The Subtle Pleasures of Building a Dungeon

Wired.com has published an article entitled “The Subtle Pleasures of Building a Dungeon”, which chronicles one editor’s attempts at creating dungeon levels in Xseed Games and Global A’s Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground for the PSP.

By the time I’d crafted my fourth level, I had the surreal experience of revisiting my first level and literally being unable to remember why the hell I made the creative decisions I’d made. Stupid, stupid: Putting the staircase in the far northeast passage? What was I thinking? “Man,” I thought as I lumbered down yet another passageway, “this dungeon blows.”

Granted, there have been previous video games that included level-design as a core part of the play — such as Neverwinter Nights, RPG Maker, or almost any moddable shooter. But these usually required a level of scripting geekery that I (and most average gamers) did not possess. Dungeon Maker makes it point-and-click easy.