Game Design Talk: Sakura Dungeon

Xylia

Terrarian
Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking... why am I posting about a lewd dungeon crawler game here?

Well...... it's not about the lewdness, I assure you. At first, I thought that its combat system was going to be very basic. I've had this game recommended to me by a few friends, and I saw it on steam for like $5 or something like that during this past sale (I think it just ended today..) and I really wasn't expecting much, but holy crap was I ever wrong.

The game has an excellent balance and leveling system. I was not expecting such genius in a game like this. Come for the T&A, stay for the engaging combat. It's simplistic, but yet good at the same time.

Basically, the game has a levelup system where you get XP every time you attack, and are attacked and every time you defeat an enemy. However, XP does not give you any character growth, the only thing that XP levels do, is that they balance your power vs an enemy's power. If you attack an enemy that is lower level than you, you get a bonus in chance to hit, and damage output. If you attack an enemy that's higher level than you, you get a penalty on to-hit and damage.

However, that's not to say that the game is just cut and dry and your stats are your stats and they never change, because they do: you also have statistics like strength, agility, and so on. These can be increased by items, by events, and other means, and it is these statistics that increase your character's raw power. For example, having a vitality of 1 gives you a max HP of, IIRC, 55. You get +5HP for every 1 vitality from what I've seen thusfar (highest I've had anyone's is 6). It might seem weird to start with 65HP with your knight-type at the beginning of the game and by mid-game you only have 80, however it's balanced by the aforementioned level system. The enemies work the same way you do, their stats are influenced just the same as yours are, and battles feel fair. Bosses are done by simply adding a few levels on and/or making you fight multiple people at once. You might be Level 5 and you run into a Level 9 boss, they will be a struggle to take down even though they have just as much HP as you do. They'll dodge your attacks or you'll hit them and it barely tickles. They hit you and it will hurt.

The balance feels very nice and battles are fast-paced.

This system also provides and excellent gradual challenge curve -- at the beginning of the game, you can get away with just spamming the basic attacks and not caring, but I'm from what I can tell almost halfway through the game and I'm finding that I really need to pay attention to what sort of attacks I use on whom, and I find myself re-arranging my party to take advantage of damage resistance types depending on what enemies appear on a floor often. Witches? I want magic-resistant people who have good physical attacks. Lots of physical attackers? My knight who I've boosted her intelligence some has a nice fire spell that works pretty good on them. That kind of thing. Not doing so means you're going to be taking a lot of pain as you go further into the game.

At the beginning of the game, when enemies have 1 strength, getting hit by attacks you have no resistance to doesn't hurt that much. Later on, you take a hit from something that has 5 strength and you have no resistance... it hurts like hell, especially if your resilience is low. This is how the game ups the ante as it goes on so that you don't get a flat line for a difficulty curve.

Also, later enemies have more powerful spells, and start to use status attacks more often as well.

I was just rather surprised by how good the battle system in this game is, and also I recently had a discussion in the Thorium Mod thread about over-inflation of numbers (talking about Calamity Mod), and this game is very much a good example as to how to properly do difficulty curves, and challenges, without the huge numbers but yet still make it feel like you're getting stronger as the game progresses.

EDIT: I also want this thread to include conversations about general game balance as well, examples of systems that work good and systems that don't work so good.
 
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Sadly, Sakura Dungeon's game design is just plagiarizing almost all of the programming code of Demon Master Chris, another dungeon crawler game with the same engine. In the battle system between SD and DMC, the difference is that the number of modified damage and the flow that exists in SD do not exist in the DMC, and the defense and AP recovery are separate in DMC. (I even think that DMC is more balanced.) The system itself is laudable, but it's very difficult to say it's Sakura Dungeon's unique game design.
 
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Sadly, Sakura Dungeon's game design is just plagiarizing almost all of the programming code of Demon Master Chris, another dungeon crawler game with the same engine. In the battle system between SD and DMC, the difference is that the number of modified damage and the flow that exists in SD do not exist in the DMC, and the defense and AP recovery are separate in DMC. (I even think that DMC is more balanced.) The system itself is laudable, but it's very difficult to say it's Sakura Dungeon's unique game design.

Well, I've never played the other game, so... *shrug*

I'm not sure I'd like the changes you mention, though.
 
Since each interpretation of the balance is different, I would not be surprised if someone said that the SD was better adjusted, even if I still thought the DMC had a better balance. Still what my comment was about to say is the last line.
 
Yeah I was kinda thinking that too but I decided not to comment on it because I knew what was meant.
 
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