KING OF GAMES'S PROFILE

New demo live, grab it while it's hot.

Can you get that rock to that portal without the spikes smashing it, or you?

The Dream Palace.

WARNING if anyone downloaded version 1.02 of Monstrous Wars, delete it and replace with version 1.03, because version 1.02 is broken.

It's a good service for people who want to use it. You don't have to flip your lid over it. Its utility best serves itself to RM outsiders who wouldn't have RM/RTP installed as a prerequisite to playing RM games.

author=DE
when, you know, no one actually made games, just talked about making them, with only a handful of people producing anything of value.

Isn't this still going on?

Maybe it was the wording, but I said hero/player, meaning the hero is physically challenged within the realm of the game, whereas puzzles challenge the player. Also the distinction that puzzles are a different entity from battles. They are both mentally stimulating for the player, but activate different parts of the brain, because one is strategy based problem solving, and the other is more hands on/mechanical.

I don't think a dungeon could be truly successful if it only relied on battles, no matter how engaging the battle system is. The collection of elements (puzzle, battles, mini-games, traps, and rewards)are always going to be more compelling than any one element on its own. But of course this depends on structure, which I guess is what you were expecting to read more about rather than the linage of planning and process. I touched on it here, and will elaborate on it for the article.

In terms of the linarity of a dungeon, in the greater context of the game, every dungeon is linear in function, because there is a clear start and end point, that has to be completed to progress the story of the game. No matter how many paths there are, there is only one way out. A linear dungeon can be successful too if its well structured, and doesn't have to block out exploration necessarily. It's important to remember the role/utility of linearity and recognize that it occurs on a spectrum, that the dichotomy of linear vs. not linear is a construct.

@Alter-Ego:I've learned that memory is one of my least reliable traits, but I feel that this is for all people, memories get altered and are easy to be forgotten. That's why it's important to write everything down. There have been times where I had been wracking my brain with a certain problem, whether it be story-wise or design wise, but when I refer to my notes, the answer was already worked out solved everything I needed it to.

Improvisation is merely a layer, I don't think it's reliable enough to support the weight of a full dungeon layout. Some people prefer to make their layouts in maker too, (I've even seen chipsets devoted to this purpose) but I never was able to use them effectively. But like I said before, if it works for you, that's fine, keep doing it, these are merely suggestions for if people are stuck or don't know where to start.

@Ashley Lacure: I haven't played Balmung Cycle, or Starless Umbra, actually the amount of RM games I HAVE played is a slim list, and excludes nearly all that are considered classics. What I DO do, is study commercial games and highlight the skills that shine in those tiles, and try to dissect its mechanics. Once I understand it, I think of how I can implement it within the limitations of RM, and then get to planning. It is this Quintilian mode of imitation that I find most useful, and it's not biting directly, it's synthesizing a bunch of quality mechanics into a cohesive whole, which is itself a hard task, but an important skill.

If you're making a dungeon crawler, then this type of preparatory planning is very important, because it's the majority of what the game's relying on for it's gameplay content.

I'm glad people are finding this useful, and I will revisit it, elaborate on it, and publish it as a full blown article, possibly with more examples from other games, etc.