Dungeoñomicon
This is a combination of two of my design obsessions; roguelikes and hex grids. Procedural content has a high initial cost to implement the initial system, but once it's in place (if well designed) content becomes cheap and the experience emergent.
Modular content creation increases the overall playability and replayability for the player and the closer you get to the end of the project, the less effort is required.
This has a major effect on the end product; when the team had fun making it, it's more fun to play.
Dungeoñomicon aims to combine all these in a mobile phone game, similar to the various creepypasta style games that exist - Hello Neighbour, Granny, Five Nights at Freddy's , Mr Meat, Ice Scream and all the permutations of the Slenderman mythologs and the other cryptozoological web denizens. A lot of these games aren't great quality, but there's a compelling argument for making games of this type - they're extremely popular.
In Dungeoñomicon the player is dropped into a procedurally generated dungeon which contains a number of Lost Pages, a terrifying HP Lovecraft inspired monster of some type and an exit. The player must sprint to the exit, unlocking any doors or avoiding traps and obstacles along the way. Each monster has a unique set of abilities and senses and attacks the player's Mind, Body or Soul in a different way.
Once the player reaches the exit they can either Delve or Escape. Escaping means they keep any lost pages found. Delving means they go down one floor to face a larger level with more challenges and many more treasures and lost pages to collect.
The lost pages are used in the metagame and unlock new content from which the levels are procedurally generated. The more you have, the more interesting everything is. Unfortunately, if you die then any pages you're holding are dropped on that floor and remain there until you manage to swipe them from your previous incarnations corpse.
The game has multiple characters with different equipment loadouts, loads of treasure to collect and a gameplay style which gets more fun the better (and deeper) you get. As the player progresses they unlock new monsters, characters, traps, areas and even gameplay styles. Delving or escaping is a double or nothing mechanic - doing so can earn you a lot more loot and pages, but doubles the risk.
The game also features various completion goals. Each character has their own backstory, revealed by surviving dungeon level 24 with them. The metagoal of the whole game is to collect all lost pages and finish reading the Dunegoñomicon . . .
