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I'm working on putting together a proof of concept for a dungeon-crawler style game. I have some general concepts I want, as well as some general boundaries for the product so I don't lose focus of my vision and over-saturate it with too many 'cool ideas'.

I've never done this before, but I've played quite a bit and have a pretty solid grasp of my vision.

But I need advice, no matter how simple or outlandish it may seem.

Vision:

Without going into the details of the project- I'll keep it simple. It's a co-op dungeon crawler game for up to 5 players, with a campaign mode. The mechanics should be relatively simple to grasp, with the game's complexity being in the strategies and tactics- not in figuring out how the system works. It should be a game that a casual or new gamer can pick up and understand within a few turns. Ideally, it should be a 'simple, yet engaging' game of tactical skill that's ideal for a relaxed Saturday with friends and beer.

Note that the game should be co-op, and one person should be able to play this alone, should he/she desire to do so. Difficulty of the game should be adjustable to the number of players and their 'level'.

No game session should be like the last. Encounters should be random spawns to a degree- ensuring a lack of predictability and enhancing the unexpected thrill of 'dungeon exploration' aspect of the game.

The game mechanics should have a simple 'program behaviors' for enemies to follow when engaging the 'heroes'. This program should not follow the same routine every time, with every encounter often being completely different than the last, even if encountering the same enemies. The idea is to promote tactical flexibility and also unpredictability to some degree, forcing the players to be adaptive and be able to think on the fly.

The 'dungeon crawler' aspect should promote a tactical decision making process, rather than simply relying on a 'Rambo' mindset. The 'party' should be able to coordinate their efforts, and the game should penalize or even punish a 'Rambo' player for not being a team player. While combat should always been fun and rewarding, it should also always come with a risk of failure and even death. Enemy encounters should not feel like the shootout scene from Commando with hordes of enemies running into gunfire and being mowed down while the hero casually walks through the area. Every single encounter should come with risk.

The campaign setting should encourage the players to make decisions and deal with a changing campaign, with not only their mission success and failure impacting the campaign- but also random and unforeseen events to ensure that every playthrough can be full of unexpected surprises and new challenges.

Boundaries:

The gaming mechanics should NOT be as complex as an RPG. It's a 'dungeon crawl', and not D&D. You should be able to sit down with a guy who has only played Monopoly or Sorry! and teach him the basic mechanics of the game in about two turns. It doesn't have to be 'Grandma can do it' levels of simple, but enough so that most persons who'd take an interest in sitting down at the table would be able to handle it with ease.

It should take a player about five to ten minutes to get their character together, allowing just enough for them to personalize their character as 'their dude' but not even remotely like turning it into a D&D Character Creation session. Customizing and personalizing a character should be a part of it, but not to the extent where if a new player sits down late to join the group, everyone gets bored waiting on him to get his character in order-again, this should take just a few minutes and be a very simple 'pick and choose' process without using lots of math and flipping through a big manual. A few basic stats and special abilities should be sufficient.

The game's campaign should not feature a MASSIVE series of threats and events to the point where it seems the party is overwhelmed. It should be a cycle of Choose a quest, prep group, conduct quest, adjust the threats, divide rewards, receive new story event, choose quest to rinse and repeat. At a certain point the players should be able to make the decision to take down the enemy threat group's 'boss' or other elite enemies within that group. Doing so should come with significant risk and rewards.

Another theme worth noting is that the campaign should encourage players to diversify their quests against the various enemy factions, rather than focusing down one in particular. The enemy groups are not allies and compete for dominance of the world. Focusing down one enemy group should only serve as an advantage to the others, but alternatively 'taking turns' with quests against the various groups also provides an opportunity for the others to advance. A balance of both should be required, with a focus on gathering intelligence and attempting to deliver massive setbacks to an enemy group when the opportunity presents itself. The idea should be 'decisive quests' that pay off, with making some sacrifices along the way.

I may add more to this, but this is a rough idea I have and I want to take it somewhere- even if it ends up being something that ends up being some note cards and scrawled notes to be played with my friends on posterboard.

Anyone who has advice, guidance, or ideas- please feel free to share. Also, references to other games for inspiration are always welcome!

You have completely contradictory goals here. Simplicity on the level of a complete newbie being able to pick it up and understand it within a few turns is possible, but it requires simplicity. Having a huge range of randomly-generated encounters, each with programmed behavior complex enough to provide a significant challenge even once you have learned the script, is a really complex thing. Having a whole world with competing enemy factions is even more complex. You need to pick one or the other: either have a simple game that is fairly shallow but good for a few minutes of hack and slash fun, or accept that you're going to be making a game that makes D&D look simple and create your single-player D&D game.

