What do you think makes a fun DK map?

[Blossy1000]

So, I’m making a topic about map making, to discuss what people think makes a good/fun map. I found that Yourmaster mad a topic like this years ago, found it but unfortunately lost it? Perhaps he or someone else can find it and post it.

Anyway I think it’s better to start a new thread if anyone’s interested in playing or making new maps. I’ve been making maps for pretty much every game I’ve been able to over the years, most notably old build engine games like Duke Nukem 3d or especially Blood, but also strategy games like Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3 etc. Even though it’s certainly more difficult to make a map for a game like Blood i’d say Dungeon Keeper is the game where it’s most difficult to make a GOOD map.

Dungeon Keeper is an old favorite of mine that I always come back to every 5 years or so, but I haven’t been making maps for it since the late 90’s. I’ve tried a few times over the years but had trouble getting editors to work and so on. Now I found Unearth and decided to make a campaign. That’s the reason I write this, I want to know other peoples opinions on what makes a good map.

To begin with I’ll say I pretty much agree with everything Yourmaster wrote in that old post I couldn't find now. I want to ask though, why do you like Dungeon Keeper? I assume everyone who reads this actually like the game, otherwise you probably wouldn’t read a post on site dedicated to this 25 year old game. My assumption would be you started with playing through the original campaign and like it enough to decide you like the game.
When making maps for any game I think the most important thing is trying to play to the games strengths. I certainly haven’t played every map availble for DK, but judging from what I’ve tried I don’t know… It seems most either try to make new versions of the original maps on steroids (creature level inflation, ie player is given opportunity to have great creatures at high levels so enemies are super frequent and high level as well) or make gimmicky maps. I’m not necesarilly against gimmicks, but it goes back to my first question. What makes Dungeon Keeper fun? It’s rhetorical in a sense, because I think it’s the basic general gameplay we all find fun.
I’ll say for me, back in the day I was around 15 when I made maps for this game and I guess I realized the same things anyone else did after finishing the campaign once. So I made a lot of maps that were severly restricted (no prison/torture room, boulder trap etc etc). The problem with this is, these are things players (including myself) find fun to use. These days I see the challenge being incorporating as much of the game as possible while still making the map fun and hopefully somewhat challenging. Fun > challenge though.

I’d love to hear other opinions on this!

[Shinthoras0815]

That's the old thread of YourMaster
https://keeperklan.com/threads/4914-...aps?highlight=

[Shinthoras0815]

YourMaster:"I think without most people realizing, DK was always for a big part about the wonder of discovery."

I completely agree with YourMaster here. The rooms, creatures, spells, traps and mechanics, as well as the different ways to use them, to discover.
As well as the stories told through the dungeon management aspect of the game.
These are the things that make DK great and that you can build on as a mapmaker.
So gimmick maps, maps where there are things to discover, and maps where entertaining creatures is made more difficult.
That and the advice from YourMaster's old thread, are the things that can make a good map in my own personal opinion.

[Krizzie]

I like maps/campaigns that have a high replay value. Some maps are very challenging at first, but when you know what to do they become very easy and thus not very fun anymore.

Maps with just heroes usually are based on timings or triggers. So if you figure those out the map becomes easy and linear.

Maps vs the AI keepers are more re playable usually because they don't do the same thing every time.

The gimmicked maps with altered stats i'm not really a fan of, just as the 1st person maps.


The (Post) Undead Keeper campaign is one of my favorites, it's a good balance between building up your dungeon without much troubles, but also knowing that you can't wall yourself in and train a huge army.

[Blossy1000]

Thank you both for the input! As for this:

I like maps/campaigns that have a high replay value. Some maps are very challenging at first, but when you know what to do they become very easy and thus not very fun anymore.

Maps with just heroes usually are based on timings or triggers. So if you figure those out the map becomes easy and linear.

Maps vs the AI keepers are more re playable usually because they don't do the same thing every time.

The gimmicked maps with altered stats i'm not really a fan of, just as the 1st person maps.

