Code named Hive account@nightlydungeon has been the project I have been working on since the start of 2020 you might know it as "game development." Many times people have asked if they could just walk around and explore some of the 25 zones in the game. Recently I finished light rendering for the last of the zones and I can finally make such a request possible.

For those who have been following along back in March of 2021, I upgraded to the newest version of Unreal Engine 4 (UE4). While that did break a few things it also allowed me to render lighting at a much greater speed.

Due to a lot of time being saved and having a need to showcase some of the work I have done in making zones I ended up creating a version of Nightly Dungeon that is just for exploration in a single-player game. There are no monsters in any of the zones as they have been removed along with a lot of other things.

Any doors, walls, or other objects that were required for the player to find or interact with should all be opened if needed so the player can explore the many different zones uninterrupted.

There is the main town that you spawn into. Around the spawn in the area are a bunch of portals to access the 19 dungeons, and 5 trial arenas (the arenas are all the same) to check out. I have spawned them in just for this demo and it will not be how entering into the dungeons will be handled at a later stage.

Each zone at the end of them has a portal back to the main town. This is the only way to get back unless you open the menu (ESC) and exit or log out of the game. Some zones might have the portal not too far from the zone if that zone required other things to unlock the final door to access it.

Some of the zones are quite large and could take 10 mins, 20 mins, or even longer for someone to fully explore every little thing in them. There are no locations saved so if you log out you will have to start that dungeon over again if you wish.

At this time only one of the four main classes for the game is playable. The others won’t be enabled for some time. Possibly at the end of the year when a more finished version of Nightly Dungeon is released for testing.

System Requirements

I do not have much yet on system requirements for the game other than what I have played with my computers and some testers reporting back to me.

OS: Windows 10 64Bit
Processor: AMD FX 8350
Graphics: AMD R9 380
Storage: 20 GB

While I’m certain an AMD FX 8350 and AMD R9 380 will have no issues playing at max settings. I’m not quite sure what are the min specs. The lowest graphics settings in the game can make the game quite low. So more information is needed on that front.

It has also been reported that a monitor resolution 1080p works just fine. Anything higher or odd monitor resolutions might cause some UI issues. Resolution options were disabled in this build as they proved to not be as functional as I was expecting.

Downloading And Playing

To be able to download Nightly Dungeon you can get it from Itch at this download link.

After you download you will need to unzip nightly-dungeon-windows-beta.

Double-clicking on the application ExploreDemoND will launch the game.

You can click either Continue or New Character once you are past the intro splash screen to play.

To be able to close the game you can exit from the main menu or press the “ESC” key in-game and click quit.

Microsoft And/Or Anti-Virus Software Issues

For anyone that has not partaken in a game beta before on the PC, it can be quite common for Microsoft or some anti-virus software to pop up false negatives. While this is usually less common in UE4 created games and those testing have not had any issues. I thought I would include this as a heads up in case it happens.

I’m just an indie solo game developer and I do not pay to be whitelisted or have made submissions of my game to any anti-virus companies. If one of the larger anti-virus software’s take issue with false positives I’ll see if it can be resolved.

Known Bugs

UI issues at higher resolutions than 1080p could have issues.
Volume settings not working.

Final Thoughts

Just keep in mind this zone exploration demo is just so people who have wanted to explore around some of the zones can do so. There is nothing else to do in this version of the game.

Some zones were created to be darker and harder to get around than others.

Other Posts:

• 48. Save And Load
• 49. Game Development | Menus And Settings
• 50. Game Development | Massive Increase In Items, Crafting, And Zone Loot Tables

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar, Hive account@enjargames, Hive account@nightlydungeon. Screenshots are from Nightly Dungeon.

Game roadmap.