Dungeon Crawler VR Game Jam 2021 is a game development challenge to make a Virtual Reality first person grid based dungeon crawler game in 30 days.

In this context a typical dungeon crawler is a grid based RPG viewed in first person and with 90 degree turning. Examples of classic dungeon crawlers are Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore and Bard's Tale etc.

Another example of a dungeon crawler is the modern classic Legend of Grimrock. Take a look at the video below to familiarize yourself with the dungeon crawler concept.

Challenges:

• Develop a VR game that draw inspiration from those old classics and captures the essence of them and their genre.
• Think outside the box and attempt to push the genre further by adding to it.
• Implement good and intuitive movement (See section about Locomotion).
• Implement userfriendly and intuitive interaction which makes sense in VR. Drop-down menus, scrollbars and lists works well on desktop systems but may not be the ideal solution in VR.
• Avoid causing motion sickness (See section about Locomotion).

Game specific rules:

• The game must have first-person exploration at all times. (Exceptions are menu screens). Render game world as seen from the players eyes. No top-down or isometric views (See the above GIF and video).
• The game must have explorable locations. It doesn't have to be a dungeon in the traditional sense. It can be urban environments, outdoors, spaceship interiors, planetary surfaces etc. Whichever environment the game has it must be viewed and explored in first-person.
• The game world must be grid based. Player may move freely within a grid cell (defined play area) but movement to adjacent grid cell must be done through teleportation or instant step on button press. Smooth automatic transition between grid cells is allowed but strongly discouraged (See section about Locomotion). Half-steps or dividing the grid cell into smaller cells is not accepted. 
• Since this is VR the player can physically turn around and look in any direction, which is allowed of course. You may implement snapping to 90 degree angles in cardinal directions, North, East, South, West. Smooth transition between 90 degree angles is allowed but discouraged due to motion sickness. Games which let you turn 90 degrees up and down are also allowed. 
• The game must have a player controlled character or the abstraction of a character or persona.
• The game must at the very least have some basic stats. (Minimum a single health/power bar)
• The game must have a death/perish condition, or some other end-of-game mechanic.
• The game must have at least one way to affect character stat(s). Examples are resting, potions, items with bonuses, food, water, powerups etc.
• The game must have combat or a mechanic for determining outcome of certain situations, enemy encounters and events.
• Any theme is allowed, but keep it decent and safe for work!

Other rules:

• You can use any game engines, libraries, pre-existing code/algorithms, pre-existing art, etc.
• The game should be a new game project started and finished within the jam time frame, not finishing off or polishing an existing one.
• The goal is a reasonably polished VR dungeon crawler; not a prototype, proof of concept or tech demo. Game should have a bit of playability and fun. Preferably a start, beginning and end.
• The game must be free to download and play to the end. A commercial version of the game may of course be released after the jam ends, perhaps with added content and features.

Locomotion:

Typically in VR games there are three types of movement, also known as locomotion:

1. Smooth movement
   Player is moving smoothly in a direction of choice while pressing a button or using a thumbstick. This is a common method in First Person Shooters and some adventure games. This movement method may often cause motion sickness and nausea and is not a good choice for dungeon crawlers.
2. Instant movement
   Player is instantly relocated at a certain distance in the direction of choice. Sometimes a screen fade is used to make it seem less abrupt. This movement method won't cause motion sickness.
3. Teleportation
   At the press and hold of a button a ground target indicator appear. Player control this target by pointing in any direction. Release of the button will instantly move player to target location. This has no risk of motion sickness, unless player rapidly teleports around. Mitigate this by adding a fade and/or delay between teleportations.

It is strongly recommended to be well prepared and have a rough design idea of your project before starting.

Note: While you are allowed to develop for any VR system/platform we recommended that the game works with the most common VR headsets (Oculus Quest 1+2, Oculus Rift S, Valve Index, HTC Vive etc.) It's also recommended that the game runs on Windows. The reason for this is that people are more likely to be able to play and review your game. 

If you want to team up with someone let it be known in the discussion board. There might already be someone there to team up with.

Join the dungeoncrawlers.org Discord for live discussion, brainstorming and recommendations for engines, tools, assets etc. to use when developing a dungeon crawler.

Use #dcvrjam2021 to share progress or tweet about your game :)

Winners will be determined by a combination of vote count, ratings, and judge's assessment, based on the criteria listed below.

• Graphics - Is the game aesthetically pleasing?
• Audio - Does the game have nice sfx and music?
• Gameplay - How fun is it to play?

Additionally there is an "Overall" criteria which is manually ranked by the judges. This criteria covers things like degrees of motion sickness, innovation and general execution.

The prize for winning entry is $300 USD (Equivalent of an Oculus Quest 2 in US price, at the time of this writing).

Teams will have to share the prize among the members. 1st place gets a special role in the Discord server. Everyone who submitted a game will get a "gamejammer" role in the Discord server. All submitted games that adhere to the rules will be added to the dungeoncrawlers.org database.

Have fun and good luck :)