Skullstone - a classic dungeon crawler game with 3D graphics

[FrozenShade]

Skullstone is a retro-styled single player dungeon crawler game with 3D graphics, inspired by such titles like: Dungeon master, Eye of the Beholder, Stonekeep etc.

In few worlds - a party of heroes explore the dungeons. They fight with monsters, solve riddles, gather equipment, level up and improve their skills just to fight more tougher monsters. And of course there is a story behind it, which will be revealed later.


An description of fighting system, which is an essential part of the game:

Abilities:
They basically reflect how well the character is trained in a given domain. These domains are: using different kinds of weapons and armor, schools of magic, blocking, dodging etc. When gaining a level, characters get points that can be spent to develop their abilities.

Some abilities are always active, some other requires an item to become active. A shield for example.


Skills

From the very beginning, each character will have 3 special combat-related skills. When activated, skills will give to the caster (or to entire party) considerable bonuses. E.g. greater attack power, faster attacks, mana regeneration, but can also give penalties, e.g. lower defense, inability to move, hit point loss.

Skills can be divided into three groups, according to the way they work:

    timed: The effect lasts for a fixed amount of time. When it's gone, you have to wait to be able to reuse the skill.
    toggle: You can turn the effect on/off anytime. When it's on, the skill will use up your character's mana/hit points, so use it wisely!
    idle: If you use the skill, its effect will last until the nearest successful attack. After the attack is executed, the skills's cooldown period will begin.


Magic

We decided to make it simple. There are no runes, gestures or anything else that could make spellcasing characters hard to use in dynamic combat.
To cast spell character needs an special item placed in hand, a proper ability and some mana. Click on item to cast a spell, that's all.


Monster's skills

Yes, monsters have skills too, they are not limited to melee/range attack.
To improve their fighting abilities they can buff themselves, increasing attack, speed, armor and so on. They can also heal their wounds. Here is a screen with buffed mob:


Mobs can also cast debuff on player, and they have lots of them to cast: poison, disease, negative bonuses and the worst ones: slow, web, root or petrification.

The main disadvantage of combat in grid based games is possibility to dance around enemy. Hit, move, hit, move and so on... Immobilizing debuffs should solve the problem, bub mobs have one more thing to use: an area-of-effect attack. So be careful...


Here are some screenshots that you may find interesting:

- GUI




- Monsters

Dungeons aren't empty! There are monsters to fight.





Ok, thats all for now, of course I'll write a post every time we make something new to keep you informed.

Visit our FB profile, there are some comics about dungeon crawling.

And watch our videos:

[Jubal]

Firstly, welcome to Exilian!

So is it essentially going to be a one-shot storyline RPG with the story in there quite heavily, or is it going to have generated rooms and a lighter-weight story to it?

Also, what IS the two-legged barrel thing in the first trailer? I'm intrigued.

[FrozenShade]

Skullstone have a storyline - we will reveal it later. All levels of dungeons will be designed by us.

That two legged metal thing is our first mob, just an test one. We made some screens and videos with it to show that we are making progress. We also needed to learn how to design animated models that are compatible with the game engine.  Treat it as a placeholder, operating element but without the final artwork.

[Jubal]

Ahh right - it looks pretty cool, even if it's a placeholder

Looking forward to seeing more!

[FrozenShade]

Trust me, it is not cool Compared to our current models: https://skfb.ly/KoMC https://skfb.ly/JXDz https://skfb.ly/K9Zv

[Jubal]

Yeah, I'm so bad with graphics I mostly design text adventures, so I'm easily impressed

But ooh, those are great! I particularly like the golem

[Gmd]

Love the look of it

I particularly like the golem

Nah its ghoul all the way looks cooler

[Jubal]

I just like rocks...

[FrozenShade]

We released a new video:

[Cuddly Khan]

The Rock Golem's hands keep on clipping into it's legs occasionally. Awesome work btw, looks like something I plan on playing eventually.

[Jubal]

I love it! It's a great animation set, and the atmosphere is very nice

I'd consider getting the camera quite a bit closer to the monsters. The shake and sounds on the golem punch were great, but it felt like it was punching the air some way in front of the view rather than the player feeling like they are getting hit.

[FrozenShade]

We will see what we can do. The problem is that we cannot move the camera too close because we need to keep visible the floor on the current grid.

[Jubal]

Aye, I guess so - it's not too bad, but nudging it closer could help - or maybe get the monsters to jump forward further for the attack animation?

[FrozenShade]

Yes, this is an option, someone from us already came up with this idea.

[Jubal]

Cool - looking forward to seeing what you come up with