Underdark: Lair of the Slenderduck

A generative, on-chain 3D skin-crawler. Something ill under Kurnkornor stirs, down those crumbling old manor stairs. Beware the fading light, and your fraying sanity. 

The old hag spat and cleared her throat,
Reciting verse in rasping rote:
"Something ill under Kurnkornor stirs,
down those crumbling old manor stairs,
Dark tar that claws and sucks the light,
A ghastly duck no-one can fight,
Yet all in life and death be fair,
There's gold and treasure buried there."

## About

In Underdark: Lair of the Slenderduck, you explore a generative dungeon on-chain 3D dungeon "skin-crawler", in which - hubristically drawn like a moth to the flame of your inevitable demise - you have entered the Lair of the Slenderduck, beneath the old manor in Old Kurnkornor.

Dripping from the walls, and tangled in your hair,
The dark tar saps your light and strength, 'tis everywhere.
Beware the fading light, and your fraying sanity.
As you tread those dark, twisted halls, oh the vanity!
Find the treasure, find the key, find stairs to deeper hubris.
Most of all, beware my friend, the gibbering of Slender Duckeris.

With each step through the Underdark, the limited light you carry with you fades. Within you find dangerous monsters, the twisted duck spawn of the Slenderduck.  The dark tar seems to sap the light, but collect it and you can burn it to make more light. There is also treasure down here, and a key to stairs deeper into the bowels of the earth. Find the stairs and escape the Slenderduck's gibbering embrace, if only for a few precious moments. Quoth the Slenderduck of your inevitable fate:

"scoheth shobro blubble quackir, koh nid breng de stoucas shubbar, quork ish quarquar blabble blackir, shabra breng do girblu ickar, quierk de shobbur shabber quabber, ickle pib sen bollu slenda"

## Details

• Github - Game
• Github - Splash screen
• Start with the Splash Screen
• Or jump straight into The Underdark game

Underdark is an onchain game built on top of Dojo 0.3 and intended to be integrated with the Realms autonomous world. Each chamber is generated on-chain. Maps are deterministic: the player plays in the client, but must submit their moves as proof to the contract.

Our intention is to register The Underdark as a location near the town of Kurnkunor in the realm Sissisnorsis, where players will be able to spend some resources to try their luck and their sanity with the Slenderduck. We like a good hackathon chasm jump, and as such some of those elements remain out of our reach within these bounds.

Mechanisms:

• Each step you take reduces your light
• Walking over dark tar removes the tar and increases your light
• If you run out of light, or quench your torch, you enter the darkness. In the darkness, the dark tar saps your life, but you can't be harmed and can escape the Slenderduck
• In the light, Monsters should be avoided, and walking over monsters harms you
• The Slenderduck hunts you with each step
• There is a treasure chest on each level, collect it for points
• There is a key on each level, collect it to unlock the stairs
• There are stairs on each level, reach them to go to the next level
• A scoring system will be introduced base on both your total points and how efficiently you complete each level.

We use a depth map approach to the 3D environment as part of the atmospheric design, and have designed a number of voxel based assets such as a chest, key, door, dark tar, monster ducks, stairs, and the Slenderduck.

## Making of

The team is: Mataleone, Recipromancer, Mononoke & Jubilee.

All code in the game experience by Mateleone. Website primarily made by Mononoke with minor support from Recipromancer.

3D assets and animations designed and made by Jubilee.

Writing, story, words, art and game assets are original. Some art made by hand by the talented Mononoke, some made with the assistance of AI by the less talented recipromancer.

Original music made by Recipromancer, sound effects made from Creative Commons samples, with attribution in the source code.

We'd like to elaborate more on some of the design decisions and making of, but may run out of time during the bounds of the hackathon.