[Developing] Dungeon Invaders

Made with: MonoGame and C#/Mono


I started this project as a way to learn the Steam API and to gain some more knowledge of the MonoGame framework. In the end I settled up with this game I'm developing


Dungeon Invades is a top-down fantasy-based dungeon crawler which mostly composes of using an array of skills that helps you during your invasion on randomly generated dungeons. The goal is to traverse through increasingly more difficult dungeons and defeat the boss inside of it.

• Randomly Generated Dungeons (that can be customized in size and difficulty)
• Play alone or with a team (up to 4 people)
• Create items using certain creation skills (such as use smithing to create new armor)
• Use skills to take advantage of certain situations (such as use strength to possibly force open a door)
• Create custom content (whether it'd be a custom room, custom monster, item, ect.)
• Custom Character Creation
• And more to come!

Green - Compete
Blue - Complete, but buggy
Orange - Progressing
Red - Working

• Random Dungeons
• Monster AI
• User Interfaces
• Skill System
• Graphics
• Item System
• Custom Content System
• Audio
• Multi-player

Images:


Videos:

• Umbreon - Programming, Graphics, Testing
• Monogame Team - MonoGame
• Valve - Steam API & Steam
• Riley Labrecque - CSteamWorks API, SteamWorks.NET API
• http://opengameart.org/users/liosan - Graphics

Some Updates:

I Fixed up a bug with the AI system (where they'd just start freezing up around the edges of walls)

I also fixed the "walking through walls" thing (shown in the first video)

Finally, I added a rat entity.

Screenshot: (the rats are hard to see due to the color scheme, I will fix that)

More updates:

I did some more work on some work on locked doors and 1-way doors (1-way doors will only allow you to proceed in the room, but not out. The effect is removed when the room has no more monsters. Locked doors requires a key to open it)

Images:


Note: The locked and 1-way door graphics are not complete, these are mere place holders until I can think of something suitable.

Not much progress has been made today, I have mainly been fixing minor glitches and improving performance.

I however, have added a health-bar under each entity with health. (The player, monsters, allies, ect.)

Images:



I have also added a second video under the main post.

Updates:

Finally added the ability to die from monsters (and kill them)
Added Keys to actually unlock doors

Videos:

Today I worked on the HUD system, here's some images of what it looks like currently:



From the images you see, the upper left corner is your EXP bar and inside it displays level and XP statistics, the upper middle is your hot-bar, it contains 10 slots for quick swapping of weapons, and then in the bottom right you see a small menu with text in it. The is your "Inventory" menu, although it displays more than just your items, it contains (or will contain) tabs for viewing Items, Stats, Bestiary, Dungeon Info (Keys found, Rooms cleared, ect.), and anything else of importance.

Also, after killing monsters will allow them to drop items (potentially that is)

Lastly, I think now would be the time to mention that the graphics you see is all temporary until I make suitable graphics (or if someone would kindly lend me a hand)

Today I have added onto the HUD improving functionality and I have also added a little close button onto the main GUI in the lower right corner so that you can see better around.

Alongside of that I have added an item which takes you back to the starting room. (Unusable when there are enemies in the same room as you are)

Graphics have been updated and it looks a lot nicer. (Icon graphics were taken from RMXP and the top-down sprites were from this link: http://opengameart.org/users/liosan, everything else was made by me)

Images:

Today I have redone a portion of the HUD again, removing the hotbar since it was causing complications and just simply awkward to use. Instead, I have added an equipment tab onto the data viewer (on the bottom right corner). I have replaced the RMXP sprites with better sprites which are a mixture of ones I created and the rest are from http://opengameart.org (I'll fish out an exact link later)

Images:





The Equipment tab still needs some work, but it's definitely an improvement.

Today I have gone ahead and updated some more graphics (exp bar, keys, and locks)

Other than that, I have made tweaks to the internals of the game making it run faster and removing some bugs that I didn't realize existed.

