Dungeonz - Free Web Game

[area51]

Hi,

I have developed a browser based web game called Dungeonz. It's a 3D cartoon action game based on the classic Pacman but has the look and feel of World of Warcraft.

The cool thing is that it can be played within any web browser, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc. so feel free to pop along and leave a high score.

The URL is: http://madfishgames.com

If you think it's cool, then please give it a DIGG here:
http://digg.com/playable_web_games/Dungeonz_3D_Web_Game

If you are interested to know anything else about the game, how it was made etc, then please feel free to post here.

Many thanks
Paul

[mrkwang]

Installing Unity Player, without any notice? People might dislike installing such things, without any notice.

And loading - loading - loading...

[GeneralGrant]

Clicking on the screenshot to the right, in the expectation to see more screenshots, it prompts me to install Unity which I obviously won’t do.

[Scurvy Lobster]

I already has the Unity plugin. Tell people that want to play what it is and I'm sure they wont be reluctant to install it.

The game was a little too simple for me. I could not get attack to work and it was unclear what the different power ups did.

I crashed the game twice when going from full screen back to the browser :(

[Sybixsus]

I also already have the Unity plugin, so no issues there.

I waited for it to load. I clicked a button on the menu and then it started loading again, very slowly. After a few minutes waiting for it to load, I gave up and closed the browser. I hate playing anything but the most simple games on the web. If I wanted to sit around waiting for a game to load, I'd get my ZX Spectrum out of storage. I don't care how long it takes to download, because I do that in the background while doing other things, then come back to install it when I want to play it. I don't see the purpose of having a game playable in the browser if it can't load quickly. That's the only selling point of browser based games for me.

[jeb_]

I second the loading problems. It got stuck at 62% for me.

[Scurvy Lobster]

I know I am on a fast internet connection but it loaded in a few seconds here.

[MFS]

I'm on a pretty fast connection here and the intial load took under a minute. Not too bad. However, the main menu --> game load was two or three times that length, and after watching one load bar and clicking play, I wasn't quite ready to see another one for so long :)

About the game: Nice visuals -- had some lag but this machine lacks a decent 3D card (assuming this is hardware accelerated).

Can I use the sword on my back? If not, I really wanted to :)

You liken this to pac-man, and the general connection is there. However pac-man has a much more frantic pace, and Dungeonz lacked this completely minus the one guy who beat me up a good bit. In general though, after running around collecting the little jewels I got bored.

Mini-map might be nice as well.

Anyways, really nice presentation. What are your plans for it?

[area51]

Thank you very much for the feedback, much of which I find surprising, although is consistent.

My main effort was to make it small in size and therefore fast to download, and also run at acceptable speeds on slower machines.:rolleyes:

The file size is only 7Mb and is streamed, which I would have though small enough for a web game, and loads up very fast for me, even from the server. Im thinking the server must be the cause for the slow downloads though.

I developed it on a Mac Mini 1.66Ghz intel core duo, 512Mb, 32Mb video, which would be considered pretty average, possibly even a little slow. However get around 30fps in the browser, which I was quite pleased with.

I think I will try to provide a downloadable .exe version for people who are not too keen on webplayers also.

At the moment I think I will park this project for the time being, I need to add some more features and tidy things up a bit. I've used this game mainly to learn Unity3D with, which is a cracking bit of kit by the way, and really enjoyed making it. I will definitely re-visit Dungeonz at a later point though.

Again, thank you for all your feedback, it has been extremely usefull.:)

[barrygamer]

Hi -

I'd agree with MFS comments above. Had a nice feel to it, looked good. But, it seems to lack some key gameplay feature(s) to *really* grab me. Pac-man has some pretty tight gameplay features, which cant directly translate to 3d. Maybe a radar or mini map could solve it but you'd spend all your time looking at it (and you can sneak past the guards anyway).

I think its a really decent effort, but IMO needs something different or crazy in the gameplay to make it really fun. It could be a relatively small thing, I just can't put my finger on what. Think how Velociraptor Safari has some totally cool stuff and fun gameplay, and without those key features it would be nothing special. (I'm not going to say 'think outside the box' :rolleyes: ).

BTW game runs ok on my Mac mini core solo 1.5ghz -- not great fps but ok. Load time ok. It might be good to explain on your page what unity plugin is and what will get installed.

[tau]

Clicking on the screenshot to the right, in the expectation to see more screenshots, it prompts me to install Unity which I obviously won’t do.

Why not? It against your religion? :)

However, I agree, that the Unity installation should give an option of not installing...

Also, I'm on fast connection, but loading is slow, I would recommend not loading all the game assets at the same time.

The game is cute, but needs polishing in controls and camera...

[GeneralGrant]

Why not? It against your religion? :)
Installing something just so I can see screenshots and judge if the game is worth trying out? Forget it. I might install Unity if the game looks like great fun but a single screenshot of an orc isn’t enough to sell me.