I see what you mean, but I don't know... I prefer maps with just heroes myself. I've always seen DK as a game with an identity crisis to some extent. I fell in love with the game (or the idea of it) when I read a small news article about it in a PC magazine back in 1995 (complete with a picture of the trolls from the intro movie!). The summirised description of the game at that point was something like: "You're an evil mastermind designing a dungeon and inhabit it with creatures and making traps. As your dungeon grows, heroes will find their way there to steal your gold and kill you". Obviously I don't remember it word for word, but something like that.

When the game finally arrived a couple of years later it actually met my expectations and I loved it. During that time before that I did read some articles about Peter Molyneux though, who already had a bit of a reputation for over promising features in his games, which may have kept my expectations in check somewhat.

Before DK I had been playing Warcraft 2 almost religiously for a couple of years, and I really liked the DK best when it did stuff differently. The times I liked the campaign the least were the (way to frequent IMHO) levels where you fought against other keepers. I was like, "no, you're doing it wrong here! This isn't playing to the games strength, now you're turning it into just another RTS but without the ability to directly control your units, that's not original and interesting".

I just like the idea that you don't play on the same terms as the computer. But yes, it's hard to make a map with scripted opposition and still make it play out completely different everytime. It's also hard to make a map with a lot of randomness to it and still have it balanced.

I also have to say, personally I have always loved the first person mode. I completely understand why people don't like it, but back in the day I just found it really cool and I still do for some reason. I also love the different views of different creatures (how their eyes see the world), such a great attention to detail. Actually I think it's both a great attention to detail and a prime example of slightly missing the mark, since most of the cool ones are for creature you probably won't use much anyway.

[Metal Gear Rex]

Making a fun DK1 map... it's kind of hard because DK1 has a lot of design problems that need to be worked around pretty much every time. A lot of powerful rooms take the spotlight of discussion, but there's less talk about Reinforced Walls being impenetrable and even less talk about the Training Room's potential to get Lv10 creatures. Both of these things are huge design limiters, and I think even more problematic than the Prison or Torture Chamber because of how much they hurt the pacing, creating a slow grindy experience.

But I would say, it probably starts there. Making a fun map involves trying to design around Reinforced Walls and / or Training Room. Either design around the idea that a player can wall in, or find a way to prevent them to be able to wall in. Then consider their ability to train, how many resources they're going to have or whatever. It's usually when the player can wall themselves in and has money to train that maps start having problems, because it'll have really crap pacing and a player won't know when to crawl out of their safe area into the dangers of the world, and may also be unwilling to do so. At the very least, make it so Heroes come wandering in to create some events to spice things up. I don't think I'd have a problem with a level that's just as straight forward and simple as building a dungeon and then some Heroes come in and you kill or torture or do whatever you want with them. Doesn't have to be hard, just eventful, make things interesting.
I'd also consider finding a map's general feel and vibe, maybe try to build on its atmosphere and mood and such to add more layers to the experience. I believe FX now has the ability to combine tilesets so you can make use of that. Select availability of rooms, etc that give it a unique feel. Consider its speed, and pacing, and how it be made potentially more flexible based on how a player wants to play: if they want to go fast or if they want to take some time to chill. I wouldn't apply this to all maps as sometimes a map should be slow or fast to accomplish its goal, but it's a standard consideration. This is admittedly harder for Dk1 because of the Training Room, as that time to chill = making the player more powerful, and giving them more gold to allow forgiveness makes them more powerful if they grind it out more, which is not necessarily fun.
When making a map, I try to think about the different stages of a map, how they progress and how a map and the player's position in the map develops. A simple example of this would be starting a level and barely scraping by with Beetles to eventually dominating with Mistresses. Gives a map more dynamic and depth. I've also given the player a Workshop to begin with and the ability to build Wooden Doors or Sentries (talking Dk2) just to give them something extra if a map might otherwise start out too slow, anything to keep a player potentially engaged. I try to be mindful of what a player could be thinking about, or how they feel during different stages of the game. In a basic map, just starting out a player is thinking about gold and spacing for building their dungeon, so you want to be mindful of what information they ahve available to them and how that could change the way they think about going about things. Aside from using this to potentially guide a player along, it is about making sure what a player thinks or feels changes throughout the map, that they have something to think about or feel, to keep them engaged and also give the map more dynamic interest, more layers and whatnot.

