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How to call a Dungeon Crawler with massive Overworld?

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
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I have this game I'm making: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...egree-rotation-turn-based-classic-rpg.121565/
It's an old school RPG: FPP, Grid Movement, Turn-Based, Party-Based, etc. Just like some games from the 90s.

And there is one thing that bothers me. It's not really a dungeon crawler (or at least not exactly) since there is this big overworld map. The overworld is the nicest part in my opinion, sort of like selling point so I would like to add to the description/definition/tags something that would reflect this.


I'm asking in a very broad sense, it could be how to call this kind of game, what keywords you would use to describe it or how to emphasize the overworld in the game's description.
 

Serus

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I'd call it "Dungeon Crawler with massive overworld".


No, seriously, it wasn't that uncommon in the 90s for dungeon crawler series to have a significant portion of the game not being literal dungeon but also a world connecting the dungeons. If dungeon crawling is still a crucial element of the gameplay even if the game itself isn't only composed of dungeons it still is a dungeon crawler.
Alternatively call it... (oldschool) computer role-playing game. There is no point in having a made-up sub-genre tag if such tag would be not something already popular and widely accepted. If you really want some way to specify the sub-genre of your game and there is not a good word for it then compare it to some well known game or series from the past that played similarly to your game. Might & Magic perhaps in this case?
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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It's an old school RPG: FPP, Grid Movement, Turn-Based, Party-Based, etc. Just like some games from the 90s.
If your need is to allow prospective buyers some notion of what specific type of gameplay you're offering and there are particular RPGs (e.g. the later Wizardry games, the Might & Magic series) that inspired your own game, then list those inspirational RPGs.

Otherwise, your game sounds simply like an RPG. +M
 
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aweigh

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Yeah, isn't an overworld with gameplay levels scattered throughout literally every RPG ever?
 

Grauken

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I think the idea was that he wanted to emphasize that it's an RPG where you do all this from a first-person blobber-style approach, since the majority of RPGs does it from a top-down perspective or switches to blobber-style only in dungeons. Honestly, I sometimes wanted to have a neat shorthand for that as well, since I usually call something like W7 or Fate or the M&M dungeon crawler as well, but the term doesn't fit perfectly, and while calling them RPGs is correct, it doesn't really capture the above mentioned situation
 

Grauken

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Oh nice, somebody is doing something interesting with the Iceblink engine, shit where can I buy more time to play all that stuff
 
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Grauken

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Uh, the first M&M already did that, just to be pedantic
 
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aweigh

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TBH, I'm struggling to see any inherent benefit for an overworld to be grid-based, at least if we're talking about a big ole land mass you'll just walk thru on your way to the actual gameplay levels. Is the overworld gonna be lots of interconnecting "dungeons with a skybox" or are we talking about a swath of land you walk through in order to get to Points of Interest?

This all depends entirely on how the overworld will play as, and frankly it sounds very difficult to get right. For one thing I didn't like the implementation of this in Wiz 7, so I hope it won't copy that. It all sounds like too much trouble than it's worth, IMO, and that the dev should focus on making the best area levels they can instead of slapping an overworld together just for the sake of having one.
 
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Serus

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TBH, I'm struggling to see any inherent benefit for an overworld to be grid-based, at least if we're talking about a big ole land mass you'll just walk thru on your way to the actual gameplay levels. Is the overworld gonna be lots of interconnecting "dungeons with a skybox" or are we talking about a swath of land you walk through in order to get to Points of Interest?

This all depends entirely on how the overworld will play as, and frankly it sounds very difficult to get right. For one thing I didn't like the implementation of this in Wiz 7, so I hope it won't copy that. It all sounds like too much trouble than it's worth, IMO, and that the dev should focus on making the best area levels they can instead of slapping an overworld together just for the sake of having one.
What was the problem with "implementation in Wiz 7"? I thought that it was cool to have an "overworld" dungeon to interconnect all other dungeons and have to explore to actually find/reach all those other (sub)-dungeons.
Ah, and I ask about "problems", the fact is that it was different than earlier games in the series but that's not a problem by itself.
 

Grauken

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Yeah, to each his own, I loved the W7 overworld, wish more games were as expansive. Could have had more secrets and stuff to discover, and lots of late game areas you could only reach by boat were empty, but otherwise, not much to complain
 

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
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Yeah, isn't an overworld with gameplay levels scattered throughout literally every RPG ever?
Well, not :)

1) Pure dungeon crawlers: Dungeon Master, Eye of The Beholder

2) Partial dungeon crawlers (a bit of overworlds or majority of "non dungeon locations"): Dungeon Master 2, Eye of The Beholder II (tiny forest at the beginning prior to entering the towerish-castlish thing)

3) Massive overworlds: M&M series, Wizardry series (I think, I haven't played it much)

4) Almost only overworld without/with few dungeons: Crystals of Arborea


So, I suppose we could say an RPG can be somewhere on a scale between Dungeon Crawler and Open World?
Or did I misunderstood the Dungeon Crawler term?
 
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aweigh

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Elminage has tons of "outdoor dungeons", and it's definitely not a partial crawler. You can even go to the peak of a mountain and walk amongst the clouds, and this is the kind of stuff I refer to as a "dungeon with a skybox", which is why the concept of an overworld gets muddled for me, as well as the concept of a "dungeon" too. This is why I prefer using terms like gameplay levels or areas.
 

Serus

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Elminage has tons of "outdoor dungeons", and it's definitely not a partial crawler. You can even go to the peak of a mountain and walk amongst the clouds, and this is the kind of stuff I refer to as a "dungeon with a skybox", which is why the concept of an overworld gets muddled for me, as well as the concept of a "dungeon" too. This is why I prefer using terms like gameplay levels or areas.
I certainly agree here. I think the OP takes the word "dungeon" a little too literally. Dungeon is a (mostly) self contained area of the game, usually with multiple "levels" that contain challenges for the player to overcome. But it doesn't have to literally be in a dungeon or even underground at all. "Dungeon" should be considered as an abstract concept not a description. This is why this mini-forest in EOTB2 is not an overworld iirc how it works, it's just a tiny dungeon level, mechanically simply part of the single-dungeon that makes up the whole game.
 

Mustawd

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Also, doesn’t Lords of Xulima have an isometric worldview which then changes to a blobber in combat?

Yah, I don’t think you need any new terms for what the OP described.
 

Jacob

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Yeah, new term is unnecessary, for marketing purpose just cite Wiz 7 and Might & Magic as your inspiration on the description. Using fan terms like "blobber" or "metroidvania" to describe your game makes it sounds derivative anyway.
 

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