
Diablo creator David Brevik is back with a new game: It Lurks Below - mountainplus
https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/31/16952652/david-brevik-it-lurks-below-announcement
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zawerf
I thought it was weird to credit someone as Diablo's "creator" since there
must've been a large team given how long I remember the credits being. But
indeed if you look at the wiki he seems to be the main programmer listed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_\(video_game\))

Some other team members such as Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer (co-designers
of Diablo and Diablo II) went on to make Torchlight so many consider it to be
Diablo's spiritual successor:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight)

~~~
taneq
I agree with your first line. I'm a coder (sometimes a game coder, even) and
I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but the main programmer on a
game isn't the game's "creator". The software which renders the sprites and
plays the sound effects is the game _engine_ , and Brevik is undoubtedly the
_game engine creator_ , but the actual _game_ itself is in the story and
characters and game mechanics and challenges that the player experiences while
playing the game. These are created by the game designers (both gameplay and
artwork), and it's these people, if anyone, who are the "creators" of a game.

~~~
benjaminjackman
If you read the back story of Diablo, Brevik was definitely involved in the
decisions one would typically attribute to one credited with creating the
game, it was certainly a team effort so he definitely wasn’t the only creator.
Keep in mind this was a different time and everyone was generally expected to
wear more hats back then and blizzard north wasn’t that big of a company at
that time regardless.

Particularly he had a lot of experience with the rogues which heavily inspired
the original Diablo. Because of this he was initially opposed to making the
game real-time as opposed to the traditional turn based, enemies only move
when you do rogue style.

However as he tells the story he programmed real time movement in a few hours
on a Friday night just to see what it would be like. When he tried it out for
the first time and clicked the mouse; almost magically the warrior walked over
and smashed a skeleton into a pile of bones.

He was convinced right then that real-time was the right choice.

That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre.

Gauntlet (1985) had real-time combat, and predated Diablo by at least a
decade. If that isn't RPGish enough, Ultima Underworld came four years before
Diablo.

Diablo definitely perfected the ARPG, though.

~~~
e12e
I'm also mindful of an amiga game I only played the demo of, "Shadowlands"
from 1992:

[http://hol.abime.net/1898](http://hol.abime.net/1898)

The first graphical game I played that leveraged the need for a lightsource
similar to Moria. Not sure if you also needed food for your team.

Like a mix of rouge-likes and isometric/3d real-time with a pinch of "eye of
the beholder".

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kbenson
_It Lurks Below combines Diablo-style dungeon-plumbing mechanics with sandbox-
style worlds that let players dig and construct, à la Terraria and Minecraft.
In an interview with Polygon, Brevik said he’s a big fan of those games (and
Starbound), but wanted to add something of his own to the genre.

“I wanted more of a point to a lot of those games,” Brevik said. “I wanted to
make an RPG, with classes and leveling up, random items, where you get more
and more powerful as you go down into the core of the world and fight
baddies.”_

Oh, that sounds _right_ up my alley. I might have to look up the twitch stream
of it he's doing this weekend later when I have time.

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passivepinetree
Is there any resources for those interested in making these kinds of games?

I'm relatively confident with programming in general, but I don't know where
to start with something like this. Did he use an existing engine or framework
like Unity? Is that the best place to start game development?

This game looks amazing and I'd like to try to draw some inspiration from it.

~~~
banachtarski
> I'm relatively confident with programming in general

Out of curiosity, why do you bother writing a statement like this? Is it to
assuage your ego? If you haven't done game development before, it's safe to
assume there are gaps in your knowledge and you're better off admitting it
outright.

~~~
dang
Could you please follow the site guideline that asks you to "respond to the
strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one
that's easier to criticize"?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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wdr1
I loved his Diablo postmortem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc)

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nwhatt
Marvel Heroes was pretty fun in its time - but recently closed down.

[http://www.pcgamer.com/marvel-heroes-is-closing-
down/](http://www.pcgamer.com/marvel-heroes-is-closing-down/)

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ebullientocelot
Stay a while and listen...

I loved Diablo 1!

~~~
germinalphrase
As did I. I wish it would be re-released.

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krylon
That looks like a fun game! And of course I am a sucker for that retro-pixely
look. I hope it is released soon!

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Was Starbound boring for anyone else?

~~~
nyolfen
it can be a lot of fun with a small group of friends but it's almost pointless
to play it single player

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codingdave
"is back with a new game" !== "will release later this year"

~~~
dragonwriter
He's back, he's got a new game, and he's not giving it to you yet. Works for
me.

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dexwiz
Looks like a Terraria clone.

~~~
sleepybrett
You should read the article, he wanted to give terraria and starbound more of
a point.

"It Lurks Below combines Diablo-style dungeon-plumbing mechanics with sandbox-
style worlds that let players dig and construct, à la Terraria and Minecraft.
In an interview with Polygon, Brevik said he’s a big fan of those games (and
Starbound), but wanted to add something of his own to the genre.

“I wanted more of a point to a lot of those games,” Brevik said. “I wanted to
make an RPG, with classes and leveling up, random items, where you get more
and more powerful as you go down into the core of the world and fight
baddies.”"

