Hexen: Arcane Dungeons [RELEASE]

Hexen: Arcane Dungeons is a set of randomly generating levels, designed for GZDoom and Zandronum. It was originally due for release over 3 1/2 years ago, but due to me being busy with high school and being less experienced with ACS, I was not able to make it into a releasable state. I have remade the dungeon generator over the past couple weeks, and it is much higher quality now. The original draft of this was inspired by Nash's Random Dungeon Generator on the ZDoom Forums.

 

The object of the game is to progress and see how far you can get. You must collect three keys in each dungeon to be able to use the exit teleporter and progress further on. The keys can be found on the ground, inside item chests (press use to open), and can be dropped from enemies. Enemy count increases each level, while resources stay the same amount, requiring the player to be cautious later on, while saving artifacts early on as well. There currently isn't an end to the amount of levels you can progress through, and the enemy count will keep increasing until presumably there is no more room to spawn enemies (don't worry, the generator can handle this). In the first room of each dungeon, no enemies will spawn, preventing the player from getting cheaply massacred instantly.

 

This mod is single player oriented, but also supports cooperative play. It is highly recommended that you use key sharing, to prevent getting softlocked if a player disconnects with one of the keys. Also make sure to enable "Clients send full button info" in the server, as you need it to open the chests and activate the teleporters.

 

Hexen: Arcane Dungeons is not perfect, however, and due to this, I have provided the player with a couple tools to help them in the case of a game-breaking situation. These problems will most likely be remedied in Version 2. Here are a couple console commands you can enter in the provided circumstance:

 

    -    pukename fixgenerate - In the case that the level generator stalls, and refuses to complete generating, you can enter the code to restart it.

    -    pukename escapedungeon- In the (unlikely) case that an incompletable level is generated, you can enter the code to finish the level. Just be sure that the level is actually unbeatable, since those keys can be tricky to find sometimes.

 

There are 4 types of dungeons in total that you could find yourself in. Each one is a different environment which has a different type of special monster that spawns in addition to the common Ettins and Centaurs.

    -    1: Castle Dungeon. When playing in single-player this will always be the first level you start on. It contains dark brick-filled rooms and vats of lava in the floor. Here the special enemy you can encounter is the Afrit.

    -    2: Frozen Catacomb. This chilly catacomb is a frozen environment in which you can encounter pools of water and Wendigos as the special enemy.

    -    3: Ancient Labyrinth. Inside this lost labyrinth, you can expect to encounter many Chaos Serpents.

    -    4: Shadowy Crypt. In this monastery-like crypt, sometimes you will encounter pools of lava in the ground, but not all the time. Dark bishops are the natural inhabiants in this dungeon.

 

 

Here is a gameplay video:

 

 

 

Here's what the typical generated dungeon looks like:

 

Screenshots:

 

 

PLANNED FEATURES:

 

 - Add custom monsters/items.

 - Add locked chests, with keys that must be found or obtained from monsters. Not to replace normal chests.

 - Add a spawnable waypoint system for easier navigation.

 - Optimize the generator.

 - Add periodic "boss levels" after completing a certain amount of dungeons.

 - RPG elements.

 - Eventual conclusion/final level

 

 

 

 

Hexen: Arcane Dungeons is not compatible with gameplay modifications, and most likely never will be.

 

DOWNLOAD : ARCNDUNG.pk3

Edit: Bugfixed a problem with chests in Co-op not being usable after dying and respawning.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Seidolon

Interesting thing, but rather monotonous. Try to add a boss levels. Add more interactive items like breaking barrels. Add ability to break chests. Add more monsters. Etc. That's what happens when you do not read the post until the end. But it seems that I and the author think alike. :D

Also I want to get rid of voxels, I don't like voxels. )

 

I forgot to write that the Arcane Dungeons is not quite compatible with Bolognese Gore mod (replaces menu settings under Zandronum), also not quite compatible with Now That's What I Call Midi randomazer (does not start playing automatically).

Edited November 17, 2019 by Doomenator

Yeah some of the ideas you mentioned above are stuff I plan on adding. Breaking chests sounds kinda interesting. I'm sure I could make it work, but it would make opening chests pretty redundant, and I spent a good chunk of time coding that. Other than that, I like the breakable barrels idea, since there are plenty of those throughout. I had breakable barrels in Brutal Hexen RPG, so I could just reuse that code. I am also thinking about adding in the iron maiden decoration object from vanilla Hexen to spawn in randomly. It would be interesting if you could open them up, and a skeleton falls out with some items as well. I would have to make some opened sprites for it, unless someone else has some or is willing to make them.

