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Art of the dungeon

Nutmeg

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So I've been playing Falcom's 1985 (!) Xanadu (or Dragon Slayer 2).

Depending on how you interpret it, the game is either just one huge dungeon, or a number of overworlds connecting a number of dungeons.

Here's one of the overworlds or levels (of many, I think there's 8)

XkUWRaR.png

Full of teleporters, one way tiles, doors requiring keys, and monsters (with limited respawns).

Here's one of the dungeons (about 4 per level) (different port hence the different tile set).

7W8pZqZ.png

Obviously the game inspired the first Zelda, even though they play quite differently.

Anyway, I really like this game's kind of pattern or rules based dungeon design.

Dragon slayer 4 (Drasle Family or Legacy of the Wizard) continued this trend, but ditched the tiered design by removing the overhead sections.

bG6BbzK.png

As did Compile's Faxanadu and Dragon Slayer 5 (Sorcerian). At that point it's best to ignore the Dragon Slayer name when it comes to Falcom's works. While Drasle Family and Xanadu were clearly tile based, these games blurred the lines much more.

The MSX in general was home to many devious dungeons. Konami's Maze of Gallious:

yjNEJ3j.png

And HAL's Lolo:

OOQhOIp.png

Back to Falcom, Ys I and II (1987, 1988) marked their return to overhead dungeons. While they weren't as devious as e.g. the ones in Xanadu, they were very very large and easy to get lost in. They worked great with the game's pace, as the natural thing to try to do was not to pause and map, but to try keep it all in your head.

And Brandish (1991) brought back the tiles, cleverly mixing overhead and first person dungeon crawling.

What are everyone else's must experience dungeons and dungeon crawls? First person classics very welcome. I know aweigh loves Elminage, and those games certainly do look promising. As do some of the Japanese Wizardry games bearing that name.

But also huge overhead or sidescrolling mazes and 3D worlds are welcome too. Just as long as there is joy and challenge to be had in navigating the dungeons themselves, I want to hear about it.
 
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Lord of Riva

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Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
I love the posts about experience with old games. I love to check them out if they look interesting and these pretty much do and are unknown to me (outside of the name), so thanks for that.

The first dungeon crawler I remember playing is Dungeon master on Atari ST but It took a while for me to go back and play the good western ones.


EDIT: does bubble ghost fall into this genre? It's more a puzzle game but the genre defining qualities seem to blur a bit here.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/781230/Bubble_Ghost/
 
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Ysaye

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You have listed some of my all time favorites above already.

The great examples above say a lot about careful and thoughtful planning; I recall that the designers of Dragon Slayer 4: Drasle Family said that they had this massive set of stuck together graph papers in planning out that dungeon (that would be such a collectors item! ). I think it was the same with the dungeons for Elminage Gothic which (IMO rightly) gets so much love from those that have given it the time.

In terms of "must experience" dungeon design, some initial thoughts outside those that have been raised already:
- The Dark Spire (on the Nintendo DS)
- Wizardry 6 (Wizardry 5 and 7 are also good though)
- Dark Souls
- Ultima Underworld
 

Nutmeg

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- Ultima Underworld
One thing above all others that determines if I can enjoy a dungeon crawl or not is how much the containing game respects the player's time. More concretely:
  1. Movement speed
  2. Trash encounter rate and how long trash encounters take
  3. Non play interruptions i.e. dialogue, cut scenes etc.
On point 1, the best games provide not just fast movement, but also automatic routing (e.g. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup lets you pick somewhere you've been and it will A* the way there).

On point 2, the best games let you plow through or just dodge trash in your way (e.g. Ys).

On point 3, the best games simply don't have any.

All the games I mentioned rate highly according to this criteria. As a result, they're fun on the merits of their crawl play alone.

I dropped Ultima Underworld fairly quickly because it was offensive on points 1 and 3. Because it didn't respect my time, I didn't give it any. Similarly for Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and the first Valkyrie Profile (I got through that intro once, never again).

Souls is fine all 3 points. Dark Spire and Wiz are a bit shit on point 2, but OK.
 

Ladonna

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So what you are looking for are basically long labyrinths with puzzles? These kinds of games usually bore me after a while. My first CRPG was Bards Tale 1, and I never finished that as it didn't engage me enough to complete, and the amount of trash combat kills the experience. Same goes for most of the early Wizardry games. I was usually in to the Ultima games, Wasteland, Goldbox and similar, then on to Fallouts, etc.

Some games you might enjoy off the top of my head;

Dark Heart of Uukrul, that had some decent puzzles and dungeon delving in it.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-heart-of-uukrul

Dungeon Master, chaos strikes back, and its budget cousin, Bloodwych.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dungeon-master
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dungeon-master-chaos-strikes-back-expansion-set-1
https://www.mobygames.com/game/bloodwych

The "Legend" games. The dungeons in those have some tough puzzles.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/worlds-of-legend-son-of-the-empire

Knight n grail. 2009 release for C64. This is similar to citadel above.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/knight-n-grail

Hexx.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/hexx-heresy-of-the-wizard

Captive.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/captive

See if any of those interest you.
 

