If you’re anything like myself, you’ve looked around Yoyogames quite a bit and have found that the majority of games are very shallow, unpolished, or completely undeveloped. Sure the spotlight occasionally features an interesting arcade title, but after an hour you want nothing to do with it.
I have always been under the impression that the vast database of Gamemaker games on Yoyogames represents the extent of quality and depth that a game made with Gamemaker can achieve. I was recently proven wrong.
A new game by QCF Design hopes to be the first game made in Game Maker to win the Independent Games Festivals’ Seumas McNally Grand Prize. That game is Desktop Dungeons.
Desktop Dungeons sports a fresh new type of gameplay for people looking to do some old school dungeon raiding. The concept is simple, choose a character with certain attributes and kill monsters to reach the boss of the dungeon, beat him and live happily ever after. Depth is introduced with a handful of races and classes, a leveling system, potions, items, spells, mana, gods, the list goes on and on.
After fifteen minutes of playing you realize this game is just as much about dungeon raiding as it is critical thinking and puzzle solving. You have to find a way to manage your potions while trying to level up your character (by killing monsters, naturally) until you can fight the boss.
Aside from being just plain fun, this game is humorous and charming. The pixel art goes great with the game and the references and jokes sprinkled throughout always put a slight grin on my face.
If there is any game that has a shot of winning IGF’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize it has to be Desktop Dungeons.
This ingeniously designed game sure packs a big punch, and if nothing else, goes to show that genuinely great games can come in small packages.
You can download the game for free here (file size: 4.2MB)
I’m rooting for SpyParty.
I like this game a lot. It’s a little rough around the edges, but otherwise is brilliant and quite a Game Maker achievement.
Listen to the IndieGames.com podcast with Desktop Dungeons author Rodain Joubert here:
http://indiegames.buzzsprout.com/2478/20111-15-rodain-joubert-and-desktop-dungeons
As an FYI, Nidhogg by Mark Essen (another of the finalists) is also made in Game Maker.
While I’d love one of the two to win, I get the feeling Minecraft is going to be running away with this one.
Wow really? I wasn’t aware of this. I’m not a big fan of that game…
Wow! I didn’t know Desktop Dungeons was made in GM!
-Elmernite
Hi,
Is that a screenshot of you playing, or simply a screenshot taken from the blog?
The current beta is made with GM. It’s my understanding that they are now working on recreating/finishing the game with Unity.
But yeah, it’s a great game. SunnyKatt, I don’t think you’ve played it for very long…
I dunno, maybe I didn’t play long enough. I played for a few hours over the course of a few weeks and unlocked some of the new stuff. But some things, like the fact that they used default GM effects (which are ugly, and don’t fit their graphic style) and that the level generation is rough (lots of sealed off passages you can’t get to), made it feel to me that it wasn’t very well done, like someone with a good idea but not the talent to execute it properly. That’s just my thoughts.
You’re correct, the current freeware Gamemaker build is only for the beta. But i believe the version they submitted to IGF was the Gamemaker build.
Unless something has changed, the version submitted to IGF is the new (vastly improved) Unity version.
Correction: The version submitted was the Game Maker version, but the version being shown in the IGF Showcase will be the new Unity-based version.
I never like desktop dungeons that much. It always seemed…amateur to me. Personally I think they were just lucky with how they caught on with the concept.:S
Warning: this game is really addictive. I spent most of a fortnight playing it in April last year.