Monthly Archives: May 2010

There would be still interest in a dungeon-crawler like Dungeon Master?

You might remember some time ago I posted some screenshots and even a video of a game called Towers Of Destiny. It was a first person 3d rpg, both outdoor and indoor. However, the project has been put on hold, for several reasons:

  • the expenses needed to make a decent-looking game would have been very high, probably x2-x3 times the amount needed to make one of my current games (VN, dating sims, etc)
  • a compromise would have been to go for a less detailed art. But I had fear that it would look crappy, even if judging by Spiderweb Games success, people playing old-school RPGs aren’t much interested in top-quality art
  • was still a lot of work – when you make something in 3d, there are many more problems than when doing a simple 2d game. Compatibility, performances, bugs, different programming tecniques required and so on

But now I was wondering if would actually make sense to make such a kind of game. Would YOU play/buy a sort of Dungeon Master 2010? 😀

I liked those games a lot, but I’ve played them when I was a teenager, so I’m not really sure if I would play them now. There was Might & Magic V on sale at GoG and I didn’t even buy it (also because I don’t have much time to play games anymore). Still, if I have to choose between the tilemap games (think about RPGMaker XP games) or a first person indoor/outdoor game like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder and so on, I would have no doubt which one to pick (the second!).

Sometimes I think about hiring someone to code a simple 2d dungeon crawler game, maybe even in flash so can be played directly in the browser. But is not that easy, even the art required is a lot and needs to be planned carefully (you have to build up the visual with several layered images/tiles for the floor/walls/ceiling).

It sounds complex? It is 🙂 Bah maybe I should hire people to do something else like a classic wargame or another card rpg game (since I love those).