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Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

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Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#11

Post by Vaskivo »

anxiostial wrote: post #3
Vaskivo wrote: post #2

Five months ago, I quit my job and started making a game alone. One Way Dungeon was what came of it. And the accomplishment of a life goal. I'll continue supporting the game and adding new content to it. But not at full time. I'm going back to a "normal life". (For those who don't want to install it or don't have Android, you can play it here: https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/builds/release-1-... ) I welcom…

did you want to share more details?, like sales numbers, time it took to build, why you decided to return to a normal job, etc.

It all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed the result. And it kept popping back in my mind.

November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software developer, and have played around with game dev, I never worked on and finished a game.

Last weekend I shared it with a small group of people (just to check everything was OK on their devices and with downloading it from Google Play.) And yesterday I started sharing it on the internet.

I don't have any concrete numbers to share. Google's reports are still a couple of days late. And I predict a spike on users starting yesterday.

I'm going back to a normal job because:

- I am unemployed. I have some savings but I don't want to spend more than I already have.

- I don't predict One Way Dungeon to generate enough income to keep me working on it indefinitely. I might be wrong. But competition in mobile gaming is fierce!

- I'm kinda missing working on backend. And working with people.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#12

Post by alpaca128 »

viraptor wrote: post #7
dsr_ wrote: post #6

OK, I've played it for a bit. - This is effectively a progression game, where the player builds up abilities. But defeating a low-level enemy is boring and slow, even when you kill them with your first blow. - It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. I was expecting punching to not advance quickly, but instead it has limited uses. That's a strange metaphor. - Everything feels slow - not because it needs bette…

> It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. This style of fight / abilities is almost exactly how Pokemon games work - it will be familiar to a lot of people. Actually so familiar I'd be worried about overzealous Nintendo lawyers :-P

Ah yes, I think they were called AP(Action Points) or something. But you rarely felt them as a player aside from long journeys and really strong attacks that are balanced out by having more limited uses.

I think it makes more sense to have at least one unlimited attack, though. It's hard to logically justify it otherwise.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#14

Post by wheybags »

alpaca128 wrote: post #12
viraptor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. This style of fight / abilities is almost exactly how Pokemon games work - it will be familiar to a lot of people. Actually so familiar I'd be worried about overzealous Nintendo lawyers :-P

Ah yes, I think they were called AP(Action Points) or something. But you rarely felt them as a player aside from long journeys and really strong attacks that are balanced out by having more limited uses. I think it makes more sense to have at least one unlimited attack, though. It's hard to logically justify it otherwise.

They're called PP, and when you run out of PP on all your moves, you automatically use "struggle" which hurts both you and the enemy.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#15

Post by wheybags »

Vaskivo wrote: post #11
anxiostial wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you want to share more details?, like sales numbers, time it took to build, why you decided to return to a normal job, etc.

It all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed the result. And it kept popping back in my mind. November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software developer, and have played around with game dev, I never worked on and finished a game. Last weekend I shared it with a small group…

> competition in mobile gaming is fierce!

Curious as to why you decided to release on mobile, instead of a slightly friendlier platform like PC.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#16

Post by Vaskivo »

wheybags wrote: post #15
Vaskivo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed the result. And it kept popping back in my mind. November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software developer, and have played around with game dev, I never worked on and finished a game. Last weekend I shared it with a small group…

> competition in mobile gaming is fierce! Curious as to why you decided to release on mobile, instead of a slightly friendlier platform like PC.

Because the game design was better suited for mobile.

IMO, putting it on PC/console would require the game to be more complex. And allow for longer play sessions (it is a bit repettitive and grindy).

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#17

Post by jerf »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #6

OK, I've played it for a bit. - This is effectively a progression game, where the player builds up abilities. But defeating a low-level enemy is boring and slow, even when you kill them with your first blow. - It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. I was expecting punching to not advance quickly, but instead it has limited uses. That's a strange metaphor. - Everything feels slow - not because it needs bette…

> Everything feels slow - not because it needs better programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast enough. This is, unfortunately, a sin committed by a whole lot of games these days. Off the top of my head I can name XCOM 2, which notoriously seemed to have delays resolving actions for no discernible reason whatsoever . The mod to fix this was literally named "stop wasting my time".

I don't 100% percent know this for sure, but since a lot of gamers are using "how long the game is" as a significant portion of their "is this game worth buying" metric, we've unfortunately incentivized game developers to pad this unnecessarily. I'm not sure which is worse, the micro ways like this that they pad things out or the inclusion of entire irrelevant subplots or the "Cut and Paste Dungeon It Will Take You Longer To Go Through Than It Took Us To Make (Please Enjoy These Palette Swapped Enemies And Palette Swapped Boss Rush)" in the last third of the game just because they need more run time.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#18

Post by nvarsj »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #6

OK, I've played it for a bit. - This is effectively a progression game, where the player builds up abilities. But defeating a low-level enemy is boring and slow, even when you kill them with your first blow. - It's disconcerting that you forget how to punch. I was expecting punching to not advance quickly, but instead it has limited uses. That's a strange metaphor. - Everything feels slow - not because it needs bette…

> Everything feels slow - not because it needs better programming, but because it doesn't resolve actions fast enough. This is, unfortunately, a sin committed by a whole lot of games these days. Off the top of my head I can name XCOM 2, which notoriously seemed to have delays resolving actions for no discernible reason whatsoever . The mod to fix this was literally named "stop wasting my time".

Magic Arena does this. It's _incredibly_ irritating, especially if you play a combo deck or something click intensive. Those 5-10s animations get really old after the millionth time.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#19

Post by thih9 »

I played the web version. Random feedback:

I like the mix of mobile casual and pokemon / mystery dungeon style. However I played two runs (returned safely, upgraded abilities, got killed by angry bear) and I don't want to try again. I'm missing some meaningful interaction (maybe shops? or alternate routes?). I'm bored by long transitions and repeated messages after battles (maybe let me skip or speed up the animation about absorbing monster energy?). I'm also overwhelmed by seeing so many different moves; perhaps moves could drop less frequently? This way it would be more of a special event instead of a regular thing.

Overall, I enjoyed it and will look out for future upgrades.

Re: Show HN: One Way Dungeon – A game I've been developing in the last five months

#20

Post by mobilio »

Vaskivo wrote: post #2

Five months ago, I quit my job and started making a game alone. One Way Dungeon was what came of it. And the accomplishment of a life goal. I'll continue supporting the game and adding new content to it. But not at full time. I'm going back to a "normal life". (For those who don't want to install it or don't have Android, you can play it here: https://vaskivodev.gitlab.io/onewaydungeon/builds/release-1-... ) I welcom…

I like it... it's like an old RPGs.

Any cheats like IDDQD or IDKFA?

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