This was the final project I did at West Suffolk College. It was the final iteration of the many dungeon generation algorithms I wrote in my time there, and is doubtless the most refined of them all. Rather than being a pure corridor generator like the first, or creating a series of floating platforms like the second, this project actually created a series of rooms with different functions of gameplay.
I took a lot of inspiration from the main game I was playing at the time, which was BPM: Bullets Per Minute. As a result, it uses a fairly similar dungeon system, where each room of the dungeon has a specific "type" which determines what it does. Normal rooms will just spawn a load of enemies for you to kill, treasure rooms will spawn treasure chests, one room has the exit portal, etcetera.
This was also the project where I actually tried to use all the tools at my disposal to create something with a thematic through line, so the narrative (see: four notes I scribbled in the margin of a notebook) is based on H.P. Lovecraft. To fit this theme, the enemies are weird rubbery fish people. To clarify, I mean they're supposed to look a bit strange and have that weird head shape. The reason they go all wobbly when they die is because I forgot to weight paint the skeleton.
In a lot of ways this project was an exercise in box checking, trying to do as much as possible and do a writeup of each of those things (as that was what actually got examined) but only being able to really give any attention to the dungeon generation system.
What I took away from this project
Taking on a project is an exercise in learning, whether we want it to be or not, where we go into a project with a set of expectations and assumptions which are almost always challenged over the course of the project. In this case, I learned the following
- I need to practice my art more. There's no easy way around this unfortunately. I need to learn digital art, both 2D and 3D
- 3 Months is not a long time to develop a game, especially by yourself. With a team of people, 3 months isn't an inconceivable amount of time to make something like this presentable, but all on my lonesome it was quite the undertaking.
I learned a lot from this project, but I'm nonetheless not happy with it. I think this was my myth of Icarus moment, and I need to remember to maintain a stronger focus in the future. A good idea is worth nothing if the execution lets it down. This isn't a fun, if simple, lovecraftian themed roguelike. It's a messy class project.
Someday I will have to retackle this project, in some form or another, if only because I'm not happy with this execution of the idea.