Dungeon Design Lessons Learned from Daggerfall
Aug 22, 2019 8:38:54 GMT -6
grodog, murquhart72, and 6 more like this
Post by countingwizard on Aug 22, 2019 8:38:54 GMT -6
Recently Daggerfall Unity has entered the alpha phase and is feature complete and fully functional. Daggerfall Unity is the original Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall game (open-source now) rebuilt in the modern Unity engine. There are still some minor bugs to be patched and tweaks to be implemented before it enters beta, but I have spent a significant time with it lately and found it to be crash-free and near-perfect except for some of the mundane parts of the questing system.
Link: www.dfworkshop.net
I bring this topic up because I have found the dungeon crawling experience of the game to be surprisingly close to OD&D. Daggerfall features a mix of procedurally-generated dungeons and hand-crafted dungeons filled with what can sometimes feel like a random assortment of monsters. Crypts and such will contain various types of undead to be sure but bears, giants, centaurs, etc. are also intermixed at random within these dungeons. You may even run into the occasional Daedroth, which can easily be mistaken for an Orc or Lizardman, but which are only vulnerable to mithril weapons (+3 or stronger) and spells. The new Unity version is exceptionally moddable, and I expect it will have a flourishing modding community within no time.
I wanted to share with you some of the excellent dungeon design novelties I've experienced with the game. To be sure, this game also does have it's detriments such as overly complex verticalities which make it impossible to map, too many empty rooms where treasure and monsters would normally be expected, and a relatively small list of monsters that make an appearance. Also, for whatever reason, Zombies are far more dangerous than the other undead, and are even perhaps slightly more powerful than Vampires.
1. Water as an Obstacle/Barrier/Gateway: It took me awhile before I encountered a dungeon that utilized water, but my first encounter with it was a passage that was partially flooded and had to be waded through. In OD&D, shallow water is incredibly dangerous because it can conceal pits that can drown you, and hide all kinds of slimes and other creatures that possess the ability to quickly dispatch a character regardless of their level. In this game, it was more environmental dressing...until a branch in the corridor descended beneath the waterline. An entire section of the dungeon was set beneath the water, with various halls and compartments fully submerged, and a few sections rising back above the waterline. An entire section of the dungeon was locked away behind this water barrier, with no guarantee that there would be enough air to make it to through these areas. In addition, slaughterfish were a constant danger (being the only underwater threat in daggerfall).
2. Multiple Complex Branching Paths: This is a far cry from the modern iterations of The Elder Scrolls games, like Skyrim, which frequently only have one path and maybe one or two short branches that dead end and an exit point or secret shortcut back to the entrance. Daggerfall dungeons are wildly complex mazes of rooms and corridors that integrate short loop-backs and multiple major sections. You can get lost, some large dungeons can feel impossible to explore in entirety, and all paths eventually dead end. My only regret is that there weren't entrances into deeper levels at the end of some of these branches, and that the reward upon reaching the end of some of these branches was not commensurate with the effort. I did come across one remarkable dungeon layout I would like to share with you. When you enter this Crypt, the first room you encounter is a large square normal looking room with several Stone Sarcophagi. All of their lids can be opened, and two of them contain pits that drop into a different room. One of the rooms is a short dead end with valuable treasure and a complex trap where opening the one door exit causes the empty throne in that room to slide across the floor and knock you through the door and into a pit-shaft beyond (to your death). That branch is a literal dead end, which you cannot climb out of or escape from without the aid of magic. The other sarcophagus pit drops you down into a stairwell that leads to a room with many (~8) doors and some very deadly zombies. Most of those doors lead to short branching pathways, usually two or three corridors that dead-end with a room or two at the end, and one which loops back around to one of the doors in the many-doored room. One of the doors leads deeper into the dungeon, eventually coming to a surprisingly organic looking set of small caves. It is easy to overlook one of the cave branches, and find yourself coming to one of the two other short branching paths that return to normal stonework dungeon and a few series of rooms. However, if you take that third cave branch, you will eventually find yourself in a large open square stonework room with a low ceiling, that is bisected by a deep crevasse cave. If you are able to cross the room, you can enter a door that leads to a series of 2 more rooms. If you descend into the crevasse, you will discover the biggest feature of this dungeon. The crevasse is a large cave tunnel that bisects an enormous length of the dungeon. At least ~5 separate large square stonework rooms sit on top of the crevasse as it winds its way through the dungeon. Climbing or taking a carved path up the sides and exploring these rooms shows most of them to be entirely unconnected to the other sections of the dungeon apart from the crevasse, and the only way to exit the dungeon is to re-enter the crevasse and climb your way back to that first stonework room the crevasse was discovered in. And these are not shallow branching paths. It took me around two hours to fully explore this complex web of branching and interconnecting rooms and passages. There were many major room features along the way as well. A secret necromancer cult temple, several "lodge" looking rooms, torture rooms, a gigantic throne room, etc.
