4. Design a Dungeon Crawler

For this we will be building a dungeon crawler game called Rusty Roguelike. We will first start off with the design document,

Adding Headings to Your Design Document

Naming Your Game

Project Name: Rusty Roguelike

Short Description

Short Description
A dungeon crawler with procedurally generated levels, monsters of increasing difficulty,
and turn-based movement

Basic Game Loops

Basic Game Loops
1. Enter dungeon level.
2. Explore, revealing the map.
3. Encounter enemies whom the player fights or flees from.
4. Find power-ups and use them to strengthen the player.
5. Locate the exit to the level - go to 1.

Minimum Viable Product

Minimum Viable Product
1. Create a basic dungeon map
2. Place the player and let them walk around
3. Spawn monsters, draw them, and let the player kill them by walking into them.
4. Add health and a combat system that uses it.
5. Add healing potions.
6. Display a “game over” screen when the player dies.
7. Add the Amulet of Yala to the level and let the player win by reaching it.

Stretch Goals

Stretch Goals
1. Add Fields-of-View.
2. Add more interesting dungeon designs.
3. Add some dungeon themes.
4. Add multiple layers to the dungeon, with the Amulet on the last one.
5. Add varied weapons to the game.
6. Move to a data-driven design for spawning enemies.
7. Consider some visual effects to make combat more visceral.
8. Consider keeping score.

Wrap-Up

The point of this chapter is to show you that you can build many things just plowing through but you will get more out of planning before hand. If you really want to see some results try and build with a plan in mind.