 

About mod compatibility, yes unfortunately Arcane Dungeons is not compatible with gameplay mods, and I do not plan on making it compatible. I want to make my own RPG elements for it such as leveling up, learning spells, etc. I also want to make an eventual end to it as well, rather than just being infinite dungeons of monsters.

 

9 hours ago, Doomenator said:

Also I want to get rid of voxels, I don't like voxels.

I might get rid of the key voxels, especially since those are just left over from my really old unreleased version of this. I want to keep the teleporter and ceiling grate voxels however. I could fix them up since the sides look ugly with no variation.

 

If anyone has more ideas on how to make this more interesting, please let me know. Thank you!

I can probably do an opened Iron maiden sprite. Falling skeleton will be more of a hassle, but it's doable too.

I can also donate my 3D openable chests I made some time ago.

Thank you Neoworm. If you make an Iron Maiden opened sprite, you can it post here or message me. The falling skeleton isn't as important, and I would probably just make it spawn a sleeping corpse in front of it or put together a rough animation, but if you are interested in giving that a try, that would be very appreciated as well. You also have some 3D openable chests you say? That sounds very interesting. You can post it here or message me with it, either way works.

 

Your help is very appreciated and credits will be given of course.

5 hours ago, Seidolon said:

Breaking chests sounds kinda interesting. I'm sure I could make it work, but it would make opening chests pretty redundant

Need both options. There are people who like all to break, they usually play for warrior. And there are people who like to poke at the icons and menu. I'm in the first category. And I'm terribly boring and tedious 10 times to click in the inventory of the chest. :D

For closed chests, it is advisable to make a break-in chance. This ideas is not new to RPGs and medieval games at all.

 

5 hours ago, Seidolon said:

I could fix them up since the sides look ugly with no variation.

Teleport can simply be made smaller in height. But that's not what I mean. I believe that mixing different styles of graphics, sprites, voxels, models, greatly spoils the aesthetic appearance of the game. There must be one thing.

If I correctly understood the teleport are placed only in certain sectors. They are not generated in water or lava. You can make additional sectors with the texture of the teleport and then place an object in them. 

 

@ShadesMaster Nice. There is an option to invert the Y mouse movement for chests in the Arcane Dungeons options menu btw.

 

@Doomenator I would disagree that sprites/voxels/models don't mix. To me they can each be used for certain things without spoiling the game.

1 hour ago, Seidolon said:

I would disagree that sprites/voxels/models don't mix. To me they can each be used for certain things without spoiling the game.

Voxels are absolutely not combined with HD textures, sprites and HD effects. And high-quality 3D models are not combined with sprites and voxels. It is useless to argue with such obvious things. )

 

Well that's too bad, because Neoworm sent me some sick chest models that I plan on using in this, and imo they look great. If you don't like conflicting graphical themes, then perhaps you shouldn't load an HD texture pack with a mod that uses custom assets. Not to sound rude or anything, but I don't think it's my job to limit my creative freedom with my mod because someone might load another person's mod with it.

Please don't change the voxels. This mod looks really great, and I'd love to give it a try.

7 hours ago, Seidolon said:

...

It is not necessary to use HD textures or sprites, just enable filtering in the graphics settings and the incompatibility with voxels will become obvious. Voxels are suitable only for pixel graphics, with certain and very limited settings. Models are still preferable to voxels, because you can change the texture quality of the model. But models and voxels are not a problem anyway, if they replace sprites via model.def and voxel.def. I also advise you to replace the teleport with a 3D model, if you don't want to make it part of the map.

Here in my opinion examples is how 3D models and voxels should look like:

 

I really dig this! This really seems like something that would fit Hexen super well. I really like the idea of unique enemies and bosses, but I also kinda hope it retains compatibility for other mods, mostly because this would kick ass with something like Samsara or Wrath of Cronos. But making this into its own thing could rock too. Either way, good luck! You're doin' god's work

Wow, what a treat, these last months have been fine :)  Works fine on LZdoom... Any special keybindings needed? Do they appear in menu or only in console?

 

Also my opinion regarding future features: try to focus on your niche crowd. If someone says that they don't have patience to fiddle with menus and they just want to "break stuff", probably means that this mod is not for them. I feel like you would be better off focusing your efforts making the game YOU would like to play primarily, don't try to please everyone.

It's good to see addons that focus more on the combat aspect of Hexen rather than puzzle solving. Finally it plays more like Heretic! Maybe more variety (visually and gameplay-wise) needs to be added somehow, but the way levels are generated seems fine to me. Simple and straight forward.

