I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about dungeons. In fact, ever since I first discovered the OSR, dungeon design has been a bit of a fixation for me. Although I was woefully late to the party (I didn't even know there was an OSR until 2021-ish) I've since spent hours reading about how to design dungeons, how to run them in different games, what makes a good dungeon, and so one. This means that even when doing something entirely unrelated to TTRPGs, I'm still thinking about dungeon design. It's kind of a problem, but I also kind of love it.
I've also spent a lot of time recently playing video games (those are more of a lifelong obsession). Most recently I completed Resident Evil 9, followed by Expedition 33. Both are incredible games, fun and well-made, and I definitely recommend them. Although, and this is maybe a little blasphemous to say, I think RE9 is the better of the two. Yes, I know that Expedition 33 won Game of the Year, but we all know that the majority opinion is also the wrong opinion (joking, mostly). I personally enjoyed RE9 more because while playing through it, I constantly found myself marveling at the game's tight, well-constructed environments and scenarios. I'm enamored in particular with the multi-level hospital where most of the game's first act takes place, every corner of which was tense and engaging, and made me feel like I needed to carefully consider my actions, resources, and downtime.
By contrast, while E33 is a beautiful game with a strong narrative, its dungeons weren't very good. They are almost universally linear, and where they forego linearity they instead rely on a confusing tangle of pathways. Interaction within them is limited to climbing ropes and jumping gaps, or fighting the enemies who wander the map without purpose. And to top it off, while the game's combat is excellent, no dungeon ever felt "dangerous". Resources feel unlimited and checkpoints are frequent. In general, I'd say that E33's dungeons left a lot to be desired. But then again, they also felt like most JRPG dungeons I've encountered (which might be saying something about the genre).
So I guess this raises the question... are E33's dungeons bad? Well, yes, I think they are, because they're all very boring. However, several days after I had finished the game, I realized I'd spent the entire playthrough judging E33's dungeons by the standards of the OSR. And then I noticed I'd done the same for RE9, but that its maps had many of the qualities I'd come to expect from a well-designed TTRPG dungeon. The game's different "dungeon" areas were interactive, creative, and surprisingly very jaquaysed. And on the surface, judging a video game map by the standards of an OSR dungeon makes a kind of sense-- after all, a dungeon is still a dungeon whether it's analog or digital, right? But on the other hand, without the vast collection of wisdom and advice generated by the TTRPG scene, in all its forms, digital dungeons can't really be expected to measure up to the design principles that have been collectively cobbled together over the past 20+ years.
At the same time, it's undeniable that tabletop games owe a lot to the influence of video games, and vice-versa. One of the best-selling, most-renowned games of the past five years was Baldur's Gate 3, a digital version of "the big game", the one whose name has become synonymous with the tabletop hobby. And some games, like RE9, have "dungeons" that feel like they could stand tall with the best of what the TTRPG scene has to offer. So clearly, some of these dungeons fit the principles of OSR design-- what I went to know is how many and how well. Are there dungeons that are properly jaquaysed? Do they have someone to talk to, in addition to someone to fight? Are they toyetic, do they allow experimentation, are they fun to explore?
These are all questions worth asking, and a topic worth exploring. Since it's a question I haven't seen anyone else ask yet, I'm going to take on the burden of doing it myself (very happily, I'll add). At first, I thought I could do it in a single post, looking at just a few recent games. But the more research I've done, the more I've come to realize some of what the OSR space considers good dungeon design stretches all the way back to the earliest days of video games. And so, rather than a single post about video game dungeons, I think this is going to be a bit of an ongoing series. That's alright though, both because I've been a little bereft of ideas anyway, and because this sounds really fun.
The Rubric
Before I can start judging video game maps, I need to actually determine what makes a good dungeon. That's sort of a subjective idea, but it's also a massive question to engage with. Thankfully, better minds than myself already have! Rather than create my own concepts from scratch, I'm going to look at my favorite bits of advice about dungeon design, and use them to assemble a point-scored rubric. There are five specific categories/measurements I'll be using:
- The first is the dungeon checklist from Goblin Punch by Arnold K. This is going to be one of the primary lenses I use, and the most immediate. This post really feels like it covers everything you want in a dungeon, both specifically and generally. The list includes aspects of game design from several key areas, making it a good first pass. Additionally, as a checklist, it's easy to convert into a rubric. There are seven things on the checklist, which means seven boxes to check. For the sake of keeping things even, I'll be giving five points for each checked box, for a maximum of 35 points.
- The second thing I'm going to be looking at is the dungeon's actual level design and layout-- primarily, whether it's been properly jaquaysed. That means things like alternate entrances, looping paths, branches, and general non-linearity. This is a tricky one to score, because I'll be looking at every dungeon in two ways. The first is whether the dungeon is jaquaysed according to the rules of its own game, while the second is whether it works as a jaquaysed dungeon if you're assuming a tabletop game instead. This is important because sometimes we're working with 3D spaces limited only by arbitrary rules. For example, a dungeon with 10-foot drops that are impassable to your character might indicate bad jaquaysing in the game. But if that dungeon's layout and innards were ported to a dungeon-using TTRPG, those ledges present a delicious opportunity for a prepared party, potentially adding jaquaysing where it didn't exist before. For ease of scoring, we'll say a maximum of 20 points here-- 0 for no jaquaysing, 10 for potential jaquaysing, and 10 more if a dungeon is also jaquaysed according to the movement possibilities of the game it's in.