Images:



Also, it seems like I forgot to explain that the golden icon on the bottom middle of the tab view (yes, I finally found a suitable name for it) is actually the amount of gold you have.

In the past 3 days, I have done some work regarding on how to "use" some entities (such as picking up items). Instead of touching it to pick it up, you must now also click on the item while standing on it. (It's a bit of a hassle, but comes in handy when you're walking over items you don't want) Also, I have added a furnace which allows you to smelt different kinds of metal into ingots.

Images:



This shows the furnace from a bit of a distance, showing that it emits it's own light source



This shows the different metal ingots you can smelt with the furnace via the tab viewer (the last few ingot names are potentially going to change if I think of a better name for them)

Today I have added a lot of sound, as well as some modifications to the lighting system. (When playing on Hard/Master modes you will have a limited angle of view that simulates more towards a flashlight than a torch)

Image:

I didn't do much work on anything with visuals today, but I did add in some audio (still very much incomplete, but is better than nothing). I have also taken some time to make more progress on the menu screens (specifically the options screen).

Video:

Nobody commented on this yet o_o Well this looks quite interesting. The premise gives me survival horror vibes, rather than a fantasy game(it may be because of sound design, at the moment, so no problems there). I can easily see this being a great game. The select screen reminds me alot of Minecraft(calming and serene music). I guess this does have parralism to that game, since all dungeons are randomized.

But I am interested in the least to see how you pull off the content creation :3. Plus Multiplayer is always good to have on hand. Definetly an interesting concept. Can't wait to see more.

The content creation will be implemented by using Ruby as a glue language. As for minecraft, I didn't even think about it. The menu was just created to be a filler until I can make something decent. (unless the menu screen looks fine, then I'd leave it be)

Yesterday I worked on re-creating the lighting engine since it was extremely bare and couldn't efficiently handle lights nor could it add any sort of tinted light colors. The new engine, however, has taken care of those two problems.

Image:



Today I've been working on the settings and the menu screen for modifying settings. For now this is how it looks like:



Also a note should be made that the two sliders will be changed to be more visible and that the default resolution is now slightly larger in terms of height.

Today I have completed the custom content system, but in turn I have encountered a problem into how I will save the player's inventory if the item happens to be a custom content item. (Which isn't really a problem, just a large hassle to deal with since I need to do a lot more checks when saving and loading the player's inventory)

I'd take screenshots of the custom content system, but there really isn't anything visual to the system itself.

Recently, I have worked on the custom content system (aka plugins) so that plugins will compile into a single file instead of having a folder system. (Which in terms adds some security to your plugins as well as decreasing the disk space used up)

Currently, I'm working on both the multiplayer system and a way to break-down custom scripts during compilation so that it takes even less space up.

Holy heck this looks cool as fudge. I really like the base of the system.

But, there are somethings that are unappealing a bit... I'm no professional, but criticism can be criticism.

The basic idea itself is cool, but there are something design wise that makes it not that great.
I think you'd probably already know this yourself, and probably change, but, whatever.

- The Color Palette gives a really moody appearance, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I'd recommend more splashes of color in the field. Like, darker tones of other colors... Idk.

-The sprites are very generic and really often seen in a lot of RPG Maker stuff. It's not bad or anything, it really gives it something, but some really don't see the professionalism in that... I just like original stuff so this is moreover an opinion

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Anyways, yeah, keep up the good work! Really like how this is going... Would enjoy multiplayer, looks cool as fudge.

I do realize that graphics are a little bland, but I don't really have an artist and free sprites usually looks generic to begin with. I will update graphics though whenever I can.

It's been 10 days since my last update? Well, I haven't abandoned my game, I'm looking to restyle the game's graphics in either a perspective top down (perhaps even isometrical). But, to do this I'm required to modify a lot of the mechanics involved including the physics and pathfinding which is taking some time to redo.