V_K
making dungeons is an artform, and it's one of the hardest things to do. the concept of "holes" you can't see and invisible walls/doors and one-way slides/chutes are not new, and not even specific to CRPGs; these concepts have been part of mazing since forever ago and it's a whole...
thing.
"A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which one awakens"
- Ellie Crystal (crystallinks.com)
Backtracking
The process of retracing your path in a maze. This happens when you reach a dead end and have to turn around, or if you have followed a passage that leads you back to an area of the maze you have already traversed.
Bastion
The raised pathway or divider on a turf maze.
Best-Solution (or Shortest Path)
The shortest physical route through a maze (i.e. the quickest solution if one is walking). Some mazes have more than one best solution (i.e. two or more solutions that are equally short), although this is very rare.
Blind Alley (similar to Cul-de-sac, Trap)
In general, these are various looping passageways or collections of passageways that, once entered, must be exited by backtracking along the original path that you came in on. Some mazes have very large areas, within which one can wander aimlessly, that must be backtracked out of to solve the maze.
Bottleneck
A passage connecting one area of a maze to another, and that must be traversed in order to solve the maze. Every solution to the maze must go through the bottleneck.
Chartres-type (or Medieval, Christian) Labyrinth
A circular labyrinth with a distinctive 11-circuit pattern, common to Christian churches and cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Named after the stone labyrinth on the floor of Chartres cathedral in France.
Classical (or Cretan) Labyrinth
A 7-circuit circular labyrinth, the oldest labyrinth symbol known and common to many cultures in the ancient world. Named after its use on coins from the Minoan palace at Knossos on Crete (site of the labyrinth in Greek mythology).
Cornfield (or Maize) Maze
A temporary outdoor maze puzzle created out of a cornfield, designed to be walked as a family or tourist attraction.
Cross, Corners, and Dots
A simple seed pattern of lines and dots that allows for the easy creation of a Classical Labyrinth.
Daedalus
In Greek mythology, Daedalus (whose name means "cunning worker") was a skillful craftsman and artisan. He was the creator of the Labyrinth on Crete, which was designed as a prison to contain the Minotaur.
Dead End
A passageway that leads nowhere and that has no branches or junctions. Once you discover you are in a dead end, turn around.
End (or Goal, Exit)
The end point of a maze, usually indicated by "E" in printed puzzles. In unicursal mazes (mazes with a single path, commonly called labyrinths) the end is often in the center.
Hedge maze
An outdoor maze constructed from planted hedges that are too tall to see over. Similar (but much longer lasting and smaller) to a Cornfield Maze.
Julian's Bower
A traditional English name for a turf maze.
Junction (or fork, decision point, node)
An area in a maze where three or more passageways meet, forcing the maze solver to choose between at least two alternate routes going forward. Well designed junctions utilize psychology to mislead maze solvers down incorrect passageways. For example, maze solvers tend not to take passageways that appear to go back in a direction they just came from. Making such passageways the route to the solution results in a more difficult maze.
Labyrinth
Commonly used today to refer to a unicursal (single-path) maze design. In the ancient world, however, the labyrinth was more akin to our modern understanding of a maze puzzle, with many confusing paths and dead ends. From the Greek labrys, a sacred double-axe symbol of pagan religion.
Maze
A maze is an intricate, usually confusing network of interconnecting pathways, the solution of which is an uninterrupted path from a starting point to a goal. Most mazes have a single starting point and a single end point (though this is not required). Mazes can be printed on paper, constructed in the real world (hedge mazes or cornfield mazes, for example), or even exist within the confines of a virtual world (in a computer game, an interactive maze on a website, etc.).
Maze generation algorithm
An automated method for the quick creation of computer-generated mazes. There are many varieties (graph-theory, recursive division, cellular automata etc.).
Minotaur
A mythical beast, half-man and half bull, that was imprisoned in the labyrinth of Knossos by King Minos of Crete.
Outer Wall (or Boundary)
The wall or barrier forming the outermost perimeter of a maze. Everything outside the outer wall is not a part of the maze puzzle.
Passageway
A path upon which one is constrained while solving a maze. Passageways are bordered by walls, and force the maze solver to either go forward or backward along the passageway. Large open spaces in a maze (such as a room) are technically passageways if they contain exactly two entrance/exit points.
Pavement labyrinth
A labyrinth composed of stones, mosaics, or tiles laid on a floor or outdoors.
Picture maze
A maze whose solution-path forms a picture or some other identifiable symbol when solved.
Spiral
A single passageway that spirals into itself and leads to a dead end at the center of the spiral.
