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[brash]

I tend to lurk here rather than post, especially when I am on the lookout for  fun sandbox-y type games. I think this is even where I first discovered Unreal World and Wurm Online, two of my favorite indie sandbox games. 

Today might be my turn to repay past favors, with a tip on a fun little game currently flying "under the radar."

http://lugdunon.net/

It has an old school 16 bit art style, with a strong emphasis on crafting. it's still early alpha but there is already a lot of interesting things to test out, like building your own homestead with farm and brick house, making tools/weapons/armor, spellmaking, brewing, cooking, and other skills.  You can play on mobile devices or PC, and solo or with friends. Apparently the longterm plan is to encourage heavy modability so that people create their own worlds and stories. I have been enjoying it for the past 20-30 hours, and it seemed to me to be the type of game that DF fans might also enjoy. Here's a screenshot of my little homestead:



There's also some dungeons with skeletons/zombies and a couple starter quests -- the game still has a long way to go but for an alpha it is pretty fun and there's enough content there already to keep crafter/explorer types happy for a bit of time It's designed from the start for people to make their own private worlds, servers, recipes and mods.

I am not connected to the game or developers in any way, having just discovered it myself a few days ago.

[Nistenf]

Looks pretty nice, thanks!

[jocan2003]

Hmm nice little game indeed, will definitly keep an eye on this game.

[Iceblaster]

Will check out sooner or later...

[Mephisto]

I was going to complain that I have to have the wiki open to be able to do anything, but then remembered that we're all on the DF forums.

I don't know if I'll play much right now, but this has potential.

[Sirian]

I tried it but it seems very buggy right now. Every time I left a house or a cave to go back to the open world, the game screen went mostly grey and I had to restart the game to do anything. Then as I walked inside a cave everything froze and this time I couldn't solve it with a restart.

Other than that, the game feels really simplistic so far. There doesn't seem to be many recipes from what I can see on the cookbook, and it's VERY easy with just the starter quest XP to purchase master level skills in at least 3 crafting jobs. Although, given how the costs raise exponentially the more skills you have, I guess it's very hard or even impossible to reach that level in everything. I was able to get iron with a basic stone pickaxe so it seems that steel tier items are easily obtained, probably making all the other tiers (copper, bronze, iron) superfluous.

Given how it's a 2D game with simple tiles I was kind of hoping for some sort of Terraria-like fluidity of action and movement, but there wasn't any of that. The fact that it's browser-based is probably a big limitation, as there were a lot of loading screens for the little gameplay I did. It also showed when text on the interface was being highlighted on accident from clicks.

It might still be an interesting game if given enough depth. It reminded me of Hazordhu (back when I played it with a group from B12), except more unfinished. The problem with those games is that it doesn't take very long to get to the point where you've done everything and it feels pointless to keep playing.

[ndkid]

Since we often see people chiding first-time posters when they pimp a game, I just wanted to say: thumbs up for doing it right. Establish lurker cred, note that you're not affiliated with the game, provide a screenshot, a link, and a description... well done!

[h3lblad3]

Game froze on me, but didn't affect the usage of Firefox or anything else with my computer. I guess it was just the game?

[Azrayel]

Looks super 'pintresting; thanks for the share!

[brash]

It might still be an interesting game if given enough depth. It reminded me of Hazordhu (back when I played it with a group from B12), except more unfinished. The problem with those games is that it doesn't take very long to get to the point where you've done everything and it feels pointless to keep playing.

Yes you may be right. I think longterm it will depend entirely on attracting a good modding community, to continue adding new content, recipes, skills, new lands, creatures & quests etc.

[lugdunon]

Hi there,

I am the dev for Lugdunon and thought I would jump in here to introduce myself and attempt to address some of the issues and questions raised here so far.

First, off: thank you Brash for posting this. I am very glad that you are enjoying things so far. Also, thanks to everyone who has commented here so far. Your comments and criticisms benefit Lugdunon's development in a big way.

I started work in earnest on this project roughly a year and a half ago with the aim of providing a game, coupled with a toolset, that would allow others to take what was written and expand, modify, and mold it to create adventures and worlds all their own. With that in mind, most of the systems in the current game are implemented as modules; the character stats / advancements, and environment / time / calendar system being the two most obvious. Also, all of the game data (with the exception of the actual terrain tile placement information) is stored in plain text files in JSON format for easy editing by hand, with the end goal of providing in-game editors for most aspects of the game world.

The server is freely available as a .jar file if you wish to run your own server.

Currently, GMs can use the in-game editors to:

• Modify the terrain and terrain elevations by 'painting' them directly onto the map with a variable sized brush.
• Place items into the game world and configure them after placement.
• Basic creation new NPC types. Behaviors (AI), loot tables, and inventory editing still need to be implemented.
• Add or edit existing crafting recipes.

