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[Scoops Novel]

Rps article: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11/06/shadowrun-return-devs-return-with-necropolis/
Website: http://necropolisgame.tumblr.com/

Procedurally generated levels that change around you which you can manipulate, "fast, timing-based combat system that’s heavy on the animations and attack patterns", good looking, heavily hinted player ghosts, and £""£!23 predator/prey relationships. Hopefully there's some humanoid infighting as well.

[Cthulhu]

How many times have I heard dungeon with an ecosystem before?

The first that comes to mind is Din's Curse.  THe issue with any kind of "ecology" systems and the like is that 90% of it occurs behind the scenes and a lot of times it's impossible to distinguish emergent behavior from scripted behavior designed to seem emergent.

Like the alien in Alien Isolation.  Supposedly it moves intelligently through the station tracking you with its senses, but you could say the same thing about Colonel Pullsyerheadoff from Outlast or the hunter alien from the first Dead Space and it's hard to really tell the difference because most of the magic happens out of the player's view.

[nenjin]

So I guess Hairbrained is done with Golem Arcana, then? Man these guys are just cranking out games lately.

It's got Harebrained's art style, which I'm not really a fan of. There's not much else to go on at this point. I'm with Cthulhu in that many people make claims about their game systems that don't pan out in truth. But I'd be interested to hear and see more about this.

[debvon]

Ugh.. Din's Curse gave me a migraine. I didn't even care about the "living" dungeon, I just wanted to stop playing (and stop playing is exactly what I did). I gave it a fair chance with my friend but the whole thing was just awful.

The idea of a living dungeon is a good one, but I don't think it's something you can focus an entire game around. It's definitely not unique anymore. The living dungeon should be one of many clever mechanics backed up by a solid, replayable, fun game. In any case it sounds like Necropolis' selling point will be the combat system and animation.

It's got Harebrained's art style, which I'm not really a fan of.

I'm not a fan of it either, hopefully the style doesn't spoil the game itself which is conceivable. Take a developer like Amplitude for example. They made a bland "vs. AI, no campaign" civ builder called Endless Legend and also released a roguelike/TD called Dungeon of the Endless. Both games use the same resource icons. The UI and animations have the exact same style. Both games occur in the same world/timeline so it makes some sense, but it kind of makes the game hard to get into if you don't like the style in the first place. And you just know that they're going to keep making games in that style because it's what they do. Or at least, it's what they've done up to that point.

[nenjin]

I just wish Harebrained (or however you spell it) would push their artists out of their comfort zone a little. Or at least have him try a different style. In the macro, I like the look of the work they do. But their character art sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

[~Neri]

An active ecosystem ingame is only considered one if it's happening in player view.

Track a dragon. Watch it hunt.

Watch giant ants and bees fight it out for control of a central spring.

And so on.

[Neonivek]

The way living dungeons can be pulled off in an interesting manner to me is if the game sort of has all its mechanics for the dungeon actually make sense.

For example... A dungeon may have traps, but obviously they were meant to be circumvented... It might have a snake trap, but where did they come from?

An organic dungeon I think would be a bit more interesting then a "living" dungeon.

Well unless we mean a dungeon that is literally alive and thus it grows and changes to suit the needs of the adventurers exploring it, playing off their psychology, hopes, and fears.