"The Embers Below" : A coop survival game about descending into an alien ecosystem!

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Ok small update.

The discord server is almost ready and I’m just in the process of adding the different channels etc. .

I have started work on using steams API for multiplayer and while this is still just a start it does mean development has officially begun.

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The multiplayer code when not paired with anything else works. Even when connecting from outside. Thank god Spacewar exists lol.

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I’ve been lurking the thread, hope you have fun developing your game.

The fixation on a “reason to go into the dungeon” had me brainstorming. What if each player controls a character, each with their own reason to descend.

For example, p1 just wants to conquer the dungeon and defeat the bad guy, p2 wants revenge on a monster that killed their sibling, p3 wants all the riches, and p4 wants to study the dungeons architecture for historical purposes.

Any player can quit whenever. If they succeed in their task they can choose to quit and get their reward or account points whatever, or they can gamble their reward by going deeper / helping other players.

Unless you had in mind something more open ended than explicitly giving players objectives and instead letting them decide on their own, allowing for “organic” dungeon crawling.

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The game is more “story aligned”. I mean that in the sense that the game starts when you enter the dungeon. It ends when you get to the bottom and do what waits in store for you there. That’s how it is and will always be. No one has their own objectives cause that’s against the games concept. The concept is ultimate interdependency. The entire party is one entity with one goal in a certain sense.

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I have a big game design update to share.

On the topic of environmental game design changes, THERE WILL BE NO MONSTERS. This likely sounds confusing but hear me out. I thought a bit and thought if you were to enter a dungeon of some sorts it would have it’s own ecosystem, not just a load of rabid monsters. Ecosystems don’t work off of only bloodthirsty human eating creatures. Especially massive ecosystems with barely any human contact. So I decided to scrap monsters entirely in favour of a different design. There will be 4 creature types. The different creatures will have small differences and get smarter the deeper down you go but in essence there are only 4.

  1. Prey. Those creatures have no interest in fighting you. They frequent places with natural food and water such as ponds and foliage.
  2. Predators. These also have no interest in fighting you. They however hunt the prey. So when you see prey expect a predator nearby. If you fight them they will fight back.
  3. Apex predators. These do have interest in fighting you. For them you are a party of juicy adventurers, that taste delicious. They are basically minubksses that are roaming the world. They are each much more unique than the prey and predators and will likely spot you before you spot them. Expect to require at least 2 party members to deal with these.
  4. Bosses. Highly intelligent enemies that are not a natural part of the ecosystem. You will require an entire party to even attempt to challenge these.

The more dangerous the creature the more use you can get out of them namely for food.

Om the topic of the map design. I won’t spoil too much but I have designed an incredibly unique and I think the most alien strange looking map and creatures I have ever seen. You should be looking forward to these. (I’m not tho lol, this is going to be a pain to animate)

On the topic of classes. All four classes have been decided and the design behind the classes has changed. Previously each class would have a use for both survival and combat. This has been changed. All of them are useful for both but 2 classes are specifically catered towards combat. And 2 are specifically made for survival.

The classes are as follows:

  1. The tank, as should be obvious this one is very combat focus. Using a massive near impenetrable shield the tank can block damage from reaching the other party members.
  2. The bruiser, this one deals the most damage, a pure combat class designed to just fight.
  3. The hunter, this one is good at sneaking and tracking and works as the one who would likely hunt prey and predators and scout for the way to the next level. However against larger mor epowerful enemies alone they aren’t of much use.
  4. The cook, this one prepares meals keeping the entire party nourished. I am trying to figure out how to make food super important without creating annoying tedious hunger systems but I do know that the better the meals quality is the stronger it makes you. Equally the chef has some debuffing abilities yet in combat is the weakest and acts as more of a support for the rest of the party.
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Those seam good ideas, and this will require a lot of testing and balancing to work well, but could end in a great gameplay ! :slight_smile:

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The discord is in a state where I’m happy enough releasing it.

I likely forgot something but if you are interested in the game here take a gander:

The Embers Below

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Here’s an invite with the card:

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Yup. But I know it’s a joke. But decided why not just see. Maybe. As you said. Not zero.

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We are officially partnering with the Monkanics discord!!!

We will be practically cross pollinating on our discord servers.

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Ok so this isnt an insane update since my crippling elden ring addiction is slowing progress ever so slightly (I promise this isnt my black 2) but the game is coming along, steam multiplayer is working well even though it obviously has some issues. The project is going well.

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