The Darkness Below: a retro CRPG in the making

I didn't managed to complete the v1.2 demo yet but given the time is passing by, I decided to show a screenshot or three.
Most of work has been on overhauling the spell system, combat system, town levels & multifloor capability, NPCs and a heck of a lot bug fixing / small addins.
Those areas needed a lot of love and work is still continued.
Especially without a good variety and consistency on town & NPCs graphics, an immersive world couldn't never exists, for my taste anyway.
In addition, content creation is processing well, yet a lot slower now. It seems that stories & world design needs a constant reworking on asset department, with some unfortunate tradeoffs in the way. I expect this to slow down as well though, yet another thing that requires time. Regardless, a significant job that needs to be done!
Fewer screenshots this time but representative one:

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This is an half-like update, so please excuse the number / variety :)
Hope you like it and leave a comment or three, I will appreciate it.
Thanks!
 
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Athens, Greece
There's no new version as of yet, but decided to post a nice list of screenshots from recent work, that is mostly shops.
Those shop/vendor mechanics takes a lot of our crpg time and they can really push a game's system to the limits and they need to have enough development so the entire game don't suffer later by mediocre work on this development. Plus, given the game's size, those shops needed to be both variant and flexible enough. New NPCs added, new voice sets were associated with them and most of their services has been implemented already & prototyped. This will tremendously speed up content production.

The whole system is about 80% complete, so I decided to throw a screenshot or three, which may be also be a subject of change, although not major changes. Those screenshots is but a glimpse of the work overall. There's a huge changes.txt file for lots of fixes / addins but this will come later, along with the new version. I am taking my time with this final version to fix as many things as I can before continuing the content's production. Everything is done in favor of gameplay. Enjoy :)

shops / vendors

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new spells

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Short videos

https://youtu.be/DNLiuF705WE

https://youtu.be/lsVLLM-G-kQ

Again, excuse this in-between update.
This version is by far the most difficult and content-wise is the most packed with fixes / addons. Since there wont be any other version after it, except the final release, I am striving to make it fully playable, killing lots of annoying bits here and there.
Hopefully you're liking what you're seeing. Please comment your thoughts.
 
Joined
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Messages
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This was probably the longest period between any update, excluding some breaking hiatus some years ago...
I had to fix issues and implement loads of necessary functionality and also revisit lots of stuff here and there to fine tune everything.

In short, I am pretty much satisfied with current technical level of The Darkness Below ; in fact, I have already developed some real D&D inspired content for the game, some screenshots of which you can check in the end of the update. Given this progress, the upcoming "demo" will never come. Instead, I decided to release a smallish version of the game, a "prelude" if you like, which will contain everything you might expect from this game, except for its duration..

Given that the current ETA was to release this before the ending of 2022, I decided to dedicate the remaining time to complete as much content as possible and release this minor version, to serve both as a "big demo", as well as a "small release". There's simply not enough time to produce all of it, test everything, do the planned crowdfunding before 2022, getting greenlights and stuff while working a full demanding job as well. Doing my best is not enough, so I have to take some shortcuts.

Yet at the same time I don't want either to get out of ETA and frustrate even more the game's fans. So, those are my reasons and why I concluded this is the best solution. Regardless, enough of reasoning and theories.

The highlights of this update are numerous (some of these may have appeared in previous updates so bear with me as my changes.txt is huge now), just showing for information before the small release:
  • added: increased maximum spell number to 280, 40 spells per element, 8 spells per expertise per element. Hopefully, the majority of them implemented in the final game.
  • added: ability to cause damage against all targets, instead of only a single target (previously), for some spells (party) and actions (monsters).
  • added: new town textures and multifloor capability, allowing a bigger variety on town levels.
  • added: implemented all shop types, fully tiered (4 levels), with a matching soundtrack per shop, as well their associated owner(s). Buy and sell is implemented, as well as shops dealing with specific item types i.e. weapons only.
  • added: weapon slash effect to all weapons, similar to spell effects, increasing the immersion. Now every attack / action has an animation.
  • added: character generation step by step, adding to previous 'prebuilt characters' mode.
  • added: implemented 'special' and usually more powerful actions to monsters that can be used sparringly by chance. Think of those 'recharge' actions on D&D, which allows the bosses to kick butts more efficiently.
  • added: completed the game's introduction sequence, which shows when the player clicks the 'Start the Game' button from title screen.
  • fixed: entrances and exits to dungeons are now more immersive. Specifically, exits are now showing a part of the "outside" i.e. some forest or similar, in the likes of Lands of Lore.
  • fixed: added active skill checks, along with the passive ones. On active checks, a roll is made and skill expertise bonuses are applied against the challenge expertise difficulty, making the final outputs a lot more random than passive checks.
..and lots more.