 

This may work well in combination with an XP and weapon/item drop/upgrade system (Diablo style), as some kind of progression reward. Maybe also a score system of some sort, but I dunno if that's a direction you would want to take with this. It can also work just fine without all that.

 

Keep working on this, you are on to something big here!

Edited December 12, 2019 by NightFright

8 hours ago, DwarfCleric said:

Also my opinion regarding future features: try to focus on your niche crowd. If someone says that they don't have patience to fiddle with menus and they just want to "break stuff", probably means that this mod is not for them.

If I correctly understand, is that a shot at me? I will try to give a detailed answer that you would be at least something clear.

I am a purely practical person, if I like the mod I click at like icon, if not i just pass past. If I make comments or suggestions by mod they are quite certain, based on elementary logic and usually do not affect the overall game process or balance. And you contrary write so generalized things that they do not make sense, except praise to the author.

There's nothing wrong with making the game only YOU would like to play primarily, I do something like that too. But then is not necessary to spread it for everyone. And then there will be no need to please everyone. )

15 hours ago, DwarfCleric said:

Wow, what a treat, these last months have been fine :)  Works fine on LZdoom... Any special keybindings needed? Do they appear in menu or only in console?

 

Also my opinion regarding future features: try to focus on your niche crowd. If someone says that they don't have patience to fiddle with menus and they just want to "break stuff", probably means that this mod is not for them. I feel like you would be better off focusing your efforts making the game YOU would like to play primarily, don't try to please everyone.

There are no special key bindings for this mod. There are some options in the arcane dungeons options menu for you to check out. There are two commands that you can use in the console to cope with the limitations of the current dungeon generator. Those commands are in the OP. 

 

9 hours ago, NightFright said:

It's good to see addons that focus more on the combat aspect of Hexen rather than puzzle solving. Finally it plays more like Heretic! Maybe more variety (visually and gameplay-wise) needs to be added somehow, but the way levels are generated seems fine to me. Simple and straight forward.

 

This may work well in combination with an XP and weapon/item drop/upgrade system (Diablo style), as some kind of progression reward. Maybe also a score system of some sort, but I dunno if that's a direction you would want to take with this. It can also work just fine without all that.

 

Keep working on this, you are on to something big here!

I do plan on adding more variety such as custom enemies, and more dungeon themes. I do plan on making my own rpg elements for this mod, which I agree would work very well with a dungeon generator. Instead of a score system, I was planning on adding intermittent boss levels and eventually a final level after a certain amount of dungeons completed.

 

8 hours ago, Doomenator said:

If I correctly understand, is that a shot at me? I will try to give a detailed answer that you would be at least something clear.

I am a purely practical person, if I like the mod I click at like icon, if not i just pass past. If I make comments or suggestions by mod they are quite certain, based on elementary logic and usually do not affect the overall game process or balance. And you contrary write so generalized things that they do not make sense, except praise to the author.

There's nothing wrong with making the game only YOU would like to play primarily, I do something like that too. But then is not necessary to spread it for everyone. And then there will be no need to please everyone. )

I don't believe he was taking any shots at you, but rather making a valid point that I can't please everyone. Once I change something, there will always be people who want it changed back to how it was before. I see how making chests breakable would be more practical, and I might consider making it a thing, but it would also make opening chests pointless, since everyone can just break it much faster to get the items, and it wouldn't be as immersive in my opinion.

Your plans for adding variety sound good. In general, I admit I rarely touch Hexen, mostly due to its heavy emphasis on puzzles, hub-based level design and enemy respawns. A combat-based mod with simple maps like this could be a real gamechanger here, especially if it has "unlimited" playability. 

3 hours ago, Seidolon said:

I don't believe he was taking any shots at you, but rather making a valid point that I can't please everyone. Once I change something, there will always be people who want it changed back to how it was before. I see how making chests breakable would be more practical, and I might consider making it a thing, but it would also make opening chests pointless, since everyone can just break it much faster to get the items, and it wouldn't be as immersive in my opinion.

Regarding chests: the speed of obtaining items from the chest does not give any advantages. And as I said earlier, not everyone likes to break things. As well you can reduce the number of items after breaking the chest. And obviously that any interactive or additional features increase the interest of the game, and vice versa. No need to please everyone, just enough to reason logically and do the best. 

But my previous answer wasn't about that. I have long noticed that tips are interested not all, and some people perceive it inadequately or aggressively. And I am well aware of why this is happening. )