Monster Maze [dungeon crawler]

[SuperWaifuProject]

Hi. Anime artist and aspiring game dev here. Been a long-time fan of all things lewd, and In recent months, I've decided to try my hand at producing something of my own here. I've worked on a few small games before, but now I'll be setting off on my own, to spread sweet anime tiddies all across the land.

My first project in this endeavor is a game called Monster Maze, a simple top-down dungeon crawler with (currently) pretty basic gameplay mechanics. Putting the lewdness first, it features 800x600 pre-rendered hentai animations, as well as a control scheme which easily allows for ambidextrous 1-handed play.

If this game happens to be of any interest to you, please let me know what you would like to see here. As I complete each task to improve the game, I'll be frequently putting up poles to see what comes next, making sure that this really becomes the game that my patrons would want to play. Even if you don't plan to throw any money my way, any input would be quite appreciated.

Quick info for those who don't want the tldr:

Spoiler

Pairings:
M+F

Fetishes:
This first little demo does not feature any, but plenty of things can be added down the line. Basically I'll be taking suggestions from anyone and everyone, and while there are a few things I won't touch, everything else is will be put into polls. And with that, I will let the patrons decide what all ends up in this game.

Gameplay:
Basic top-down linear dungeon crawler. You run through a room at a time, battle the monster girls inside, and see who comes out on top. Then find the key, and proceed to the next level. Rinse and repeat.

Controls: [Designed for ambidextrous 1-handed play.]
Move - WASD/Arrow keys
Spank - C/Enter
Magic - X/Ctrl
Assume the position - H/Backspace
Pause/Skip - Escape

Current features:
-Powerups [currently four] - In addition to the little health and mana pickups, there are 4 items that temporarily enhance your abilities: Red - heavier magic attack. Orange - explosive magic attack. Blue - fire wall. Green - 50% speed boost.
-In addition to simply launching the game from the beginning, there is also a level select menu. Go left instead of right if you want to enter the gallery.
-In the options menu, you currently have three things that you can adjust. "Cycles per animation" refers to how many time a sex sequence will loop before closing. "Monster down time" refers to how long the monster girls will remain stunned after their hit points have been knocked down to 0. Turning on or off "Regenerating monsters" will determine whether the girls will get back up after their stun timer runs out, or simply de-spawn. As more features are added to the game, of course, more options will be added here as well.
-In the gallery, use the attack buttons[C/Enter,X/Ctrl] to bring up the H animations

First 2 animations

Spoiler

Any feedback or suggestions will be appreciated. And please do let me know if you find any bugs.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the demo.

Current demo is available at the top of my Patreon page.
https://www.patreon.com/superwaifuproject

 

[Vasin]

I enjoyed this game quite a bit. Male protagonists seem rare in adult dungeon crawlers, so this seemed a nice change of pace. The animations seem quite well done and I'm eager to see more.

What did you have in mind for magic? An upgradable spell? Something affected by pickups? Something else?

 

[SuperWaifuProject]

Glad to hear you liked it. At the moment, I'm working on improving some systems, but within the next week or two I should have several more animations done, as well as some new monsters.

As for magic, now I see I forgot to put this in the main post. So far I have four pickups, aside from the health and mana orbs. Two of them affect the little magic ball that you fire - one [red] does more damage, and the other [orange] makes it explosive, sending four smaller shots outward from the target after it hits. The other two powerups are a 50% speed boost and a little firewall that damages any monster girls on contact. Gonna be adding a fifth powerup that lets your magic attack go through multiple targets as well, with the next build.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

If you want a suggestion on stuff to work on, try to make the controls feel smoother and maybe make the PC a bit faster. He currently feels slow and stiff. Multiple button inputs at once is a good example of something that hasn't been properly implemented, as some directional buttons will always override others.

