The Tavern

Now that my work on "Queen At Arms" and "Rex Rocket" is wrapping up, I'm considering making a Spelunky-like.

I'm thinking about a dungeon-crawling Spelunky-like inspired by Crawl.

I thought I'd see what kind of ideas you guys had! What is the core of Crawl? Why do you come back to it again and again?

My previous work (I'm not a novice!):
Rex Rocket: http://castlepixel.com/rexrocket/ (Level Designer)
Queen At Arms: https://www.facebook.com/QueenAtArms (Producer)

I'm spitballing a bit here, but I'm a little serious. I'm planning to build a new Aqualuft game soonish and I'm definitely building a Spelunky-like. I absolutely adore Crawl (I wrote this article for Gamasutra last year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RosstinM ... uelike.php ). So it's not impossible that I'll actually do this at some point.

-Because the combinations of species, backgrounds and gods is mind-bogglingly varied, and runs the whole gamut from masochistic crap to roflcoptering steamroller

-Chopping up and eating elves

-Rods

-Ample customization possibilities within the restriction of randomly spawned loot

-Nicely themed, alternating branches

Sorry rosstin, we try to keep GDD strictly to discussions of Crawl development, so I've moved this to CYC.

However please note that the OP wants serious discussion and respect his or her wishes.

I will be moderating this thread in light of those wishes despite the fact it is in CYC. Thanks

Spelunky is a unique production fueled by years of passionate love for 2d platformers and spoiler-free video game design. It will be very hard to replicate it if your approach is to first ask internet strangers "hey any ideas guys?"

I like that Crawl is demanding, but fair. I've been playing for a while and nearly every time I have died it is because I did something(s) wrong.

I also like that it is in active development, with new stuff being added, and the development process is fairly transparent. It is pretty cool that the game is at 0.15 and you still see a willingness to alter fundamental mechanics and try out rather experimental new things.

Unfortunately I haven't played spelunky (I know, I expect I am missing out and really ought to check it out).

click here {this} actually here (sorry messed up the first two times)

Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.

And Into, that's no problem. Sorry for co-opting the Game Design forum.

If I someone pointed a gun to my head and told me to design a platformer that not only draws from crawl but actually keeps some of the feel of it then christ idk:
I suppose I would keep LoS control as a core element since that's really all crawl is about, or at least the part that to me is defined enough to borrow from. It'd be hard to capture it properly without it feeling claustrophobic, although that'd probably be a feature.
No resting.
I'd also significantly shorten the length of individual and total combat compared to crawl and make hit exchanging a -lot- more important, remove missing, probably active dodges etc. Maybe add vulnerability stages in animations when the opponent just attacked but his attack hasn't connected, from there stabs on unaware enemies could be worked out.
Spellcasting would probably hamper movement while casting, be much more drastic regarding its effects and limited in uses. Also passive magic would be gone. Counterspelling enemy magic would be a thing.

Then likely try to differentiate races having them have their own sizes/locomotion system/intrinsic offense and stealth, keeping only species that can be properly differentiated based on these properties. Probably also silly things like Op clinging on the ceiling and nagas being able to do some sort of long range snake jump (and remove cats). In fact since I've not seen any game that worked on the kind of movements and fighting styles a snakedude would use a lot of work would be wasted here.
If gods were to make it at all they would probably be very passive and, along actual skills you train as you get exp, would be the only passive boosts available to characters at all. They'd only exist if they could actually make for tacit differences though, but that'd probably work even without heavy reworks to what they actually do in crawl for the most part.

And then there'd be dungeon layout and map generation which is extremely important and a fucking nightmare and I've been avoiding to even think about
just shoot me now

EDIT: TRIPLE SWORDS THE GAME WOULD HAVE TRIPLE SWORDS

Personally, I think of Crawl's best features as being...

* Awesome races that change the playstyle of the game (esp. Mutations, Demonspawn, Draconians, Monsters)
* Deity worship
* Significant strategic decisions at every stage of the game
* Vaults
* Encountering out-of-depth uniques
* Random end-game-- what will the orb chamber look like?