- Third on the list is tackling each dungeon's obstacles, their possible solutions, and the amount of creativity it allows. Again, this is a tricky category. Video games tend to be limited in the number of options they provide players to overcome an obstacle. Some are better than others-- games like Breath of the Wild, Baldur's Gate 3, or any number of immersive sims have very open-ended problem solving. And as with jaquaysing, the limitations imposed by a game sometimes become arbitrary in the creative space of tabletop play. For example, a locked door with only one key is a Hard Lock in some games, but a Soft Lock in games that allow things like lockpicking. There are also "puzzle dungeons" to consider, which I take to mean any dungeon which sets out a particular obstacle or series of obstacles with one intended solution, but a solution that is made fun by obscuring it or requiring mastery of a skill (even if that skill is knowledge). One post that immediately comes to mind is A Lock with No Key, by Derek B. of Widdershins Wanderings, though there's plenty of other advice to be found on this topic. I'll say there's a spectrum of 20 points here-- no points if the solutions in-game are highly limited, 5-10 points for more degrees of freedom or if the solution requires learned interactivity, and another 5-10 points if the obstacle could reasonably be bypassed using creative solutions in a more creative medium.
- Next up on the list is whether or not the dungeon evolves-- does it change over time, does it adapt to player actions, and can it be re-visited or simple re-played. This is another thing that most video game dungeons will likely struggle with. Changing over time isn't too hard, as most dungeons will do that naturally as players eliminate obstacles, open doors, and make other irreversible changes. Dungeons that are "toyetic" really excel at this, because of the natural level of interaction they encourage between player characters and the environment. Dungeons that adapt are trickier to find in video games. By this I mean a dungeon whose environment and residents respond naturally to player actions, such as denizens activating traps or moving to new areas in response to intrusions. Not impossible, but less commonly found. Finally, revisiting a dungeon vs replaying a dungeon. A dungeon that can be revisited is one where the actions and changes from the first visit carry over into the next, sometimes resulting in drastic differences (think a dungeon where a goblin warren spreads from one area to another between two visits after their kobold neighbors are eliminated). A dungeon that's replayed/replayable is identical every time you walk into it, with the same enemies, same traps, and same treasure placements, as if time was magically rewound and any previous visits never happened (most video game dungeons are like this). We'll say 5 points each if a dungeon changes over time, adapts to player actions, and can be properly revisited, for a total of 15 points in this category.
- Finally, I want to examine each dungeon's theming. Every good dungeon has a solid, defined theme (even if you think it doesn't). A dungeon's theme is usually pretty simple, able to be captured in a few words, like "haunted tomb", "giant tree", or "mountain treasure lair". Why does that matter though? Surely dungeon themes aren't strictly OSR. While that may be true, it's also true that a dungeon's theme can do a lot of heavy lifting to determine what one expects to find in that dungeon, helping to create a feeling of verisimilitude. If your dungeon is explicitly presented as a trapped tomb, unexplored for a century, I'll be a bit nonplussed if most of my enemies are roving bandits and the tomb is otherwise unprotected (notwithstanding a suitable explanation for their presence/the lack of traps). But a dungeon that works with its theming to determine the types of enemies, traps, and other obstacles found inside can often feel so natural you don't even notice or think about the reasoning behind them. We'll say that a dungeon with proper theming (ie. appropriate monsters, traps, set dressing, and such) gets an additional 10 points.
So, that brings us up to a full 100-point score rubric.
- 35 Points for checking every box on the basic Dungeon Checklist (5 points per item).
- 20 Points for proper jaquaysing (10 points if it's jaquaysed for table play, 10 more if it's also jaquaysed in the game).
- 20 Points for allowing creative solutions to dungeon obstacles (10 points if the obstacle could be creatively bypassed in table play, 10 more if the game itself allows creative solutions).
- 15 Points if the dungeon evolves during play (5 points if they physically change with player action, 5 points if they properly adapt to player choices, and 5 points if they can be revisited).
- 10 Points if the dungeon is properly themed, with thematic choices for obstacles, denizens, treasures, and so on.
What's The Rubric For?
The next step, then, is to actually start applying this rubric to the dungeons from some video games. When trying to think about how to handle this, I originally considered adhering to a historical timeline of video games, starting with early PC games like Colossal Cave Adventure or Rogue, then moving forward in time to eventually deal with some of the most recent releases. The thought was to see whether games are getting "more OSR" or "less OSR" over time, as they move away from their heavily tabletop-inspired roots. But the answer to that question is both obviously simple and exceedingly complex, because even a cursory glimpse at video game dungeons tells us that neither is strictly true. There are some very old games with very linear, basic dungeons hindered by both developer imagination and technical limits; there are also some very new games, as discussed, that suffer from the same flaws. And for every hundred games chock full of "bad" dungeons, there's one game whose dungeons would score very highly on this rubric-- and even some games that would go on to change the way that players (and future TTRPG designers) think about and conceptualize dungeon design.
So, rather than stick to any specific order, I think I'll just go where my interest takes me. This will likely mean examining games that I've just recently finished playing, as well as games whose dungeons and mechanics are well-documented, famously influential, or just happened to catch my eye. In an example that is all of these things and more, the first video game I'll be looking at with my newly-assembled dungeon rubric will be 1986's incredible, action-adventure RPG, grandfather of a 40-year-old series, The Legend of Zelda. (That post to come whenever it is that I finish writing it.)
