Huddle around the bonfire, friends- it's storytime:

About two years ago, I had something that looked like this-

Then, after struggling with 2D art, I decided to use 3D voxels-

This space doesn't feel like a cave, though- and the red light (meant to be torch-light originally?) feels a bit off-putting...

But these rooms felt empty- and I wanted them to feel a bit more like they were designed by a person. So, with the help of procedural generation and visual effects I slowly built it up;

And ended up with this!

I designed the game to have both combat;

And things you can interact with-

Then, I added a whole bunch of new features-

For example, I added skills:

I also added some equipment for the players to hold and use! (AND DUAL HAMMER WIELDING! )

And then even more tweaks, like an initiative system, character following, and changing the fire from sprites to voxels-

Now I'm planning on finishing up some smaller improvements, then adding more content, and then more levels below the first 3 ones (and the thing below them).

But, this hasn't been smooth sailing- frankly, I was contemplating dropping this project early on-

If you ever struggled with working on a something for a long time, let this motivate you. As long as you put the effort in, it'll get better and more complete, one step at a time.

My game is named "Netherguild"- it's a turn based strategy game & dungeoncrawler, partially inspired by roguelikes (random levels and enemies, but you keep your characters between runs)- it's currently still in a free early alpha state.

If it sounds like your jam, or if you want to support me by trying it out, you can try it out here:

Discord (I post builds here before they go public & discuss development): https://discordapp.com/invite/netherguild

Gamejolt https://gamejolt.com/games/Netherguild/413228

#gamedev #indiedev #turnbasedstrategy #dungeoncrawler #roguelite #voxel #pixel #article