First Person Tile Based Dungeon Crawl

[yd]

Hi all,
I wonder if anyone is seriously interested in working on a simple (but hopefully fun) tiled based 3D first person dungeon crawler/explorer. The thing has been on my mind for quite a while now.
I tried to engage people on OGA (check this thread out http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/free- ... ack?page=1), but with no avail. By now I have a fair amount of
3D models for a dungeon environment and I plan on making more, including some simple animated enemies. Most of my work I post on OGA: http://opengameart.org/users/yd. In
addition I created a project on GitHub https://github.com/ydGit/DungeonMore/wiki (screenshots are there). At this point I feel I will not be able to make a decent game
on my own due to the lack of time for programming, sound, and modelling. I still have some motivation for making and sharing my models, but it is dwindling. So before I am totally done
with this "game-making" business I want to give it a last try and find people who are able to collaborate and try to make small but fully functional open-source dungeon crawler, in the
spirit of Dungeon Master/Eye of the Beholder etc.

Sorry for no screenshot in this post, please follow the links provided to check out some of the resources.

[Julius]

Ahh, what a pity that the Darkplaces based prototype never got anywhere

Maybe someone wants to learn about WebGL/HTML5 programming and could take this opportunity to continue developing that "Moonshades" game with yd's great assets?
See here:
https://github.com/moonshades/moonshadesgame
http://www.moonshadesgame.com/

Otherwise... might be a nice project for learning Godot also. I think the tile-based 3D concept build into this engine would make a good base for such a game. Maybe a post on their forums asking for help would be a good idea? http://www.godotengine.org/forum/

[beoran]

I also want to make a classic dungeon crawler, and I can program well enough to do so. Although I'm currently making a classic 2D action rpg named Eruta, Eruta is a long project that will probably still take me years, so I'm OK with postponing that for a year or two to work on a simpler dungeon crawler. However, I have my conditions.

The dungeon crawler I want to make will be named Kei's Quest. It will be set in the same fantasy science fiction universe. Think of a mix of Phantasy Star and Wizardry Renaissance. It will be programmed in plain C (not c++) using Allegro with OpenGL as needed, and it will use mruby as the scripting language. This will be a custom game engine, not a pre-exising one. Tiled and blender for the resources is OK. I have the story completely worked out mentally, so I only need someone to make resources as fit my vision, though I'd welcome your input. Seen that I can only work on this as a hobby, estimated time to completion is 1 to 2 years. I expect you or any other collaborator to take up the same project as your hobby and work on it slowly but steadily, with dedication, as I will.

So yd, if you're /really/ up for it, contact me on (same name as here) at gmail dot com. Or discuss it here. Hope you're strong willed enough to go for it!

[yd]

Hi Beoran, thanks for your interest. Your requirements sound good, I do not care much about the language and/or the library/engine that will be used. However I am afraid I was not clear in my first post.
By now, I have been working on the resources for about two years and have accumulated sufficient amount for a dungeon crawler half of of the size of the Legend of Grimrock . So when you say
"so I only need someone to make resources as fit my vision," I am reading it as either I will have to re-do the existing resources or create a bunch of new ones and that defeats the original purpose.
To avoid further confusion, let me re-iterate:

I do have the resources: 1) 3D models (Small variety of tile-based dungeon structures and props) 2) textures (Diffuse/Normal/Specular) 3) sound effects. I also have a prototype made with Python and Blender Game Engine
for testing my resources out. Whom I am looking for is a programmer to work with and implement (for a start) a Dungeon Master-style crawler using the already available resources.

It makes no sense for me at this point to embark upon two more years of making new resources. I hope you understand me.

[beoran_alt]

(Posting with an alt login from a different computer)

Well, looking at the the links you posted I could only see 4 different dungeon tile sets at the most, a few objects, and a nice male paperdoll. While the quality of those resources is fine, and I would like to use them, with some modifications of my own, the quantity I can see in those links is insufficient for a small yet fun dungeon crawler.

I'm nbotinterested in making a game that is tooo small or lacks variety. It simply won't be fun to play. For a simple, yet fun dungeon crawler like the one I'd like to make, I estimate we'd need at least the following:
It's important to keep in mind though that the resources musst be always adapted to fit thegame, and not the game to fit the resources.

