Grimrock

I've been getting so gitty waiting for the tools that may or may not be coming eventually, but I honestly can't hold ideas that wouldn't be interesting. Point of discussion is any series of wacky or crazy ideas you have thought of for a map that you will be making.

Since I'm starting us all off, my idea is about the place in Greek mythology made by Daedalus that him and Icarus escaped from later. Thats right, the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is a giant structure, built to ultimately contain the Minotaur. A Labyrinth is very similair to a maze, of course the main difference is actually in how you traverse it. A Labyrinth is designed to not be difficult to navigate, however, for a dungeon that would make everything to easy. So I'm switching out the cicular design of a Labyrinth with that of a square Maze. Other then that, I want to leave other notes or hints as to what happened or is happening around the world while your stuck in here. Maybe even leave a unlockable item that is their pair of wings? Maybe even allow, essentially, the Toorum mode switched with Icarus or his father.

Wiki page on Labyrinths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretan_Labyrinth

It would be an interesting idea for a single floor. You'd just have to be careful not to make it too frustrating for the player. Some mazes in games are fun, others are just monotonous.

An idea I've held in the back of my head since starting to play through Grimrock was to introduce a more steampunk/dystopian Victorian-era/old English/technological overarcing theme to the dungeon itself. So you would see things like steam pipes running through the dungeons, big furnaces and gas lanterns and the like, but it would still keep its dark, grimy quasi-medieval feel. Perhaps subdued blues would be more prevalent in the color scheme, and lots of clever use of shadows and light to make the players of that awesome series Thief feel right at home.

I cannot say for sure since I do not know the capabilities of the engine and I do not know what the editor can do, but huge, tall rooms that extend upwards into infinite darkness would be a part of this design, as well as the use of silent teleports to make the player think they are traversing rooms that are bigger than they should be physically and seem to defy the laws of reality by "overlapping" other rooms... Mind-bending dungeon layouts that while not mazelike are certainly intricate in other ways, such as circular rooms which you may walk around a full 720 degrees around the center and not cross the path you began on.

I want just basic grid laying ability... all i want atm... and of course monster placement ability.

You can do that already thanks to the DAT file extractor by Raptor. Open grimrock.dat and extract what's found in assets/dungeons/grimrock/*.lua. Those are all the dungeon layouts and object maps. I'm not too sure what the format of the object mappings are, but more or less the map structures themselves are # for solid, . for empty space, and > and < for staircases. You'll have to monkey around with the objects yourself, though, as I have no idea for things like the format scroll definitions are supposed to be in.

I'm fairly certain the format for the monsters is an 8-bit magic number followed by entity name, followed by X and Y coordinates. Placing things like triggered events and alcoves and wall details is a bit more involved, by the looks of it.

darkhaven3 wrote:You can do that already thanks to the DAT file extractor by Raptor. Open grimrock.dat and extract what's found in assets/dungeons/grimrock/*.lua. Those are all the dungeon layouts and object maps. I'm not too sure what the format of the object mappings are, but more or less the map structures themselves are # for solid, . for empty space, and > and < for staircases. You'll have to monkey around with the objects yourself, though, as I have no idea for things like the format scroll definitions are supposed to be in.

I'm fairly certain the format for the monsters is an 8-bit magic number followed by entity name, followed by X and Y coordinates. Placing things like triggered events and alcoves and wall details is a bit more involved, by the looks of it.

cool, I'll look into it....
Anyone know the rule on posting custom dungeons atm? I'm perfectly ok with experimenting myself until the proper tools come out, but I'd also like to see some other ppls progress they've made so far.

HaunterV wrote:

darkhaven3 wrote:You can do that already thanks to the DAT file extractor by Raptor. Open grimrock.dat and extract what's found in assets/dungeons/grimrock/*.lua. Those are all the dungeon layouts and object maps. I'm not too sure what the format of the object mappings are, but more or less the map structures themselves are # for solid, . for empty space, and > and < for staircases. You'll have to monkey around with the objects yourself, though, as I have no idea for things like the format scroll definitions are supposed to be in.

I'm fairly certain the format for the monsters is an 8-bit magic number followed by entity name, followed by X and Y coordinates. Placing things like triggered events and alcoves and wall details is a bit more involved, by the looks of it.

cool, I'll look into it....
Anyone know the rule on posting custom dungeons atm? I'm perfectly ok with experimenting myself until the proper tools come out, but I'd also like to see some other ppls progress they've made so far.

The rules as they stand, are here.

Pretty much, you can't distribute at all. Probably best to simply wait for the official tools, and they allow an easier way to distribute, or the rules for distribution are changed.

pongsifu wrote:It would be an interesting idea for a single floor. You'd just have to be careful not to make it too frustrating for the player. Some mazes in games are fun, others are just monotonous.

It will still retain the merry-go-round feel of the actual Labyrinth but will have you go through multiple dead ends to find the items necessary to escape. And it wouldn't be on the same level, it would instead go gradually up or down. I wonder if I can change the final boss to instead be you needing to make a item to escape?

"as you walks down to west, following the Traders Route, you are kidnapped by a mysterious band of Insectoids. After a brief moment of true fear, you realize that their elemental wizards had choose you as they belive you are the Choosen Ones. You must visit the ancient tomb of XXX in the Desert south of you to put the word END to the great plague on their tribes. The wizards thinks about a some anciet curse as the legend of XXX tells about."

A dungeon based on an harsh and wasted desert, settend in an ancient dungeon sealed with puzzles and undiyng creatures who keep XXX from being freed... what about this?

Dungeon Ideas, Anyone?

Just one word : Moria ...

And the crowd of half-drunken dwarves in the bargain