I think the game would have a lot more potential to be fun with some balance or general gameplay changes and tweaks, but it's hard to standardize a new ruleset and everyone having their own ruleset would make things confusing. It's really hard to use Flies or Beetles for example because they're so much weaker than everything else that you'd pretty much only be able to put them up against Tunnellers, Thieves, and they would need to swarm Dwarves. After that, they're just being sent to their deaths. I don't think they should be strong or usable in every map or anything, just that the gap shouldn't be *that* wide. Also maybe there should be something interesting about them just to make them feel like, Beetles and Flies instead of low tier Orcs essentially. More identity.
Tentacles as another example are interesting and special but the main thing they bring to the table is Freeze, and Spiders already do that, so it dampens some of that interest.

I've been making maps for DK2 lately, I last did Dk1 mapmaking before Unearth existed, and FX has changed a lot since. I was still experimenting with things, so I don't have concrete DK1 maps to showcase as example. But this is how I've been approaching things recently and, I've definitely put focus on the Training Room and Impenetrable Walls as primary issues to resolve on a map for next time I find myself making a DK1 map. I've even thought about making some maps without the Training Room. I think only Mistle did that and I don't think it made particularly good use of it.

Side note: I'm amused that both initial replies are literally contradicting viewpoints.

[YourMaster]

I actually did mention walling in in that topic. And I agree with you that a level where the player can sit behind a wall with gems and training a full level is usually worse then a level with the OP rooms but otherwise well designed. I think however that it's easier to design around this limitation, having the gems or portal connected with the hero gates is pretty easy, but finding a correct balance with a prison is a lot harder, especially when I made the topic and there were no script commands to balance these rooms.

Workshop gold then actually becomes a key issue to balancing map progress, as it would be easy to have appropriate heroes around each bit of gold to always force players to make progress, which breaks down if you can use workshop gold to train indefinitely.

Beetles are not there to be actually used I feel, but to be the baseline in power. Those are your default normal powered units, there to make it look like all your other units are quite powerful, as well as your enemies. They only succeed in this in a very limited way of course, since beetles are so quickly forgotten and there is no real other 'basic' unit. I think the game would have worked better if they had some different mechanics and say your normal unit composition were some 'standard' units like trolls, skeletons and demon spawn, where you would eventually manage to mix in a low number of elite units later in a level to be a cornerstone of your army and have the emotional impact to match.

[Blossy1000]

I don't think I'd have a problem with a level that's just as straight forward and simple as building a dungeon and then some Heroes come in and you kill or torture or do whatever you want with them. Doesn't have to be hard, just eventful, make things interesting.
I'd also consider finding a map's general feel and vibe, maybe try to build on its atmosphere and mood and such to add more layers to the experience. I believe FX now has the ability to combine tilesets so you can make use of that. Select availability of rooms, etc that give it a unique feel. Consider its speed, and pacing, and how it be made potentially more flexible based on how a player wants to play: if they want to go fast or if they want to take some time to chill. I wouldn't apply this to all maps as sometimes a map should be slow or fast to accomplish its goal, but it's a standard consideration. This is admittedly harder for Dk1 because of the Training Room, as that time to chill = making the player more powerful, and giving them more gold to allow forgiveness makes them more powerful if they grind it out more, which is not necessarily fun.

I found your whole post interesting but especially this. I largely agree, The vibe thing is important, that's also one of the reasons I like first person mode, I just love watching the dungeon from the creatures eyes. Pacing is also important and one of the things I find hard, because I'd want it to be truly dynamic. As in, sometimes in the level you have to be fast in order to deal with things, and other times you can relax. That's not an easy thing to accomplish in a good way. I mean to have that for real, it's easy to make a level with waves of enemies and then some quiet time in between, but that just means you have to spend that time preparing for the next wave as fast as you can.

