Design Docs

RPG98 › Design Docs › Overview — Cover & Game Overview

Reaver’s Rest Design Document

Page 1: Cover & Game Overview

Reaver’s Rest “Extract or lose everything.”

Working Title (Internal): RPG98 Target Platform: Miyoo Mini Plus (with future support for Miyoo Mini Flip and select Android handhelds) Core Genre: High-stakes 2D top-down extraction roguelike

One-Sentence Pitch

Reaver’s Rest is a gritty fantasy extraction roguelike where players, known as Reavers, prepare in the fortified village of Blackthorn Hollow, choose how to power the Dungeon Portal (Unstable, Stable, or Empowered), venture into procedurally generated dungeons that spawn within the void, fight with melee and spells using swords, spears, or staves, hunt for powerful gear with random affixes and augment slots, and risk everything to extract — or permanently lose their equipped items and abilities.

Core Identity & Pillars

1. High-Stakes Extraction

Every run carries real risk. Players must constantly weigh pushing deeper for better loot against the danger of losing everything currently equipped. Successful extractions feel genuinely rewarding.

2. Gear & Loot-Driven Progression

  • No character levels or traditional skill trees.
  • All power comes from extracted gear: rarity tiers, random affixes, 0–3 augment slots.
  • Abilities are loot-driven (Ability Tomes / Runes). Starter abilities are fixed; additional ones are lost on death if equipped.
  • Every class can use any weapon (sword, spear, staff), but only the proficient class gets full power from it.

3. Emergent Multiplayer Stories

  • PvE-only queues (max 3 players) for safer, cooperative runs — all items drop as ground loot on death; teammates can retrieve them.
  • PvPvE queues (up to 6 players, max 3 per team) where alliances and betrayals happen naturally, with free-for-all looting.
  • Dropped items in dungeons persist for the dungeon’s lifetime; in town, dropped items are instantly deleted.

4. Meaningful Town Hub

Blackthorn Hollow is the only safe zone. Reavers return here to store loot, craft augments at the Aether Forge, check daily/weekly tasks on the Bounty Board, recycle at the Compactor, and prepare for the next run. All player interactions (trading, grouping, adding friends) happen in town.

5. Hardware & Asset Awareness

All systems are designed for the Miyoo Mini Plus hardware constraints and are built exclusively around the Super Retro set by Gif as the primary tile set.

Lore

Beyond the palisade lies the void — an endless, hungry expanse where unstable dungeons spontaneously form. The portals in Blackthorn Hollow are the only known way to reach them. Some Reavers return with riches. Others are simply… rejected by the void and spat back into Reaver’s Rest, broken but alive. No one knows why. A few quietly suspect the void only spits out the truly greedy.

Visual Direction & Tone

The game uses a retro 16×16 pixel aesthetic scaled 2× on the Miyoo. The overall tone is gritty fantasy survivor — worn, patched-together, and dangerous. Town feels like a fragile refuge; dungeons feel genuinely threatening and oppressive. Visuals prioritize cohesion and readability on the small screen above all else.

Core Gameplay Loop

  1. Preparation — Return to Blackthorn Hollow, manage stash, equip gear, craft augments at the Aether Forge, check daily/weekly tasks on the Bounty Board.
  2. Portal Choice — At the Dungeon Portal choose mode:
    • Unstable (Free) — small dungeon, low rewards, 0% compactor.
    • Stable (20 Aether) — medium dungeon, standard rewards, 30–40% compactor.
    • Empowered (1 Aether Core) — large dungeon, high-tier drops, 100% compactor, PvPvE only.
  3. The Run — Enter procedurally generated dungeon. Engage in real-time combat. Hunt for gear, Ability Tomes, and components.
  4. Extraction — Reach the extraction portal before the dungeon despawns (escalating time windows: 5 / 10 / 15 minutes). Failure = lose everything equipped.
  5. Return & Growth — Successfully extracted items and abilities go to the permanent stash. Use Crux and Aether for supplies and crafting.

Design Guardrails

  • All meaningful power must come from successful extractions.
  • Keep sessions bite-sized and rewarding on the Miyoo.
  • Prioritize emergent player stories over heavy lore.
  • Maintain visual cohesion using only the Super Retro set by Gif.
  • Optional daily/weekly tasks and augment crafting exist to support the loop without forcing grind.
  • Shields are culturally and mechanically important for all Reavers.

Version 0.4 • April 2026 Next: Page 2 – The Main Hub – Blackthorn Hollow