Christian Wolfertstetter on Dungeons

Feature

Dungeons is a upcoming strategy/simulation game developed by Realmforge Studios, and published by Kalypso Media. We got the chance to chat with Christian Wolfertstetter at Realmforge.

January 21st, 2011 by Josh Miller

Hooked Gamers: Every time you complete the requirements for a level you progress on to the next dungeon, so do any of your resources or trinkets transition along with you, or do you have to start from scratch every time?

Christian Wolfertstetter: The Dungeon Lord has skills and attributes as some are perhaps familiar because of several RPGs. You take your attributes and skills with you throughout the campaign and expand them, of course.

The skill tree allows you to become a more specialized Dungeon Lord.

Hooked Gamers: In your standard run of the mill dungeon games, you control the hero and since you�re an intelligent human being, you can often overcome the obstacles you come across. Since the hero�s are controlled by A.I. in this game, how will they be able to react appropriately to the situation they are placed in, and will they act more intelligently if they are a higher leveled hero?

Christian Wolfertstetter: Having played several Action-RPGs in multiplayer, I think that the hero AI resembles perfectly some of the players, I met. ;-)

The heroes try their best, but, as heroes are, they are not very intelligent. They normally rely on brute force. If they are overpowered they flee from a battle and try to find help or drink a healing potion. Aside from battles, they always try to satisfy their needs. Some heroes even try to stay together because they can heal other heroes.

Higher level heroes have different needs than lower levels and new powers, so they act differently to lower level heroes. Intelligently would be simply the wrong word in the hero context.

Hooked Gamers: On another note, is any competitive multiplayer mode planned, where either two dungeon lords have opposing dungeons, or where one player is a hero facing the opposing player�s dungeon?

Christian Wolfertstetter: The initial release will � sadly � have no multiplayer, since we wanted to focus on a great single player experience. However, the code base is multiplayer oriented, so it's possible to integrate it later in the game. That depends on our publisher, Kalypso, however. At the moment there are no specific plans as how multiplayer will work.

Hooked Gamers: Once you beat the campaign levels, there�s more fun to be found in the dungeon editor. How complex will the editor be and how far do the options range from what you can do?

Christian Wolfertstetter: The editor is not very user friendly at the moment. It's only suitable for in house production at the moment. However, we're working on it to make it usable for the gamers out there.

The editor is quite complex and allows the use of LUA as scripting language which gives the user a great deal of control.

Hooked Gamers: Will Dungeons support some sort of level sharing system where players will be able to share their custom content with their friends?

Christian Wolfertstetter: Not at the moment, no. But it's an idea / dream for the release of the editor!

Hooked Gamers: Alright then, as our interview is coming to a close, it is HookedGamer�s tradition to allow the developers to comment on something that we have not yet discussed or anything else you feel is interesting in the industry. The floor is yours.

Christian Wolfertstetter: If you didn't have the chance until today, try to grab a copy of Dungeon Keeper 1 or 2 and enjoy! Also, I can recommed Minecraft and Dwarven Fortress.

Hooked Gamers: Well once again I thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, and for all those that are interested, where can they buy Dungeons once it�s released and how much will it cost them?

Christian Wolfertstetter: Dungeons will be available in all major retail stores and online vendors not forgetting ESD portals.