Category: Dev Journal

Tarchon is a good working title, but I knew it was never going to cut it as a release title. The main reason is the ambiguity. As a 10-year-old in an arcade, on my last quarter of the day, there are two machines I haven’t tried: TARCHON and DUNGEON DESTRUCTION SPIRIT MASTERS. With DDSM, I know what I am getting. It’s reliable. Very likely there will be wizards and swords. Then there is TARCHON… what is this one? Is it sci-fi? Is it going to be one of those puzzle games where it takes four quarters just to understand the rules? The other game promises instant action. I’ll go with that.

A four word title would have been too much, especially when I make the sequel (DUNGEON DESTRUCTION SPIRIT MASTERS II: SWORD ALLIANCE OF THE ANCIENTS). I struggled with 2-word titles for a while. After calling a council of a couple close friends, we landed on Soulcaster. James gets credit for this one, plus a McDonald’s gift certificate. See how handsomely I reward my consultants?

Anyway, I spent some time in Paint.NET earlier this week and came up with a logo. It seems to be a bit too jagged and horror-looking, but it’s in the right direction and the final game will probably have something like this.

The best way to show the latest changes is through a video.  The graphics are still placeholder but you can get an idea of what it will look like.  My next step is to make it possible to move from floor to floor.  Once that is in, it should feel like a real adventure rather than just a tech demo.

The aesthetics like text and menu animation are details that could have been ignored until later in the project, but it helps keep motivation up to see cool visual effects. When it’s just a slog of behind-the-scenes changes, it is easy to lose track of the excitement of the game. The visuals are also not nearly as complex as the tough stuff like AI and collision, so I can get some easy wins on those days when I just don’t feel like working.

It’s really coming together.

Here’s a quick list of what’s been done so far.  It is a condensation of my task log and time tracker text file, leaving out all the bugfixes and just listing new features added.

Week of 9/12-9/19:

• basic floor drawing
• basic editor features (tile and collision map)
• main character movement & attacking
• animated tiles

Week of 9/20-9/27:

• basic creature movement & attacking (line of sight only)
• projectile attack that fires at closest target
• monster spawners
• archer summon
• triggers and gates system
• simple hud showing HP and summons

Week of 9/28-10/4:

• place monster spawners in editor
• place gates and triggers in editor
• floor data stored and loaded in xml
• tank summon
• bomber summon

Week of 10/5-10/12:

• basic sound effects system
• creature AI: pathfinding (slow but works)

Week of 10/13-10-20:

• pathfinding optimized
• set player start position in floor data

The pathfinding is the big challenge so far with this project.  I knew it was going to be the hardest engineering aspect, with the content design being the biggest overall challenge.  I’m kind of intimidated by the prospect of tuning damage levels and finding ways to make each stage interesting given the game mechanics.  Nevertheless, taking it one step at a time, it’ll get done.

As for what’s next, I don’t keep a huge checklist of subprojects, because I find it too daunting to see ahead of time the hundreds of microfeatures the game needs.  My task list tends to be about six items or less, and only items that can be worked on within a week are added.

My next tasks involve:

1. Creating a few basic monster types (e.g. fast, medium, slow)
2. Building some test maps with various mazes and situations
3. Text dialog overlay and menu system

I’m making a 16-bit style dungeon crawler similar to Gauntlet or Legend of Zelda.  It features summable allies to give it kind of a tower defense twist.  Basically, you have to traverse a dungeon and destroy hordes of monsters, but their numbers are too great to take on alone.

All the summons stay in the same position once placed, and can be killed by enemies just like you can.  They do things like fire arrows, throw firebombs, and tank damage.  Strategic placement of the summons is key to getting through the game.

There will be an upgrade mechanic to boost your allies’ powers, such as attack rate, damage, and special effects like piercing and AOE.  I’m also planning a spell system where each summon has an ultimate attack that consumes a potion but devastates the enemy.

Basically, this is the type of game I dreamed of making when I was a kid.