Tuesday 27 April 2010

Stygia - some initial design thoughts

One of the things I'm planning to do with Stygia is to not overreach myself - something that sadly, Kharne suffers from. To get the game done in 3 months, I'm going to limit the initial version to something achievable:
  • One main persistent dungeon, with around a dozen levels (with varying themes). Dungeons will be smaller than those in Kharne.
  • No character classes.
  • Characters will have fewer stats then Kharne. I'm currently thinking of only having Strength, Agility, Constitution and Intelligence as the main stats.
  • Only a few skills, e.g. Fighting, Defense, Subterfuge and Spellcasting.
  • Only a limited number of items and brands.
  • A limited selection of spells (perhaps just over a dozen, giving just enough to initially make magic playable and no more).
  • Around a dozen types of enemies.
By limiting the scope, I hope to get an actual game out, which some of us perpetual roguelike programmers seem to forget to do.

Beyond this, I have a whole spreadsheet filled with ideas I want to implement in both Stygia and Kharne, culled from other roguelikes and near-endless searching of a decade of r.g.r.d's archives.

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