3. Levers, Elevators, and Empty Shafts: Throughout many of these dungeons there are elevators that can be operated by a nearby lever. I got used to using these so frequently, that when I came upon an empty shaft, I was looking for the elevator lever to bring the platform up/down where none existed. I almost missed the fact that I was expected to climb up some of these empty shafts into the complex of tunnels and room beyond. These levers also sometimes control portcullis that block a passage, or shifting walls that move to reveal more dungeon to explore. Only once did I come upon a door I could not open. It appeared to be interactable, and it said it was locked, but smashing the door was ineffective no matter how long I sat there. That particular door had an oversized door texture, so I believe it may have been bugged.
4. Magical Devices (fixed in place): I have only encountered this once, but clicking on a wall tapestry by accident eventually caused me to cast a spell. I suspect this was some sort of hidden roll based on my spellcasting skill (I was a barbarian), but it caused me to be enchanted by "flight" and allowed me to escape from the sarcophagi pits. I think it is very novel to place magical devices in places that allow access to paths that could be accessed in no other way. I recall Austinjimm doing this in his Vampire Queen dungeon by placing magical runes above a rat-hole in a wall and by reciting what they said you could shrink yourself small enough to explore a large maze of rat tunnels beyond and obtain a sizeable treasure.
5. Secret Doors: This is just something that is at the core of D&D, but there are lots of secret doors in Daggerfall. Sometimes they lead to a new room, sometimes they connect to a different branching corridor, sometimes they are the beginning of a new branch of the dungeon. Daggerfall is hit or miss with secret doors though. Sometimes the textures are perfect and there is no way to detect that a door exists without clicking on the wall randomly. Other times the texture is mismatched and the shape of the door is clear. Secret doors are not always placed where they are expected. Sometimes they are at the end of a dead end hallway, other times they are in a room, and other times they are just along the way. Two things I found interesting: sometimes the secret doors are locked, and sometimes the secret door is integrated into an oddly shaped passage wall. Many of the hallways in daggerfall are of odd shape, hexagonal, with shallow angles, short bottom sides and longer top sides of the hexagon. Secret doors built into these walls integrate the angled shape, appearing where you wouldn't expect them to.
As I make my way through the game I hope to uncover even more novelties to share with you guys.
Link: www.dfworkshop.net
I bring this topic up because I have found the dungeon crawling experience of the game to be surprisingly close to OD&D. Daggerfall features a mix of procedurally-generated dungeons and hand-crafted dungeons filled with what can sometimes feel like a random assortment of monsters. Crypts and such will contain various types of undead to be sure but bears, giants, centaurs, etc. are also intermixed at random within these dungeons. You may even run into the occasional Daedroth, which can easily be mistaken for an Orc or Lizardman, but which are only vulnerable to mithril weapons (+3 or stronger) and spells. The new Unity version is exceptionally moddable, and I expect it will have a flourishing modding community within no time.
I wanted to share with you some of the excellent dungeon design novelties I've experienced with the game. To be sure, this game also does have it's detriments such as overly complex verticalities which make it impossible to map, too many empty rooms where treasure and monsters would normally be expected, and a relatively small list of monsters that make an appearance. Also, for whatever reason, Zombies are far more dangerous than the other undead, and are even perhaps slightly more powerful than Vampires.
1. Water as an Obstacle/Barrier/Gateway: It took me awhile before I encountered a dungeon that utilized water, but my first encounter with it was a passage that was partially flooded and had to be waded through. In OD&D, shallow water is incredibly dangerous because it can conceal pits that can drown you, and hide all kinds of slimes and other creatures that possess the ability to quickly dispatch a character regardless of their level. In this game, it was more environmental dressing...until a branch in the corridor descended beneath the waterline. An entire section of the dungeon was set beneath the water, with various halls and compartments fully submerged, and a few sections rising back above the waterline. An entire section of the dungeon was locked away behind this water barrier, with no guarantee that there would be enough air to make it to through these areas. In addition, slaughterfish were a constant danger (being the only underwater threat in daggerfall).
