<Property of Dirk Allen, all rights reserved>

<This prototype contains graphical assets that are not owned by me and their sole purpose was to speed up prototype production and increase playtest clarity and are not intended for public or commercial use>

Overview

HpDice was a summer project inspired by GMTK Game Jam 2022 where that year's topic was "Roll of the Dice".

Even though this project was supposed to be a summer only side-project, experience from previous projects resulted in the fastest progress in development in comparision, leading to finishing GDD and physical prototype in less than a week.

Currently HpDice prototype is still Work In Progress being worked as a hobby alongside full-time studies.
Whether this project will be turned into full project will be determined after completing Proof of Concept and conducting some playtests, to determine if the game is playable or should it stay as technical demo for portfolio.

HpDice is a Dungeon Crawling Dicebuilding Roguelike with the core feature revolving around Dices that are used by the Player are at the same time their character stats.

Game Loop

The game loop revolves around two phases: Exploration and Combat.

During turn-based Exploration Phase, Player explores randomly generated tile-based levels, collecting loot, interacting with NPC's and environment and engaging combat or attempting to sneak by enemies, trying to find an exit to next floor while racing the clock, bringing an always chasing hunters the longer the Player lingers on the floor.

Whether the Player decides to strike or gets catched off-guard, Combat Phase starts.
Combat is turn-based where Player can fight up to 4 enemies at once. But with risk comes reward as overcoming combat can grant rewards such as loot, ever absent gold and experience points as well as a rare chance of obtaining Dice used by the enemies.

While designing combat the main problem was how to utilise Dices that are Player Stats in combat.
After designing whole combat from scratch, I noticed that accidentally current combat resembles almost perfectly Dicey Dungeons combat even though it didn't influenced the way I designed it at all.
The thought of reworking combat crossed my mind to avoid "plagiarism", however due to this combat seeming like the best way to utilize the core feature, this design stayed. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Dices

Dice are essential and are used in almost every part of the game, including:

• Player stats, including Health;
• Inventory management;
• Storing Gold;
• Exploration Phase Move Count;
  
• Using Equipment in Combat;
• Turn Order during Combat.

Dice size ranges from 4 to 20 and they can include special subtype granting it additional effects.

Each dice can be modified by using special runes to modify wall values as well as they can be damaged in combat, turning damaged wall unusable.

Dice management is essential part of the gameplay.
It's up to Player how to distribute the dices to character stats and which Dice and Walls to upgrade or repair.
Should you go all-in and upgrade one dice to guarantee best rolls every time? Or should you go more all-rounded to provide more stable options? Or did the situation got turned upside-down and now you need to adapt with what you have left to stay alive?
Each approach has it's own positives and drawbacks. It's up to Player what approach they will take and how the run will go as a result.

Technical Aspect

Current Proof of Concept is being written entirely on Unreal Engine 4 using it's in-engine visual scripting language Blueprints. However, if the playtests will be successful and there will be a decision to continue developing the game, it will be rewritten in pure C++ instead of majorly using Blueprints, maybe even imported to Unreal Engine 5.

However, due to the complexity of some systems in-game, I prepared technical documentation as a reference to these systems for the future of current development. These include:

• Equipment framework;
• Managers:

  
  

  • Damage Manager;
    • Damage Instance;
• Command Console.

This documentation can be found under file "TechnicalDocumentation.docx" in the Download section.

Current Build

In the Download section you can try current Windows Build to see currently available content in action.

To launch the game, download "HpDiceWindows.rar" file in the Download section, unpack rar file and run "HpDice.exe".

This build contains only "Devroom" level used to test the game.
To test most of the available features using Command Console is required. To access it, press ALT + ` . Inside console, type and commit 'help' to display available commands.

Additionally you can find on the level a special tile with text "Advanced Damage Showcase" over it.

Upon entering it a trigger will happen, allowing you to activate a specially prepared Showcase of advanced damage behaviour that results due to complexity of in-game systems.

Keybindings

Below you can find default keybindings for current build.
However, they can be personalized to your needs after pressing ESC button then navigating to OPTIONS. Inside you will find KEYBINDING category. From there you can adjust current Keybinds to your needs if needed.

Keybind	Action
W	Move Forward (Exploration Only)
S	Move Backwards (Exploration Only)
A	Move Left (Exploration Only)
D	Move Right (Exploration Only)
Q	Rotate Left
E	Rotate Right
F	Interact
RMB	Close Widget (Inventory, Dice Details) Open Dice Details (Dice)
Tab	Inventory (Exploration Only)
Spacebar	End Turn
Alt + `	Command Console