Some screenshots or twenty to follow this boring wall of text:

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NOTE: this is obviously fake, this is just a quick tribute to the best crawler of all time. You wont fight that.. or would you?

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NOTE: The following shots are directly taken from game's real content !

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That's all :)
I will now continue producing stuff so I can deliver as per ETA.
Hopefully you like those shots and will give it a shot when it's released, there's a lot of bloody work on it (nearly completed about ~4000 working hours on it already, give or take)

Please, comment your thoughts as well :)
Thanks!

NOTE: The next major update will probably be after the short release.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 26, 2017
Messages
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Location
Athens, Greece
It seems I am still in the middle of process on completing this, so I wont call it a release yet; but I am close to it.

The game currently has around 6-7 maps / dungeons and content enough to spend some hours in but I still need to nurse a lot of it, fix some bugs as well and finally playtest the hell of it :) But its already a smooth experience, so its a good sign.

I made some breakthroughs though and decided to share one or ten screenshots, along with a pretty exhaustive changes.txt list, in the end of post. Currently, I am working the window mode of game, for everyone looking for some perfect-pixel gaming. At the moment, a windowed mode (running on 800x600, original resolution for game) is supported; although, I am working to support fullscreen borderless mode and also scaled-up windowed resolutions, while respecting aspect ratio, but still in-progress. There's a screenshot of the game running in such a window.

So, enjoy some pics for the moment an bear with me, as I am finalizing this:

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Links
Also, check this pretty massive changes.txt list (for those read such things)