Also, it's very hard to execute the "simple but deep" concept in a single-player game (and a cooperative game is just a single-player game). The concept normally depends on hidden information and the resulting bluffing, move vs. counter move, etc. The rules for executing an action may be simple, but you have to predict several steps into the future and where each player is going to be. That doesn't work with AI against a single human player. Either the AI follows a set script and success is simply a matter of learning the rules to a point where you can execute the appropriate counter or the AI uses randomness to generate unpredictability and the player's counter-strategy succeeds or fails based on random chance rather than skillful play.

For the AI system, Zombicide and it's variants seem like a good model to look at, if not emulate.

That system is simple but offers enough replayability and complexity that it can hold veteran players attentions while still appealing to novice players.

That being said, Zombicide's AI is predictable and can be "gamed" so perhaps you'd want to introduce some other variables that could make the system less foreseeable. One idea might be making reactions available for the AI based on a player's actions. So, if the AI moves, attacks and defends based on a set turn order, adding out-of-turn AI reactions to player actions would make the AI more resilient to player strategies, and make Rambo-ing less appealing. This could be achieved by having the AI "interrupt" a player's actions if the player gets within a certain proximity to the AI model, or meets some other pre-condition (range of the AI model's guns, etc.) and perform an action against the player character. This could get convoluted and hard to manage, but if done correctly it would make the AI feel very interactive and could give you the gaming experience you are looking for.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
For the AI system, Zombicide and it's variants seem like a good model to look at, if not emulate.

I'm a bit familiar, I've played this a few times and really enjoyed it (even if I got stuck with the neckbeard). And Zombicide is a good example of some other advice I got about games- to think of them like video games. If the controls are too complicated, people won't play it. The mechanics are simple, so it's easy to know how it works- the challenges come from the situations themselves.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
That being said, Zombicide's AI is predictable and can be "gamed" so perhaps you'd want to introduce some other variables that could make the system less foreseeable. One idea might be making reactions available for the AI based on a player's actions. So, if the AI moves, attacks and defends based on a set turn order, adding out-of-turn AI reactions to player actions would make the AI more resilient to player strategies, and make Rambo-ing less appealing. This could be achieved by having the AI "interrupt" a player's actions if the player gets within a certain proximity to the AI model, or meets some other pre-condition (range of the AI model's guns, etc.) and perform an action against the player character. This could get convoluted and hard to manage, but if done correctly it would make the AI feel very interactive and could give you the gaming experience you are looking for.

One of the things I am working on is the Initiative System. Combat is supposed to be intense and fast, so whoever has the higher initiative has the clear advantage for that round. If the enemy has the initiative, certain types will perform certain actions. And certain things can adjust the initiative.

Something similar to Warhammer Quest, but with expanded character options and less linear dungeons ?

A.T. wrote:
Something similar to Warhammer Quest, but with expanded character options and less linear dungeons ?

I was thinking something along those lines, but also with elements of X-Com. I'm currently looking at a contemporary, yet highly embellished Military Black Ops-ish setting but a lot of options are available- I want to keep it bare bones for the moment so a lot of different things could be used- fantasy setting, Vampire Hunters, etc.

I'm going to second the Zombicide suggestion - start with that as your basis, and tweak accordingly. It's a really good game engine, very clean.

I would caution you that adding more stuff is generally a mistake - the more rules you have, the more errors can cause. A smaller, tighter ruleset is better. Complexity can come from stat cards and gear and interactions, rather than from rules.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm going to second the Zombicide suggestion - start with that as your basis, and tweak accordingly. It's a really good game engine, very clean.

I've worked out basic behavior tables for a few different types of enemies, to make it less like a dice-rolling festival or an entire complicated thing. Essentially, they're not stupid and would do what any sensible foe would do, and those decisions are based on getting into cover, weapon range, and maximum effective weapon range as a priority- unless they can't fire the weapon, which they will attempt to obscure completely, seek cover, or run out of range. All based on priority of what is the most feasible depending on their position.

I sat and drafted a 'behavior table' on a dice roll chart and just realized it was overcomplicated and broke the flow of the game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I would caution you that adding more stuff is generally a mistake - the more rules you have, the more errors can cause. A smaller, tighter ruleset is better. Complexity can come from stat cards and gear and interactions, rather than from rules.

I agree. A game should never be difficult to 'know how to play', but it should be challenging as a gameplay feature.

Check your PM box soon, I may have something you could help me with.