Descent into the Curse

Cursed Dungeon is an action rougelike, Sidescroller dungeon crawler. The twist of the game is that the power ups the player accumulate throughout come with a downside, which force them to evaluate what they can take and how to play around the cursed power. These cursed powers include fire that damages the player and the enemies over time, an ice ability that deals bonus flat damage on hit but slows the player if they get hit, and lightning that is called down that his both the enemy monsters and yourself. Everything has been created by me, following online tutorials and using simple sprites to help the player feel immersed

Changes 9/17

New weapon: Chakram. Attack faster, throw them to keep some space, and apply curse debuffs with ease

Temp HP: Add a little extra defense to your arsenal. Each curse has its own way to gain temp hp

Timers: New UI additions help to illustrate when fire and ice debuffs wear off, when you can use the lightning moves, and if you can use your attack/special/missile spell

Changes 9/12

The level has been COMPLETELY redone, and is now entirely new. Expect to explore in a much more in depth way, finding secrets and routing downwards. Complete enough rooms and face on the final boss. Update features as follows

• Rewards upon completing rooms
• Secret room, unlock with keys
• Boss fight integrated with the level
• Variety in room challenges

More details can be found in portfolio website (the detail section on itch.io only has so many characters I can use lol)

Changes: 9/3

Pausing: A feature that everyone takes for granted these days has some quirky implementation problems. With Gamemaker studio, I had to use a mix of surfaces, activate/deactive functions, draw order, and layer control functions to ensure the game could freeze when the player needed it. Pressing esc will pause whenever the player is actionable, and running into the elemental coins that grant you your powerups will freeze the game in a similar vain

Player Fire Damage Rework: Some feedback I've recived is that the fire curse's downside is to harmful, burning the player perpetually and would punish them for trying to explore the dungeon. The way the player takes this fire damage has been overhauled. Now, when the player his an enemy with any fire enhanced move, the player will have a timer running. Hitting an enemy will reset this timer, but at the end the player takes burn damage. This encourages the player to keep hitting with their fire moves, however they may also need to consider if it's better to take the guaranteed fire damage instead. 

Changes: 8/27

Player agency is one of Ditc's core features, so a new feature has been added to offer more options to the player. The old ranged attack has been repurposed as a new feature...

Spells: Additional moves to accompany the equipped weapon. Hold ctrl to charge the missile, and release it. However, you can also take a new spell

Shield Spell: Cover yourself with a protective shield that blocks enemy attacks and an incoming lightning strike. Running through enemies will apply the status effect related to curse pertaining to the spell, so think about what you may want to inflict upon your foes

Sword Special: With the old ranged attack moved, a new special move has been created to fill the void: Slam. Charge up your sword and slam it down to deal hig damage to those caught in its field

Save/load: Backing out of a run won't reset your progress, instead you'll pick up at the last room you've cleared and can move forward again. Completing the run will reset your progress, or you can take your upgrades into the boss fight

CHANGES: 8/20

Curse Specific Upgrades: When picking up new powerup tokens for an element the player has already gotten, they may get a new feature with it. These new power ups will also increase the "level" of a given curse, making the base effect on enemies stronger and the kick back against the player stronger as well. For example, when first picking up the lightning powerup it deals 7 damage to enemy monsters, calculated as 5 + the level of the player's lightning curse times 2, and the player takes 6 damage, 5 + their lightning level. When they pick up their next lightning power up, the lightning will deal 9 to enemies and 7 to players.  This is a more complicated example, as the fire and ice power ups will only be dealing 1 extra damage with their upgrades, but just remember that typically more levels means more damage on both ends. In the future, I will change this up slightly. There will be specifc things you can seek out in the dungeon that level up certain abilities you have, which for now will be called Fragments. When the player picks up a fragment, they'll be presented with a few of the curses that they've gotten to level up, making their effect stronger. For example, you may get a flat damage increase, or something like "flash freeze" will make the enemy frozen for longer. If you are familiar with Hades, yes this is literally the same system as the poms. And yes, many systems are inspired by Hades 1 & 2, as the games are some of my favorite games. 

In later updates, I'll add more upgrades for the player to pick up, as well as having them be random on what you get. Later past that, I plan to have "Legendary" curses for each element. My favorite idea one so far?

"Blaze of Glory: Once per floor, explode violently on death. If you kill any monsters, you revive yourself immediately"

These upgrades open a new path for the player to take when they play. Do they lean all in on this legendary ability so they can have a second life? Or do they just keep it as a last ditch effort? Leaning on the legendary may make it trigger prematurely, either being used when unnecessary or just not getting a kill with it. However, forgoing the risk when you take means you wasted a chance at a different curse. These choices are fundamental to Descent into the Curse's identity, as opportunity costs and risk factors drive the players decisions within each run

CHANGES: 8/15

Lightning: The old lightning was rebranded to ice, as it felt more fitting and added the opportunity to use lightning for this element. Lightning attacks and specials mark enemies, and call lightning after a brief period of time. This lightning deals massive damage, striking any monsters hit as well as yourself. 

 

Room Challenges: The base level now has you complete 3 rooms filled with spawning monsters. Defeat them all to grab a coin that lets you complete the level 

view my portfolio- https://chadkoontzportfolio.my.canva.site/