Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months
124 points by Vaskivo 4 years ago | 56 comments- Vaskivo 4 years agoFive months ago, I quit my job and started making a game alone. One Way Dungeon was what came of it. And the accomplishment of a life goal.
I'll continue supporting the game and adding new content to it. But not at full time. I'm going back to a "normal life".
(For those who don't want to install it or don't have Android, you can play it here: https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/builds/release-1-...)
I welcome all and any criticism. And I hope you like it. Thank you!
- J5892 4 years agoInitial reactions:
- It's great as a quick pick up and play game
- I would love an option to speed up animations
- I would definitely add attack power to the attack buttons
- When replacing an attack, it would be great to have a comparison view for the selected attack (or relative values next to the new values)
- Add some icons to the move buttons for effects (like attack up/down, etc.)
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
I definetely need to "speed up" the battles. And iterate a bit more in the UI.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- f00zz 4 years agoCongratulations on finishing your game, that's a huge accomplishment!
- anxiostial 4 years agodid you want to share more details?, like sales numbers, time it took to build, why you decided to return to a normal job, etc.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoIt all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed the result. And it kept popping back in my mind.
November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software developer, and have played around with game dev, I never worked on and finished a game.
Last weekend I shared it with a small group of people (just to check everything was OK on their devices and with downloading it from Google Play.) And yesterday I started sharing it on the internet.
I don't have any concrete numbers to share. Google's reports are still a couple of days late. And I predict a spike on users starting yesterday.
I'm going back to a normal job because:
- I am unemployed. I have some savings but I don't want to spend more than I already have.
- I don't predict One Way Dungeon to generate enough income to keep me working on it indefinitely. I might be wrong. But competition in mobile gaming is fierce!
- I'm kinda missing working on backend. And working with people.
- legohead 4 years agoIf possible I recommend applying for work at a mobile game company. Even as a backend dev you can learn a lot. There's a ton of interesting stuff to learn about game design, marketing, analytics, ads vs iap, etc.
- wheybags 4 years ago> competition in mobile gaming is fierce!
Curious as to why you decided to release on mobile, instead of a slightly friendlier platform like PC.
- halfmatthalfcat 4 years agoSo you quit your job to work on this game full time and after 5 months, you're deciding to go back to work full time.
Did you quit your job with the hopes this game would sustain you? If so, did you do any market research to validate that hypothesis.
- legohead 4 years ago
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- mushishi 4 years agoCongrats, that sounds like a fulfilling choice.
Wrt. the game, the music seems really catchy, I like that the bass has clear presence.
From a quick test try of it, was probably fun to make, and seems like a cool concept. Unfortunately have to prioritize other things.
- wincy 4 years agoAny plans for an iOS version?
- Vaskivo 4 years agoNot at the moment.
For that, I'd have to get a MAC and some iPhones to generate and test a iOS build.
When the app generates enough money to get them, I'll do it.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- LucidLynx 4 years agoCongratulations! :)
I will download it asap in order to play a round.
Did you used a web-based game engine and export it in an Android app in some way?
- Vaskivo 4 years ago@modeless is correct. I used the Godot engine [0].
Out of the box, it allows you to export to Windows, Mac OS, Linux and web (HTML5 with WebAssemply, IIRC).
It also allows exporting to Android and iOS if you have the correct SDKs. (I don't have a mac, so I can't make a iOS build)
Some people also managed to export to consoles. But they don't share that integration because it would make them break the NDA.
- modeless 4 years agoLooks like they are using Godot engine.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- mobilio 4 years agoI like it... it's like an old RPGs.
Any cheats like IDDQD or IDKFA?
- acomjean 4 years agoreminds me of Ultima (the Dungeons parts), or Wizardry/ Bards tales bit, if they were in an arcade.
Nice work, esp the music. Fun
- acomjean 4 years ago
- J5892 4 years ago
- dsr_ 4 years agoOK, I've played it for a bit.
- This is effectively a progression game, where the player builds up abilities. But defeating a low-level enemy is boring and slow, even when you kill them with your first blow.
- It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. I was expecting punching to not advance quickly, but instead it has limited uses. That's a strange metaphor.
- Everything feels slow - not because it needs better programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast enough. Asking whether I want to return to the start after every enemy is aggravating.
- There's no actual sense of progression or reward.
- There's no sense of danger, either.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4 years ago> Everything feels slow - not because it needs better programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast enough.
This is, unfortunately, a sin committed by a whole lot of games these days. Off the top of my head I can name XCOM 2, which notoriously seemed to have delays resolving actions for no discernible reason whatsoever. The mod to fix this was literally named "stop wasting my time".
- jerf 4 years agoI don't 100% percent know this for sure, but since a lot of gamers are using "how long the game is" as a significant portion of their "is this game worth buying" metric, we've unfortunately incentivized game developers to pad this unnecessarily. I'm not sure which is worse, the micro ways like this that they pad things out or the inclusion of entire irrelevant subplots or the "Cut and Paste Dungeon It Will Take You Longer To Go Through Than It Took Us To Make (Please Enjoy These Palette Swapped Enemies And Palette Swapped Boss Rush)" in the last third of the game just because they need more run time.
