I was in the process of polishing the game. I wasn’t in the final stages of polish, but the game had pretty much all the content I was planning on having in the final release. Then I got frustrated. Parts of the game I loved, but building was practically useless. And, building was one of the elements I thought would be great! You could build your own base and make a town for NPC’s but building your own dungeon felt like a waist of time. It was tedious and pointless. At the same time I was feeling like something was missing from the game that set it apart from other titles. It was feeling more and more like “just another sandbox mining and crafting game.” Yes, it has quite a bit of content and features for a game like this but at some point I’m going to need to market this game. When I do, what’s the hook?
My brother made a big suggestion: make dungeons better, and allow users to upload and share them. My first reaction was to completely dismiss him. Then I realized it was a great idea. Since then I’ve been working on adding this new feature that I think will make the game a whole lot better! What’s the hook? It’s a sandbox adventure game where you can build and share your own dungeons! Here’s what will change:

1. The dungeon walls. My last piece of news on here explained how the wall graphics were going to be changed. This will also be true in dungeons. There are pros and cons to this approach but I think it will make designing your own dungeons a lot simpler (and look better as well).
2. Dungeons will now have puzzles. This was important to me if I was going to encourage users to create their own dungeons. We will have blocks that you can push onto buttons, lasers that can activate triggers, blocked walls and more. Each dungeon will introduce an entirely new puzzle mechanic. In the end, you’ll be able to create huge puzzle rooms that share multiple puzzle elements.
3. In game dungeons will now be hand crafted. I loved randomly generated dungeons as far as replay value but to me the dungeons were somewhat boring. Sometimes rng would give you a dungeon that was too easy. Sometimes it was too hard. It was never great. Never clever. Rather than tweak the rng, and get only slightly better results, I’m handcrafting the dungeons in part to teach the mechanics that users can use to create their own. When you can play other peoples dungeons it’ll make the game even more replayable than random generation. Plus, the dungeon’s you’ll be replaying will have the potential to be excellent.
4. No more wiring. Currently all dungeon mechanics require wiring. It was easy to code, but complex to build your own dungeon from scratch. I’m getting rid of it. Instead when you walk into a room any objects that need processing will just trigger when you enter it. Here’s an example: You enter a room… All the doors in the room immediately get blocked behind you. Mob spawners are also triggered. Once you’ve defeated the mobs, the doors unblock. No wiring required to create. Just place the mob spawners and blocked doors and the game will do the legwork. Want a room with 50 bats? Go for it! A chest reward when you solve a puzzle? Simple.
5. You will start the game in a short tutorial dungeon. Right from the beginning of the game you can defeat the first dungeon and start creating your own dungeons to share. You can only create dungeon types that you’ve already beaten in game.(stone, air, earth, ice, fire). When you complete that introductory dungeon you will spawn with a Portal that allows you to enter dungeon creation mode or to play other peoples dungeons.

Shareable dungeons is a feature we’re extremely excited about. One feature we cut years ago was multiplayer. In some ways, this is a form of multiplayer. You can’t play with your friends directly, but you can share back and forth with your friends.

Before I close I want to address the speed of development. It blows my mind that I started developing Tile Miner in 2013! That was about 7 years ago! There have been ups and downs and I’ve learned a ton. I’m committed to making the best game I’m capable of making. I could have patched it up and released it years ago. But as much as I want to complete the game, I even more want to make it great! I’ve still got a ways to go and I’m not ready to talk dates. I’m working on this mostly alone and I have a lot of other responsibilities in my life besides development of the game. Although I can’t give dates, I can promise you that I’m committed to making the best game that I can. Keep making your suggestions and sharing the bugs you run into. It all helps! Thanks!