Unseen: Impulse

I recalled an old prototype developed in early 2017 when Das Geisterschiff was being reworked after hitting a dead end and I needed a distraction to clear my head.

The idea behind Impulse came to me when I was playing Dragon Slayer and asked myself how a DRPG would feel if the main gameplay was focused on pushing the dungeon blocks.

This dynamic environment unlocked all kinds of possibilities, including:

• Stumbling upon secret rooms
• Blocking enemy advancement
• Blocking teleporters to stop enemies from respawning
• Building bridges across pits to access isolated areas

Progression was handled through explorations — you had to collect potions which boosted your stats. I don’t remember the exact purpose behind them, IIRC they did nothing in the prototype.

At first, you could only move wooden blocks, but as you got stronger, you could start pushing stone/metal blocks to unlock new paths and turn the dungeon into your playground.

There were plans to include spells that allowed the player to pull or push the blocks from afar and weapons to break through them.

The prototype was fun to play around with, but it was obvious that it would’ve required a lot of time and resources to make it into a finished and fun game. After a week or two of playing around, it was shelved and active development of Das Geisterschiff resumed.

I might return to this idea in the future since dynamic environments are something that I’m interested in and experimental dungeon crawlers have been my bread & butter for quite some time.

EDIT: Found two more screenshots from a later build.