Another interesting thing you bring up is this:

I wouldn't apply this to all maps as sometimes a map should be slow or fast to accomplish its goal, but it's a standard consideration.

I say that because with all things I said I also think this is one of the games strengths, compared to other similar games of the time at least. You can make maps in very different ways, and I think that's a good thing too.

Also I do think that both training and the prison/torture room thing isn't nesescarily the hardest point when balancing maps since there are several good ways of controlling the players resources and income.

[Krizzie]

The Beetle and also the other insects are fine in my opinion. You can't balance everything and you shouldn't.. As a fighter they aren't so useful, but combined with the Temple they can do powerful stuff. Wanting every creature to be useful in the endgame is just not how it works.

I don't think you can make the perfect map without using scripts to slow powerful things down. Nerfing/Buffing Rooms/Creatures permanently is just moving the problem around but not solving it.
10 mistresses are just insanely powerful, that doesn't mean they have to change. You can script the amount you can have at a time. Same goes for leveling in the training room. One of the Post Undead campaign maps makes good use of this. You have to kill specific heroes to unlock more training levels, which makes you have to move instead of turtle.

Adding options like destroyable walls would be cool, but should not be a standard setting for DK1.
I would maybe go a bit further and make it level depended of the tunneler/imp, say a level 5+ Tunneler/Imp is able to dig through enemy walls for instance. Also Imps should be able to reinforce a wall that is being destroyed (just as in DK2) To slow it down or maybe hold it if it's level is higher than the digging unit.

[Metal Gear Rex]

Keep in mind that I referred to the Training Room / Reinforced Walls as a design limiter, not necessarily a balance issue. It's not that a map cannot be made while working around these issues, but because they're so integral to the game, maps have to be designed around them every time. Impenetrable Reinforced Walls literally cannot be altered for a given map unlike anything else which can be set to being unavailable. But making the Training Room unavailable means creatures cannot really level and get progressively stronger, which limits how the player can develop and become stronger. It's like instead of starting each map as a blank canvas, you have the same design prompt for every "standard" map that must be answered, which limits how the rest of the map can branch out.

That's what I mean by design limiting. The difference between mapmaking for DK1 or DK2 is really quite noticeable for this reason alone.
Armageddon is less of a problem than the Training Room, because even if it literally breaks most maps, it can be made unavailable without hurting anything. But, when the time is right, Armageddon is something that actually works (except when it gets bugged) and is an exciting way to end a level, instead of dragging it out. I actually did make a chaotic version of Nevergrim where I put a Green and Yellow Keeper on the East and West, and then a small Hero Heart fort in the middle that sent out heroes to all players. Armageddon made that map extra exciting.

Workshop gold then actually becomes a key issue to balancing map progress, as it would be easy to have appropriate heroes around each bit of gold to always force players to make progress, which breaks down if you can use workshop gold to train indefinitely.

I wasn't as focused on the Workshop as it's more of an enabler less of the root problem itself, but yes. It's one of those annoying things where, a player could use it heavily or not use it at all, and it's difficult to design around that if the balance of gold is so tight that that difference breaks the map. I don't think it even needs to be that tight even, it just has to be something that matters to a level, and because of the Training Room, it very easily can. I'd rather not see "Build and sell traps / doors" be added as an integral part of DK gameplay either.

A lot of rooms are problematic in some way. Bridge even, I'm not sure gets talked about, but the flexibility of it is quite strong. In essence it breaks DK's rule of requiring Imps, physical entities that are also vulnerable / can interact with enemies, in order to claim land. Can't even sell or otherwise manipulate land beyond digging earth, but that's a permanent effect. By breaking those rules, it limits how terrain can be made with water or lava in combination with enemies because a player has complete control in bridging around things and doesn't have to really interact or react. The theoretical solution to me is pretty straightforward: require Imps to build or destroy bridges by having the player select water / lava like they select earth to mine. But that's neither here nor there.

