A Darker and Scarier The Ground Gives Way

The Ground Gives Way is getting darker and scarier. In the current development version I have done as I previously mentioned: removed the “range” attribute and replaced it with a “light” attribute. The results are quite promising!

Field of Vision

In Release #4 and before, your field of vision was unlimited. Your vision was blocked only by obstacles. In the newer versions, your line of sight will be limited by your “light” attribute. This has some interesting consequences:

• You often cannot see a whole room you enter and must explore it.
• You see monsters later, and if your noise is higher than your light, they will hear you before you can see them.
• Most monsters (but not all!) cannot see you if they are outside of your light radius, which means you can manage stealthy characters both by light and sound.
• You have to see a monster to shoot it, making “light” work effectively as “range” did.

This change definitively gives gameplay a different character. The game is scarier, and the new attribute is definitely more interesting than “range”.

Diamond Shaped FoV

Diamond-shaped FoV.

The Ground Gives Way uses Taxicab geometry since movement is cardinal only. This has an interesting consequence that makes the field of vision look different from most roguelikes: it is a diamond shape (the wikipedia article explains why).

The Deeper You Go, the Darker it Gets

To not change the gameplay experience entirely and to make the light attribute less important early on, the first few levels will be relatively lit-up by default. The rooms will then progressively be darker, the deeper you go, making the light attribute more and more important.

You can pick up different light sources to increase your light attribute, most of them being offhand items such as candles or torches and you have to determine whether to equip a light source or a shield. There are other ways of lighting up the dungeon as well: glowing weapons and rings, special enchantments and more. Different types of floors also affect the current lighting. There is also a new ability of infravision that you or monsters can have. This ability makes it possible to see monsters outside your light radius and makes it possible for monsters to see you even when they are outside of it…