Start (or Entrance, Beginning)
The entrance or starting point for a maze, usually indicated with an "S." Some mazes have more than one starting point, although this is rare. In outdoor mazes visitors are forced to begin at the start. This is not so with printed maze puzzles, where a common maze-solving technique (when stuck) is to begin at the End and try to work backwards to the Start. Theseus didn't have this option.
Stone (or Boulder) Labyrinth
A labyrinth in which the pathways are defined by lines of stones, pebbles, or small boulders that are placed on both sides of the pathway. Commonly, stone labyrinths are variants of the basic 7-circuit design.
Theseus
In Greek legend, the hero who killed the Minotaur, a fearsome half-man and half-bull beast imprisoned within a labyrinth on the island of Crete. He succeeded in this with the help of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, who fell in love with him. On the advice of Daedalus, she gave him a ball of thread, which he used to find his way back out of the labyrinth. Theseus was also the founder-king of Athens, and was credited with the conquest of the Amazons, whose queen he married.
Turf Maze
A turf maze is most commonly a unicursal labyrinth (single path), with the paths defined by cutting or trimming the turf. It is designed to be walked upon, and the end goal is usually in its center.
Vortex
Three or more passageways that spiral into each other, to a central junction, where one must then choose a passageway leading back out. Vortices are disorienting because it is difficult to predict in what direction a passageway leading out will ultimately lead. Multiple vortices linked together can be particularly confusing to navigate.
(The above, "Vortex", this is a cornerstone of classic CRPG dungeon crawling mazes. Things like revolving floor tiles and holes in the floor are a natural extension).
- Christopher Berg (amazeingart.com)
- A maze is
not a labyrinth -
Labyrinths and mazes have often been confused. When most people hear of a labyrinth they think of a maze. A labyrinth is not a maze.
A maze is like a puzzle to be solved. It has twists, turns, and blind alleys. It is a left brain task that requires logical, sequential, analytical activity to find the correct path into the maze and out.
A labyrinth has only one path. It is unicursal. The way in is the way out. There are no blind alleys. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again.
A labyrinth is a right brain task. It involves intuition, creativity, and imagery. With a maze many choices must be made and an active mind is needed to solve the problem of finding the center. With a labyrinth there is only one choice to be made.
At its most basic level the labyrinth is a metaphor for the journey to the center of your deepest self and back out into the world with a broadened understanding of who you are. - Daniel Johnston (lessons4living.com)
Some brief bullet points that sum up the most general types of mazes:
Arrow Maze
A type of logic maze containing some passages that may only be followed in one direction (denoted by the arrows). The arrow maze is something called a "directed graph" in mathematical terms, and it is the fundamental type of maze to which almost every other maze type can be reduced (with enough exotic transformations).
Block maze
A maze that cannot be solved without clearing the maze pathways of moveable blocks. When well-designed even very small block mazes can be complex to solve.
Logic maze
A maze that must be navigated by adhering to logical rules in addition to following its passages. Examples might include a maze containing different colored symbols that must be passed in a certain order, or a maze that has some passages that may only be followed in one direction (an arrow maze).
Multicursal maze
A maze with at least one junction (or node), and thus having more than one path.
Multiply-connected maze
A multiply-connected maze contains one or more passages that loop back into other passages, rather than leading to dead ends. A well-designed multiply-connected maze is more difficult to solve than a simply-connected maze, for users will spend a great deal of time simply going around in circles. The extreme multiply-connected maze has no dead ends at all, and is called a "Braid maze."
Number Maze
Any maze that uses numbers (or letters, symbols, etc.) by which the maze solver can jump to other areas in the maze by following the numbers, avoiding the usual walls. For example, a number maze with the letter "A" in two places would allow you to jump from one "A" to the other. Because of these jump connections, such mazes are partial weave mazes.
Planair maze
A mind-bending maze whose underlying topology is unusual (non-Euclidean) and which has edges that connect with one another. For example, mazes covering the surface of a torus or a Moebius strip would be planair mazes.
Simply-connected maze
Simply-connected mazes have pathways that never re-connect with one another, so every path you choose either leads to additional paths (a fork) or to a dead end. There is only one solution to a simply-connected maze, and it can always be found by following the "left hand rule "—simply walk forward, keeping your left hand on the wall at all times.
Weave maze
A weave maze has pathways that go under and over each other. Though often drawn on paper, it in fact exists in more than two dimensions and can easily foil some common maze-solving tricks and techniques. An outdoor maze that has bridges or tunnels is a partial weave maze.
