[RELEASED] Dungeon Master level generator

Edited: Asset is live on the store! https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/79435

Hello everyone,

My name is Vincent and this is my first post in the Unity forums.

I've been working for the last year and a half on a Unity asset called the Dungeon Master. The first version is almost complete.

It all started when I was working on a first Unity game (not my first game though) and I wanted to create procedural levels. I looked at what was offered on the asset store, I even bought some assets to test them out, but they just weren't doing what I wanted. So I started to create my own level generator and after some time I realized that it was becoming Unity asset material. I took what I did for my game, shelved it and started working on the Dungeon Master asset itself.

Now, it has reached a level of maturity that allows it to be used for a lot of different games. I think it is the proper time to release it. I plan to continue development for the asset when it is released because I want to add a lot more features.

I will soon submit it to Unity for evaluation, but I'm pretty confident they will be interested by it.

Here is a little presentation video that I just uploaded on YouTube. (There are more videos available on my channel and I will soon add a tutorial video too.)

There is also a lot of information on my website:
https://chivalrousgames.com/products/dungeonmaster

I would be very happy to hear what all of you think of it!

Thanks!

 

Awesome video, dear! I'm following your work since the beginning and really hope it's gonna be approved by Unity!

 

Thanks Gen!

 

Sound great!! ^_^

 

Thanks!

 

Impressive ! We must keep an eye on that projet.

 

Nice work! Keep it up

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

 

It looks awesome Dude!!!!! Keep up the good work I like the portals XD

 

Thanks!

Ha! Well, I created some assets that I will supply with the Dungeon Master so you have examples in the project. The whole village level and 2.5d castle level are bundled with the Dungeon Master. That includes the portal, so if you like it you can reuse it in your game.

 

awesome Dude!!!! Thx

 

I decided to take the small project I created for the quick dungeon setup YouTube tutorial and turn into a full mini-game that will showcase what can be done with the Dungeon Master. Here is screenshot preview of a multi-floor sewer level generated in 0.3 seconds. There is quite a lot of variety.



The asset on display here is the 3dForge SewerKit. It's perfect for the Dungeon Master!

 

A demo game is available! You can see the Dungeon Master in action:
https://chivalrousgames.com/products/dungeonmaster/demo/

 

I just submitted the package to Unity for review!
The user guide is also available on the Chivalrous Games website, so you can already dig in and get ready to create your first dungeons.

By the way the User Guide is big: 81 pages. It has a lot of information and if you read it all, you will know all about the asset.
But reading it all is not mandatory. It can also be used as a reference guide and you only need to read the parts that interest you.

 

I am extremely interested in this. What price are you releasing this at?

 

Hi Steven!

I set a launch price of $60, which is lower than the other level generators available on the asset store. But the price will likely go up since the Dungeon Master offers a lot of features that are not included in the other similar level generators. I will discuss with Unity what the best price should be. But until we reach an agreement, the price will remain at $60, which is quite affordable.

 

I probably would have thought a little more about the name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(video_game)

 

Well, "Dungeon Generator" was a little too generic. The shorter version "DunGen" was already taken. And so was "Dungeon Architect", so... What was I left with? Just kidding!

I like the fact that in D&D the dungeon master (or DM) is the one creating the whole game. I think it's fitting since the asset does create the game, distributes loot, keys, enemies, scenery, etc. I guess it's also sort of a tribute to old school tabletop rpgs.

 

I think that's a good value. I plan on picking it up right away at that price.

It already seems like there are a lot of features but do you have a road map or ideas for future enhancements?

 

Absolutely! I have a lot of ideas for new features and improvements for the current features. In fact, I have so many ideas that I had to decide where to draw the line and release a first version. So I already have a whole list of things I plan to do in the next version.

Of course, if you want a specific feature or improvement to an existing one, you can request it. I may add a page on my website for the upcoming features and requests if there is enough interest.

I also have ideas for other assets, so I will probably jump back and forth between the development of the Dungeon Master and other assets. For the moment, these other assets are much smaller in scope that the Dungeon Master.