• +- 64 enemy sprites (may be rendered from models, no need for recoloring or animation, the engine can do that)
• 16 character sprites (8 male, 8 female, a paperdoll like the one you made for a male character is best, but we also need a female one)
• 16 wall/floor/ceiiling/column/background texture sets (no need for scaling or perspective, the engine will handle that) for outdoors and indoors locations such as grassy plains, forets, deserts, old style dungeons, temples, office buildings, science labs, etc.
• Background bitmaps for town locations such as a shop, a hospital, town square, ...
• Various in-dungeon items like chests, cupboards, switches, card key readers, LED lamps, etc.
• Various icons for the user interface (Ccan use existing open icon sets).
• 30+ songs, 16 dungeon theme songs, 1 town song, 1 shop song, 1 hospital song, various battle songs, various event songs.
• 64+ sound efffects.

So, I'd love to see all those other resources you have. If there are enough of them, I'd love to use them and modify them myself as is needed for the futuristic theme of my game idea. But it would be great if I could keep relying on your continued support in case more art work is needed.

[Akien]

That's some awesome resources that you have here yd, congratulations! If a community project got started based on your assets, I'd be glad to be part of it; I wouldn't step up as lead developer on the other hand, I'm a real newbie at programming games.

I agree with Julius though, it could make a nice Godot project. Godot is relatively easy to learn and to use, so you could probably do a part of the programming yourself if you want to. And hopefully you should be able to recruit someone either from here or from the Godot community that would like to join this adventure

[yd]

That's some awesome resources that you have here yd, congratulations! If a community project got started based on your assets, I'd be glad to be part of it; I wouldn't step up as lead developer on the other hand, I'm a real newbie at programming games.

I agree with Julius though, it could make a nice Godot project. Godot is relatively easy to learn and to use, so you could probably do a part of the programming yourself if you want to. And hopefully you should be able to recruit someone either from here or from the Godot community that would like to join this adventure

Thank you, Akien. I remember looking at Godot but it struck me as a mostly 2D focused engine. Up to now I was able to check out (i.e. implement the basics of asset import, shaders, tiled-based movement ) in Unity, Irrlicht, Panda3D, and BGE. As soon as you start making serious effort, the lack of documentation in most of the "free" engines becomes a serious obstacle. Aslo, the performance is a serious issue. Not surprisingly, Unity out-shines all I have tried in the ease of work and performance. Currently I am stuck with Blender Game Engine simply due to its built-in Python support and the compatibility of the resources, including animations, armatures, textures.

But if I find a day, I will give Godot another try. Thanks for the recommendation.

[beoran_alt]

Well, Godot can be used for 3D as well, but don't underestimate the effort. BGE is also not too bad for a small game, although performance is somewhat mediocre. But I hope you're able to make a game that is as you like it.

I got interested in my own idea, and there are many free textures available, so I'm going to play around a bit with those to see how far I can get with those. To both of us their own dream, I guess.

[rogerdv]

Is this some sort of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol game? Too bad Im busy with my own project. Godot is not a bad choice, unless you are aiming to high quality 3d graphics.

[yd]

Is this some sort of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol game? Too bad Im busy with my own project. Godot is not a bad choice, unless you are aiming to high quality 3d graphics.

I think everyone has his/her own idea of a first person dungeon crawler. From the older ones, I can name Eye of the Beholder, while more graphically up-to-date is Legend of Grimrock. The latter inspired me in making most of the resources and that is what I am aiming at. Are there any examples of a good 3D game made with Godot?

[Julius]

Not really as it is a very new engine. Its feature set, ease of use, the multi-platform export options and a series of already build in functions probably make it interesting for your project. In addition there are probably quite a few people intrigued by learning to use the engine for whom your project might be a good place to start.

[rogerdv]

Is this some sort of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol game? Too bad Im busy with my own project. Godot is not a bad choice, unless you are aiming to high quality 3d graphics.

I think everyone has his/her own idea of a first person dungeon crawler. From the older ones, I can name Eye of the Beholder, while more graphically up-to-date is Legend of Grimrock. The latter inspired me in making most of the resources and that is what I am aiming at. Are there any examples of a good 3D game made with Godot?

