It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me. I finished my job at the Air Force base. I moved from Dayton to Columbus. And, of course, I’ve been working on Dwarven Depths. (Curse you, networking!) I’m hoping it’ll be released within the next couple of weeks. I’d like to talk about the gameplay changes for the update, specifically how I dealt with criticisms of the original.
Item management is too difficult. It’s hard to use traps in items in the middle of battle.
The Item UI has been reworked as part of a general controller rewrite. Instead of a single item displayed at the top-right, a set of four items is displayed. Instead of pressing Y, each DPad direction will use a different item in the set. The items are displayed in a cross pattern that corresponds to the appropriate DPad direction. Pressing the left or right bumper will bring up a new set of items.
With these changes, items are far easier to use. You’re never more than two buttons away from using an item (and those two buttons stay consistent throughout all games). With the item icons displayed on the cross, learning which buttons go with which item is much easier.
Combat is too simplistic and slow.
There’s two valid criticisms here. The first is that swinging the sword feels sluggish. The swinging isn’t actually that sluggish, but the delay after swinging the sword is. I’ve improved this by almost removing the delay. I’ve also lowered the delay after using items, so combat should have more of a flow to it in general.
The second criticism is that combat is too simplistic. Outside of any interference from traps or monsters, players just sit around and duke it out with sword swinging. There’s little to no tactical movement or defense. To address this, I’ve added dodging and rolling. By pressing the left or right triggers, a dwarf will go into a defensive manuever and be invulnerable for a short period of time. If on the ground and moving, the dwarf will quickly roll forward or backwards. An aerial dodge can also move the dwarf slightly in any direction, although a dwarf can only air dodge twice before needing to touch the ground.
The athlete is the only class worth using.
I’ve made some changes to the other classes which should make them more viable. The Warrior has had the length of his parry increased. The Theif remains invisible will rolling and dodging, making his stealth much more viable. Players can fall good distances without losing stealth and, with some skill, move upward as well. The Stone Priest’s power has been completely reworked so that he’s relevant ) He is now able to move through rocks, although he will start to suffocate if he stays in a rock without coming out for air.
Enemies are too simple and don’t offer enough challenge.
I’ve reworked each enemy so that they have ‘levels’ (read: sprite recolors :). The familiar crabs and spiders are still present as the weakest tier of enemies. However, upgraded versions of these now chase after you and have some other nasty tricks. The highest level crab will even start digging tunnels after you. I’ve also added two new enemy types: slimes and shrooms. Slimes will shoot out different projectiles (fire, confusing gas) and shrooms will either confuse dwarves or explode. Sometimes both. I’ve increased the amount of gold for each monster so that monster hunting is a viable way to make cash. It makes the tunnels much more interesting to explore.