PATCH v1.2
  • added: characters now get 2 skills from Weapon,Armor or Magic skills and 1 skill from Misc skills when they start randomly (balance).
  • added: dungeon items which are placed on same quad are now sorted by depth in intuitive way i.e. armor above sword, boots above cloth (better look).
  • added: when an item is bound to mouse and the inventory screen is shown, the eligible slot(s) for the bound item are highlighted on character's equipping slots.
  • added: increased maximum spell number to 280, 40 spells per element, 8 spells per expertise per element. Hopefully, the majority of them implemented in the final game.
  • added: 18 initial spells, equally shared between initial casting professions, clerics & wizards.
  • added: new type of spell: directional ray-like, useful for laser-like spells that extends from caster to target for a small duration of time, like D&Ds ray of frost.
  • added: ability to cause damage against all targets, instead of only a single target (previously), for some spells (party) and actions (monsters).
  • added: new town textures and multifloor capability, allowing a bigger variety on town levels.
  • added: new NPCs and portraits, more to be added as the content keeps built.
  • added: different foot walking sound effects per terrain type (hard, grass, snow), increasing the immersion.
  • added: showing different color filters on character portraits having a condition i.e. a poisoned character will show a greenish portrait, along with poison symbol.
  • added: variant sound effects for weapon when they hit/miss, increasing the immersion.
  • added: improved editing in custom tile editor, as the only editing was done directly in XML files. Much required for content production.
  • added: shows a full body, animated NPC in center of an event, if there's a portrait associated with the event, improving the immersion and interaction overall, together with event background (inspired from ROA - Star Trail).
  • added: in events, buttons like 'back' or 'exit' to be differently colored (red), effectively making them distinct to other available options.
  • added: implemented all shop types, fully tiered (4 levels), with a matching soundtrack per shop, as well their associated owner(s). Buy and sell is implemented, as well as shops dealing with specific item types i.e. weapons only.
  • added: three (3) new spells for higher expertise (adept, master & grandmaster) to further develop the shop/vendor feature.
  • added: weapon slash effect to all weapons, similar to spell effects, increasing the immersion.
  • added: magic effect on staff when a spell is prepared
  • added: a lit candle in the 'character generation' page, increasing the immersion.
  • added: removed the old, featureless planes of existence and added 8 inspired ones, with enough lore and purpose in the game. More to come. Check the Rulebook for more details.
  • added: character generation step by step, adding to previous 'prebuilt characters' mode.
  • added: minor improvements in all gui buttons
  • added: all initial shops / vendors, 10 in number, have been fully implemented.
  • added: implemented 'special' and usually more powerful actions to monsters that can be used sparringly by chance. Think of those 'recharge' actions on D&D, which allows the bosses to kick butts more efficiently.
  • added: completed the game's introduction sequence, which shows when the player clicks the 'Start the Game' button from title screen.
  • added: rumor tables have been implemented, on per-area basis. Those rumors are shown as available options on regular buildings, providing information, directions and hooks, in the same way used on pen & paper RPGs.
  • added: fully implemented skill masters, from teaching the skill to advancing to 'Grandmaster' level. Skill masters can be found about anywhere but mostly in civilized regions and their number varies to population.
  • added: fully implemented NPCs to hire. They are usually wander around civilized areas (villages, towns etc.) and provide their services (weapons, spells or skills) for one-time payment and daily wage. They can be dismissed anytime.
  • added: monsters and NPCs are now shown appropriately on map. Monsters are only shown on minimap, based on visibility. This will help when battling numerous monsters. Showing all NPCs will also help when you're in need of one.
  • fixed: bow arrow animation was not shown up, either in battle or not, by both characters and monsters. Now all spell-like animations triggered by item use are shown properly.
  • fixed: spell sound hit effect not working on all spells and when the caster is a monster.
  • fixed: allowing ranged items such as bow/crossbow to throw arrows graphically, even when there are uses left
  • fixed: allowing cure spell to be used on a dead character
  • fixed: revamped floor textures and reduced repetitiveness
  • fixed: crash when the party tried to move beyond normal boundaries of a map. Usually borders on map are covered by obstacles i.e. trees, but this was still a bug.
  • fixed: the system was heavily refactored once again to reduce technical debt and making it more flexible & performant
  • fixed: cursor changes incorrectly when there's a doortown in game window. Now it changes when the cursor hovers the doortown rect.
  • fixed: potions are now fully targetable items i.e. the user may select a character target, other than him. For example, a character can use a 'Potion of Cure Paralysis' on another paralysed character.
  • fixed: implemented a better fps mechanism, which guarantees a stable ~60 fps across all supported systems by game's engine (Jolt3D!).
  • fixed: multiple orientation levers couldn't be placed on same square on tile editor i.e. not possible to place a northern and a southern lever on same wall square.
  • fixed: removed music volume toggling between map and buildings/shops, given compatibility and overall quality degradation over multiple sounds heard. Now a single 'background' audio plays always on full volume, set on options.
  • fixed: greatly improvement of performance, in-game and engine.
  • fixed: clerics are not able to use bows anymore
  • fixed: a nasty crushing bug in combat system
  • fixed: massive improvement to spell system. Now all spell attack types are fully pseudo-3D and not 2D, giving space for bigger sprites and increased immersion.
  • fixed: reach mechanics is now working for all items, weapons, spells and monster actions. A short-reach weapon (i.e. dagger) won't be able to reach a back-row monster; however, a long-reach halberd, a bow or a spell will.
  • fixed: entrances and exits to dungeons are now more immersive. Specifically, exits are now showing a part of the "outside" i.e. some forest or similar, in the likes of Lands of Lore.
  • fixed: added active skill checks, along with the passive ones. On active checks, a roll is made and skill expertise bonuses are applied against the challenge expertise difficulty, making the final outputs a lot more random than passive checks.
Phew, that's it for the moment.
Hopefully, its to your liking.
Please, do post a comment or three on anything about it.

Thanks :)
 
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Joined
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Messages
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First, I am really sorry for the postponement of short release some half year ago but a lot of stuff happened in the last months, job, housing stuff and also some major life ones. I also had to dig deep with the enormous feedback from last demo by all lovely people that played it and this took a lot of time to organize and work the majority of it. Some of this feedback took quite long to get addressed.

Then the usual lot of bugs emerged, editor had to get improved, working on engine, implementing all required features and doing frequent refactoring. Then after a while the game's quality was simply increased and just had to keep going till it felt "ready" again.

I am quite sure that this delay is worthy of the final result. Things simply "get into place" a lot nicer now and feel more consistent, which is a must for a game of this scale. Its just the added content and needed immersion that keeps me busy for implementing things here and there.

