Progression is driven by the Infamy system which manages the strength of both Heroes and Monsters arriving in the Dungeon. Because more powerful Heroes have higher gold values, in order to increase profits and maintain the more expensive salaries of powerful Monsters, the player will need to increase the Dungeon's Infamy to attract
Each time Cycle has a limited time to work with so time management is important. Each Cycle is made of a certain number of Time-Units. Actions cost Time-Units forcing the player to consider each action carefully due to its opportunity cost. At the end of a Cycle, end of Cycle actions will take place such as paying the salaries of all your Monsters.
Infamy is the main engine for driving progress in the game. Infamy is generated from a number of resources and acts a "soft" fail-state. Players can gain or lose Infamy based on their performance. Infamy has 5 levels represented through skull icons. Higher Infamy means stronger Monsters will apply and stronger Heroes will invade.
Dungeonomics functions similarly to any regular business that exists today. It requires customers to come in and spend money in order to sustain the business. With that money earned, the company can pay their employees, fees, and use profits in order to upgrade/update the business.
Heroes, whether peasants or full-fledged knight, all carry some amount of money of them. The reason for Heroes to enter the Dungeon are for the Gold stashes within each of its rooms. Gold can either be limited in the amount stored or infinite depending the room. Heroes will explore the dungeon until the reach the "Goal" collecting Gold along the way. If a Hero is to die along the way, all the gold they carry is dropped and added into the player collection.
Players will need to spend the Gold they have collected in order to maintain and upkeep their Dungeons. Gold needs to be spent on Monster Wages as well your Gold Stashes in order to lure in more Heroes. Players will also be able to spend their Gold on secondary sinks such as Dungeon Upgrades (such as more rooms and larger ones) and Department additions (such as Advertising and Sanitation).
Time is a limited resource in Dungeonomics. Players are only allotted a certain amount of turns per day that can be spent on actions. Events such as interviewing a Monster could take only 30 minutes or half a day depending on Player investment into finding more information about that specific monster. Time Units will also be involuntarily used on combat between Heroes and Monsters. Some actions will also be a long-term investments of Time Units such as construction. Construction is an event where once you start it, certain options are now restricted due to the commitment Construction is to certain avenues of the Dungeon now being unusable/blocked off.
Order of Operations for Heroes:
1) IF: Loot capacity full?
Yes: Move to Exit
No: Move into Dungeon
2) IF: monsters in room?
Yes: begin Combat
No:
1a) If Loot capacity is NOT full: Loot
2a) Move to next room
Combat Order:
1) Heroes Attack
2) Damage calculation for Hero attacks
3) Are all monsters dead? If yes, end. If no, continue to 4
4) Monsters Attack
5) Damage calculation for Monster attacks
6) Are all heroes dead? If yes, end. If no, loop back to step 1 (depending on how many rounds of combat happen per time unit spent)
Infamy is our main method of visible player progression throughout Dungeonomics. Think of it like a restaurant, where its reputation is valued in a "Star" system. Dungeons in Dungeonomics are valued similarly, where instead of stars, we have a "5 Skull" rating system. The more skulls you have, the more infamous your dungeon is to venturing heroes. The more heroes that your dungeon kills in its quest for gold, the more likely that stronger and stronger heroes will want to wander in (as well as poorer/weaker heroes will stray away from the entrance).
The essential end-game state is when the player obtains all 5 Gold Skulls. At this point in the game, the player will have unlocked all aspects of gameplay available to them in that session, and can begin a new dungeon with a Legacy Bonus. Legacy Bonuses are perks the player can apply to their new playthrough to make progress go a little faster, such as a 10% gold bonus from slain heroes, or a 20% boost in infamy gain from killing heroes, etc. This will incentivize replayability, as the player may want to unlock all of the bonuses, as well as making subsequent playthroughs feel faster.