2. Multiple Complex Branching Paths: This is a far cry from the modern iterations of The Elder Scrolls games, like Skyrim, which frequently only have one path and maybe one or two short branches that dead end and an exit point or secret shortcut back to the entrance. Daggerfall dungeons are wildly complex mazes of rooms and corridors that integrate short loop-backs and multiple major sections. You can get lost, some large dungeons can feel impossible to explore in entirety, and all paths eventually dead end. My only regret is that there weren't entrances into deeper levels at the end of some of these branches, and that the reward upon reaching the end of some of these branches was not commensurate with the effort. I did come across one remarkable dungeon layout I would like to share with you. When you enter this Crypt, the first room you encounter is a large square normal looking room with several Stone Sarcophagi. All of their lids can be opened, and two of them contain pits that drop into a different room. One of the rooms is a short dead end with valuable treasure and a complex trap where opening the one door exit causes the empty throne in that room to slide across the floor and knock you through the door and into a pit-shaft beyond (to your death). That branch is a literal dead end, which you cannot climb out of or escape from without the aid of magic. The other sarcophagus pit drops you down into a stairwell that leads to a room with many (~8) doors and some very deadly zombies. Most of those doors lead to short branching pathways, usually two or three corridors that dead-end with a room or two at the end, and one which loops back around to one of the doors in the many-doored room. One of the doors leads deeper into the dungeon, eventually coming to a surprisingly organic looking set of small caves. It is easy to overlook one of the cave branches, and find yourself coming to one of the two other short branching paths that return to normal stonework dungeon and a few series of rooms. However, if you take that third cave branch, you will eventually find yourself in a large open square stonework room with a low ceiling, that is bisected by a deep crevasse cave. If you are able to cross the room, you can enter a door that leads to a series of 2 more rooms. If you descend into the crevasse, you will discover the biggest feature of this dungeon. The crevasse is a large cave tunnel that bisects an enormous length of the dungeon. At least ~5 separate large square stonework rooms sit on top of the crevasse as it winds its way through the dungeon. Climbing or taking a carved path up the sides and exploring these rooms shows most of them to be entirely unconnected to the other sections of the dungeon apart from the crevasse, and the only way to exit the dungeon is to re-enter the crevasse and climb your way back to that first stonework room the crevasse was discovered in. And these are not shallow branching paths. It took me around two hours to fully explore this complex web of branching and interconnecting rooms and passages. There were many major room features along the way as well. A secret necromancer cult temple, several "lodge" looking rooms, torture rooms, a gigantic throne room, etc.
3. Levers, Elevators, and Empty Shafts: Throughout many of these dungeons there are elevators that can be operated by a nearby lever. I got used to using these so frequently, that when I came upon an empty shaft, I was looking for the elevator lever to bring the platform up/down where none existed. I almost missed the fact that I was expected to climb up some of these empty shafts into the complex of tunnels and room beyond. These levers also sometimes control portcullis that block a passage, or shifting walls that move to reveal more dungeon to explore. Only once did I come upon a door I could not open. It appeared to be interactable, and it said it was locked, but smashing the door was ineffective no matter how long I sat there. That particular door had an oversized door texture, so I believe it may have been bugged.
4. Magical Devices (fixed in place): I have only encountered this once, but clicking on a wall tapestry by accident eventually caused me to cast a spell. I suspect this was some sort of hidden roll based on my spellcasting skill (I was a barbarian), but it caused me to be enchanted by "flight" and allowed me to escape from the sarcophagi pits. I think it is very novel to place magical devices in places that allow access to paths that could be accessed in no other way. I recall Austinjimm doing this in his Vampire Queen dungeon by placing magical runes above a rat-hole in a wall and by reciting what they said you could shrink yourself small enough to explore a large maze of rat tunnels beyond and obtain a sizeable treasure.
5. Secret Doors: This is just something that is at the core of D&D, but there are lots of secret doors in Daggerfall. Sometimes they lead to a new room, sometimes they connect to a different branching corridor, sometimes they are the beginning of a new branch of the dungeon. Daggerfall is hit or miss with secret doors though. Sometimes the textures are perfect and there is no way to detect that a door exists without clicking on the wall randomly. Other times the texture is mismatched and the shape of the door is clear. Secret doors are not always placed where they are expected. Sometimes they are at the end of a dead end hallway, other times they are in a room, and other times they are just along the way. Two things I found interesting: sometimes the secret doors are locked, and sometimes the secret door is integrated into an oddly shaped passage wall. Many of the hallways in daggerfall are of odd shape, hexagonal, with shallow angles, short bottom sides and longer top sides of the hexagon. Secret doors built into these walls integrate the angled shape, appearing where you wouldn't expect them to.
As I make my way through the game I hope to uncover even more novelties to share with you guys.
