In release 1-2 you could run in corridors by pressing space. In release #3 I have improved on this so that you can run anywhere. I have implemented this a bit differently from other roguelikes so I thought I’d explain why. Autorunning by Space You run just like in the previous releases by pressing space. […]
Category: Game Design
There will soon be a release #3 of The Ground Gives Way. This is quite a major release compared to #2 with a lot of news and an extensive changelog. I am not quite done testing this version, so I don’t know exactly when I will release it, but it still looks like end of […]
I am working on a new release of The Ground Gives Way. I shared some of the plans for the next few releases in my previous post, on which I still welcome any suggestions. However, sometimes inspiration strikes and I have implemented a new item category in the next release: rods. Rods Rods are a […]
Before this post, I just want to say that I consider the first version of the game finished now and I plan to release it on June 20th, 2014. Melee Weapons One major design goal from the beginning was that the different melee weapons should be significantly different from each other, and the choice of […]
As most roguelikes do, TGGW features procedurally generated dungeons. The dungeon is generated using an algorithm that gets nice and varying results. Below you can see a few generated levels (however, you cannot see monsters or items in these screens): The dungeon is made out of a wild mixture of rooms, themed rooms, predefined rooms, […]
In this post I describe some of the fundamental gameplay aspects of TGGW. The combat system, the magic system and the recovery system. The Combat System TGGW implements a very simple combat system. There is melee combat and ranged combat. Melee works as common in roguelikes: bump into the enemy to attack it. The action […]
I have put a lot of effort in the user interface for TGGW since I really think that classical roguelikes suffer in this area. Traditionally most of the keyboard is used as a “command set” since roguelikes are generally known to have complex interactions. However, this tradition is now being broken by modern roguelikes. In […]
An important aspect of roguelike game play is variation. If the game implements permadeath, then it is important that each game is different enough from the last. While I enjoy roguelikes a lot, I think that most of the major roguelikes have a problem with variation. One goal of TGGW is to make sure each […]
I have been working on my roguelike game The Ground Gives Way (TGGW) for a couple of years now and it has been in a fully playable state for quite long, so I have decided that it is close to release. In this first post I will explain the main ideas of the game and […]