dungeon crawlers ?

[Hawx]

Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on several games over the past 7 months, and one of the reasons I wanted to be more active here is to share my work and connect with people who have similar interests.


I’ve hit a few bumps in my game dev journey — partly because I’m still getting used to the coding language I’m working with, and also because I’ve been experimenting with multiple ones, which slowed down my progress a bit.


Right now, I’m working on 4 games but focusing mainly on 2 of them. I really want to start discussing my ideas, but I haven’t finished enough of any project yet to have something worth showing… for now at least! I’ll definitely share more soon.


That said, I did want to talk about one of the games to get people’s reactions and thoughts on what makes a game fun, so I can focus more on that. It’s an action RPG dungeon crawler — and while the genre’s had some interesting takes lately, I’m going for something a bit different. Most dungeon crawlers these days are either ARPGs or turn-based, but I’m aiming for a real-time action approach with deeper combat, meaningful loot, and a big variety of monsters to battle on the climb to the top.


So I’m curious — what’s your experience with dungeon crawlers? What do you want to see in a new one?
And what kind of mechanics or features do you think would make my game stand out? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts and maybe get inspired by some ideas I haven’t thought of yet :)

 

[Vexicrypt]

From what I've seen/heard, Labyrinth of the Demon King is a great example of 'modern enough' dungeon crawler. It has a parry mechanic and some souls-like elements, which makes it a fresh take on the genre while still being clunky and old looking. Even though I hate that every game these days has some sort of souls-like elements (and people tend to use this term for literally everything), I think it works really well with a game like this. Other good example would be Lunacid, which in my opinion is a masterclass in invironmental storytelling and exploration (though sometimes it can be too vague). So I guess if you combine best elements of both games and give it your own twist, that might work pretty well. But I'm no expert by any means and you probably already looked into those games anyway

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

This one is a remake of a SNES game of the same title

 

[PSVitaForever]

If you do it with lots of loot but only one hero, maybe different classes for the hero (warrior, black mage, white mage with light magic that do damage and being able to wield maybe knife so he can also do melee...). So you don't get stuck with a class in the beginning.
Just an idea, but the only dungeon crawler I played has been "Stranger of Sword City" (with a guide, or else I fail). I have the "Curry" title for Vita and also "Ray Gigant" in my backlog, though.
Best of luck for your games!!!