As for gameplay improvements, a problem right now is that there doesn't seem to be much mechanical skills you can apply to the game. If an enemy is charging you, all you can really do is spam attacks and hope you knock them down before they hit you, since you can't outrun or avoid them. Part of this might need a shift in level design, say many more open rooms to allow for dodging around attacks and making positioning much more important. The tight corridors make manoeuvring impossible, if you want to make the game more similar to 2d Zelda, Issac, or Gungeon. They are well suited towards slow paced or turn based games, since it limits how many enemies can attack the player at once.

Your animations are good, though I will recommend trying to avoid reusing them for multiple enemies if possible, except as placeholders.

 

[SuperWaifuProject]

Yeah, the movement is definitely going to be getting the most work. I have set up a new tile-based system to smooth that out most of the way. Going to also see about changing the way it handles input. I was a little unsure about the player speed when I tested it, but yeah, I'll speed him up, and see how that works out.

For maneuvering and whatnot, I could add in rolling [activated by double-tapping a movement key], as well as, perhaps, a timing-based parry function, with a small knock-back and chance to stun. And now that you mention it, yeah, it does seem that opening things up more would probably be a good idea. Don't want everything to be wide open rooms though, so I'll see about balancing out the larger and smaller spaces.

Lastly, on the topic of animations, I guess I should probably have put this in the first post. But the plan there is to ultimately have around 20 total animations. Then a range of different facial features, bust sizes, and monster type-specific hair pieces, as well as a few other bits around the body, like tails, paws, or wings. Then when each monster spawns in [once I've finished putting this system together], she'll be assembled from all the different face possibilities and other bits, and colored up with a quick little shader. The little in-game sprites will always look the same, for ease of enemy recognition, but for the pop-up animations, I'd like there to be as much variety as I can reasonably put in. And then you, the player, can potentially see her in any of those 20 different positions. Normally, they'd be randomly selected, based on who's on top, but I'll bind them to the number keys as well, for anyone who's in the mood for something in particular. I've never really been a fan of just having 1 look and 1 or 2 positions for every single enemy of a given type. It definitely works, and there's certainly nothing wrong with it, but I've always found myself thinking "Man, if only I could see (enemy X) in the same position that (enemy Y) has." or something along those lines.

Anyways, the input is much appreciated. Definitely going to be revisiting a few levels. And I'll also be taking a look at those games you mentioned, seeing what else I can pick up.

 

[NobleLeader6]

To add onto the idea of better tile creation, I'd suggest checking out a series of games with the subtitle of Mystery Dungeon. They exist for a few different series', so any one of them should be fine. The reason I suggest this is because they often alternate between small corridors and rooms of various sizes. While I'm not saying you should have the size of the rooms/floors be like they are in those games, you could use them to get an idea for room layouts etc. Only a suggestion though, and the other suggestions given by TDM are great for getting the game up in quality.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I'd given some thought to combat mechanics and a parry attack like you suggested was something I'd thought of as well. Enemies would walk up near the player, then flash after a random delay to show they were about to attack, and the player would do their melee attack then to damage and avoid being damaged by the enemy. Mistimed attacks would either do nothing with long cooldowns, or cause the enemy to attack immediately with no way to defend against it. Tight corridors then suit that just fine, as long as enemies and the player can't move through one another. At least, that could be one type of enemy and would be similar to the 2d Legend of Zelda games. Lots of wide open rooms with projectiles flying everywhere that you have to dodge between while also using your own projectiles would make it a twin stick game similar to Binding of Issac. Adding in that roll mechanic where you have a period of invulnerability would make it more like Enter the Gungeon, which is again like a twin stick. However, Issac and Gungeon do require you to be using two hands for two 4-8 directional inputs or two controller sticks, so they might not be appropriate for the game you're trying to make if one handed play is still a main goal.

The main goal is to make it so that there's some degree of skill or challenge involved in playing the game. Whether that's dodging projectiles, timing counters, or figuring out how to defeat a variety of enemies using different tools/abilities. Some sort of core mechanic that makes the game fun to play. Other issues are smaller things that can be addressed later and with greater ease. The core gameplay will be much more difficult to change later on in development.