Obviously Crawl is a game that could only have been developed through a decade of hard work by a huge team of people. Making a platformer that draws inspiration from it would entail a much simpler game, but perhaps still something fun that has the flavor of Crawl.

The orb chamber is always the same these days, there was a time when the layout was random but that was reverted.

For me, if you just remade Spelunky but added the crawl gods, I would probably buy 5 copies.

What dck described sounds kind of like Crawl and kind of like Street Fighter and now I want this game to be made really badly.

that's why i don't like to think about games that only exist in my head
:(

Don't feel that way! Let your creativity show through!

The last time I did that, this got posted on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... _whos_been

That thread is a goldmine.

you can already worship chei, just destroy two kali altars

I'm not certain you're approaching this from the right perspective.

Spelunky is a game about interacting with the evironment. It's a good game because the environments are good, player movement is well-tuned, and monsters and items are designed such that they make the environment more interesting to navigate. Crawl is a game about turn-based tactical combat. They don't really cross-pollinate at a mechanical level.

If one were to hypothetically take Spelunky as it currently exists and mod in bucketloads of content inspired by Crawl species, gods, and branches, the result would probably be rad as hell. Because Spelunky is already rad as hell, and adding interesting new content to an already-good game is probably going to make it more fun (provided that the new content is well-implemented and adheres to Spelunky's pre-existing design principles). But if you're making a new engine from scratch, a bunch of cute ideas for how to implement Demonspawn or Yredelemnul or the Shoals into a platformer aren't going to help you create a compelling map generator or physics system, and if your levels and player movement are no good then the entire endeavor is doomed no matter what you have for ancillary content (see: 99 Levels to Hell).

Basically, developing a Crawl-inspired Spelunky-like requires a great deal of insight into why Spelunky's design is good, but very little insight into the particulars of Crawl's design. If you already had a solid mechanical skeleton of a platformer, cherry-picking Crawl-like content that would work well in your system would be easy. The inverse isn't even remotely true.

That's all true. If I make a Spelunky-like, Crawl will only be one of my references.

Right now I'm brainstorming religion. Spelunky has one religion. But what if it had 3 or 4 instead? What kind of religions could work in a Spelunky-like? My initial thoughts are that they would revolve around playstyles... Gold-hoarding, speed-running, avoidance, kill-em-all. But there's also merit to learning from Crawl's religions-- some of the best religions change the game in an unusual way that interacts with multiple playstyles rather than favoring one.

Vagante did okay with what you're describing. It doesn't have religions yet but I recommend you take a look at that game for a good idea of what can be accomplished.

Awesome, thanks Twe! I'll check it out!

A Spelunky-like with fantasy magic, a bunch of species, and gods would be amazing.

My current game, Queen At Arms, was just successfully Kickstarted! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... en-at-arms

My other game, Rex Rocket, is on Steam! http://store.steampowered.com/app/288020/

And, I have a new project! Road Redemption! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZZGgz9U7Q

Still would love to make Crawl as a Spelunky-like, though!

So I did end up joining a new team and making a roguelike-like-like, but it's a racing game. I'm doing mission design for Road Redemption, which is releasing on Steam today. http://store.steampowered.com/app/300380/

My work on the project is oriented towards making it more roguelike-like. When I started it was just a motorcycle game, but we're trying to randomize and procedurally generate as much of the game as possible.

Still want to make a more traditional Roguelike when I can, although might end up making something more like Rust or Minecraft next.

This is idle curiosity, but how many of you would support a Kickstarter for Crawl-Spelunky?

the vagante kickstarter failed, so: no one

I saw that, yeah. I wonder if the market is too small. I was running a Kickstarter for Queen at the same time as them. Trying to raise 50k in September is never a good idea for a game project.

It's looking more likely that I might make a project like this, after I finish Queen At Arms and Road Redemption. I just have to figure out if it could make enough money.

Maybe if I make something 3D.

I find it difficult to wrap my head around this. You actually came to a forum run by volunteers devoted to a game produced by volunteers that is given away freely to anyone and everyone via servers also run by volunteers to ask who among those involved in the collaboration would like to pledge to give you money to develop a copycat.

Am I missing something? I'm probably missing something.