 

This is taking way too long to be approved. lol. I hope they can rush it.

 

Do you plan to sell this Asset on your website too? The Asset Store with its new "great" 30 days of approval is rubbish :-(

 

According to the publisher page for the asset, the Dungeon Master is pending review... So my guess is they haven't started the review yet. A 30 days review period seems long indeed...

I don't plan to make the Dungeon Master available on my website, because I don't want to invest time in setting up a store, payment page and everything. I prefer to invest this time in my Unity projects.

 

I hope it's in review now.

Anyways, is there a feature that as the player moves further away from the starting point that different objects, tiles, etc. can be introduced? This would be a great away of bringing variety into the game and increase the difficulty, etc.

 

Yeah, I hope it is in review too! From what I read in the publisher documentation, I should have news around Friday this week at the latest. If I don't have news by then, I can send them a message to have a status report.

Oh! That's an interesting feature (change the rooms as you move away from the entry point). The way the Dungeon Master works now, you would have to set it up with regions (which would probably be difficult to setup but it would be seamless for the player) or with levels (easier to setup, but you need to transition between levels).

I added this feature to my todo list. It's close enough to another feature I was planning to add a little later. I will do both at the same time.

 

interesting asset. i ll look forward for my study with network game.

++

 

I have a lot of game ideas that would work great in your asset. However, I am wondering how it would work if I added split screen co-op or vs mode? Initially your asset would be great for rogues, adventures, etc. but I have some ideas that would include two-player split screen.

 

I have "dungeons with multiple characters" in my todo list. I'm not sure what the best way would be to do this yet, so I focused on more obvious things first.

Right now, it would work over the network because each player would have his instance of the dungeon and the things that you spawn in the dungeon would need scripts to synch over the network, but basically possible.

If you want local multiplayer, it gets a little more complex. You would need a new dungeon renderer (not the default one) to keep track of the location of each player. That shouldn't be too hard to do.

When you consider the map, it gets more complicated. Right now, each dungeon has a single map. So all players in a local game would share the same map. It could work for a coop dungeon exploration game (although there are other issues), but if you want a VS game, then each player will know right away where the other players are... Probably not what you would want. This is just an example, there are other funky issues with the map in a local multiplayer game.

I will sort this out eventually since it's on my todo list.

 

I figured it would be a challenge for local multi-player (the other people seeing the other screen in vs mode is not a problem - no more than games like N64's Golden Eye or Mario Kart.) A Gauntlet style multi-player would probably be easier to do at first (see the players on the same screen but limit the distance they could move from each other.)There are just so many awesome game I ideas I have for this. This asset could be a could basis for a lot of type of game genres.

By the way, is there an executable demo I could try?

Oh, and will you be adding dynamic navmesh generation for 5.6?

 

Yes I agree, a local multiplayer with a distance limit between characters would be easier to do.
I think the Dungeon Master is a good starting point for a lot of games genre too!

I did a mini demo that you can download from my website here.

Of course, the demo won't show you how to use the Dungeon Master in the editor (see my YouTube channel for this), but you can try out a lot of runtime features: like dungeon generation, map display, planning journeys (if you can find the proper item in the dungeon first), etc. There is also the default dungeon renderer inside the game, but since it works well, you can't really see it work (loading and unloading rooms) since it's all seamless.

 

Doesn't that download basically just contain a unity project folder with an empty asset folder (that requires the user to own other asset packages)? That is all I found when I had previously downloaded it.

 

I added this to my previous post that you answered but you may have missed it:

Now that Unity 5.6 supports dynamic navmesh generation will you be adding this to your asset?

 

I just downloaded the demo and it works for me... The file to download is "DungeonMaster_EscapeTheSewers.zip". I unzipped it in place and that created a "DungeonMaster_EscapeTheSewers" folder. Inside of it you should see the following files: "Readme.txt", "EscapeTheSewers.exe" and "EscapeTheSewers_Data". All the assets you need are included in the folder "EscapeTheSewers_Data". Double-click on "EscapeTheSewers.exe" to run the game. I have a couple of friends that I enroll for beta testing, it seems to work for all of them.