Butter

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DHoU has one crossword puzzle (that you can brute force your way past if you really want to) among many inventive puzzles. All of its dungeon-crawling mechanics are amazing.
 

Wayward Son

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As much of a meme answer as it sounds, there are some seriously good skyrim mod dungeons, in particular the Oblivion realm series and, I believe it’s called, The Grey Cowl Returns.

I second Dark Heart of Uukrul.

Etrian Odyssey has some good dungeons for a JRPG. The 3DS one even has a mapping system built into the game where you can draw a map that the game saves with your progress.

Any gold box game I’ve seen has some good dungeons and it’s AD&D.

Might edit later when I think of more
 

Momock

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Sep 26, 2014
Messages
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Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2 (the 2 is phenomenal but sold poorly) are the first thing coming to my mind whent I hear "dungeons" and "puzzles". It used to be Zelda before it became Ubishit-tier "open-world"...
 

Nutmeg

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I've been comparing the flip screen action dungeon crawlers Maze of Galious (1987) and the much newer game La Mulana (2005) it inspired.

Both are cool games. They follow a similar formula, as noted below, but La Mulana emphasizes and relies on "exploration" (obtaining knowledge about the game) more, while Galious relies on simple navigation and moment to moment gameplay more. I prefer the latter.

Some notes:

In both games, filling the "XP" bar merely heals your character.

In both games you have sub weapon ammo and money.

In Galious you also have keys, which open doors. In La Mulana, weights, which trigger switches.

In Galious, you can equip a sub weapon or character.

In La Mulana, you can equip a main weapon, sub weapon, and up to two other items (in the form of MSX roms).

In La Mulana, annoyingly, two different screens (accessible via F2 and F3) are used to equip your character, in Maze of Galious just one, accessible via F1.

Non equippable items (the majority in Galious, and would be majority in La Mulana save for the MSX roms) affect your character just by virtue of having obtained them.

In both games, there is only one room you can save in, and teleport to at any time.

Amusingly, to do the functional equivalent of Galious' password save in La Maluna, you use the "game master" MSX rom, which in the real world was used for save states.

La Mulana screens are 11 tiles high, Galious screens are 10 tiles high. Both are 16 tiles wide. I remain quite surprised how much the extra row of tiles changes the feel of every screen.

The player moves about 33% slower in La Mulana (this is very annoying, IMO).

Both games have 8 worlds or fields with bosses you must defeat to win the game.

In Galious, each world is 14-18 screens. In La Mulana each world is 20 screens.

Screens are more "self contained" in Galious. To get to some part of a screen not immediately accessible from where you entered, you never seem to have to go further than 2 screens away. In La Mulana, this number seems higher.

Both games have ladders, moving platforms and water. La Mulana also has more advanced navigational elements such as slopes.

In Galious, each world contains at least 5 items: Map, Great Key, Holy water, Cape, Rod.

In La Mulana each field contains at least 3 items: Map, Life Gem, Ankh Jewel. There is also a teleport point you need to find (as opposed to it being the entry like in Galious).

Great Keys and Life Gems both increase your life.

Great Keys also function as, well, keys to the next world (of your choice).

Galious has an overworld called the "castle". All worlds in Galious connect only to the castle.

In La Mulana, each field connects to a number of other fields. There is no oveworld, but there are some special areas. Fields are not locked.

La Mulana's fields have a "backside" (kind of like the dark world in LttP).

To fight a world boss in Galious, you need to type in a mantra you find written on a tablet in that world.

To fight a field boss in La Mulana, you need to reveal an Ankh and apply an Ankh Gem to it.

Beating the boss doesn't complete the field in La Mulana.

To complete a field in La Mulana, you also type in a mantra at a specific screen. You obtain a mantra in that field or its backside. Weirdly the game makes you do this in a certain order.

In La Mulana, tablets without mantras give hints or lore.

In Maze of Galious tablets without mantras are empty.

In both games you can fight the boss in any field or world in any order. In Galious, you might need an item from the overworld, in La Mulana, you might need an item from a different field.

In Galious there will be one cryptic thing per world you need to do to progress or get one of the items e.g. hit a wall, or walk up the same ladder 5 times, or just wait for a while.

In La Mulana, the 3 items in every field are gated by puzzles. The Map puzzle usually spans 2 screens, the Life Gem puzzle just 1. The Ankh Gem puzzle usually spans several screens and triggers. The pattern is do something to hear the "puzzle solved" chime, then backtrack to every screen and look for a change. Sometimes the change is obvious, other times it's very subtle. Like 10 pixels subtle. The change is usually the next trigger in the chain. Rinse. Repeat.
 
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