In our next game I would like monsters to work together a bit more than in previous games. I don't really want this to get very complicated though.  My goal is that monster X works in some interesting way and monster Y works in a different but still interesting way, but if you mix the two you get something different. Some quick examples: the mage type monster that buffs other nearby monsters or in DoP when you attack a female imp the male imps kind of go berserk and attack in full force (no more hit and run).

What are your ideas?

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In the dungeon crawl, I want to have more interaction with objects in the world.  Depths of Peril has traps, doors, chests, torches, and probably a few other things.  Kivi's Underworld added more types of traps, levers/buttons, and barrels. All of these things will probably be in the dungeon crawl, but I want more things. 

It's my goal for there to be lots of things for the player to interact with on purpose, some things that can happen on accident if you aren't careful, things that change your strategy, some things that you have to choose which is the best action, and even some things the monsters can interact with.  I'll give an example of each of these to show what I mean.

Doors, levers, and chests are conscience choices by the player to interact with (usually).

The player might blow up a barrel on accident if his cast fireball explodes too close to it.

The player might notice the barrel with explosive substances right between a group of monsters and instead of hitting the monsters with the fireball he might blow up the barrel and hurt all of the monsters.

I'm planning on some doors being locked, but the player will have some choices, don't bother with the door, find a key, or bash down the door and make a lot of noise.

Maybe some monsters will know how to use fountains or doors.

Anyway, these are just examples to get your thoughts going, I have a much longer list of things I'm already planning and probably more interesting than my few examples.  What kind of interactive objects would you like to see in an action RPG that's primarily underground?

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I think our next game is going to share the same mythos as does Depths of Peril and Kivi's Underworld, so I'm planning on carrying over some of the monsters from those 2 games.  Some of them are going to have interesting changes too. What monsters did you guys really like that you want to see again in the dungeon crawl?

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Well I've started working on the design of the next game and as I have promised before I'm going to try to be more open during the process. This is not an official announcement or anything because it's always possible I will change focus.  However as of right now, our next game is going to be more of a hardcore, realtime dungeon crawl (hardcore compared to Kivi that is).

It's going to be an action RPG that is going to take some elements from Depths of Peril (no covenants though) and some from Kivi's Underworld. I'm thinking of having some of the key features revolve around random elements (controlled randomness), a very dynamic world, and lots of smaller game mechanics that can interact to result in some more emergent gameplay than is usual in an action RPG.

This doesn't give you much to go on yet, but now is a great time to give your input of what you would like to see in a realtime dungeon crawl. Don't worry I have plenty of ideas to make this a really cool game, but I love hearing feedback from all of you. I will try to comment more than I usually do on ideas.  Even if I do not comment on your idea, I will read it and consider it (assuming it's not spam).

I'm only going to use ideas that fit my vision of the game though, so please don't get upset if I don't use your awesome idea.  BTW, sometimes ideas really are awesome, but can't be used for various reasons like it's not feasible to do with this team or within this game's time frame or it just doesn't fit with this specific game.

Anyone have any cool and fun ideas?

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