Which CRPG has the most involved dungeoneering mechanics

[Sharkspine]

Hello

Which CRPG has the most involved/interesting dungeoneering mechanics in your opinion?

Aspects such as navigating hazards, natural or magical, dodging traps, jumping over pits, climbing and generally using equipment like rope, lanterns, oil etc in interesting ways.

Dungeons that have an emphasis on interactivity rather than a series of pretty looking but ultimately bland creations built for combat blob-a-thons.

Though I l realise these may be rare, examples from top down or isometric perspective games would be especially welcome.

Thank you.

 

[Covenant]

Betrayal at Krondor? You had whetstones to sharpen your weapons, had to keep your armour as best repaired as you could with your own skill, you'd often have to use rope to swing across pits... But it was lacking in the kind of traps and mechanisms you'd find in something like Dungeon Master.

Realms of Arkania is another possibility - you could buy all sorts of prepatory items to stop your adventuring party getting trench foot and dying of scurvy in the wilderness - but I'm not sure if it qualifies as actually dungeoneering so much as just wilderness survival.

Good question though. And welcome to the pit.

 

[octavius]

Some candidates:

Using equipment: The Magic Candle

Interactive dungeon: Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back

Navigation hazards like darkness and anti-magic zones, traps, spinners etc: Bard's Tale 2

 

[Mikeal]

Dunno Ultimas Underworld and ARX Fatalis maybe?

 

[V_K]

When it comes to dungeons, Wizards&Warriors are really hard to beat. It's like Wizardry 7 meets Ultima Underworld - you get both the staples of blobber dungeon crawling (traps, puzzles, secrets, turn-based battles) and some physics simulation on top of that (jumping, swimming etc.).

 

[Darth Canoli]

Rick Dangerous.

You're welcome.

 

[howlingFantods]

Hello

Dungeons that have an emphasis on interactivity rather than a series of pretty looking but ultimately bland creations built for combat blob-a-thons.

.

You are describing Dungeon Master here.
Also Legend of Grimrock ii (stick with ii because it’s better than the first in every way).

 

[Sharkspine]

Thank you for the warm welcome and positive responses.

I'm essentially doing a spot of research as my long time table-top RPGgroup of over 30 years (dear me) are thinking of amalgamating our disparate talents and making a CRPG. Not to publish, more for ourselves as a 'little' challenge, to see if we can make the game we've always wanted someone else to make for us.

We naturally adore Turn Based Combat and having an affinity for strategic perspectives rather than first/third person we'd probably go for a top down view, as this would suit our style and be easier for us to create. Our goal is to create a game with this perspective, incorporating turn based combat and mechanics for climbing, jumping, trap searching and dodging, listening at doors, snuffing out lanterns, using different party members and their skills for non combat specific tasks such as Thieves making fantastic leaps over lava pools or Wizards with particularly high intelligence being able to discern more from a riddle or ancient language than a low intelligence character. Our aim is to include more natural dungeons such as caves with fissures to climb up and crawl spaces where movement is slowed and if those grubs ambush you the two characters either end of the human centipede have to pull daggers due to lack of swinging room!

We believe in less is more with combat encounters. If a dungeon or cave system takes thought to navigate and explore and the player is rewarded for using different methods to overcome an obstacle then combat doesn't have to be every 3 steps. We prefer less frequent but tactically more rewarding combat scenarios where the player can utilise the environment and their skills imaginatively. A basic example being your Warrior has blind fighting so your other party members can snuff out the torches in the room, which hampers the brigands you're fighting and allows your warrior to prevail.

It sounds like a nightmare which is probably why it hasn't been done to a great extent. It'll be fun to have a bash though and learn some skills along the way. We don't get to physically meet up to play table-top much anymore so this is the next best thing!

I love Dungeon Master, Arx, Ultima Underworld and both the Grimrock's. I have managed to snag boxed copies of Betrayal at Krondor and Realms of Arkania and look forward to playing them for the first time.

I will check out Wizards and Warriors as I've never heard of it.

Take care and thanks again.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

You're looking at the wrong genre.

-"Turn Based Combat"
- "top down view"
- "mechanics for climbing, jumping, trap searching and dodging, listening at doors, snuffing out lanterns, using different party members and their skills for non combat specific tasks" - complex world simulation

What you're after are roguelikes. You should have a look at Nethack, Cataclysm DDA, and Unreal World. Those aren't necessarily the best rogelikes to start with if you aren't familiar with the genre, but they all feature complex world simulation that allow players to tackle problems in more than one simple way (aka kill it). If you aren't familiar with roguelikes you should probably start with DCSS or ADOM, but both of these are focused on combat.
Google can help you find some party based roguelikes, but I'm not familiar with any of them.