Once beta drops, the other in-game editors will become top priority.

I am currently working on getting the last few subsystems in place and on performance and stability, with the hope of making beta in the next month or two.

Also, if anyone is having performance / latency issues, I would be incredibly grateful if you could contact me to let me know your OS / Browser / physical location it would help me identify possible causes to the problems you are having.

I was going to complain that I have to have the wiki open to be able to do anything, but then remembered that we're all on the DF forums.

I don't know if I'll play much right now, but this has potential.

I have wrestled long with the decision of whether or not to include a recipe database in the game. Do you think it is a generally good idea to provide this, or leave recipes up for discovery? Are there any other aspects of the wiki that you think could be handled in-game, or made more apparent to the user such that they would not need to consult the wiki very often, if at all?

Game froze on me, but didn't affect the usage of Firefox or anything else with my computer. I guess it was just the game?

There are definite issues with the game at the moment, and I am slowly working on cataloguing and tackling them in turn. In particular, and issue has come to my attention that makes the game virtually unplayable in FF 25.0 under Win7. In other permutations of Chrome/ FF / Safari and MacOS / Windows Vista / Win 7 this issue seems to be non-existant. Thankfully I have a Win7 / FF 25.0 config that I can test on. In the meantime, you might find the game more stable / playable under Chrome.

I tried it but it seems very buggy right now. Every time I left a house or a cave to go back to the open world, the game screen went mostly grey and I had to restart the game to do anything. Then as I walked inside a cave everything froze and this time I couldn't solve it with a restart.

Other than that, the game feels really simplistic so far. There doesn't seem to be many recipes from what I can see on the cookbook, and it's VERY easy with just the starter quest XP to purchase master level skills in at least 3 crafting jobs. Although, given how the costs raise exponentially the more skills you have, I guess it's very hard or even impossible to reach that level in everything. I was able to get iron with a basic stone pickaxe so it seems that steel tier items are easily obtained, probably making all the other tiers (copper, bronze, iron) superfluous.

Given how it's a 2D game with simple tiles I was kind of hoping for some sort of Terraria-like fluidity of action and movement, but there wasn't any of that. The fact that it's browser-based is probably a big limitation, as there were a lot of loading screens for the little gameplay I did. It also showed when text on the interface was being highlighted on accident from clicks.

It might still be an interesting game if given enough depth. It reminded me of Hazordhu (back when I played it with a group from B12), except more unfinished. The problem with those games is that it doesn't take very long to get to the point where you've done everything and it feels pointless to keep playing.

Some of the issues you are having may be attributable to the aforementioned problems with FF / Win7. If you don't mind me asking, what OS / browser are you using?

I have been concentrating the last few months on getting engine features as well as performance and stability so I have not been able to devote as much time to fleshing out the default world as I would have liked to. Hopefully I can further expand things soon. With that said, I would also like to leave things such that others will be able to easily expand the base and add their own items, skills, spells, and modifiers (buffs / debuffs). I have also not spend a great deal of time on balancing, so you may find places where certain crafting patterns or resources don't quite make sense from certain standpoints. For instance, gating materials by placing 'higher' ores in locations that are more difficult to get to, farther away, or only accessible later in the story progression would help balance the various tool grades.

The default world implementation will only serve as a demo / starting point of sorts. Currently it is serving more to showcase most of the features of the engine, but will slowly be molded into an actual playable campaign. Also, I do plan on having several more servers online at some point that will be running on different rulesets specifically for the purpose of showcasing and catering to various different playstyles.

When you speak of 'fluidity of action and movement', would you mind giving me more detail?

It might still be an interesting game if given enough depth. It reminded me of Hazordhu (back when I played it with a group from B12), except more unfinished. The problem with those games is that it doesn't take very long to get to the point where you've done everything and it feels pointless to keep playing.

Yes you may be right. I think longterm it will depend entirely on attracting a good modding community, to continue adding new content, recipes, skills, new lands, creatures & quests etc.

Brash hit the nail on the head here. Having a great community of modders will definitely be the linchpin of success for this project. I am just now arriving at the point where I will begin actively promoting Lugdunon in order to build such a community.

[Girlinhat]

I was going to complain that I have to have the wiki open to be able to do anything, but then remembered that we're all on the DF forums.

I don't know if I'll play much right now, but this has potential.

I have wrestled long with the decision of whether or not to include a recipe database in the game. Do you think it is a generally good idea to provide this, or leave recipes up for discovery? Are there any other aspects of the wiki that you think could be handled in-game, or made more apparent to the user such that they would not need to consult the wiki very often, if at all?

