Forgotten King

The Forgotten King is rising and gathering his power to bring about a new cataclysm. For one reason or another, you have been tasked with stopping him.

This is a procedurally generated roguelike dungeon crawler. The current version is an early demo to show what I have been working on, containing the first five levels of the dungeon and a final boss that you must defeat in order to win. The current plan for future development includes:

• A full 25 level dungeon. Every 5 levels contains a miniboss that must be defeated to progress to the next area, that also grants powerful rewards.

• Each five level area will have a different theme, chosen at dungeon generation. So for example, the first five levels could be themed around a crypt, with many undead enemies and a legendary undead boss. Or it could be themed around an extravagant sewer system with vermin and creatures ready to drag you to a watery grave. 

• Mouse support and a musical soundtrack are planned for future inclusion.

• Dynamic enemies that interact with the player, be it through shouted threats, or adapting to the player's current abilities.

• More characters, that have different starting perks to select. Currently, there are five different starting characters to choose from, each with a basic inventory and a perk to help define their early build. The future will contain more characters, that allow you to choose between several options of a starting kit. You will be able to unlock more characters by progressing through the dungeon.

• More interesting rooms and features. Currently the dungeon consists of square, barren rooms with the occasional prefabricated room thrown into the mix. The plan will to have dynamic room structure, with many features and props to make the dungeon feel lived in.

Parts of the game that are already implemented:

• The first five levels of the dungeon with a powerful and difficult final boss that nearly requires adaptive tactics or plentiful consumables to defeat. The current five levels is themed around a lizardfolk tribe, consisting of powerful lizard guardians and shadowblades ready to sacrifice the player for their newly birthed god.

• A  handful of items and equipment. Including equipment for most major types such as bows, axes, magical rings, and different armor sets. There are also many spellbooks consisting of several powerful and unique spells the player can learn, and several potions that apply different effects to the player (or can be thrown, to apply those effects to an unwilling target instead.)

• Several basic perks to choose from every fourth level that applies a powerful bonus to utility or combat. As it is however, the game is not long enough to hit level 8 so each playthrough will reward you with one perk about halfway through.

• A functioning and powerful magic system. You can allocate spell points between different schools to focus on different spells you would like to cast. The magic system is detailed below in more depth, and there are currently two spellbooks containing 3 spells each for each magic type that you can learn from (that is 18 spells currently implemented that the player can learn and use.)

• Five different starting characters the player can select at the beginning of the game. Each of these are detailed in full down below.

• Several quality of life implementations to reduce the amount of repetitive keypresses the player needs to make. Such as [tab] to quickswap to your last equipped weapon (for characters that wield a bow along with a melee weapon) or the game keeping track of your last attacked creature so you don't need to target it every time you intend to throw an item/cast a spell/fire a weapon.

It differs from other roguelikes in that it has been built to have far simpler and intuitive systems of character progression, while removing rather unfun mechanics such as a hunger clock, identification and needing to have the wiki open at all times to understand what is going on.

Attributes and Stats:
An important part of the progression of Forgotten King is managing your character's attributes and stats upon leveling up. For example, an extra tough fighter relying on heavy armor to block the brunt of damage may want to invest some stat points into increasing their Will to be more resistant towards dangerous enemy effects, or their Agility to increase their evasion to potentially dodge all the damage from incoming attacks. Of course, they may be motivated to increase their Spellcasting to cast powerful spells from books they discovered, or increase their Accuracy in case they want a backup ranged weapon like a Crossbow.

Character Selection:
There are currently five playable characters in the game, that each differ between starting kits that hopefully emphasize different playstyles.

• The Adventurer: The most basic of the characters and the one easiest to playtest with, the Adventurer has perfectly balanced stats and attributes, and starts the game with a dagger, leather armor, and five throwing darts. The Adventurer's perk  grants an additional 10% experience from all actions, letting the player adapt their playstyle to whatever equipment they find.

• The Fighter: A standard melee class, the Fighter starts  with a perfectly servicable mace and some leather armor. This character's stats are heavily skewed towards Toughness and Brawn, and the Fighter's perk makes armor block an additional 8% of damage they take.

• The Ranger: The Ranger begins the game with a dagger and a bow with a quiver of 8 arrows. The Ranger's stats are skewed towards Agility and Accuracy, letting them deal far more damage at range or with light weapons while being fragile up in melee. The Ranger's perk  grants an additional 10% critical hit chance.

• The Berserker: This character enters the dungeon only equipped with a Hand Axe and their undying rage. The Berserker has increased Strength stats and has the ability to fly into a berserk rage, granting massively increased strength for a short period of time before becoming exhausted.

• The Elementalist: A basic starting character centered around casting magical spells, the Elementalist begins with a Book of Kindling and the ability to cast low level fire spells. This character's perk increases their starting mana pool by 5, a substantial amount that should avoid running out of mana during crucial fights in the early game.

The Magic System:
The modularity of the magic system allows for players to specialize in different schools of magic to cast totally different spells, while making intelligence stats no more useful or complicated than the others. There are six main schools of magic, detailed below. As a special action, the player can [m]editate and allocate spell points to the different types. Spell points can be swapped around as often as you need, so you do not need to commit to a type school for the entire game. The more you focus on a single type, the more powerful spells you are able to cast. For example, a spellcaster with three points in the Fire type can cast powerful spells such as the iconic Fireball, but a spellcaster with one point in three different schools gets more utility and options (such as being able to increase their strength, increase their speed, or slow enemies.) Meditation takes time to prevent players from changing schools in combat, but if you know the challenges ahead then you can take time to rest and prepare.

Early Access Demo:
As this is a very early look at the end product with a short playable demo (tends to take 30-60 minutes to win a run if you are careful) I welcome any and all feedback in the comments down below. Feel free to make suggestions of things you would like to see in the game, such as different enemies, items, or full character builds, and I will certainly consider adding them in the future.

#adventure #pixelart #roguelike #dungeoncrawler #exploration #fantasy #permadeath #turnbased #singleplayer