Plans for 7DRL

I was thinking about participating in the Game in Ten Days challenge. When the theme of "Dungeon" was announced, I was still thinking about it but noticed it is very similar to the plans I had for the 7DRT challenge which I want to participate in. I roughed out a different style of game but quickly realized that my plans were unrealistic for the amount of time I would actually have available so will hold out until a future GiTD challenge to participate.

For the 7DRL, I want to do a new version of my Ultimate Retro Project (episodes 59 and 60) game Dungeon Romp. This game will be created in JavaScript (the original was in Java). I haven't decided if the game will be called Dungeon Romp 2, Dungeon Romp II, or Dungeon Romp Deluxe yet. I want the game to focus much more on the randomness that is traditional in a rogue-type game. There are three areas where this will be done.

Obviously, the random map generation is the key. I know the map generator from the original game is not the greatest, but will use that as the starting point. The re-implementation may also be the ending point as the maps from DR were good-enough so reworking the code will be done near the end of development if time allows. As time will probably not allow, expect just a tweaked version of the Dungeon Romp maps.

Items will be the big thing that I will try to focus randomness on. The types of items available will vary from game to game as well as (within realistic ranges) the properties of those items. One game may have swords being the best weapon to have, while the next one battle-axes may have superior models and stats. Magic will have both beneficial and detrimental variants with a possibility of some spells being a mix of both (think of a spell that causes massive damage on an opponent but at the same time reduces the melee skill of the player for a number of turns).

Finally, I would like to have more varieties of monsters. Both in the type of monsters and how powerful those monsters are. In one game you may face level-1 goblins which are easy to defeat, while the next time the goblins will be generated at level 5 stats so the player has to re-familiarize him/herself with the monsters in every play.

That is my plans for this first-ever 7DRL. If nothing unexpected happens, I should be able to put in 50-60 hours durring the next 168 hours available to me so have a good shot of having a finished game.