4.5 KiB
4.5 KiB
Roadmap
Agreed on 2026-11-05. Worked through in this order; every block is committed, pushed and deployed on its own. Details not listed here are decided along the way.
1. Open items
- Heroes attack every master – with rival masters or several players, each hero wave marches to the heart of the strongest living master (most creatures and gold), not only the player's.
- Co-op campaign offline with an AI partner – "League against the Lightwatch" playable without the server: the partner is an allied AI master with its own dungeon (built like a rival); its creatures join attacks and it sends gold when the player runs short.
- Resume editor co-op runs – an interrupted multiplayer run of an editor campaign goes on at the reached mission; the host keeps the progress.
- New screenshots – title demo, language dropdown, co-op campaign.
2. Bridges
Stone bridges over lava exist already (75 gold per tile).
- Wooden bridges burn – fire spells, fire traps and dragon fire set them alight; after a few seconds they collapse and units on them fall into the water. Stone bridges are fireproof.
- Drawbridge – an expensive bridge (about 150 gold per tile) with a per-bridge switch: manual (a click raises or lowers the whole bridge) or automatic (rises when heroes come near, lowers afterwards). Knights can only tear it down while it is lowered.
- Cooling lava – frost spells and frost traps turn lava into walkable obsidian for a while.
- Repairing bridges – imps repair damaged bridges; knights wear bridges down step by step instead of in one blow.
3. The surface world
- Surface terrain – grass, trees, paths, daylight and sky. Trees act like earth: imps fell them.
- Wood – a second resource from felled trees. Wooden bridges, doors, siege engines and room upgrades cost wood.
- Fortresses above ground – walls, towers, a gate, a clearing with torches.
- Siege weapons – heroes bring battering rams (against doors) and catapults (against towers); the player builds his own siege engines in a workshop.
- Missions – the last mission of the main campaign (M30) and of the co-op campaign (M20) lead to the surface: the dungeon half lies in the rock (gold and more), the other half is a forest with the High Marshal's fortress to destroy. Free play and multiplayer get a map option "Surface". The map editor gets the new terrain.
4. Additions
- Random events – earthquake (tunnels cave in), lava eruption, flood, gold vein found. Rare (every 8–12 minutes), free play and multiplayer only, can be switched off in the menu; in campaigns only through new script blocks.
- Creature abilities – from level 5 every creature has an active ability (ogre stomp, spider web, mage chain lightning, ...), used automatically and wisely, with a cooldown.
- Bosses and elite heroes – every 5th wave brings a boss hero with a health bar at the top, an ability of its own and loot (gold, runes).
- Wild beasts – beasts in caves (cave bears, giant beetles, ...) that can be tamed in the prison and become creatures.
- Room upgrades – rooms can be upgraded to level 2 and 3 for gold and wood (a library that researches faster, ...), shown by ornaments and brighter light.
- Creature equipment – the forge makes weapons and armour in tiers (iron, steel, rune); creatures fetch the best fitting piece themselves, the strongest first; equipment is visible.
- Creature relationships – creatures like or hate each other, quarrel, and work better with friends; the lair shows who likes whom.
- Dungeon visitors – neutral traders and smugglers come through the portal and sell rare traps, runes or creatures for gold.
- Dynamic music – procedural music that changes between calm and battle and swells when heroes come.
- Tutorial mission – an interactive introduction with Crookfinger (digging, rooms, creatures, traps), built with the editor and script blocks.
- Statistics – charts at the end of a game (gold over time, creatures, kills, buildings; for every player in multiplayer) and lifetime totals in the profile.
- Achievements – 50+ achievements with pixel badges, including hidden and humorous ones in Crookfinger's style and progress bars, stored per user on the server.
- Seasonal events – cosmetic touches by date (pumpkins at Halloween, snow on the surface in winter, ...).