5 replies to this topic

[Taco Chopper]

(As always, if you want to see more semi-regular updates, the alsoLIONSoft Discord is where it's at. This isn't just for Three Crests, but also Peril of Rectangle Country, Crucible Crest, Glenn Loses His Imagination, The Enigma of Basilischi Island, and more.)

I'd like to pose a question to you all: to you personally, what makes a dungeon subjectively good? Not just ZC dungeons, but videogame dungeons as a concept?

Is it the exploration element, where you have to be cautious every step of the way? How interactions with certain objects are telegraphed with increasing complexity throughout? Is it the way the dungeon item acts as a key that unlocks the pathway ahead? Is it the way that some of them twist and contort into a labyrinth, for better or for worse?

The reason I ask is because I've been trying to wrap my head around not what makes a dungeon good by my peers' standards, but rather what makes a dungeon good by my standards ^{(oh god he's going on this weird retrospective isn't he)}. I've recently returned to working on this quest in a more regular capacity now that my studies are done, and the first decision I made was to scrap Level 3 for a third time. The entire concept of the dungeon was this underground city that implemented time travel mechanics - cool, right? I thought so too, until realising it was going to be two 8x8 maps for the "overworld", before I'd even added interiors.

I'm going to dump some screenshots here of what could've been:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

In theory it would've been a really interesting dungeon, particularly because I've always wanted to revisit the idea of an overworld/interior hybrid dungeon for quite some time. It's something that I'm not sure has ever been done well - although, correct me if I'm wrong.
The boss fights were going to evoke Dark Souls and Bloodborne - my notes at the time suggested the final boss would have been a giant knight that turns into a werewolf, while the planned miniboss was just a Dark Souls 3 rip off outright. The concept and ideas were cool (for ZC, maybe?) but I think a dungeon that is bigger than the overworld map is kind of ridiculous for a quest like this one.

So, I did the only reasonable thing and started again.

This is where we're at currently:
 
 

I'm still formulating what I want in terms of bosses; I do think that this is the "puzzle" dungeon in comparison to the other two main dungeons of this quest, though.

In other news, I'm hoping to get the quest finished and released by the end of the year. The project turned three a week ago; and as much as I've felt like developing Three Crests has been akin to a quantum leap for me as a game developer, I don't want to be working on this forever. The last demo was released at the end of 2022, and while a few of you did the closed beta for Level 2 last year, at some point y'all are going to want to play this rather than just read my intermittent posts between here and Discord. The reality of it is that the quest is about 75-80% done, and has been for some time. A lot of what's left is just scripting, debugging, and some dungeons, really.

^{also special thanks to Rambly for stress-testing the quest thoroughly for the first time since the last demo and finding like 50 bugs}

[jwex001]

Things are looking really good.  I can't wait for the full release.

 

To answer your question you posed, I would have to say it needs to have a good balance difficulty, puzzles, item/quest mechanics, and size.  Having too much or too little of one or the other can make the difference from the dungeon being a 5 star epic adventure, to a mundane going through the motions movement, or good time killer/passer.

 

It is a hard balance to grab, but from some of the dungeons of your I have tested and played, I feel you have a good grasp of designing/planning out dungeons.

 

But for me personally, having that balance is key to a great dungeon.

[xanadude]

I think this is a great decision and definitely one of those that comes from some good time away. extremely excited for the future of this project!

[Deedee]

Okay, so Mark Brown made that whole series on Boss Keys right? Locks and Keys, or Puzzle Boxes, the intricacies of what makes a dungeon tick. Clearly that seems like a good guide, yeah? Okay, so why is it that of the quest I've played that followed this formula, few if any scratched the dungeon itch or tapped into the magic? Why is it that Lightning Temple in TotK absolutely captured the magic of a Zelda dungeon despite not having any locks and keys?

I think there are many ingredients that go into a good dungeon, and I keep rewriting this section because it's one of those things that's more feeling based than anything. Atmosphere is a big thing; you want the player to engage in a bit of immersion and have a sense of wonder, dread, or awe when exploring your dungeon. Another big thing is landmarks, and this is something that a lot of fangames are bad at. The player should be able to know roughly where they are without needed to read the map, and good landmarking, memorable rooms that aren't just memorable in their own right but help you remember the rooms that connect to it, help with that. Think about how much you're looking at the dungeon map in a ZC quest; are you really looking at the dungeon map that much in official Zelda games? If your dungeon's aesthetic is just white noise and your dungeon is blatantly an excuse to carry players from one gameplay segment to the next, players will catch on and start tuning your dungeon out, and then comes the frustration and "where the hell do I go now?".

Something that might help is to think of your dungeon like you're a tour guide showing players this cool awesome place you made. How can you make the place stick in people's memory as much as possible and give them a good time? How can you make the player feel like they're in charge of the tour and not being railroaded, while still ensuring that they see things in the order that brings them the most enjoyment? There's a lot of psychology at play.

