Last time we covered the setup for Durlag's Tower and everything they had to do to make it an exciting, terrifying,
aspirational, and incredibly difficult dungeon in the middle of a noob zone without making it unduly frustrating.
Today, we're going to begin to delve the depths of Durlag's Tower, but before we descend into the heart of the labyrinth
I want to discuss some best practices for thinking about,
analyzing, and breaking down a game dungeon. After all, the whole reason we chose to look at Durlag's Tower in the first place is
because even when their execution isn't perfect this is one of the finest examples of the
methodology of Dungeon design that you're going to find in any video game
each room in a video game
Dungeon can be thought of as an encounter much like a room in a D&D game which seems appropriate for a game set in Baldur's
Gate you can break each room down into four components: its combat component, its narrative component
Its puzzle component, and its reward component. Every room will focus on these components to different degrees
but a good designer can usually deliver at least to some small extent on three out of the four the
Different amounts you deliver on each of these components across the rooms in a level are what allow you to craft your interest curve create
Differences in kind and forge a unified feel across the level in the case of Durlag's Tower what a level is is fairly straightforward
it's a floor in some games defining levels may not be so clear so you may first have to parse where you think the level
breaks are when analyzing or designing other experiences. Lucky for us, we're here to talk about Durlag's Tower as we go through this
We're going to break down every room in this manner and discuss each of their component parts to show exactly how this methodology is used
And to help you get used to using it. So let's dive in
We'll begin with the first room in the basement. It has a fairly simple structure
There are ghasts here and here, traps here
Relevant treasures here and here, a hidden door over here and an NPC to talk to here. So when analyzing this room
Let's start with a combat component
There are two combat encounters in this room because of the way they've setup
line-of-sight the first encounter triggers the moment you enter the room the monsters can see you and so they aggro before you can even get
Your bearings now look at where this trap is set up in case you haven't played Baldur's Gate
Traps are invisible unless you've spent some time attempting to detect them
So if you immediately charge the enemies here with your melee characters, you're going to trigger the trap on the way in
creating a cloud of gas which will poison and temporarily knock out any of your party members who fail to make a saving check and
While it may appear that this choice of enemy is arbitrary to the player like all good design
it's anything but you see ghasts are fairly slow-moving which means that any player who just
Charges in is almost certain to trigger the traps before the ghasts past them
Combine this with the fact that ghasts are immune to poison and sleep the very two effects that this traps gas cloud causes and you
Have created a deadly fight out of simple pieces
Additionally ghasts have an effect that stuns
Characters allowing them to stun the party inside this deadly gas cloud adding yet another interesting wrinkle to the fight
This initial experience inside the towers foyer is meant to teach the player an important lesson in Durlag's Tower
always be wary of and on the lookout for
traps
The designers need to teach the players this early in order to set up a lot of the later rooms the designers have also made
A suitably hardened counter here out of a fairly run-of-the-mill
Enemy this is important too as there's only so many creatures that your team's going to be able to build and you want to save
Your more exotic enemies in order to create high points on the interest curve later on now
Let's look at the second combat encounter in this room
It uses the exact same type of enemies, but in a radically different way by forcing the player into a choke point
It limits the number of characters that they can bring to bear in the fight
Additionally the ghasts are able to turn characters in mobile with their stun ability which creates further paths blocking obstacles which the player has to
play around. So room one's combat component, check. Next up, the narrative
component. The most
interesting thing from a narrative perspective
When crafting an encounter space is to define what the room is. A room shouldn't just be a generic room. In every room a player
Should get some sense of what the place's purpose is just by traveling through it. What is this room?
Why is it in the dungeon? This room is pretty easy to interpret.
We're in a cellar. Note the wells, and the barrels, and the large storage tanks
This is where the keepers of this tower drew and kept their water.
This may seem like a simple detail
But it gives it the feeling of being a real place that
our subconscious latches on to.
Not only that, but it allows the designers to
Contrast the mundane nature of this room with the more fantastic elements that are going to come up later.
This room establishes a baseline.
Next we have the mobs, because monster choice is absolutely part of the narrative of this place.
Here we have ghasts, the undead. Ghasts mean something different from goblins. By putting ghasts here
It nudges the player toward feeling that something went horribly,
horribly wrong in this tower a horde of gibberlings simply wouldn't evoke the same first impression.
As a designer, you'll sometimes have to let the narrative value of your monster choice
Take a backseat to their gameplay value, but if you're really clever, you can figure out ways to have both goals aligned.
Lastly in the narrative department, we have a hidden door, here. Now, this could have easily been a normal door.
After all, it's automatically detected.
It takes no effort on the players part to find it but by making it a secret door
It makes the player feel that whatever's behind it was meant to be hidden. That it's mysterious or special in some way
surprisingly, the NPC dialogue
actually serves as one of the least narrative elements of the room. Functioning primarily to warn the player of upcoming dangers,
Although, it does help to set the tone, I suppose. Next, the puzzle component: Here, it's fairly straightforward
It's the traps. This isn't a puzzle heavy room
But it does integrate some of the puzzle element into the first combat encounter to give the players a bit of that "puzzle-ly" feel.
The puzzle element here is largely to train the player to always search for traps
Finding the hidden door is also supposed to make the player feel clever, even though finding it is pretty automatic.
Finally, we have the reward component.
When thinking about the reward component of a room, you can basically ignore any trash loot you find.
That small handful of coins or that non-magic weapon you find,
that's just gonna get sold to a shopkeep, hardly noteworthy.
No, here we need only think about the rewards that the player is actually going to care about.
The stuff that feels like a reward.
In this room there are two magical items: a ring and a piece of leather armor. Neither of these items drop off the enemies
They're both found in the environment. Why?
Because the designers are trying to reward exploration, encouraging the player to explore more in future rooms.
The better of these two items, the magic ring is found here,
in a side passage that's missable underneath the tile that doesn't immediately look like a loot container.
A tile that also happens to be trapped and has a lock you have to pick. This reward is
reinforcing all of the exploration and trap lessons that the whole room has been aiming to teach.
So, now that we've practiced how to break down a dungeon
Next time we'll pick up the pace and start really powering through the Durlag Tower's first floor.