Wait... This is a windows build. Are you on Windows, Mac or Linux?

Edited: or maybe your antivirus software is going crazy and deleting all the files as you extract them?

You're right I missed this. Yes, I added this on my todo list as soon as I learned that Unity 5.6 allowed dynamic navmesh generation!

 

I didn't see the .exe. I must be blind. (I'm on Windows, BTW) I'll take another look this evening when I get home. Hopefully it's not my anti-virus deleting it.

BTW, can you tell I'm excited about this asset?

 

Yeah, I think I can tell! I'm glad you are!

 

Looks like my virus checker says you have a virus in the .exe (it had been deleting it.) I have downloaded other Unity projects and have never seen this happen.

 

Yes, one of my beta tester said so too. But I scan the exe with my antivirus and it comes back clean. What virus is the exe supposed to hide? Do you have a description in your antivirus?

 

"DS#FinalA|D|algo;"

It's probably a false positive but I am cautious.

 

I uploaded the file to VirusTotal to verify. Here is the report. It all looks fine. I guess it's a false positive, like you said.
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...ccdc6e0c8388ffc3c3e4f565/analysis/1491446214/

 

I also get a virus alert. But this happens relatively often with unity executables.
E.g. the old webplayer was always marked as a virus

 

Any update about the store review?
Iam chewing my nails here

 

Damn, that's frustrating. It certainly doesn't look good. I don't want to stress out the users! Does anybody know of a way to avoid generating Unity exe that look infected?

No news yet. According to the asset publisher documentation, I should have news tomorrow end of day (10 works days since I submitted the asset for review). If not, then I can send Unity an email to get a status report. I'll let you guys know as soon as I have more info. ... I won't lie, I'm getting anxious! I can't wait to know if it's approved as is or if I have to make adjustments.

 

BTW, did you like working with the Third Person Controller you used for your demo? I was thinking about getting the $55 version with melee and inventory but I wanted a controller that could do both rogue style melee combat, etc. and be used for creating a Super Mario 64 style game (basically, I want one that I can use for everything and not keep spending money.) I was just curious about your thoughts on this based on your experience.

 

I really liked it! I can't speak for the melee system because I only used the basic locomotion pack, but it works great. It was perfect for the demo game because I wanted to spent as little time on the controller as possible (well that was pretty much the point for all the elements of the demo game).

I like the fact that you can make your environment interactive all around with actions to climb, leap over obstacles, etc. I had a couple of minor things to solve in the code of the controller because I didn't want to use some of the default behaviors (like the way I wanted the pause the game to show the full map, etc), but it went very smooth. I will probably report these things to the Invector team sooner or later so they can add them into their code if they are interested.

To start it up, it couldn't be easier: I simply copied the robot from the template test scene straight into my sewer scene. I could walk around right away and explore my scene.

I plan to buy their Shooter template tonight. I want to make a melee/shooter game eventually... Well, when I'm done my assets... That could take a while! In fact, ideally I would want to work full time on my projects: part-time on my assets and part-time on a game. *dreaming*

 

I definitely hope that dream comes true for you.

 

Thanks!

 

I sent a message to the Unity support team to get a status update. In the automated acknowledgment, it said the support team would give me an answer in the next 5 days... So who will answer me first you think: the support team or the asset review team?

 

Dang, I've been checking everyday to see if it's available yet.

Btw, do you think you will be adding dynamic navmesh in the next update?

 

I don't know yet, I don't want to jump the gun. I will reassess when I get Unity's answer. But I don't plan to push back dynamic navmesh: I know it is an important feature, so I will most probably give it a high priority.

 

I received an answer from the support team. It more or less said: the asset review queue is long, the asset review team is working hard to go through the list, the team will review your asset eventually, please wait. So, unfortunately, I have no idea how close they are to review my asset. Oh well! Hopefully, I will have more information to share with you guys this month.