Inspired from this post: I imagine it would just be a "nonsense*" mode**, where anything could happen, it should be a highly random mode made for messing around, and should be infinite. Maybe you could have floors that have mixed tile sets, maybe new highly random events, maybe a a section of the floor will have traps on every tile, maybe an entire floor zoo, or 20 Krong Anvils in a single room? Ideally this should have several ridiculous new items, skill sets, and rooms to fit the theme and enhance the flavor, although those are entirely optional. This mode should not need to be balanced, since you will probably end up either being destroyed by the RNG, or blessed with incredible loot, and it will probably be designed as a mode to mess around in. I really hope that some modder likes the idea, and that this is actually posible with modding. *(word replacement is intentional, it can be changed to the original if you like) **(should ideally be separate from difficulty settings, that way you can choose either GR or EE with nonsense mode)
I can see it now: You open the door, and there's a giant chess board with 32 named black and white Living Statues. Then they start trying to kill you...except they can only move in the fashion of the chess pieces they represent. Special monster skill: Knightly Leap, no cooldown. And, naturally, this counts as a Monster Zoo.
I was thinking of something like...Dredmor-turned-tower-defense. Like you fight off waves of baddies and try to last the longest that you can. Every round there's a new Brax shop. And monsters drop items too.
That'd be pretty cool SkyMuffin, but it'd invalidate a lot of the skills (particularly the crafting ones), so chances are it'd have to have its own skill trees created, drops tweaked and so on.
I vote for heavily randomized and game breaking stuff as the main goals. Specific goals? Pffft. Just throw all manner of inane nonsense in a mixed bag and let the RNG show you what crazy means. How about every floor is unique and follows a theme selected from a list by the RNG? It could be a "Raining Monsters and health/mana pots" level, or it could be a "Thaumites everywhere for no reason" level. Hell, it could be an "Every time you consume an item, fireballs shoot out your ass and piss off the monsters with a massive radius but very low damage spell."... mode. We can come up with skills to fit the theme too. How about a skill/spell chosen at random, along with a stat gain also chose at random, but fairly large. (5-10, rolled naturally) every skill point invested. We could have a massive teleport spell. No, not just you teleporting, but you and every last thing in sight. It would be totally game breaking. (As it should be.) I could keep the crazy ideas coming. Anyone like the ideas?
I'd wanted to actually make this at a time, in fact I might now that we have more modding features. It would require manual replaces of the game files though. The shops would have to work differently and the monster spawning would need to be incredibly high with the mobs in rooms incredibly low, and it'd require new rooms and skill trees so it'd basically be a total conversion mod. In order to do something of a large magnitude as such I'd need a team though, especially considering it has to be balanced with other mods.
Oh god yes, environmental effects. "Thaumic Radiation: Every spell you cast gives you +1 to your Magic Power until you hit with a melee attack." Also: A large room with two levers, and a notebook pillar thing which reads "Pull the lever, Krong!" Upon pulling either lever, some sort of amusing painful thing happens to the player, and the news ticker reads "Wrong lever!" Pulling the remaining lever spawns Krong anvils.
What have I done? But seriously, I would like to say that if someone does make a nonsense mode, I want a room that's all mysterious portals. At the least, make it so the person has to step on one to get to the other side. It'd be a true trial by fire.
I have always wanted this sort of thing, but instead of a Tower Defence, I was thinking more of a Horde Mode style of Play, no real objectives, just you, lots of monsters, and lots of loot. Perhaps someone can code that monsters drop specific amount of Zorkmids depending on enemy type, wave and so forth? which can then be used on the Brax Shops as you have mentioned. I have many ideas on this sort of things, perhaps there can be even more coding that boss monsters can drop more than just gold but can drop better loot and perhaps something like scrolls of enchanting, where at basically acts like a 100% Krong enchant (How Original) and of course many other things. Co-op could even be introduced to this sort of equation, as the size of the map and general gameplay won't drag on forever as it would in the proper game. As it would be basically turn based combat against hordes of enemies, wave after wave. The best example that has done this is a game called Frozen Synapse, which I really enjoyed personally. I have so many ideas, but It's going to become a long read if I do.
We play Roguelikes. It was obvious from the start that we like nonsense. Other floor ideas: Regen one HP and Mana every turn, but monsters are spawning five times as frequently. Endless chain teleportation. You and everything in sight teleports around a few squares eveery turn. You can still move, but the odds are it will be a PITA to get anywhere. Good and bad Krong effects every turn on a random item you are wearing. Boss levels where you have to fight a single uber monster like Fax Hat or somesuch. Every time you consume an item its effect is swapped for another type of item selected at random. (Foods swapped for drinks or potions and the like.) Replace the sprites for every monster with those of the player. I still like the raining monsters and health/mana pots idea. That would be chaos. More to come if I am not asked to STHU.
The FaxHat as a spawning monster needs to go somewhere and soon. Maybe we could just make it a "miniboss" on DL 10 in the normal game?
Well I'm up for doing this, who else wants to work on this (If nobody does I'm not doing it because this would be an incredibly large mod and I don't have the ability to do everything or every possible idea. I also would like to work in a team on this).
I can mostly help by contributing more inane ideas and helping playtest. I am finally starting to get my feet wet with actual coding, but I think I would mostly slow you down with exception to compiling a list of effects from other parts of XML. If you can tell me what needs done that I am capable of, I promise to give it a try. That is the best I can promise.
This is just a bump post. Anyone else want to help out? Null can probably do this all in his sleep, but he should not have to. I am willing to help, but I have yet to make any mods yet. I may just get in the way. I will try making a few lists later if I get around to it. (A list of effects to roll for on generating a level, and what other lists?)
I need ideas if I'm to do anything on this. I've certainly been looking at what's already posted. At the moment going to get a bunch of generic things done like stat mods.
Would it just be a bunch of rooms packaged up in a mod? Or are you thinking of making nonsense skills, monsters, and items, too?
Definitely not skills but I'm thinking that making items, monsters, rooms and events would be interesting.
