Rusty Roguelike is a 2D traditional roguelike that attempts to capture the essentials of the genre as it has developed since Rogue's release in 1980. Turn-based, tile-based and centered on an adventurer's descent into a dungeon to retrieve the Amulet of Yala (Yet Another Lost Amulet). The adventurer battles through numerous procedurally generated levels to retrieve the amulet, and then must fight their way back to town to win the game.
The player controls one major character, Hero Protagonist as he/she/it battles through the dungeon. Human NPCs will range from shop-keepers to fantasy RPG staples such as bandits, brigands, sorcerers, etc. Other characters in the game will largely be fantasy RPG staples: elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orces, globins, trolls, ogres, dragons, etc.
(Description of all NPCs should go here)
A stretch goal is to have NPCs belong to factions, and allow the clever player to "faction farm" and adjust loyalties.
Ideally, NPC AI should be more intelligent than a rock.
This is not a story heavy game (Roguelikes are frequently shorter in story than traditional RPGs, because you die and restart a lot and won't generally spend a lot of time reading story/lore).
In the dark ages of yore, the sorcerer kings crafted the Amulet of Yala to bind the demons of the Abyss- And end their reign of terror. A golden Age followed, and the good races flourished. Now dark times have fallen upon the land once more, demons stir, and the forces of darkness once again ravage the land. The Amulet of Yala may be the good folk's last hope. After a long night in the pub, you realize that maybe it is your destiny to recover it and restore tranquility to the land. Only slightly hungover, you set forth into the dungeons beneath your home town - sure that you can be the one to set things right.
We'll aim for a traditional D&D style dungeon bash, with traps, monsters, the occasional puzzle, with humor sprinkled liberally (another staple of the genre). A "Kitchen sink" approach is preferred to strictly focused realism - this is a tutorial project, and it's better to have lots of themes (from which to learn) than a single cohesive one in this case.
There is no horizontal progression - you don't keep any benefits from previous runs through the game. So you always start in the same place as a new character, and gain benefits for a single run only. You can go both up and down in the dungeon, returning to town to sell items and goods. Progression on levels is preserved until you find the Amulet of Yala - at which point the universe truly is out to get you until you return home.
As a starting guide, consider the following progression. It will evolve and become more random as we work on the game.
- The game starts in town. In town, there are only minimal enemies (pickpockets, thugs). You start in the to-be-named pub (tavern), armed only with a meager purse, minimal starting equipment, a stein of beer, a dried sausage, a backpack and a hangover. Town lets you visit various vendors.
- You spelunk into the caves next to town, and fight your way through natural limestone caverns.
- The limestone caverns give way to a ruined dwarven fortress, now occupied by vile beasts - and a black dragon.
- Beneath the dwarven fortress lies a vast mushroom forest.
- The mushroom forest gives way to a dark elven city.
- The depths contain a citadel with a portal to the Abyss.
- The Abyss is a nasty fight against high-level demonic monsters. Here you find the Amulet of Yala.
- You fight your way back up to town.
Travel should be facilitated with an equivalent of Town Portal scrolls from Diablo.
Gameplay should be a very tradicional turn-based dungeon crawl, but with an emphasis on making mechanics easy to use. At the base level, this is the "murder hobo experience": you start with very little, subsist off of what you find, kill (or evade) monsters you encounter, and take their stuff! This should be sprinkled with staples of the genre: item identification, interesting magical items, stats and plenty of ways to modify them, and multiple "valid" ways to play and beat the game. The game should be difficult but not impossible. Nothing that requires quick reflexes is permitted!
In a real game design document, we'd painstakingly describe each element here. For the purposes of the tutorial, we'll add to the list as we write more.
- Overall: The ultimate goal is to retrieve the Amulet of Yala - and return to town (town portal spells stop working once you have it).
- Short-term:Defeat enemies on each level.
- Navigate each level of the dungeon, avoiding traps and reaching the exit.
- Obtain lots of cool loot.
- Earn bragging rights for your score.
- Navigating different dungeons.
- Tactical combat, learning AI behavior and terrain to maximize the chances of survival.
- Item identification should be more than just "identify spell" - there should be some hints/system that the user can use to better understand the odds.
- Stat management - equip to improve your chances of survival for different threats.
- Long and short-term resource management.
- Ideally we want enough depth to spur "build" discussions.
We'll go with the tried and tested "sort of D&D" mechanics. used by so many games (and licensed under the Open Gaming License), but without being tied to a D&D-like game. We'll expand upon this as we develop the tutorial.
The game should include a good variety of items. Broadly, items are divided as:
- Wearables (armor, clothes, etc.)
- Wearable specials (amulets, rings, etc.)
- Defense items (shields and similar)
- Melee weapons
- Ranged weapons
- Consumables items (items that can only be used x times unless recharged)
- Loot/junk to sell/scrap.
- Food.
Other notes:
- Eventually, items should have weight and inventory management becomes a skill. Until then, it can be quite loose/ready.
- Magical items shouldn't immediately reveal what they do, beyond being magical.
- Items should be drawn from loot tables that at least sort-of make sense.
- "Props" are a special form of item that doesn't move, but can be interacted with.
- As you defeat enemies, you earn experience points and can level up. This improves your general abilities and grants access to better ways to defeat more enemies!
- The level should increase in difficulty as you descend. "Out of level" enemies are possible but very rare - to keep it fair.
- Try to avoid capriciously killing the player with no hope of circumventing it.
- Once the Amulet of Yala has been claimed, difficulty ramps up on all levels as you fight your way back up to town. Certain perks (like town portal) no longer work.
- There is no progression between runs - it's entirely self-contained.
Losing is fun! In fact, a fair portion of the appeal of traditional roguelikes is that you have one life - and it's "game over" when you succumb to your wounds/traps/being turned into a banana. The game will feature permadeath - once you've died, your run is over and you start afresh.
As a stretch goal, we may introduce some ways to mitigate/soften this.
We'll aim for beautiful ASCII, and may introduce tiles.
None! It would be nice to have once tiles are done.
The game will be written in Rust, using rtlk_rs for its back-end. It will support all the platforms on which Rust can compile and link to OpenGL.
The game will be in English.