Hi there.

I have been messing up with the game graphics (for personal purposes only, ofc)  and started to made a graphics modification. I will call it "Deadly Doomgeons" :P

REMEMBER: this is a personnel project I'm building based of original Deadly Dungeons FULL VERSION. To play this, I made an installation package (android APK) which contains the FULL VERSION binaries and original contents, as well as the modified graphics. However YOU CANNOT DOWNLOAD THIS, because I don't have permission to redistribute any original full-version game content (this includes binaries, source code, graphics, sounds or any other). Then only solution for this that does not breaks the law is that i create a MOD based of the Deadly Dungeons Demo Version (that i suppose the devel team will allow me to redistribute).

Ok, going into the topic:

Some early screens of the mod I'm building (only modifies graphics, sounds and some text messages, but never the game engine itself):

Showing a door, the wall, floor and ceiling:

http://i.imgur.com/O6Zkj.png

Wall Lights decorative textures:

http://i.imgur.com/uUTsp.png

The "stairs up" door:

http://i.imgur.com/v4iVk.png

More changes will come. Still need to modify monsters, decoration sprites and UI elements.

Any tip or opinion will be welcome. :-)

I found some issues that i can't really understand how it exactly works:

1.- I have a series of PNG textures with some alpha channel, for example, a door with a "crystal" window on it. The crystal part has some transparency degree, but when i test in game it doesn't shows transparent but full white (white the transparency part, not the normal part) is it possible to use alpha channeled PNG textures, but not 100% translucency?

2.- Walls, floor and ceiling textures are in the original graphics 128x128px. This means that the level ceiling is 128 "units" above the floor. But, does the engine automatically sets the ceiling texture when the walls textures ends or it's a fixed height? For example, if I use 256x256px walls textures, will the engine set the ceiling at 256 units above the floor? (i suppose not, but still...)

3.- About decorative sprites: i have some 32x32px ceiling lights sprites. I want them to look like they are really handling from the ceiling, but I can't make them to "spawn" on ceiling, so i created a 32x128px sprite with the ceil lamp in the top of the image. Then, because the ceiling is 128 units above the floor, the lamp sprite should cover all of that height and thus it should look like the lamp is in the ceiling itself. But when i test it in-game, the lamp just stands floating some units above the floor, lets say, looks like floating 12px above the floor. I suppose this happens because the level heights are calculated in a different fashion than sprites heights and positions. So, what's the level and sprites scales?

You are doing an excellent job with this game, and even if it's not MODable at all, i think it's one of the best droid games.

I really don't want to "annoy" you with implementing more MODing features if you are too busy or you simply don't like to do it. So please, don't make what I'm gonna say if you don't like it or you don't have the time. I will understand because I already been a game developer and i know what is to make a game to a community that is asking to implement a lot of features.

This is my opinion, not a feature request. If you don't want to implement this, I will understand.

OK, so what i think it's useful for MODing could be a file or files with every item (monsters, weapons, armor, potions, etc...) data, such as health, speed, display name, damage, sound it makes, graphic it uses and so on.

Because you already developed the engine, i think we don't need right now any game logic definition file.

With something like that we can make Deadly Dungeons look like a different game without touching the source.

I will explain how, in my oppinion, i would implement each type of file:

[Item_ID : String]

Item_Type = 

Display_Name = 

Display_Graphic = 

Parameter1 = 

Parameter2 =  

Parameter3 = 

ParameterN = 

I suppose you understand what i mean.

[Item_ID]: Unique item type identification name. Better a String type than an Integer.

Item_Type: the type of item this will be.  It's values are just fixed hard-coded data type (monster, weapon, decoration, potion, treasure, gold, armor, shield, ring, necklace, shop, dialog_npc, quest_giver, etc...)

Display_Name: the name that appears in screen.

Display_Graphic: the graphic to use when showing this in game. String type that points to the desired graphic it the graphics directory.

Parameter1...ParameterN: a serie of parameters that will be used for every type of item. Depending on the value of "Item_Type", the parameters could be 1, 2, 3, 4, etc... and the data accepted could vary. For example, for monsters could be health, damage, level, speed, drop quality, drop chance, etc... But for weapons will be:  min damage, max damage, item quality, cost, ...

But now here comes a problem: allow to use the MODs without the need to root the device or without creating a custom installation package.

This is easy to solve: include in full version game an extra menu option to load external custom MODs. Those MODs could be in a same directory structure than the original data, for example, in my droid SD, i could have a directory called "My Dungeons Mod", and inside it, a structure data like this:

My Dungeons Mod

   |

   |--- Drawable (Custom GFX)

   |

   |--- Raw (Custom Sounds)

   |

   |--- Values (Custom Objects Data Files: scripts)

So when the user selects the menu option called "Load Custom Data", the game will be using the data into the specified directory.

Another solution is to use ZIP files (or whatever packaging format) with an internal structure like the original game directories structure.

I am going to revise the new character, new game, and load game options and replace it with character screens that have those options on them.  So, you would have profiles of each character and be able to cycle through them.  The last one would be a blank profile where you could create a new character.

What I could do is allow the player to select the campaign they want to play at the bottom.  So, if you created a custom mod, then you could have your own image and title that can be displayed in this section.  I'd probably just require the files be placed in a subfolder of a 'campaign' folder with certain files used to override the internal content of the game.  The files would be xml files so items.xml, creatures.xml, props.xml, levels.xml, etc.  If it sees a file, then the game will know it needs to replace current content with what is defined.

But yeah, this would likely have to come after some of the current stuff I'm working on.  Probably after I do some of the campaigns and start on the infinite dungeons part.  I want to add in the ability to draw from user created maps when generating random campaigns so things like puzzles and quests can be incorporated into them.  It is difficult to randomly generate some of that stuff and not have it be repetitive or bland.

There is a way to make infinite Quests for infinite-type dungeon, and doesn't look much repetitive: using random generated fixed quests.

I explain: you have 4, 5 or 6 or whatever number of quests with predefined but variable objectives, which can be "adapted" for the current player level and depth level.

For example, lets suppose player is level 5, and is at 4 depth level. Then the player talk to a specific NPC that gives "infinite quests". The engine then selects randomly a certain quest among all of the predefined quests, lets say "Kill X monsters of type Y in depth level Z". Now, depending on the player level and depth level the engine sets X, Y and Z parameters.

- Another quest: "Kill X boss monster in depth level Z". In this case, X boss monster is automatically generated when the player enters such depth level.

- Another Quest: "Obtain a X when killing monsters in depth Y", where X is a pickable but unusable item that will be droped from monsters in depth level Y.

- Another one: "Go depth Y depth level and talk to X NPC".

Of course, the name of random bosses, NPCs are generated randomly.

The item to be picked up could be something like "Preffix - Root - Suffix", with a fixed root part, and variating Preffix & Suffix that is generated depending on depth level (Great Diamond of Blood, Small Diamond of Goblins, and so on...)

Also, you can make a random quest background history generator. For example: "Hey you, , I heard that has appeared in the depth level of the . The sheriff is hiring people to go hunt him before reaches the village. Are you interested?" Just create some of those kind of stories for each type of random quest and it will look like different quests, and not much repetitive.

This kind of infinite quests works better if they have to be completed in the next depth level the player has reached. I hope this will give you some good ideas. :-)

Talking about your MODing ideas, they look fine for me. Pretty organized.