Deep Dish Dungeon News

Here we are again! And let’s cut straight to the topic of the week: Recipes and Cooking!

Aren’t y’all so looking forward to it? This is probably the topic that is bringing the most amount of questions and expectations. And let me be very clear from the start: It’s not a cooking game, and it’s also not a monster cooking game.

We’re making a survival metroidvania game: The element of cooking is a crafting system with ingredients. When designing the game, I didn’t want it to be like a cooking mini-game. The focus was more on the strategy layer and the camping build element.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I want players to bring back to the camp whatever they found. Talk about the new ingredients, maybe try some new recipes with them. The food and ingredients are a tool, and the main focus of the game is your adventure and quests:

“Where are we going next?”

“Which door or corridor we haven’t explored it yet?”

And with that question in mind, comes the strategy layer: “What kind of stats and abilities will we need for this quest?” Is it more stamina, more health, maybe some kind of potion, or specific tool that we’ll need for that exploration quest?

That’s when cooking happens. Going to explore with your empty stomach is certain death. You are as weak as you were at the beginning of the game. You can barely use weapons or resist medium fall heights. You need to cook and use food as a tool using whatever you have at hand around camp.



It might be a simple apple, a piece of meat that you got by hunting a critter, or maybe, if you have the right tools and ingredients, you can make dishes that will give you even more sustenance. Like a Shepherd’s Pie, a meat and mushroom Stew, or even a Ramen.

You’ll need tools and appliances to cook. You might find them while exploring, or you might find materials to craft them in your camp. They bring complexity and depth to the recipe system. There can be complications with how you cook, but ultimately, doing so brings you better stats, and sometimes, magical abilities.

You’ll also find herbs and ingredients that add modifiers to existing dishes. That’s a big part of the fun. Be prepared to try out things, and trial and error might lead you to some interesting results.

Whenever you’re feeling lost, you can use the community to ask for help. A big part of this game is to go meta, talk in forums, help build wikis, and figure out all the recipes with your friends. Though the game doesn’t have the most complex systems, there’s enough there that sometimes you’ll need help to navigate the possibilities.



Bonus note: Since we’re a team of Brazilians, we wanted to incorporate native ingredients from our land that are special to our culture and ancestors. You’ll find things like Corn, Cassava, Tomato, Beans, Cilantro, and a bunch of other things. Some dishes are also inspired by Brazilian cuisine, like Pastel and Cassava Fritters.

I hope you all have tons of fun while cooking and finding ingredients. Just remember to eat before adventuring. If you feel that the game is too hard, it is probably because you’re not eating enough.

Thanks again for joining us in the dev blog. Next time, I’ll bring some other interesting things I like to share about the development process.

Cheers!

- Saulo Camarotti
Creative Director, Designer and Coder of DDD

We're honored to be part of the Official Selection at the Latin American Games Showcase, and we have revealed a new trailer to celebrate it!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Also, find us on the Steam event with many other fantastic games. Go check it out!

Hey all! Thanks for the support so far. Before I start our fourth dev blog, I want to thank the community for their engagement. Thousands and thousands of wishlists, and they just keep coming! I guess you can't wait for the demo that's to come, huh?

In this blog, I want to talk about what you can expect from the narrative. Though Deep Dish Dungeon isn’t a story-based game, I couldn't leave the narrative out of it. Actually, as we further developed the idea, so much good content come to mind, and all just made a lot of sense narrative wise.



When we first started the project, we wanted to have a different approach to storytelling than that we had before in our previous games. We're known for story-driven RPGs, such as Knights of Pen & Paper, Chroma Squad and Cosplay Club. This time, we chose to use the environment to build the narrative. So we picked the environmental storytelling approach.

Everything in this dungeon is there for a reason. Some objects and ruins are placed in a specific way because we wanted to tell you a little story about that room, or about that one rock that fell down. Some rooms and murals tell a much deeper story, explaining how the dungeon came to be, why it was built, who lived there, and also, who changed it along the years of exploration and repurposing.

As you probably know from our previous dev blog post, you're also part of this story. I use this term "Decolonizing Dungeon Crawling" because I really want to put a new perspective in how we explore and loot foreign and sacred places. Is the treasure there for our taking? Or is there a different way we can interact with those places? That's why that as you explore this dungeon you'll become part of that story too. Moving objects, opening new uncharted rooms, braking barriers. Leaving traces of your own exploration behind.

