Dungeon Dregs

As you can see, this game is not finished. In fact, I'm not planning to finish it. The idea is to leave that part to whomever feels up to it. Over the years lots of people have asked me if they could build their own game by modifying (primarily) the graphics of one of mine. Iceblox is by far the most popular candidate. With very few exceptions I have said no.

Why? Well, the copyright issues aside, I don't think it's right to mess with a game where the concept is that closely linked to the character designs. There seems to be a widespread misconception that since, let's say, Arnold Schwarzenegger is cooler than penguins, altering the Iceblox penguin to look like Schwarzenegger would also make the game cooler. My very firm opinion on this is that 1) Arnold Schwarzenegger would be completely lacking any possible natural context and 2) the game engine is built for characters that are roughly spherical. Other proportions will look ugly because they don't fill out the 30x30-pixel blocks properly. It can only make the game worse, not better. But this explanation is completely wasted on the hypothetical Arnie fan. It's easier for me to just say I won't allow any kind of tampering.

With this game, however, things are different. There aren't any real graphics -- just sketches -- no sounds, no introduction, no finished context and only one finished level. In short, there is nothing to foul up. You may consider this applet public domain and do whatever you want with it. I've left plenty of documentation below.

• Tweaking and tuning
• Some useful variables and objects
• How to construct a dungeon
• What parts of the code need to be changed
• How the prisoner AI works