goblinoidgames.com

About four years ago I received permission from Dan Proctor to make a Labyrinth Lord computer game. At the time the plan was to make an online, web based game which used the ruleset but alas the project never get passed the character creation stage. I have tried to get in touch with Goblinoid Games to see if the license still applies but there has been no response - they haven't said that it has somehow expired, and so I have now resurrected the project.



The game is now being built to be a full screen game that runs on the desktop across multiple platforms (windows and linux). The dungeon engine is similar to games like Eye of the Beholder, the Bards Tale and Legend of Grimrock. There is also an outdoor engine for wilderness exploration similar to games like Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenge. The combat is similar to games like The Bards Tale and Wizardry, though with some extra tactical options thrown in for good measure. These are all game types which have (largely) disappeared but were terrific games.

The game currently supports the following complete and working features:

Isometric Dungeon Engine
Wilderness Terrain Engine
7 Character Classes (fighter, cleric, mage, thief, dwarf, elf, halfling)
Infravision and torches
7 Party members, 4 front rank and 3 back rank
4 Enemy groups, 2 front rank and 2 back rank
Melee weapons, armour and shields
Thrown weapon attacks
Ranged weapons attacks from the back ranks
Consumeables (torches, arrows, darts)
Village shops to buy items
Gold piece, silver piece and copper piece economy

I plan on including 64 of the spells from the Labyrinth Lord core rules. Programming the spells is quite complicated because vancian magic has more going on than mere mana points.

This is an old school project for an old school rule set. There will be Morlocks!

Holy socks, that looks cool!

oooooo, when can I play?

--Ron--

Loved "The Bards Tale" series BITD, and I am currently playing "Wizardry 6" (I'd never played any Wizardry game before), which I'm really enjoying. So you've captured my interest! Too bad I'm on a Mac though...

The game might be ready in about a month's time.

Here is a shot of the wilderness engine showing a view of the Kingdom of Dragonia, the world in which the game is set:


If the character names on the screenshots look a little odd it is because the game is using a random name generator which I've part converted from an old Judge's Guild magazine. I say part because I'm not sure if I'm actually using it as intended or abusing it in some way. No matter, it works well enough.

It might be possible to get a version on the Mac. It looks like there is a version of the programming language that I'm using which will run on OSX. Not owning a Mac any more could make building a Mac version difficult, though.

Good news people, Goblinoid Games got back to me the license is being honoured, so it's full steam ahead!



The game will be an old school rescue the princess affair across a number of monster lairs seperated by a harsh wilderness. Of course there'll be a home town to stock up on supplies, listen to rumours and visit the temple to heal up at. I've been busy programming the thief skills this evening so the following are now represented in the engine: climb walls, hide in shadows, move silently and backstab. As you'll be able to see on the screenshot, poison is now in the engine, although in that combat, the spiders did not need it!

Anybody remember the old " Phantasie " computer game? I would love to see something along those lines again. But better with todays tech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasie

Wow. This looks pretty darn cool. I love the old-fashioned dungeons crawlers like EOTB, Wizardry, and the like. I'm interested.

~O

Work on the game continues.



The game now understands all of the fiddly bits around experience point rewards such as prime requisites, multiple prime requisites, etc.

Now onto the treasure...

So I've been quiet on here for a while and I thought I might remedy that with a report on the recent progress in the current build...

* Resting at an inn and memorising spells is complete. Four different options are shown within an inn for resting, from sleeping on the common room bunks to having a great big feast, apple pie and sleeping in a master bedroom, with the respective costs attached.
* The Magic Missile spell is complete and is the first spell in the game. It supports up to 9 missiles on a single casting (at twentieth level) and each missile can strike a different target. As far as I know this is the only D&D CRPG which does this, every other game I've played from the original Bards Tale, the Goldbox games, the Infinity engine games (etc) always sends all of the missiles at the same target. So a high level mage could take down 9 goblins with one magic missile spell in this game, for example.
* The game understands the singular item in the description mode so it will state '[attacker] attacks _a_ giant sider' when there are multiple giant spiders and say '[attacker] attacks _the_ giant spider' when there is only one giant spider. A small touch that helps with the readability.
* The game will tell you when an opponent missed because of your character's shiny suit of armour, the character blocked the blow with the shield or if the enemy simply missed. I may expand this for a dodge description for when the Dex bonus was the reason the enemy missed.
* Unconsciousness and bleeding out has been removed; Labyrinth Lord does not use these states - 0 hp is death!
* Equipping items in combat is now complete. This occurs in a standard initiative phase so is not immediate and becomes a character's action for that round. There is no restriction on what can be readied except it must only be one item changed per round. So platemail could be readied, automatially unreadying leather armour, all in one round. On the other hand, readying a sword takes one round as well. Previously equipment could only be modified while exploring.
* Wandering monsters are triggered based upon the party movement rate while exploring dungeons. Currently this rate is fixed at a check every 90 feet explored. Wandering monsters can be fled from with no current penalty and no chase rules are in effect at this point. I may place the wandering monsters onto the map at the point they are encountered so that they do not just vanish into thin air like in older D&D games. Wandering monsters still need to be tied into the wilderness exploration and rest/camp areas of the game.
* The game automatically up-converts 10 copper pieces to 1 silver piece and 10 silver pieces to 1 gold piece as a house rule. I'm not sure if I like this but at the moment it's better than losing the copper piece and silver piece economy and is convenient for the player.
* Individual treasure tables are ready and so monsters can leave treasure at the end of fights. The treasure is generated at the beginning of the fight. If a magic weapon is rolled up then one of the monsters may end up wielding it (assuming it can wield weapons). A nasty surprise for players not used to this!
* Unprotected treasure tables are ready and can be triggered with level placement.
* Gems and jewelry (as items such as rubies, diamonds and gold necklaces) are in the engine though they cannot yet be sold anywhere. These take up object slots in the inventory. Each character has 8 inventory slots for his gear. As little as 3 may be being used, e.g. armour, shield, weapon, giving room for miscallaenous items like gems, jewelry, torches, etc, though it could fill up quickly when you start adding bows and quivers of arrows. Currently no encumberance is calculated for items held, the only restriction are the 8 slots. With 6 characters in the party this gives 48 slots for equipment in total.
* Magical items are found alreay identified at this point. Currently the engine has magic weapons and armour only as these are the easiest to implement.
* In the wilderness, mountains are impassable and form effective barriers, but hills are passable. I may either make hills impassable as well or make them so dangerous (or time consuming to cross) that they provide effective barriers too. This is so that the approach to the castles funnels travelers along the main road which leads to them.

I intend to update this thread more often so that everyone knows I have not abandoned the build and it is continuing nicely. As Easter weekend is almost here I expect to find more time to work on the game.