Along these many months of development, putting each rock, each element, into this huge interconnected place, we also started to think about some other elements of story telling that could help us convey the story we want. So we came up with the idea of including the breadcrumbs of other NPC adventurers.

As you explore the dungeon, you'll find traces of other adventurers, including campsites, and even diaries and notebooks containing part of their story in that dark place. A little taste of why they are there, what they're looking for, and some bizarre stories that happened to them and might happen to you and your party as well.



I'm very excited that we decided to include voice-over, to help tell this story as you and your friends explore and play. When you interact with diaries, the story will be read aloud for you and your friends to hear. Isn't it a nice multiplayer moment? I hope you all enjoy it.

There will also be a few cutscenes, and these will help us set the mood and the tone of your adventure. We can't wait for you to play it!

Come back for more Dev Blog posts cause next week I'll be chatting more about the cooking and recipes you can make!

- Saulo Camarotti
Creative Director, Designer and Coder of DDD 

Hey all, getting back to this space, I wanted to first appreciate all the support. We recently hit the mark of 150k wishlists on Steam, without even putting out our demo or participating in the Next Fest (…yet!). This means a lot to us! But also, it makes us aware that it's important for us to deliver the best game we can, as well as communicating exactly how the game is, so we only surprise you positively. On that note, I start my third blog post, talking about what to expect in regards to gameplay mechanics. 

From a design perspective, I wanted the game to be a collection of lots of things, rather than a few things that are complex to understand and implement. Since the beginning of the project, I realized that the experience that I was trying to create relates more to a sandbox space, where I would keep on adding toys to it. Throughout the project, I would play and iterate, adding more little toys to compose the overall experience. 



My mantra was «If I want to create an emergent gameplay experience, let me have an emergent development process», so that every crazy idea that we have, we can put it in the game in a matter of hours or just a couple of days. That made the game simple in a lot of ways, but at the same time, the care, the fun and the complexity appears in the combination of all those simple things. It's more about the emergent open-ended experience, than a tailored-linear experience.

As you embark in this dungeon, you'll first start interacting with objects, picking stuff up that are pretty physical. You can pile them up in a corner, over a table, or even throw to a friend in the distance. «Hey, I found this up here, I'm gonna throw it to you» -kinda experience.

Your inventory is pretty limited, as well as a bunch of other things. Light is limited, resources are scarce, enemies are hidden in the corners. But once you bring stuff back to your camp, a lot of possibilities open up. Each thing you find opens new recipes in the crafting menu, and each tool opens the dungeon to other possibilities.

Recipes are simple, what is hard is to actually have enough resources for everything. So, you'll see your group going out on some self-motivated quests, like «I wanna craft this new armor, can you guys join me and help me find some metal scraps?».

As you discover more materials and tools, you'll be able to craft workbenches and cooking tables that will open new crafting possibilities. You'll be able to craft different weapons, melee and ranged, and many tools, some to open new pathways, others to help you collect resources in the dungeon. That's a big part of the metroidvania element of the game. I call this «Survival Metroidvania», because you'll be crafting tools to open new areas through the dungeon. Remember that sometimes what you eat is actually what gives you the abilities to continue the exploration.



One thing that I was particularly proud of was to implement some puzzles and challenges inside the dungeon that will further use your crafting abilities. I didn't want puzzles that felt gimmicky or too on the nose, so, I explored options that felt they could in fact exist in that dungeon, as if it was in the real world. Note that some puzzles will be easier to solve if you've been incrementing and building a better campsite. 

I could go on forever, talking about all the features this handcrafted dungeon has, from grappling hooks to secret doors, from boss fights to fishing with harpoons, from potion making to combining buffs with the stuff you eat. There are hammers, pickaxes, maces, ropes, hooks, swords, bow and arrows, backpacks, shields, water pouches, and so many more things. Be prepared to carry heavy weight sculptures, break vases, chase hidden critters, fix contraptions, find hidden secret messages, understand the behaviour of your enemies… and so much more.

Thanks for coming back here for the third time. Next post, I'll talk more about the story of other adventurers that you'll find bits and pieces while you explore the dungeon. No spoilers, I promise! xD

- Saulo Camarotti
Creative Director, Designer and Coder of DDD