Grimrock

Ixnatifual wrote:Can't designers just make sure any keys gained in their levels must also be expended before reaching the stairs leading to the next designer's levels?

You're completely right, that is an option. And if a designer does that they'll never encounter my proposed "fix". But for some puzzles it's really difficult to ensure that. And someone might also want to include optional side areas or secrets that have locks in them. Well it could easily arise in many non-linear dungeon levels. This would just be meant as an insurance sort of fix, as it wouldn't affect designers who tie up all loose ends already. Plus it allows designers greater freedom to design how they want to design without worrying about key juggling.

Your fix sounds good. Those items should always be retreivable from an alcove when going back to the previous dungeon level.

As far as the key issue goes, you could make it so every designer's level has key clones that are named differently (and reskinned to be a different color) and they only work with the doors on that floor. If you wanted to be really nice, the name of the keys could even say "level 1 key" "level 3 key" etc so the player knows which level the key belongs to if they keep it past that level.

Ixnatifual wrote:Can't designers just make sure any keys gained in their levels must also be expended before reaching the stairs leading to the next designer's levels?

There is a remove from inventory script isnt there? we could have an almost portal type 'gateway' or field you walk through that robs you of all previous keys.

Also I like the ramp up of enthusiasm we're seeing for this.

Shloogorgh wrote:As far as the key issue goes, you could make it so every designer's level has key clones that are named differently (and reskinned to be a different color) and they only work with the doors on that floor. If you wanted to be really nice, the name of the keys could even say "level 1 key" "level 3 key" etc so the player knows which level the key belongs to if they keep it past that level.

The keys are set to open doors by their type, not their unique id. So for this we'd have to cloneObject and make a new set of key types for every designer that jumps on board. Or trust that everyone knows enough scripting to handle it themselves. I think that's too much of a barrier to entry. Maybe I can automate the process of assigning key types at the end however, and do it like you said. Actually this is probably very doable in post-processing when the whole dungeon is stitched together.

This method also wouldn't work for the Power Weapon but I suppose that's no more a key than being strong is a key to the insides of monsters' ribcages. So I don't know why I thought it was an issue before, forget it.

HaunterV wrote:There is a remove from inventory script isnt there? we could have an almost portal type 'gateway' or field you walk through that robs you of all previous keys.

This was basically my original idea, but I've been testing it out and I can't find a simple secure way to do it. To elaborate... we'd have to add...

• A hidden pressure plate and script to check the player's mouse and party's inventory.
• A hidden item teleporter to prevent the player from throwing the key over the plate. Depending on where the key teleports to, it could hit the party and hurt them or it could be hard to know where it went. As far as I know, there isn't a way to remove/move items placed in the dungeon. So I don't know how to delete a thrown item and spawning a replacement in an alcove.
• A second pair of teleporter and pressure plate for keys being taken up instead of down.

All that and it STILL doesn't stop all the ways to get keys across. You can place it on the ground next to the plate, step on the plate without the key, pick it back up, and carry it through the gateway. Even if it set off the 2nd detection plate/tele instead, we'd have to know somehow that the key came from the lower level instead of the upper level, or vice versa. Basically we'd have to keep track of key ids anyway... and by that point I'd rather forget about the confusing gateway checkpoint experience and just make the keys unique types.

Keys with level tags and possibly in different shades are starting to sound much better to me than American airport security style checkpoints.

So in summary, I pretty much just reversed all my opinions on this. A more elegant gateway method would be nice. But colored/tagged keys sound so smexy!

Anyone who does any of that jargon up there, deserves to have the dungeon be less fun to them. Hell we can add a script to the final floor checking for excess keys and have the dungeon call the player a chump.

HaunterV wrote:Anyone who does any of that jargon up there, deserves to have the dungeon be less fun to them. Hell we can add a script to the final floor checking for excess keys and have the dungeon call the player a chump.

Well, yes, but this game has strong puzzle elements. I always do that kind of tricky stuff when I play games like this. The main Legend of Grimrock dungeon is water-tight in not being able to cheap shot your way past things, as well as never being possible to ruin your game by throwing an item away into an unreachable location. That's more than can be said for most AAA games out there *cough* Skyrim, although few of them include real puzzles anyway so no one cares.

I like this idea.
I've been working on my own dungeon now, but after that is finished, I could try to make one or two interesting levels.

In my opinion, people should make it so that keys gained are always used in the level. This is the simpliest method.
If you need to have some kind of optional door to open on your level, it can be opened by many other ways than just a key.

And my thoughts about the loot:
Make a list of items that each difficulty level is allowed to have. Maybe make it even so, that when people reserve their dungeons, tell them what items there should be included and which are optional. This of course is a lot of work, but it's an option instead of having random items in random difficulty dungeons.

One very simple way to handle the keys would be to do it the way we did it with the main dungeon. If you give out a key it must be used in order to proceed further in the dungeon. UNLESS it's a gold key, which were reserved for optional doors so it doesn't matter if the player decides to not use the key.

antti wrote:One very simple way to handle the keys would be to do it the way we did it with the main dungeon. If you give out a key it must be used in order to proceed further in the dungeon. UNLESS it's a gold key, which were reserved for optional doors so it doesn't matter if the player decides to not use the key.

That's not 100% true. I have a round key on level 9 that could've been used in level 6 I think.