As expected of anyone trying to describe a game, lets start by listing off all the genre tags that could be used for The Gate: it is a rogue-lite sci-fi first person shooter dungeon crawler made from the ground up for VR. That right there should tell you everything you need to know to know exactly what the game is! 😉
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to battle dragons with laser rifles, plasma guns, jetpacks, and explosives, you’ve come to the right place!
Gameplay
You are a Runner (an adventurer decked out with modern day magic and technology) that has just stepped through the Gate, an ancient one-way arcane portal leading to an ever-shifting dungeon, in search of the Dragonkind Crystals: powerful artifacts that can control dragons. These crystals, however, are deep within a dungeon filled with traps, monsters, and other hazards that you must traverse, bypass, or defeat before you can reach the crystals. To make matters worse, each crystal is personally defended by the dragons themselves.
So what makes you think you can make it through the dungeon and collect all the Dragonkind Crystals, where all of your fellow Runners have failed?
Combat
Combat in The Gate is designed to be quick-paced, intense shootouts where you use all your wits and wiles to outsmart and out-tactic the denizens of the dungeon.
Level Design
Level design has been inspired by Unangband. Each floor is generated to revolve around themes, with the most obvious themes being the flavor of Dragonkind Crystal found on that floor.
Project Management
The design elements of the game exist within an articy:draft 3 project. Currently management of The Gate is being done on a Trello board, although I recently was introduced to Notion, and I might give that a try before my Trello board begins to get overwhelmed with notes that aren’t typical Kanban cards.