Look up Wayward Roguelike.  It's set on an island, where you crash your boat and have to survive the wilderness.  The crafting system it uses is NOT a grid (which I personally believe is a bit contrived.  You've got the materials, why spend a minute placing them in a jigsaw and then 20 minutes finding the recipe in the wiki because you forgot the block goes on top not on bottom?).  Instead, it's just timed crafting, with different levels of recipes taking longer or shorter time.  When you have materials, you can see the recipes for them - for instance, with some wood and some stone, you can see the recipes for a wooden wall and a campfire.  Then you can craft them directly - for instance, making a wall.  Now your crafting list has a wooden wall displayed permanently, but the campfire will only be displayed when you have all the wood and stone again.

This lets you actually remember things as a character, as well as show crafting options that might not be obvious by showing you what can be done with all the materials in your hands.

Personally I see no point in the crafting grid.  It contributes nothing to gameplay except "I know how this works because I've played Minecraft" and sends you scurrying to various wiki pages trying to find out what materials you need AND why it's not working because you accidentally placed an item in the wrong tile.

[lugdunon]

I was going to complain that I have to have the wiki open to be able to do anything, but then remembered that we're all on the DF forums.

I don't know if I'll play much right now, but this has potential.

I have wrestled long with the decision of whether or not to include a recipe database in the game. Do you think it is a generally good idea to provide this, or leave recipes up for discovery? Are there any other aspects of the wiki that you think could be handled in-game, or made more apparent to the user such that they would not need to consult the wiki very often, if at all?

Look up Wayward Roguelike.  It's set on an island, where you crash your boat and have to survive the wilderness.  The crafting system it uses is NOT a grid (which I personally believe is a bit contrived.  You've got the materials, why spend a minute placing them in a jigsaw and then 20 minutes finding the recipe in the wiki because you forgot the block goes on top not on bottom?).  Instead, it's just timed crafting, with different levels of recipes taking longer or shorter time.  When you have materials, you can see the recipes for them - for instance, with some wood and some stone, you can see the recipes for a wooden wall and a campfire.  Then you can craft them directly - for instance, making a wall.  Now your crafting list has a wooden wall displayed permanently, but the campfire will only be displayed when you have all the wood and stone again.

This lets you actually remember things as a character, as well as show crafting options that might not be obvious by showing you what can be done with all the materials in your hands.

Personally I see no point in the crafting grid.  It contributes nothing to gameplay except "I know how this works because I've played Minecraft" and sends you scurrying to various wiki pages trying to find out what materials you need AND why it's not working because you accidentally placed an item in the wrong tile.

The crafting system you describe sounds very similar to that used in Terraria, and I can certainly see the appeal to a system like that. I personally fell in love with the grid / pattern crafting system in Minecraft and have wanted to built an implementation of that system from the first time I saw it in action. I really enjoyed the mini-game of discovering crafting recipes, however I also understood how frustrating it could be at times. My solution / compromise was to provide a 'cookbook' on the main website that would allow you to view the recipes available on a particular Lugdunon server.

Your comments also drive directly to the heart of one of the main design goals of Lugdunon: if you don't like a provided default system (such as the crafting system), you are completely free to create an alternative system that more matches your desired playstyle.

I hope to have more detail on the mod API, and other critical APIs in the future, more than likely after beta hits.

[Sirian]

Some of the issues you are having may be attributable to the aforementioned problems with FF / Win7. If you don't mind me asking, what OS / browser are you using?

FF/Win7 :p

When you speak of 'fluidity of action and movement', would you mind giving me more detail?

I mean the fact that it's tile based so you can only move from square to square, maybe also the way you drag things around in the inventory... The fact that it runs in a browser in a small window may be also part of the general feeling I described... things like being unable to deselect a target, both mouse clicks doing the same thing, etc...

[lugdunon]

Some of the issues you are having may be attributable to the aforementioned problems with FF / Win7. If you don't mind me asking, what OS / browser are you using?

FF/Win7 :p

When you speak of 'fluidity of action and movement', would you mind giving me more detail?

I mean the fact that it's tile based so you can only move from square to square, maybe also the way you drag things around in the inventory... The fact that it runs in a browser in a small window may be also part of the general feeling I described... things like being unable to deselect a target, both mouse clicks doing the same thing, etc...

Ah, would you mind giving it it a shot in Chrome if you have it installed? I would love to hear your comments after running in that environment.

Gotcha, you can move with sub-tile accuracy using the arrow / WASD keys. Click to move will always be on the grid though, given how the pathfinding works. You can also run at higher resolutions and even in fullscreen mode if you desire.

Deselecting a target can be accomplished by hitting the Esc key.

How would you like to see the moving / selecting of items in the inventory implemented?

I probably do need to revisit how the mouse keys are used (i.e. allow separate actions for each button). Thanks for the reminder!