Castle Paradox

[*Worthy*]

What I am going to try to incorporate in my dungeons are mini-game type obsticals. I have designed a dungeon in my game in which its location is in a mine. Similar to that of Donkey Kong Country, I have a little mini-game involving a minecart adventure in which the player must dodge/attack enemies and keep their balance to prevent falling off of the track.

Things like that really steer away from the norm and engender excitement for the player. It can also make it more fun for the creator to make dungeons like that. By creating mini-games or unique puzzles, more is done than to simply draw map tiles and place them in a linear fashion.

I also plan on including unique puzzles that necessitate scholastic thought; that is of course if I can move on past the battle system...

~Worthy
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You can do whatever you want...but prison is full of people who make bad decisions.

[Setu_Firestorm]

hm.....sounds similar to what I'm going to do with the new Hoshima...
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[JSH357]

The dungeons in your game should reflect your game.

Like, in FFVI, the Phoenix Cave and Kefka's Tower are great because
you have so many characters and they all split up...

Or in games where the map design is pretty weak, battles are essentially
the only 'puzzles' and the dungeon focuses on making the battles more
challenging.

Final Fantasy III(NES) has good dungeons that don't rely on 'puzzles'
(Other than the twists and turns themselves) Anyone who's played that
game all the way through will be able to retell the horrors of the
Cave of Splitting Enemies... or the last dungeon... wow, I need to
play that game again.

.. OK, but my favorite dungeons ever are 'split-into-team' dungeons.
You never really see too many of them, but they are usually very
interesting. I try to incorporate at least one in all of my games.

... By the way, I know I'm supposed to be gone. Shut up! :p

[Ronin Catholic]

Aesthetically, my ideal dungeons are one of the following:

- A dangerous place full of acid pools and pulsating, flesh-textured walls and floods, winding and crooked as though the dungeon is itself a living creature. And maybe it is!

- An old brownish cave or grayish cobblestone/brick and mortar castle, optionally with weathering on its earthen materials; cracks, pock marks, slime oozing out of places or dripping off the ceiling. Occasional wooden support beams, possibly rotting and in disrepair, especially if the cave is an abandoned mine (explaining the rich mineral deposits - the miners were chased off by monsters).

- An abstract place where the walls are bright, solid colors and the floor is black, like a roguelike/textmode dungeon crawler of old. Nothing but you and clear indicators of what's a wall and what's a walkable surface (perhaps with occasional fake walls and floor hazards, so long as there's a reasonable way to figure these out beforehand...maybe the spikes on the floor are super-dark gray, maybe the trapped treasure chest has skeletons piled up next to it, maybe the walk-through wall has a single pixel out of place or some other reason to inspect it). Delayed gratification on immersion - you might see just the gameplay-driven grid map at first, but after a while of looking at just about any consistent art style, your mind will start to fill in the blanks itself.



Gameplay wise, these are the things I always look forward to in a dungeon:

- Navigating a maze

- Opening treasure chests or picking up loose loot off the floor

- Fighting dangerous monsters (it's no fun if there's no threat). Preferably random enemies gear more towards the "glass cannon" end of the spectrum (it's not fun to spend multiple minutes wearing down an enemy's HP unless they're a boss who have an engaging offensive mechanic that keeps you on your toes; HP wall random enemies are to tell you to run away and come back when your own offenses can reliably kill them in one or two turns)

- Flavor text


Things like "plot relevance" and "a boss encounter" are strictly optional, but usually welcome.
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"I didn't start the flame war;
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