As Julius said, none yet. Most of Godot work lately have been directed towards 2d features. Urho3D has a better suited 3D renderer.

[charlie]

Thing is, I don't think yd is asking for a recommendation on what tech to use. He wants to partner with a programmer. You guys are derailing the topic somewhat by posting "My favourite tech!" thoughts, which aren't useful to anybody.

A question for yd: with it being a classic style crawler (EotB / DM style) is 3D something you are really set on or would a 2D with pre-rendered (using your models) sprites also be something you could work with?

[beoran]

Sorry to interject here, but with contemporary graphics being as they are, it is much easier to use real 3D rendering, at least for the dungeon itself. With 3D rendering all you need is a few textures for walls, floors, ceilings and a sky box. The old style 2D techniques require much more and much more carefully prepared resources, in which case the 3D visuals are being pre rendered outside of the game engine. Before, this was the only way to do it, but now, 2D pre rendering is not needed anymore.

So I'd strongly reccomend doing real 3D rendering for the dungeon itself, if only because it will drastically make the use of resources much more easy. On the other hand, for sprites of the PCs, NPCs and foes 2D graphics should probably be used, as those will probably be easier to create than 3D models.

[yd]

To answer charlie's question: I strongly agree with beoran. There is also a difference in how you would approach making models for real 3D game and pseudo-3D (pre-rendering). When I set out making the resources I had real 3D in mind and was inspired by Legend of Grimrock (LoG). This is ideally what I am aiming at in terms of asset quality, regardless how close I can get there ) Also since I test everything out in Blender Game Engine, I have to keep polycount low. Other than that, what I envision as the final product is the 3D first person dungeon crawler, with tiled-based movement in the spirit of LoG.

I tried converting the dungeon tilesets into 2D (http://opengameart.org/content/dungeon-tiles-0) but realized quickly all the caveats beoran was referring to. While I will try to keep this option of 3D-to-2D conversion possible within DungeonMore project (see for example https://github.com/ydGit/DungeonMore/tr ... om/2Dsetup) I do not have time to do it myself now.

There is a nice project http://www.dungeoneye.net/ which implements Eye of the Beholder engine nicely and uses all the resources from the original game, plus has the build in editor. Too bad it is not being actively developed. If I had any plans for making 2D resources I would start with this engine. As of now -- BGE is my thing ) However, if you are an experienced programmer with a knowledge of, say, OGRE or Irrlicht or anything else , and a desire to make a small (really, 5 levels, 5 enemies will suffice) dungeon crawler -- let me know.

I have a little experience of making a complete 2D game from start to finish in collaboration with another person. Two of such games are commercially available. If I took anything from that work is to keep my ambitions low. That's why I am hesitant to respond to the suggestions to make another RPG which is almost ready in someone else's mind.

[beoran]

If you are already familiar with Blender Game Engine , then why not use that to make your game? Then the 3D rendering aspect is already solved, which is probably 30% of the work for a real 3D dungeon crawler.

I see what you are getting at with keeping your ambitions low. It's true that if you do so, you'll be able to make a game that much faster. However, in this case what you'll end up with will be a demo, not a game. Personally, I wouldn't want to play a dungeon crawler with 5 levels and 5 enemies simply because it sounds dull.

[Danimal]

If you go for 3D i can give you some nice game ready creatures from Open Dungeons to use as monsters, i barely check this forum branch so drop a word on OD forum if you take the offer, they are also Ogre3d ready besides blender format.

[yd]

If you go for 3D i can give you some nice game ready creatures from Open Dungeons to use as monsters, i barely check this forum branch so drop a word on OD forum if you take the offer, they are also Ogre3d ready besides blender format.

Thanks, Danimal, I will check them out.

[yd]

An update: Topic closed. I found a developer for collaboration. Thanks all for your time.

[Akien]

Awesome, looking forward to see the outcome of your work together :-D

[beoran]

Yes, that's great to hear, I wish you good luck!

And I am working on my own engine for my own first person dungeon crawler as well. I have the 3d display and camera working but there's still a lot of work to do on the maze a, sprites, etc. I hope to let you guys hear more from it in a few months time.