Mythos Trials

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  Start

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  Portal to other players maps

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  Level 1

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  Overworld

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  Map Creator

Inspiration

I wanted to capture the magic of classic, top-down adventures like The Legend of Zelda (specifically the original, A Link to the Past, and the systemic freedom of Breath of the Wild). But rather than just making a static game, I was deeply inspired by the thriving, creative communities around sandbox and level-building games like Mario Maker, Minecraft, and LittleBigPlanet. The charm of handing the design tools directly over to the players to challenge each other was the driving force behind this idea.

What it does

Mythos Trials is a top-down dungeon crawler and sandbox map creator. Players can dive into the Overworld to conquer pre-built developer trials and unlock Key Items (like the Spirit Lantern and Jindo Boots). However, the core hook is the Map Creator. Players can design their own devious dungeon layouts using an interactive toolkit—placing spikes, torches, gates, chests, and more. Once finished, they can instantly generate a Map Seed to share with the Reddit community, allowing others to paste the seed and attempt to survive their custom trials.

How we built it

I built the game using the Godot engine. As an introductory passion project largely guided by learning as I went, I relied heavily on Godot's node system to piece the logic together. For the visuals, I utilized a variety of fantastic free and Creative Commons assets from itch.io (all properly credited in an included text file), while creating a few custom sprites myself for the key items.

Challenges we ran into

Time was definitely the biggest adversary. Navigating the end of the semester as a computer science student is always tough, but my algorithms professor pushed our finals back significantly. This left me with only about a week to actually build the game while also packing up and managing the move back home for the break.

Art was another hurdle; adjusting tilesets and drawing custom sprites for the key items proved difficult. Some of my initial drawings were rough enough that I ended up just using default Godot UI buttons with font text instead! Finally, while using AI was incredibly helpful for immediate feedback—like a StackOverflow without judgment(and fear of said judgment)—it occasionally led me down some frustrating rabbit holes. I lost an entire day chasing a complex logic solution when the real issue was just a forgotten style margin override on a new node instance.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite the severe time crunch and the hurdles of learning the engine, I'm incredibly proud that the core gameplay loop is fully functional and playable. Successfully implementing a system where players can draw a map, generate a shareable string seed, and have another player load that exact layout feels like a massive win for a rushed, one-week build.

What we learned

I got to explore Godot nodes I had never touched before, such as the WorldEnvironment node for lighting and visual effects. From a workflow perspective, I learned the hard way how crucial it is to plan out the game's structure and asset pipeline beforehand. Bouncing back and forth without a solid plan caused a lot of unnecessary frustration. Most importantly, I learned the value of scoping a project realistically when working under a strict time constraint.

What's next for Mythos Trials

There is a lot I originally planned but didn't have time to implement, especially regarding the narrative! As the name Mythos Trials suggests, the world is meant to be deeply rooted in global mythology. Hopefully the next steps include:

Deepening the Mythological Lore: Fully integrating the background story where different cultural myths collide. The overarching narrative and dungeon aesthetics will eventually reflect legends from Greek, Chinese, and other world mythologies.

Expanded Myth-Based Key Items: Building out the remaining planned power-ups that draw directly from these legends. For example, implementing the Ariadne Threads (from Greek myth to help navigate labyrinthine traps), the Extending Staff (inspired by Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang), and the Feather Fan (from Chinese folklore).

Mythic Enemies & Combat: Populating the dungeons with different mythological enemy types to challenge players beyond just traps and environmental puzzles.

Inventory & Currency Systems: Developing a robust inventory screen to manage collected ancient relics and a currency system to actually make use of the coins you find in chests.

Audio Polish: Adding background music and sound effects to bring the mythological atmosphere to life.

Expanded Map Creator: Massively expanding the tools with customizable ground tilesets representing different mythological realms, common floor buttons, and more trap varieties.

Progression Tracking: Adding a proper health bar UI and a leaderboard system to track the fastest completion times on community-shared trials.

Built With

• godot