Exploring Catacombs, Catching Spirits

I finally added what is a very important item for my game: the spirit receptacle.

So there exists a category of creatures called spirits (holy spirits, unholy spirits and nature spirits), and the majority of these creatures are immune to damage from physical sources. Although there are a couple of magic weapons capable of harming them, the main idea is that the player needs to find alternative waves of dealing with them.

One new way to handle them is by using the spirit receptacle, a magic device that can capture and contain a spirit, kind of like the trap they use in Ghostbusters. The player just points the receptacle at the spirit and, unless they can avoid it, the spirit is sucked in. The spirit can be released at any time, but the receptacle can only hold one spirit at a time.

From that point, there are a number of things the player can do. They could just stash the full receptacle away somewhere, but then they would not be able to use it again. You could release an unholy spirit in a room full of priests and hope that they destroy it for you. A fire spirit released in the middle of a lake will be instantly destroyed. A water spirit can be poured into an empty fountain and contained there instead. Sometimes spirits are only summoned for a temporary duration, so if that's the case, the player can just leave them in the receptacle until the duration expires.

A neutral spirit captured in a receptacle will become hostile, but not a friendly spirit. So the player can also use the receptacle just to port around a friendly spirit buddy.

I have a few more ideas to implement in the future. One is to add a high level spell that allows the player to absorb a spirit. In addition to getting rid of it, the player would gain a power special power based on the spirit that would remain for a long duration. For example, absorbing a frozen shade would give the player a freezing aura and cold-based attack. Absorbing an electric spirit would allow the player to shoot lightning.

Another idea is to add "blank wands". These would be wands that don't do anything, but can be transformed into other kinds of wands when mixed with the right ingredient. You would be able to absorb a fire spirit into a blank wand to get a wand of fireballs or a sound spirit to get a wand of resonance (causes sonic damage).

Another thing I've worked on this week is to add catacomb style levels based on similar algorithms developed a few months ago for the sewer style levels. These levels are based around a single broad hallway that loops around. Small to medium-sized rooms are added around the sides of the hallway. Additional larger rooms are added to other spaces in the map and connected via narrow, winding corridors. A screenshot appears below.

By now I should have a good range of level styles to ensure there's plenty of variety for the early game. These include: cave levels, sewer levels, maze levels and catacomb levels. There are also various themes that can be applied to these level types.