 

[Covenant]

You're looking at the wrong genre.

-"Turn Based Combat"
- "top down view"
- "mechanics for climbing, jumping, trap searching and dodging, listening at doors, snuffing out lanterns, using different party members and their skills for non combat specific tasks" - complex world simulation

What you're after are roguelikes. You should have a look at Nethack, Cataclysm DDA, and Unreal World. Those aren't necessarily the best rogelikes to start with if you aren't familiar with the genre, but they all feature complex world simulation that allow players to tackle problems in more than one simple way (aka kill it). If you aren't familiar with roguelikes you should probably start with DCSS or ADOM, but both of these are focused on combat.
Google can help you find some party based roguelikes, but I'm not familiar with any of them.

To add to the above, Incursion seems like an exact fit for what you're after. A D&D-based (edition 3.5 I believe) roguelike with all the skills you talked about and more. You can even climb along the ceiling instead of walking on the floor, assuming your Climb skill is high enough, and avoid traps or other hazards that way.

It's prone to gamebreaking bugs, unfortunately, but it's worth looking at for inspiration if nothing else.

 

[Sharkspine]

Thanks for the suggestions I'll check those out.

 

[Infinitron]

>_> You wouldn't have anything to do with this game, would you? https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...cality-and-environmental-interactions.124944/

 

[Sharkspine]

That certainly looks interesting but no it's not us. We're very much in the planning stage, researching what we feel would work for our proposed style from the CRPGs we know and love and the ones we haven't experienced yet.

As I said I don't think we'd ever publish our game but if we did I don't think we'd go for the early access/Kickstarter route. It'd be play-tested by us and our friends for a good while and then dropped on a store somewhere!

Good shout out though. Will take a proper look later.

 

[V_K]

I will check out Wizards and Warriors as I've never heard of it.

You might want to look at this thread, as the game is a bit complicated to run on modern systems: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-running-near-perfectly-on-modern-oss.117830/

 

[Sharkspine]

Thanks. Yes I've read a bit about it and looks interesting and does seem a bit troublesome to run on modern systems.

It's not showing up to buy physically on any of the auction sites either. I'm getting into my big box purchases again.

Trying to get The Dark Heart of Uukrul and there's only a sealed copy on eBay going for £500!

I love it but not that much!

I'll see if I can get W&W soon.

 

[Sharkspine]

I've just checked that game out. Looks very much like what I was after.

I've joined up to their forums and asked the same question on there. Fingers crossed they'll implement some of those mechanics. Either way, seems like an interesting take on the genre.

 

[V_K]

It's not showing up to buy physically on any of the auction sites either. I'm getting into my big box purchases again.

You'd be much better off (as in, save yourself a lot of technical pain in the ass) if you just get it off GOG.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Daggerfall had innumerable procedurally generated dungeons you can't complete without wall glitching. Metagaming at its finest.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

For real though, here are some things to consider:
Zelda

• Zelda games might be a bit simple, but I really how dungeon puzzles feel like a part of the dungeon instead of just... a puzzle in a dungeon.
• The takeaway: a puzzle becomes more than a puzzle when you tie it to the environment.

The Witness

• The Witness is basically one massive puzzle dungeon with some of the best puzzles I've ever seen. Imagine Myst, only better and you don't need to click everything you see to figure out if it's part of the puzzle. Why? Because everything is part of a puzzle, including the puzzles themselves.
• The takeaway: same as above, plus puzzles are extraordinarily cooler when they have multiple layers beyond the topical -- iterations within iterations make the player feel clever.

The Witcher

• The Witcher series almost had really good puzzles. Or I guess it's just deduction of circumstances. Having Geralt spoonfeed conclusions upon activating objects or zones of interest ruined the experience. I wanted to understand the monsters 'habits and minds by reading the bestiary, and then apply that knowledge by piecing together information myself.
• Takeaway 1: weaving lore into puzzles is just as satisfying as tying puzzles to the environment.
• Takeaway 2: interactivity alone != a puzzle, and giving away the solution too easily is insulting.

 

[HeroMarine]

This thread is awesome. Gonna use it for research to help design future dungeons for my PnP games.

 

[Viata]

Which games made my character pretty much looks like a red dot in the dark given how much monsters I have killed left and right as I go deeper into that dungeon? A game that made monsters think I was the avatar of Death and you could see them shaking with fear, their eyes couldn't identify my character because I looked like a red humanoid and their nose could only a disgusting mixture of monters's bloods? A game that as I killed monsters, the screen was getting more red because the enemy's blood was also falling in my eyes, until I could wash it?

 

[Q]

I really like dungeons in Might & Magic 6
It's complex and hard, and have hordes of enemies