The_Red_Hawk wrote:
This question is for Erik and all the other DROD staff (or anyone who knows).
When this game was being made, were there any other monsters or obstacles being considered and if so what were they?
In an earlier implementation of DROD, called "
Swordplay"
, there were a few different ideas. Roaches were then called "
orcs"
, but I decided I wanted to get away from stuff that sounded like J. R. R. Tolkien came up with it. Goblins had a Queen Goblin that made more of them, but having so many goblins generated was either impossible or tediously repetitive, depending on the room layout.
Some experiments were done with Beethro's sword in early prototypes. For a while, it was not possible to move the sword onto an obstacle. This seemed cool at first, but turning the sword to allow movement between closely-spaced obstacles was tedious. To alleviate this, I came up with automatic rules to move the sword out of the way of obstacles, but the rules all had problems. a. Removing control of the sword from the player in situations where different positioning would be preferable. b. Counter-intuitive behavior that would confuse the player.
Soko-ban boxes were briefly considered and abandoned. To do something different, I thought about boxes that you pull instead of push, but decided it wouldn't add much to the game. There is one element in the next release that is something like the pull-boxes.
I prototyped a version of DROD with multiple stories that used cutaway views to show hidden areas when you moved into them. Also, I prototyped a version where you could only see what was in your line of sight. I decided anything like this that involved hiding information, should be saved for a game other than DROD.
As far as monsters, the only one that was close to getting into DROD was this thing called a "
wubba"
. Wubbas move towards you but don't kill you, and you can't kill them. So they tend to clog up your movement, and if you aren't careful they will get on all eight sides and trap you. Wubbas should be seen in the next release.
-Erik
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The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
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