Friday, October 28, 2011

Interview with Gaslamp Games (developers of Dungeons of Dredmor)

Welcome to a special edition of Roguelike Radio where we interview three members of Gaslamp Games, the developers of Dungeons of Dredmor. Dredmor is a graphical roguelike with a significant humour element, available on Steam or Desura, and was covered in episode 6 of Roguelike Radio. Asking questions are Darren Grey and John Harris, with Daniel Jacobsen, Nicholas Vining and David Baumgart doing the answering.

The mp3 of the podcast can be downloaded here, played in the embedded player below, or you can follow us on iTunes. Additional reviews and ratings on iTunes are much appreciated!



Topics covered in the interview include:
- How Gaslamp got together and the reason for their name
- How many years of human endeavour they have mercilessly destroyed
- Upcoming features and expansion pack for Dungeons of Dredmor

Relevant links:
- The DIYGamer interview where they allude to some odd activities of their first artist
- Dungeons of Dredmor blog
- Dungeons of Dredmor forums

If there are others developers you'd like to hear us interview, or other subjects you're keen to have covered then drop a note in the comments and we'll be happy to respond.

5 comments:

  1. I think it is worth pointing out in the last 2 months we have recorded and released 12 separate podcasts (9 episodes and 3 interviews, not counting the spoilers bonus content for 100 Rogues). That's an absolutely incredible amount of output. We need to pat ourselves on the back.

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  2. Congratulations Andrew & Co. I'm really glad you guys have stuck with the podcast. You've just begun to scratch the surface of dungeon level 1. I look forward to every episode and the discussions they bring.

    Now a bit about Dredmor:
    I don't want to sound overly harsh but I think it's somewhat telling that the developers don't play Dredmor very much anymore. I hope they're able to find some new ideas besides adding more loot (AKA junk) to the game.

    I think they might need to revisit the design of the dungeon generator as it is one of the weakest parts of the game. Once you've seen one level, you've seen 'em all.

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  3. I've been anxiously awaiting each new episode, keep them coming guys!

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  4. I'll echo Chong Li's sentiments about the sticking to the podcast. From my experience, gaming podcasts with large, rotating casts, that focus on a single (sub?)-genre, and last more than 5 episodes, are rarer than hen's teeth. Maybe it's about time to start begging a sound tech to splice some themes from RLs together with radio static and call it an intro ;)

    On Dredmor, I've probably hit about the 12 hour mark on the play clock on this one, and I play on Going Rogue with Permadeath. The graphics are pretty solid, easily a match to Shiren on the Snes and most of the monsters are memorable, though the lil batty and batty should be easier to tell apart. Getting mauled by batty on level 1 is frustrating and the only real solution is to mouse over swarms of lil batties to make sure a batty isn't hiding in their midst.

    The sound and music fits well, if a bit repetitive, for a roguelike, but it hangs between tracks on the Desura Linux version.

    Combat is a bit too random for my tastes, especially when monsters with ranged attacks are present. Level 3 is pretty bad on this front, where, if the Octopi and Genies decide to use there ranged attack too frequently, you are pretty much screwed if you didn't choose the right build.

    Too much junk is probably the worst problem at the moment. I spend as much time managing inventory, moving things in and out of containers and running to the shop to sell stuff as I do exploring. It isn't quite Ultima 7, but it's getting close. The altars to Krong compound the problem because you need to keep spare equipment on hand in case Krong curses the armor to the point of making unusable, but you have to use the altars if you have a warrior build because you really don't have many options for acquiring important intrinsics.

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