Potentially related to dungeons; I was in a call with a fangame developer the other day, and they brought up that having objectives progress multiple goals is a good way to make your game addicting; the example they gave is that while exploring their nonlinear world, you'd find shards where collecting enough of them lets you turn them in for a reward, so while exploring you have an incentive to go back and turn them in for a cool reward, and then since you're in the area you might as well explore around with that new ability you got a while back, etc. In a way, it kinda sounds similar to dungeon items and how they recontextualize the dungeons, right? I wonder if not dead ending the player after they get a dungeon item would make them feel even more interested about going back and exploring with that item they just got.

[Mani Kanina]

I'd like to pose a question to you all: to you personally, what makes a dungeon subjectively good? Not just ZC dungeons, but videogame dungeons as a concept?

Is it the exploration element, where you have to be cautious every step of the way? How interactions with certain objects are telegraphed with increasing complexity throughout? Is it the way the dungeon item acts as a key that unlocks the pathway ahead? Is it the way that some of them twist and contort into a labyrinth, for better or for worse?

This is a fun question because I don't tink there is just *one* answer. I like many different types of design paradigms when it comes to dungeons.

I love Majora's Mask's dungeons; they are large sprawling places where you need to figure out the entire thing. They have puzzles that are more dungeon meta than the rest of the series. I think the water temple in OoT is crude as all hell, but it still has a core idea that I love. Most puzzles in the Zelda series aren't really puzzles, they are shoot the right trigger with the right item; seldom requires all that much thinking. Larger puzzles that affect the entire dungeon gives you opportunities to *do it wrong*. You're more encouraged to think your way to a solution rather than just try things blindly till something sticks.

But... it's not the only dungeon type I dig. The two oracle games *love* singular puzzles. The devs came up with quite many of them. LADX also has some of these, especially in the colour dungeon. They still require thinking, but are more one and done affairs. I also like how gauntlet-y they are in structure as you fight your way through them. People like to say Ages is more puzzles and Seasons is more combat, but I honestly feel like that's a generalization that hurts both games; they are more similar than they are different.

The types of dungeons I don't like are ones where I feel like I can turn my brain off completely. I love a lot about TP, but this is why I don't remember the dungeons very fondly; despite many of them having *killer* aesthetics.

On a more meta level: I like it when tools are not rendered obsolete. Too many Zelda games make a dungeon *only* about the dungeon item within. A late game dungeon should require to think about their entire inventory. And by that I don't mean just throw in an arrow trigger that looks like an eye; that doesn't add any thinking or reasoning. A Link to the Past probably does that the best in the entire series; your entire inventory feels relevant till the very end. (This is despite the rather plain design otherwise, but I can excuse that for being early on in the series).

Things I don't like: ALBW's dungeons. I love ALBW, but the wast majority of the dungeons in the game feel superficial. The fact that the game can only count on you having a singular dungeon item was disastrous to the design. Coupled this with you entering the dungeon already having the item for every dungeon except one and... well you get some of the most plain shit ever. I like some of the puzzles and aesthetics, but man were most of them a slog.

Edited by Mani Kanina, 24 July 2024 - 04:36 PM.

[Twilight Knight]

That new dungeon design looks great mr. Taco!

Will you also be including the time travel concept in the renewed dungeon design? I think that is still a very neat gimmick worth keeping, without making the dungeon feel too big, as the screens will mostly stay the same.

I also like that exterior/interior thing though, I've also included it in my own quest: a city with many different entrances to the interior (connected through sewers). But I intentionally kept it on a small scale, the city is 8x8 screens and the interiors screens together are maybe a bit more than 8x8.
 

 

All in all good progress. I can't answer what makes a dungeon work well, and I think the above comments already have some very valuable ideas in there. I personally really like confusing layouts, the layout itself being a puzzle. But with convenient shortcuts here and there. A good mix of puzzles, combat and exploration as Jwex said basically. And cool, puzzling gimmicks really get me going. That "dungeon item causes progression in multiple places" thing is a must-have, I'd say.

 

I like how Deedee mentioned the lightning temple from TotK, it was my favourite dungeon from that game, but still it is lacking the "dungeon item" trope and combat really.

For me a dungeon feels great if it was difficult in all aspects, but not too tedious. For me the OoT Water Temple is a perfect example really, however crude it may be with the constant boots switching. But the layout, exploration, combat, progression and puzzles were perfect (for me).


Some questions: I see in the project description that the quest will have 4 main dungeons, does that mean that number 4 is the final dungeon and the dungeon you are showcasing is the semi-final dungeon? Or is there a 5th final dungeon? And can the dungeons be played in a freeform manner, or should one complete them one-by-one? And how is it going with all these mini dungeons you mentioned, will that still be included?

Please don't push yourself too hard as that many dungeons sounds like still quite the project to complete.
Also please use capital letters in the project description, it's quite hard to read like this, however edgy it may be to not use capitalisation.
Lastly, that Discord invite is not working for me unfortunately, seems to be expired.