reliving the fond memories.

Your project sounds very interesting to say the least! This will finally be a good enough reason to try out DMJava (which I haven't until today). It also serves as some sort of motivation to finish my dungeon soon, as I see some parallels, though my dungeon is not nearly at the same scale as yours. I'd better get working soon so my dungeon isn't completely outdated once it is ready.

Well Trantor i really hope I can get you to play dmjava =). I would like to see your dungeon also whenever you get finished.
O If you guys ever need me I'm always in chat and have webpage up.

O on a funny note I have so many dungeon levels I have to increase screen size to select them, after 40 you cant see them, cuz no scrolly thing. Anyone know any fixes for that?

Broken_Paladin wrote:after 40 you cant see them, cuz no scrolly thing. Anyone know any fixes for that?

40 levels

Quantity isn't everything... maybe it's a subtle hint.

Yeah, you women always say "size does not matter", but I'm sure you just do that to comfort us guys...

There are many levels, but that is because its going to be a massive dungeon crawler so you don't just beat it in a week, but I am working and being careful on it so it doesnt get boring and same ole stuff.

WRT: number of levels in menu.

What version are you using? I can quickly hack out sub-menus and e-mail updated source & classfile.

Roquen thank you very much, I'm using 2.00.


Roquen you are the best thank you very much for giving me editor fix.

BP:
No problem. Only took about 10 minutes (not including chat time).

Everyone else:
BP can now easily manipulate up to 1000 levels, without buying a new monitor, risking eye-strain or Carpal tunnel syndrome.

As for the sound issue brief touched in the chat, I wrote a quick program to spew out the action stuff hardcoded in the engine and stuck the info on the wiki.

http://dmwiki.atomas.com/wiki/DM_Java/Editing/Actions

We were discussing the sound played when an action is activated, which is hardcoded.

Looking at the table, it should be REALLY easy to make a 2.0 compatiable engine modification to be able to play a different sound for each action. If you take the action name, lower-case it, remove any spaces and dashes, and paste ".wav" at the end, VIOLA! a unqiue sound for each.

I could do all of this in about 10-15 minutes.

This would mean shipping a custom engine with your game, but this could easily exist side-by-side with a current ver 2.0 DMJ. This could be done by having the updated version in a ".jar" file and the player either runs from the jar or not.

How it would work: The first time an action is run the engine would do the following:
1) Does this new alternate sound exist? If yes make a note and play it..done
2) Look up the sound in regular V2.0 fashion..does it have one? If yes make a note and play it..done
3) Ok, no sound for this action..note that.

Or more simply, each action can have a unique sound, if that doesn't exist do whatever the unmodified version would have done. This
is all 100% backward compat BTW.

To beat a dead horse, here are some examples:

Backstab - if 'backstab.wav' exist play it, otherwise nothing.
Armor Party - if 'armorparty.wav' exist play it, otherwise '_magic_shield.wav'

Roquen that is a pretty great idea about the sounds/editor, with this custom actions & Sounds can be placed on weapons now. =) I really owe you for looking into this, thank you very much. I'll talk to you in chat when you get on.

On side note: If anyone is interested in doing voice sound files for npcs in the game just give me a shout , i need everything from simple "Welcome" from npcs, to full dialogue for character interactions.

Broken_Paladin wrote:On side note: If anyone is interested in doing voice sound files for npcs in the game just give me a shout , i need everything from simple "Welcome" from npcs, to full dialogue for character interactions.

Sounds like fun! I'm interested.

This game sounds unbelieveably huge and epic by the way. And I love linear storylines!

Any screenshots?

It is huge so far, its quite a task to make the game play not get stale, so i thought the linear storyline with character interaction might spice things up, its a lil diffrent from the classic dungeon master games. Any suggestions on gameplay is always welcome.

Also Roquen has really helped alot with the devolopment of the game, the new editor is able to set up custom actions with sounds now. So thank you Roquen.

I uploaded a few screenshots (not 100% done) without giving to much away. If you want more just post =p.
Note:This game will be kinda graphic/explicit, so not so much for the kiddies.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Contains Blood in pictures so don't look if that thing kinda grosses you out, the game is going for a dark look.


1) This is almost finished character sheet, equipped with a test martial art style.

http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beta1fk5.jpg

2) Halls of Blood

http://img373.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... oodjz8.jpg

3) Forbidden Pits

http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... itssk3.jpg

Greetingz Broken,

The only thing I can think of adding is when you distribute your final product choose an optional 'easy' approach and package it up in one of those clever installer distributables. I started playing with Advanced Installer, but you probably know where I'm going.

What audio software do you use? Again, I've got Audacity but am interested to hear if you have some advice.

Cheers!

Yeah I will have to do an installer for the best results.

I have several, i have diamond voice changer , bunch of convertors and few other programs (cant remember they on old computer).

http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 903zk4.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 425my3.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 239nz2.jpg

Here are 3 monsters from The Haunted Gallery, nothing bloody but kinda creepy.

Recording voice files sounds like it might be fun - I think I'll be up for that if you want .

Yes, I could offer my services too. Forgot to mention that.

Been there, done that - two monster voices / sounds in DP are actually mine

Very good guys I appreciate it, I'll let you know when I get to recording voices, cuz that will take a while to do and I want to finalize storyline and dialogue.

Very nice beowuuf.

If you have a Conan/Arnie-like character in your dungeon, I'm up for it - I think I can manage his accent quite right.

Hmm I'm still working on character dialogue and I might have use for that talent trantor =).

Just curious does anyone else like to lure the monster into a doorway then crush it to death?

I finally got the shop working, it was quite stubborn because dm java wasn't made to have a shop in it, but basically you go to niche in the wall put X money in and launcher shoots out item and goes back to niche, works infinite amount of times.
Beside the niche is a picture of the item and its cost.

Far away look:
http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aaaon2.jpg

Close up look:
http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbbyu2.jpg

What do you guys think, I'm not to happy the launcher shooting out item at you, but its only way i can figure beside using an event everytime to constantly buy apples without a delay.

door crushing is ok, but really leaves you open to attacks and boredom luring them back again and again

the two square step is still the preferred method

Definitely agree with Beo here, door crushing is ok for some monsters like Golems or maybe Knights, but it is rather tedious and takes a lot of time. I actually designed a trap in my dungeon which punishes players for using the door trick.

I realy like the idea! I will follow the devellopement.

Good luck to you and your team paladin!