- enkid 4 years agoAnother possible explanation is that it feels/looks better for demonstration purposes. For press and initial players, having some time to process the information or make the animation look pretty is probably much more attractive then if information is spewing at them. As you progress, you need less processing time and understand what information on the screen is actually valuable, and therefore don't need as much time, so now the long animations go from being useful to being repetitive and boring.
- void_mint 4 years ago> I don't 100% percent know this for sure, but since a lot of gamers are using "how long the game is" as a significant portion of their "is this game worth buying" metric, we've unfortunately incentivized game developers to pad this unnecessarily.
I can confirm that this is a common, intentional practice in the games industry.
- enkid 4 years ago
- nvarsj 4 years agoMagic Arena does this. It's _incredibly_ irritating, especially if you play a combo deck or something click intensive. Those 5-10s animations get really old after the millionth time.
- jerf 4 years ago
- viraptor 4 years ago> It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch.
This style of fight / abilities is almost exactly how Pokemon games work - it will be familiar to a lot of people. Actually so familiar I'd be worried about overzealous Nintendo lawyers :-P
- alpaca128 4 years agoAh yes, I think they were called AP(Action Points) or something. But you rarely felt them as a player aside from long journeys and really strong attacks that are balanced out by having more limited uses.
I think it makes more sense to have at least one unlimited attack, though. It's hard to logically justify it otherwise.
- wheybags 4 years agoThey're called PP, and when you run out of PP on all your moves, you automatically use "struggle" which hurts both you and the enemy.
- wheybags 4 years ago
- alpaca128 4 years ago
- debo_ 4 years agoIn response to the slowness: I clicked the settings button on the battle screen (top right star-shape) and maxed the text speed, and actions moved very quickly after that.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
I'll take it into account in further improvements.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4 years ago
- klmadfejno 4 years agoPlayed the web app. Pretty fun but also pretty one dimensional. Congrats on releasing either way. That's my goal as well and I don't think I'm likely to reach it until I'm retired :(
- The optimal strategy pretty clearly seemed to be max out speed and one type of attack. Most battles can be one shot victories. I assume it wouldn't be that difficult to build up enough durability to survive multiple rounds of a battle, but it'd likely be a lot slower. Final boss was one shot on my first attempt.
- I only did physical attacks. There wasn't much room for strategy. Tackle if tackle would kill it; wild slashes if tackle wouldn't kill it; big slash if even that wouldn't work. There were some stat change attacks available but they didn't seem too interesting. Most of the time you just wanted to do enough damage to win quickly. Sand attack seemed somewhat useful once or twice. Because battles were so short, an enemy would need to be able to survive at least 3 tackles AND survive fewer than that with a debuff in order to make using any sort of buff or debuff worthwhile. Cuz tackle/tackle is basically the same outcome as sand attack/tackle. I'm not sure any fights lasted longer than 3 rounds for me.
- I had no obvious way to know if magic was more effective against certain enemies. But in any case, physical was more than enough, and thus, splitting any points between physical and magic attack was sort of a waste. I think there was a beastiery but I wasn't really interested enough to look through it
- The attack ammunition felt a little odd. Mainly in that I mostly just wanted more tackle ammo but as the game went on, mostly got variants that felt less useful. Reckless tackle in particular felt weirdly useless in how dangerous it was to yourself. I did feel like I wanted to conserve some ammo, but mostly for not wanting the annoyance of farming level 1 for tackles. If I had known the game capped out at warehouse 3 I probably would have finished it a lot sooner just blasting everything with big slash and calling it a day.
- I think it would be difficult to continue to add more meaningful content without adding more depth to the combat.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
I know of that optimal strategy. And it's something I'll try "to fix" in a future version.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- pomian 4 years agoI wonder if you could add the game to F-Droid? I think there are quite a few Android users that don't load apps through the Google Play store. Game looks interesting, but I suspect it would be better to play on Android as app, instead of website.
- Yhippa 4 years agoI like this game! Just enough thinking to make it interesting but not as brutal as most roguelikes. The ads are a bit jarring but I get it. The aesthetics are pleasing and I love the soundtrack.
I bet there are a lot of ways you can go with this including non-linear dungeons. There might be that but I haven't had a chance to play too far. This reminds me of the 3D dungeons in Phantasy Star I but with a much better twist.
One thing I noticed is that the text can be difficult to read easily sometime.
I look forward to seeing what you do with this!
- billytetrud 4 years agoInteresting concept. I like it generally. Congrats! Things I don't like:
* Too many ads. No way to escape them (eg can't pay to remove ads). Even without payment, I think you should remove ads that appear after the player finishes a dungeon. Ads can be used as a punishment mechanism when you die or when you run away. But I think it would be a lot better if you removed ads from the bottom of the upgrade screen, and if you reduced the frequency of seeing ads. I might just not play much if there are that many ads. It really degrades the experience.
After 10 minutes of playing, the repetition of messages gets a bit old. Especially in situations where one attack move has multiple similar effect. Like there's one that gives you more physical and magic attack power. However it splits up the messages and animations into two, making it take twice as long.