[tau]

Installing something just so I can see screenshots and judge if the game is worth trying out? Forget it. I might install Unity if the game looks like great fun but a single screenshot of an orc isn’t enough to sell me.

Fair enough. I think screenshots link does not force Unity install anymore - I just checked

[HarryBalls]

Hey. I tried loading the game five times without any success on a fairly decent connection.

[area51]

Thanks for the feedback guys, am taking notice and trying to implement suggestions.

Modified the camera, now looks behind player on level start, also changed the the way in which the app streams resources in an attempt to speed up load times. (7Mb streaming file), It consistently takes me 6 secs or so see the menu screen, then another 12 secs maybe to start the first level.

On another note, and maybe of interest to others, I was very surprised at the lack of interest from portals/publishers/aggregators on submitting this game. (although might not be a surprise to people who have actually played it though :rolleyes: )

Out of 19, only 2 ever responded, and they were not surprisingly, 'don't give up the day job' responses.

I have a very biased view on my game, and that is, IMHO I think it's better than probably 70% of the games on shockwave.com for example, although they wont give it the time of day.

What do you guys think, (not on my game specifically because that is a matter of opinion and is subjective), but generally getting start-up Indie title's noticed in general?

[lennard]

Installing something just so I can see screenshots and judge if the game is worth trying out? Forget it. I might install Unity if the game looks like great fun but a single screenshot of an orc isn’t enough to sell me.


Ditto. .net, Unity, whatever, unless something is REALLY compelling it's just too much bother and risk to my system so I don't do it either.

[KNau]

The aggregators are in the "high volume traffic" business and the reality of that business is that you want something that the majority of your visitors can run without any hassle. That means your webgames are Flash or (to a lesser extent) Shockwave. Note that I'm referring to use on the part of a portal or aggregator. If you want Java, Unity or Vitalize games on your own website that's fine, but it's an uphill battle to get high traffic portals to take them.

It's perfectly acceptable to use Unity as long as you understand you aren't in the free viral game business. Much of the interest in Unity seems to be as an MMO platform, which since most MMOs require a download client it would be more than suitable for.

[tau]

Ditto. .net, Unity, whatever, unless something is REALLY compelling it's just too much bother and risk to my system so I don't do it either.

So do any people who download your creations...
I think if the technology is wide known and signed with a trusted source, why not trusting it?

Java is penetrating 95% of PCs out there and everybody trust it...

Just dont understand the hostility...

[tau]

On another note, and maybe of interest to others, I was very surprised at the lack of interest from portals/publishers/aggregators on submitting this game. (although might not be a surprise to people who have actually played it though :rolleyes: )

Dude, frankly speaking, nobody is going to promote or sell an unfinished and unpolished product ;) If you polish it, add unique graphics (the ogre is not unique and used even in Torque3D), add cute music - you maybe able to sell it on portals... sorry to rain on your parade, but I remember myself while reading your comment when I was nursing my "first real" game ;)

[Spore Man]

I also already had Unity installed and it was pretty seamless. SLOW loading. Maybe it's the site, but also, I just don't see how that content could take up 7mb. You're not properly optimizing.

[GeneralGrant]

Indeed, you take a risk when you download and run anything but there is a difference between standalone games and installing a framework like Unity, Flash or Java. A couple of years ago I followed an innocent looking link and suddenly my computer restarted without me doing anything. Turns out there where a Flash vulnerability that allowed arbitrary files to be downloaded and executed on the host computer that was activated by javascript. That time it was rather benign but it could have been a lot worse.

If you have one of these frameworks that integrates into your web browser installed and it happens to have a security vulnerability you’re wide open to a malicious website exploiting that. Installing a standalone game from a trusted party doesn’t make me fear every website out there because I can’t imagine how any website could exploit the fact that I have the game in question installed. Frankly, Unity hasn’t been around long enough for me to trust it to not introduce any kind of security vulnerability in my browser that could be exploited in some way by a malicious website. It’s just my view of it but I did learn my lesson so Firefox+NoScript and no Flash or Java for all but a few trusted sites. It doesn’t mean I’m completely safe, simply having Flash and Java installed could weaken my browser’s security somehow, but its good enough.

[GeneralGrant]

Java is penetrating 95% of PCs out there and everybody trust it...
Maybe they shouldn’t. A simple Google search turns up this (http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-233323-1) dated a month ago: “A vulnerability in Java Web Start may allow an untrusted Java Web Start application to create files on the system that the untrusted application runs on and leverage these files to run local applications with the privileges of the user running the untrusted Java Web Start application.”

Sure it’s Java web start so it’s not really the same thing as embedded applets because you have to activate it and allow it to run but it’s supposed to be a secure environment. It even says so in the FAQ as one of Web Start’s strong points. So maybe you shouldn’t trust Unity that easily either until it has had the same real world testing as Java because it could introduce some security vulnerability somewhere.

Edit: Sorry for turning this into a Unity security discussion...