Hey guys!
It's been more than 2 years since I last posted on here. I never really thanked all the people for playing DUNGEON so I'd just like to express my gratitude! I'm typically more active with responding to comments on my itch.io page because more of my games are there.
Also, I never would've imagined DUNGEON would get featured on the front page! Definitely made me smile, so thanks to the pico8 team for putting it there.
I'm shocked people are still commenting on the game even as recent as a few weeks ago, so it convinced me to just make this blog post to try to reach out to the fans that are still here 2 years later. For years I've wanted to do an update to the game where I fix all the bugs and stuff, because believe me I'm aware of the bugs...
Some of them are just dumb mistakes, like how one of the death-screen hints tell you the shop is at level 12 when its really at level 8.
Others are just bad decisions, like making it so that spiders can't be jumped on. Don't know why I did that. Or calling the game's levels 'procedurally generated'. I think I didn't understand what that word meant at all lol.
And YES... I know about the wall jumping. Like 1/3 of the comments mention it lol. I know it sucks. But to be totally honest, I've spent countless hours trying to come up with something better and I can't. Whenever I try to ask a playtester how to fix it, they either say they've gotten too used to it for it to change or just to "make it work like this other game". Which isn't very helpful to me.
Anyhow, I thought I could publish the source code of the game since somebody recently asked for it. But just be warned, it's not remotely organized or thought-out, it's mostly just full of hacky code lol. Every time I look back at it I try to optimize it again but then I realize it's probably not worth it. Which is probably why I never bothered to make a big update fixing any of the bugs. I think I can just accept the way the game is. Plus I've mostly just moved on.
Sequel Idea?
Finally, I thought I could share some gifs of a sequel I had in mind for a while called "TOWER!". Where instead of navigating a dungeon you're constantly traveling upwards a tower (as the name might suggest) to save a stuck kitten!
I wanted to make a platformer like DUNGEON but with totally new aspects and gameplay features, possibly the most ambitious being 5 different selectable characters! You have the knight from the previous game, a new ninja, the shopkeeper (who has a large rifle), a plain-jane skeleton, and the princess!
The main 'gimmick' was that every level in the tower loops horizontally. Like you're just circumnavigating the tower. Unfortunately a lot of people said the looping effect was kind of disorienting and I tend to agree. But here are some gifs I made while developing the 'loop' feature, as well as some cool stuff with slope-tiles!
The ninja was almost sort of like the 'sonic' to the knight's 'mario'. Mostly built on ramping up speed and could scale walls for a short distance. The shopkeeper was slow and tanky but had a large gun that could be used for advanced movement (like the gif shows except not that crazy). The skeleton was supposed to be very durable and the princess was... never really that developed gameplay-wise O_O.
If you wanna play a little demo I made of the shopkeeper's ability, then follow the link down below! You need to collect 5 coins to fire 1 bullet, and press down+shoot in order to 'double jump' as the shopkeeper.
https://deklaswas.itch.io/tower
Other than that, I don't really have any plans of finishing the sequel. But I just wanted to share some ideas I had.
Well, that's everything I wanted to say. Again, thanks everyone for playing... Goodbye!
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DUNGEON! is a retro-styled video game where a different course of levels is randomly generated with every new attempt. See how far you can get by platforming and defeating monsters!
Featuring:
-A variety of enemies that get harder as the game progresses
-Powerups you can buy from a gift shop with coins you collect
-Different zones that change the appearance and music of levels
-A large pit with like 12 slimes in it
-Wall jumping (people seem to enjoy this mechanic)
And more!
For more information, check out my itch.io page -> https://deklaswas.itch.io/dungeon
Thank you to all the play testers who played the alpha build and gave me valuable feedback. This includes Bonemangaming, Technetium, Quintus, Superandrews, and Banana_kokichi.
Another huge thank you for merwok for helping me compress the pico8 code.
Yuo guys are awesome :)