The winning messages could be a lot quicker too - put the "you absorb the monster's magic" (or whatever) message in the pop up that asks you whether you want to learn it or not, rather than as another combat message at the bottom you have to wait for.
And when you kill a monster, you shouldn't have to wait through irrelevant effects like poisoning them, or raising your attack power. They're dead, its over. Would be nice to squelch irrelevant messages.
- arist0tl3 4 years agoCongrats on launching!
Had a play through and found it pretty addictive; similar to other clickminer/grind style games I've liked in the past.
I found the action swap mechanic a little odd at first but ultimately a nice change of pace from the more typical "unlock/pay to play" style progression of actions.
I do agree with some other posters that there is a good deal of unnecessary tapping (choosing to return/continue, etc) but I think it would take a little ingenuity about how to keep the core gameplay as is and reduce those taps.
The ads did make me sad and really interrupted the flow/immersiveness of the experience. A revenue model I'd play with is a paywall after the first level (and capping the stats as kind of an "intro" experience) and doing away with the ads.
Last thought was around the item that allows the player to see the unit's information. That part felt especially clunky/tap heavy. Might be cool to just see the general strengths/weaknesses mid-battle.
Again, just a bunch of random thoughts, and the main takeaway is that you should be proud of not only building something cool, but putting it out there for others to enjoy!
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- JohnDeHope 4 years agoComing back after a long hiatus. I beat the game! No spoilers here. I just wanted to say you did a great job and this was a great first stab at design. I felt like you thought through some of the interactions and tried to hone a bit of a custom experience. Your design was noticed and appreciated!
- thih9 4 years agoI played the web version. Random feedback:
I like the mix of mobile casual and pokemon / mystery dungeon style. However I played two runs (returned safely, upgraded abilities, got killed by angry bear) and I don't want to try again. I'm missing some meaningful interaction (maybe shops? or alternate routes?). I'm bored by long transitions and repeated messages after battles (maybe let me skip or speed up the animation about absorbing monster energy?). I'm also overwhelmed by seeing so many different moves; perhaps moves could drop less frequently? This way it would be more of a special event instead of a regular thing.
Overall, I enjoyed it and will look out for future upgrades.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
I'm currently trying to figure a way to make the "post battle" smoother.
Inside the dungeon, I'm planning on adding "events". To mix it up a bit from battles. But I want it to continue linear and simple. The game is, in fact, a "boss rush game" with a "dungeon crawler" look.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- offtop5 4 years agoWhat a great game, my only comment is I would love to be able to pay to remove the ads. Although from my own experience I know that this is probably more trouble than it's worth since the vast majority of people will never pay
- uvesten 4 years agoVery good! I usually don't test out any demos here on HN, and I was really supposed to be going to bed, but the web version of your game delayed that for 45 minutes. Really enjoyable and well made!
- arbitrage 4 years agoinstalled and playing. it's pretty cool! i'm really enjoying it.
please let me give you a few bucks to turn off ads.
- SomeHacker44 4 years agoThanks for mentioning it has ads. I was going to try it before I saw this.
- SomeHacker44 4 years ago
- dnmfarrell 4 years agothis is super fun to play. I love the music, the interface, leveling etc. Perfect for mobile. Unfortunately the game crashed on me mid-dungeon level 2 after defeating a monsta :/
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThank you for your feedback.
Could you please email me with the detail of the crash?
You can see my email in my profile. Or inside the app. Top left button in the title menu.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- JohnDeHope 4 years ago> And the accomplishment of a life goal.
Did you write a dev blog? I'm curious what your life goal was. The game looks cool. I'll try to play it via that web link you provided.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThe goal was to design and develop a game alone. And then publish it.
It's no 100% mine. But anything that isn't I paid for it. So it "came from me" anyways.
You can see the assets I bought in the credits section. And I even hired a designer to help with UI/UX.
I have a dev blog, but as development went on I kinda skimped on it. Here it is: https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- socialist_coder 4 years agoHow was your experience using Godot? Why did you go with that over other engines?
- Vaskivo 4 years agoI really enjoyed godot. Once I "got" some of the concepts, I became very fast in creating elements and changing them. And I used GDScript.
When I built the first prototype[0] I also used the opportunity to try out godot. I like it a lot. It's main concept (scene <==> node) felt really elegant.
Some other engines might have better features. But One Way Dungeon is a 2D game with no real-time gameplay or physics or networking... So ease of use is more important than high-end capabilities.
[0] you can read the whole story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27208333
- Vaskivo 4 years ago
- dovrce 4 years agoThis is pretty fun, reminds me of flash games from my childhood, thanks for posting!
- AwkwardPanda 4 years agoPlayed the web version. Very nice. Congrats.
- debo_ 4 years agoI love it! The music is very comfy.
- Vaskivo 4 years agoThe music comes from this guy: https://wingless-seraph.net/en/index.html
I'm in no way affiliated with him. Found his music on itch.io and fell in love with it. I was surprised by it's quality.
- Vaskivo 4 years ago