Unicursal maze
A maze with a single path (commonly called a labyrinth).
Most modern maze makers create either multiply-connected, weave or logic mazes. Many mazes are a combination of types. For example, quite a few outdoor mazes are multiply-connected weave mazes, because they have passages that connect back and forth as well as passages that go over or under other passages (via bridges, tunnels, etc.). Computer-generated mazes can be of any type, but the printable kind are usually simply-connected mazes.
- Christopher Berg (amazeingart.com)
The last one is from a random blog about architecture I found a while ago while trying to read on mazing when I was using the Wizardry Construction Kit. I believe that what you are hesitant about concerning dungeon crawler maps has more to do with how the maze is designed and less to do with whether there is an explicit intention from the developers to trick the player. I can't think of a single dungeon crawler I've ever played where a maze wasn't made to be conquered by the player, as making it anything other than that is simply ludicrous.
Obviously the developers/designers can indeed fail the player by making
bad mazes that do not follow the principles of maze-making and maze architecture. Randomly throwing bottomless pits without rhyme or reason or forcing the player to navigate an area filled with tedious and obtuse "one way" devices is not only bad design, but it is the laziest type as it reduces the dungeon floor to a simple kid's exercise of trial and error.
There are examples, like in Wiz 4, where the designers begin the game with an unbelievably obtuse puzzle: without giving the player any information whatsoever they spawn the player in a locked room and expect the player to figure out how to exit the room without any clues and without anything inside the room to provide guidance; instead they explicitly made the room like that so that only Wizardry veterans could possibly
guess at what they were supposed to do due to a working knowledge of the enemy types and the spell systems... however, this was an unbelievably bad call on the team's side and if this is the type of thing you think represent a "navigational" puzzle then I completely understand).
A good dungeon crawler maze/area should utilize aspects of traditional labyrinth design in addition to following the fundamental principles of maze making.
There are, however, things that are good for spicing up the players journey through a dungeon floor, such as Wiz Empire 2's usage of 1 or 2 "wall-bombs" inside a dark zone. It made for one of my most memorable dungeon experiences I've had In a long while and it was shocking and exciting and the reason it managed to remain something good was simple: they didn't "spam" the game with things like that.
It was a one off thing and it was there to escalate the player's journey as that happens in the 2nd maze. In the 1st maze there are dark zones but they are simple to navigate and hold no surprises, and then in the 2nd maze they included that surprise for the player in the 1st floor's dark zone, the wall-bombs. They didn't continue using the wall-bombs and they only appear in the game in that area, but their purpose was simply to allow the player to experience consecutively more hazardous areas placed within already-established devices, like the dark zone.
However if that was the only thing the dungeon had for the player, i.e. dark zones and wall-bombs for no reason, then I completely agree it would be a terribly badly designed dungeon crawler maze as it would have no purpose and no message for the player other than to provide tedium. It's a very fine line when it comes to balancing the challenge curve of a dungeon crawler as there must exist escalation but in an organic and intelligent fashion.
There must be a combination of:
- Left and right brain derived obstacles/challenges for the player.
- A solid maze design.
- Labyrinthine trappings.
- Everything must revolve completely around the game's fundamental mechanics, be they resource management (spells, hit points, items) or puzzles.
- There must be a resistance to leaning on already-established concepts.
- There must be escalation of every facet: the maze design, the challenges to spatial navigation, and the opportunities to disengage from the previous two things mentioned and engage in puzzle-solving that does not overlap with exploration.
It's much easier to make a simple, average maze than it is to make a bad maze, IMO. Bad mazes come from laziness, perhaps apathy and probably from lack of knowledge in how to do a dungeon crawler area. One need only look at the recent StarCrawlers to see how a dungeon crawler lives or dies (in their case: dies) on the strength of the maze exploration: the extremely basic areas in that game are not "bad", they are something worse which is simple and so easy to play through and solve that they are little more than hallways connected to rooms in repeating patterns.
(And it doesn't help that StarCrawlers utilizes random generation for non-story missions/dungeons, and they are woeful indeed).
Paper Sorcerer, I believe, is probably the best dungeon crawler in straddling the fine line between making a game around dungeons (and thus mazes) but keeping each floor of the game's tower relatively simple to navigate with rarely any spots that will stump the player...
but without becoming boring. It's quite a feat, actually.
And yes, I also don't know why I even bothered making this post.
"To those able to see its pattern from afar an ancient labyrinth also revealed its order and artistry. It was a place of planned chaos where the labyrinth designer attempted to outwit the labyrinth explorer."
