Skullstone - an indie 3d dungeon crawler

Hi guys

Me and my team are currently working on Skullstone - a retro grid-based dungeon crawler RPG. We’re all huge fans of the classics of the genre (Dungeon Master, Eye of Beholder, Stonekeep, Ishar, etc.) as well as Legend of Grimrock, and we’re trying to capture that unique atmosphere of old-school dungeon adventuring.

Here's what the game looks like at the moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEHc3p4Fjw

At this point some of you might say that it's a clone of Grimrock, but there will be some considerable differences. Just to name some:

- Game area not limited to a dungeon. Your party will have an opportunity to visit a town, where they can get some equipment, interact with the locals etc.
- A system of side-quests,
- No customizable characters: you will choose your party members form a big group of pre-defined characters, each with his/her own unique set of strengths and weaknesses,
- A different approach to real-time combat. There's been a lot of criticism concerning Grimrock's "dancing" way of fighting, which made the game more arcade than RPG. We're working on a system of special abilities (for both party characters and dungeon monsters) to deal with this issue.
- A different approach to casting spells.

Let me know what you think of it, there's still much to be done, so any feedback will be appreciated

Visit our Fb page: https://www.facebook.com/SkullstoneGame
Follow us on Twitter: @SkullstoneGame

Thanks

Intrigued!

Nothing wrong with looking like a Grimrock clone. Just take the best elements and make then yours.
Personally I dislike pre defined sets of characters unless they come with their own backstory that had a plot purpose. If they are just pre generated characters to choose at the beginning off a game I'm not infatuated. It's easier for me to invest in a character I created than a faceless diceroll toon in a pool.

I do enjoy town experiences where you can purchase or sell items as well.

Good luck

Thanks for your comment

There will be about 20-30 characters to choose from (it's quite a lot, so we probably won't manage to give each of them a backstory that would affect the game in a significant way). We decided to abandon the concept of classes (and races, in a way), so each of them will be totally unique.
One reason we decided to do this, is to avoid players' attempts to calculate "the ultimate party build" (personally I think it's a fun-killer), the other one is to increase the game's replayability.
Not to mention the fact that we all are huge fans of the Ishar series

Well I sure like some of the older games that you referenced, so I'll be keeping an eye on your game. Best of luck with the project, and I totally agree with your scheme to eliminate maxing and minimizing potential parties, I find that practice to be just lame. I like to explore right from the beginning and see what works for me (as I avoid most mage types, I usually make a strange and eclectic group) =p

I actually like the idea of having pre defined characters. Especially if you have such a big choice.

Regarding the combat…well, it's great that you see the problem in Grimrock. But unless you show how it's improved in your system I stay skeptical.

Also I'd like to see how quests are implemented. I refered to EoB and Lands of Lore a lot when I ranted about Grimrock. I really hope that these quests give something "worth" exploring for. And if it's just cool pictures and story. But not just blunt text and maybe an item as in Grimrock.

Regarding the presentation in the video:
Guess you are working on the effects. Especially the missing enemy feedback when being it felt odd.
Personally I don't like (actually hate) if robots are mixed into fantasy. So not too happy about that part.

Regarding the lighting: seems to be a little over the top contrasts between lights and shadows. It looks decent, but rather than being in a dungeon to me it had more of a feel like having a mini camera within a LEGO castle, if you know what I mean. Maybe some more "dirt" needed, more lighting effects, smoke or fog…something which makes you feel you are really deep underground.

Regarding attacks:
I'd welcome an "attack all" button as in Eye of the Beholder 3.
A different method, which I also liked quite a lot was the one Ishar used. Where you had all the "attack" icons grouped together which made it much more comfortable using them.

Our designers are working hard to make the quests worth your while. In most cases the reward will be some extra XP or an item that you wouldn’t have a chance to get in any other way. But that’s not all. Having NPC quest-givers gives us more flexibility in terms of rewards. For instance, a high priest can reward your efforts with a blessing, that will give your party a small constant bonus to attack power.

As far as visual effects are concerned, we’re still experimenting with lighting, fog, different textures etc. The visual feedback when hitting an opponent will probably be just a blood splatter or something like that (we wanted to make a special animation for this one, but we weren’t satisfied with the effect).
Oh, and don’t mind the robot-like thing, it won’t be implemented in the game (I probably should have mentioned that earlier ).

The “attack all” button probably won’t be introduced, but we’re still working on making the GUI more comfortable. We’re also thinking of adding keyboard hotkeys (I believe they were used in Ishar as well).

This is what our GUI looks like at the moment:

I do like a minimal gui, this looks really nice. Very little clutter on the screen works better for me.

Single dungeon game?! Been there done that. That is so iron curtain.

I prefer a solo dungeon myself. Just increase the difficulty level by level and it works just fine.

Some time ago I mentioned that we’re going to deal with the issue of so caled ‘dancing combat’ (i.e. moving around the enemy to avoid getting hit). One of our team members has done this little video to show you some combat mechanics we introduced to tackle the problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUhi5vpfB1A

Hrm, but in this particular video the only mechanic vs dancing shown is the spiderweb root, isn't it?

And of course it's mentioned that the combat is balanced around "not dancing". But that doesn't keep players from doing it anyways if they can finish the fight without risk that way.

There are actually two things mentioned:
1. Mobs' immobilizing abilities: spider's web is just an example. There will be quite a lot of enemies that will be able to bind/freeze/petrify/slow down party members (these effects will differ slightly).
2. Changing the character of dungeon encounters: instead of one strong enemy, you'll get a room with a pack of weaker mobs of various kinds, so there won't be much room for dancing

Of course that's not all, as there are also some smaller things to be done in order to balance combat.

Just to make things clear: we definitely won't ban dancing completely (to do so, we'd probably have to abandon real-time combat). Our aim is to avoid situations, when dancing or hit&run is NECESSARY to kill an enemy.
Personally, I doubt that players will be keen to dance around the opponent, if they are not forced by the game to do so

Hi,
There are a lot of new things to show.

1. Improved GUI

2. More mobs

unfortunately the pics are not linked and in pretty low res.

ich checked on FB and indieDB but there are only the monster ones. Guess the ones about the interface are the most interesting.

Then something went wrong. Those should be a miniatures with links to large images. I'll try to edit them.

FrozenShade said:

Then something went wrong. Those should be a miniatures with links to large images. I'll try to edit them.

Click to expand...

I was going to help out, but you've already figured it out.

Yes, seems like that I cannot put here miniatures, solved it by insertng the whole screens.

@Kordanor: why the ss with monsters are not interesting? Such pics are very popular on various FB groups, so I choose that ones to show on our FB page and here.

Works now, thanks!

While it looks good I am not sure it exactly fits the same style as the surroundings. Looks rather "drawn" than realistic while the models of the level itself look somehwat like 3D Poser style (with harsh grainy shadows, making it look a bit like a comic)

Well, 4 of the monster pics are not loading yet.

Regarding the monsters: Not that they aren't interesting at all. But imho they don't show much on a screen. A monster on a screenshot for a dungeoncrawler can look nice, but it might still be horribly animated for example. It's nice to get an idea of the type of monsters though.

I also hope the torch is still a WIP