I will be posting SPIDs (Slashie’s Project Idea Drafts) in the blog, they will be short ideas for games or other projects I may or may not develop into full projects. May be someone will be inspired by them and save me the trouble of developing them.
Remake Richard Garriott’s DND1 as a classic Ultima game with an overhead tiled view, keeping as much as possible of the original game elements but making it a balanced and fun experience, while at the same time evolving it in a different way than Akalabeth and Ultima 1.
Two years ago, I participated in a contest to recreate the original game so that it could be played in modern computers (as well as introduced into Shroud of the Avatar) the results can be played here
The original DND1 used a teletype as the means of player interaction, it printed the events happening into the world in paper, and the player typed the commands to guide his character through the (deadly) dungeon.
After creating a character (from three possible classes Fighter, Cleric or Wizard) and rolling his stats, the player can buy equipment from the dungeon shop (available items are weapons, armor some utility items as well as food).
Then, once in the dungeon, the player had access to the following commands:
- Move around: In each of the cardinal directions, after moving the player could fall into traps.
- Open Door
- Search for traps and secret doors
- Switch weapon at hand: i.e. wielding a weapon from inventory
- Fight: Used when an enemy was next to the player. Combatants would hit each other until missing (savage!)
- Look around: Since the game didn’t show the surroundings after each action, this would make it print the surroundings as a coded matrix.
- Save Game
- Use Magic: Use one of the bought spells
- Buy Magic: Get access to spells according to player class.
- Pass
- Buy HP: Exchange gold for HP.
All these command would be changed as following
- Move around: Use directional keys instead, moving the player into the map.
- Open door: Used automatically when moving into a door.
- Search: ‘S’earch command, would show secret doors and traps.
- Switch: ‘Z’tats command, allowing wielding weapons and wearing armor.
- Fight: Moving into monsters or ‘F’iring ranged weapons in a direction.
- Look Around: No longer needed since the viewport is updated after each action.
- Save Game: Ctrl+’S’
- Use Magic: ‘C’ast spell, then the number of the spell, based on the learned Spells
- Buy Magic: Instead of a command this would be done by talking with the mage shopkeeper (an NPC)
- Pass: Spacebar
- Buy HP: Instead of a command this would be done by talking with a trainer (an NPC)
The objective of the game would be the same as in the original: Killing all monsters in a floor and then advancing into the next one (with tougher monsters). There are 8 floors.
A light plot, previous to Ultima 1 and Akalabeth, would be introduced into the game.
Floors would be generated with a layour similar to Ultima 4 SMS dungeons.
Some data from the original:
- Weapons: SWORD, 2HSWORD, DAGGER, MACE, SPEAR, BOW, ARROWS
- Armor: LEATHER, CHAIN, PLATE
- Utility: ROPE, SPIKES, OIL, CROSS, FOOD
- Enemies: BANDIT, GOBLIN, TROLL, SKELETON, BALRON, OCHRE JELLY, GREY OOZE, GNOME, KOBOLD, MUMMY
- Cleric Spells: KILL, MISSILE 1, 2 and 3, CURE, FIND TRAPS, WITHSTAND, FIND DOOR
- Wizard Spells: PUSH, KILL, FIND TRAP, TELEPORT, FIZZLE, MISSILE 1, 2 and 3, FIND DOOR, WALL
Slashie's Journal 