Content wise, there is already a village, a town, a forest, a desert and two dungeons and I am about to complete two more areas and be done with the final demo of The Darkness Below. The full release (much later) will still start with the same content, so this is effectively the "short release" that I promised half a year ago; this is the real game, just shorter but fully-featured and this is where this delay came from. My plan for now is to give a big-enough short release and fully-featured, so I can work on full release behind the scene right after.

There were a lot of fixes and new stuff was implemented like letter boxing or quick battle shortcuts (in the screenshots below). I wont even try to post the changes.txt but its an extensive one.

I am not that good on talking about it :) so let me show a screenshot or five:

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I was hoping to release all that with the coming short release / final demo but it takes a long time so here it is :)
Hopefully, you can spot all micro-details here and there, some of them were really worthy the time implementing them.

Regarding the "when", I guess its safe to say "soon"; I am finalizing and / or nurturing the current content to my liking but don't really want to rush it as this version will be the last before the real thing and don't plan another in-between update (I am sure I said that again but the game really contains the majority of the features now).

Hopefully this answers some questions about the state of game, enjoy :)
 
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This is looking pretty cool now having read the thread, will be keeping an eye on it! Perhaps will try the 1.1 demo as well.
 
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Finally,
I just wrapped up the final v1.2 version on my itch.io (https://vlzvl.itch.io/the-darkness-below), for both Windows / Linux.
It's not even a demo anymore as it lasts about ~3 hours, depending on how much of the map(s) and monsters one wants to explore / kill. And there are loads of that.
It's more of a nice "Prelude" of the coming full release, containing most of the functionality of the full game and its paid, kind of early-access price ($5+).
Expect to final game to be loads bigger though, but more or less with this kind of gameplay.
There was a playtesting phase as well in-between v1.1 and this one, which uncovered lots of bugs but also some great usability opportunities and quality of life ideas, and this why I had to postpone this version as much as I could because, this is it, no more versions after that.

There's an enormous changelog, grown especially after the playtesting phase that I don't even dare to post here but safe to say that no bug, at least known to me, exists in the game which was the main goal andthe game indeed had some nasty bugs. It also contains most of the functionality and its fully playable. For sure it can be loads better, and will be, it's just miles ahead than v1.1 released a couple years (?) ago.

As always, check a screenshot or three:

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I also uploaded a ~1 hour video on my youtube channel a few hours ago that shows the game's introduction, character creation some early playthrough.


So, if you like what you see, grab it from:

https://vlzvl.itch.io/the-darkness-below

I also plan to add this as an early-access on Steam, with the same symbolic price and start playing with other platforms as well, except itch.io.

So, that's all =)
Hopefully you'll find it a way more completed attempt, as I do.

and a happy new year :)
 
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Messages
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I finished the demo, I like the game but have a few comments:
- Full screen mode cannot change the Resolution.
- you pick up a lot of items that cannot be equipped
- if your characters primary attack is with a bow there should be the ability to buy a quiver of arrows instead of needing to buy a new bow.
- cannot upgrade or train skills (Limitation of the demo?)
- casters cannot see available spells out of combat. Please add an ability to see the known mage and cleric spells from Inventory or Character/Skill sheet
- on the tough monsters a health bar would be helpful, some boss combats take more than 20 turns
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
290
Location
Toronto, Ont. Canada
I finished the demo, I like the game but have a few comments:
- Full screen mode cannot change the Resolution.
- you pick up a lot of items that cannot be equipped
- if your characters primary attack is with a bow there should be the ability to buy a quiver of arrows instead of needing to buy a new bow.
- cannot upgrade or train skills (Limitation of the demo?)
- casters cannot see available spells out of combat. Please add an ability to see the known mage and cleric spells from Inventory or Character/Skill sheet
- on the tough monsters a health bar would be helpful, some boss combats take more than 20 turns
Hi @shaf
apologies for the late reply,
I replied on my itch.io page a few days ago and will answer here just for completeness :)
  • regarding resolution, unfortunately this one won't be changed. The game's engine (mine as well) uses a "dynamic resolution" shader which effectively uses textures, in combination of desktop resolution to provide any kind of resolution, aspect ratio-wise, to the player. The key thing here is to respect aspect ratio regardless of the desktop resolution of the player but without changing the resolution. There are other reasons as well, mostly technical but lets say that "dynamic resolution" shader really outperforms the old way of changing resolution on many occasions. If fullscreen mode blurs / distorts the output (which is logical, as aspect ratio of a game not always matches the desktop resolution), then letterbox mode is for you.
  • Yes, this is intended. Party at she start is weak and inexperienced and can't use many objects, including magic / enchanted and evolved (i.e. +1) ones. These ones can be sold or kept until the party gets trained to higher expertises, meaning. There's an algorithm that will provide you these items but you wont end up with many of these in the early phase of the game. Check the 8.4. Generating items by feature / type chapter on RULEBOOK.pdf for this algorithm. Provide an example or a save.dat where you think this gets too abnormal; I mean, you could be right and I may need to change the algorithm.
  • The bow / quiver idea was copied to my /todo list and I will consider about it, as it definitely needs some extra coding on shop pages.
  • Regarding the "Short blade" skill (i.e. the one used for handling daggers and short blades), I checked it again and it seems there's no issue. What kind of short blade you weren't allowed to equip? Usually, when you can't equip an item, a "reason" shows up in message bar (above characters). Mostly the reason would be that the item is a magical / enchanted one and a higher expertise is needed. See 7.3. Benefits and restrictions on RULEBOOK.pdf for more details on that one, otherwise provide me a screenshot / save.dat files where there's indeed an error.
  • You can cast and see the casters's spells out of battle, by clicking either the staff / holy symbol of either caster; I mean, the short cuts i.e. Z,X,C are not usable out of battle but you can still left click the casting item of a caster, then you open the spells on the right. If you are depleted of spells though, yes you can't see the spells, then you need to rest.
  • regarding this health bar on monsters, yes this is copied to my /todo list but I will probably implement it as a spell for 1) knowing the hp 2) weaknesses etc. and so on. I mean, its something that logically its unknown to the player and you need some extra help in the form of a spell or divine one. I am after the D&D and I will probably use a homebrew spell for adding this one up
Hopefully, I answered most of questions?

Regards and thanks for playing my game ;)
 
Joined
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Hey,
The Darkness Below finally made it to Steam (early access) and the app is about to come / approved this week.
ETA for full release is set to Q3 2024.

Not much imagery to show as I am all things Steam and content creation these days, but here are a few:

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Wishlist the heck out of it :incline:

links

Thanks!
 
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I reported a few more bugs for the latest release on itch.io. I'll add it to my steam wishlist.
Going through the manual and looking through the Spell list more spells are required as there is only 1 water magic spell and 2 earth magic spells. I think a Cure Poison spell should be in earth magic and given to the Cleric.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
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The version on itch.io is 1.2 feb2024, the latest screen shots are for a later version as Crimson Bay is not available in that build. I did wishlist it on steam, hopefully a build will be uploaded soon so i can continue reporting issues.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Toronto, Ont. Canada
Looking quite good to me, congrats on the progress!
Hey man, thanks a lot. Yeah, there's nothing but progress these days ;) Thanks for your good words!
Congrats. I hope it does well. (y)
Thank you sir 💪 I think it already does, wishlist-wise at least, and couldn't be more hyped by overall reaction 😻
I reported a few more bugs for the latest release on itch.io. I'll add it to my steam wishlist.
Going through the manual and looking through the Spell list more spells are required as there is only 1 water magic spell and 2 earth magic spells. I think a Cure Poison spell should be in earth magic and given to the Cleric.
Thank you @shaf , you're already doing quite the work. I just replied to your comment on itch.io, kindly check this out. I'll try to replicate all that and come with some fixes or a save.dat if can't replicate it :)
Looks terrific! I'll check out the version on itch.io!
Thanks man, and for buying this out 💪 the game will only gets better with every update and screenshot from now on 🥰
The version on itch.io is 1.2 feb2024, the latest screen shots are for a later version as Crimson Bay is not available in that build. I did wishlist it on steam, hopefully a build will be uploaded soon so i can continue reporting issues.
yes, the "Crimson Bay" is the very next map/large city that comes when the events around the Amphill are concluded. It opens up the game from there but its not part of the build found in either itch.io and Steam, both of which ends on that cave in the middle of desert. I'll try adding that as separate build for the steam testers later, including you 🥰 but it still in development. Thanks a lot of your contribution. I am adding you as a tester/bug report member in my credits, along with a few people that helped on previous playtesting. Will inform you in proper time.
 
Joined
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This looks fantastic - wish you masses of luck and success with it :)
 
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