Beetles are not there to be actually used I feel, but to be the baseline in power. Those are your default normal powered units, there to make it look like all your other units are quite powerful, as well as your enemies. They only succeed in this in a very limited way of course, since beetles are so quickly forgotten and there is no real other 'basic' unit.

I'm not saying they can't do that, but as you mention, they're very limited. The gap is too wide, and they have no other function. They don't need to be comparably strong to other minions, but just have something interesting about them, or some sense of identity that isn't just a worse Demon Spawn, which is like a worse Troll, which is a much worse Orc. And Demon Spawns / Trolls have something, it's not very relevant because Demon Spawns take way too long to grow up even if Dragons aren't in the pool and Trolls are made obsolete in the Workshop by Orcs. I guess Demon Spawns can still cross lava.

Goblins are better Beetles. They're a weak low tier unit, but you can still make low to medium power maps that use them to great and most importantly a variety of effects. Their ability to wake up from stun quickly is unique, it means that they can be dropped to swiftly resolve a small band of Heroes or can be dropped as quick reinforcements, which I want to emphasize feels pretty good in a context of a drop stun norm. This doesn't make them overall good, certainly not in the base game balancing, but I appreciate having them because of what they can do. They also open up mapmaking possibilities. It's about increasing the game's potential as to what it can be, which Beetles don't really do as there are other units that function as starter or weak creatures. Even Flies.

I think the game would have worked better if they had some different mechanics and say your normal unit composition were some 'standard' units like trolls, skeletons and demon spawn, where you would eventually manage to mix in a low number of elite units later in a level to be a cornerstone of your army and have the emotional impact to match.

Funny that you would say that because I think this is the balance I managed to get for DK2, or close enough for most players anywho.

Pacing is also important and one of the things I find hard, because I'd want it to be truly dynamic. As in, sometimes in the level you have to be fast in order to deal with things, and other times you can relax. That's not an easy thing to accomplish in a good way. I mean to have that for real, it's easy to make a level with waves of enemies and then some quiet time in between, but that just means you have to spend that time preparing for the next wave as fast as you can.

Well, keep in mind that things always come with consequences. It's why this is my standard approach to maps, not my universal approach. It's more important to read into a specific level. It can't be truly chaotic if you have time to wait or have the choice to wait, hard to make a more calming level if you can always see the path and enemy to progress and the level keeps shouting "Go!" in some way. I think there's usually some kind of range of speeds for a given level.
I actually did make a couple of maps with opposing speeds, one's a high pressure invasion map, and the other is like slowly exploring caves but that one's not completely done yet. Both are flexible, but in very different ways. In the fast map for example, a player can keep remaining defensive, try to get stronger and gain access to more powerful tools, or they can advance to try and smash the different Hero Gates and stop certain waves. No matter what, activity doesn't stop, it can just slow down or vary how a player wants to proceed.
In the slow map, a player can patiently and carefully explore caves, or even go reckless and try to advance as much as possible, the only timer being how much gold they have. But, the player's speed is capped by certain things, and this is shown in the very beginning by not having any free Imps and barely enough mana to make 1 Imp to claim the starting area. The slowing of certain things, especially from the very beginning, is important for keeping things relaxing. Its like slowing the player's mind and setting expectations. If I encouraged a player to move very fast, but then forced a slowdown, then it would become very frustrating because a player's mindset would be all about speed. But if I encouraged them to go fast the entire way through, it wouldn't be a slow or relaxing map at all. And note the difference between encouraging and allowing. I'm sure a player could speed through this map even on a first playthrough if they were skilled and willing enough (or unwilling to slowdown ever).

I also think there's more to it than just sending waves of Heroes, but admittedly dropping Heroes is a common tool as there's only so many things you can do. It doesn't need to be a full on invasion style of waves, but could just be small parties, or Heroes setup to try and mess with your dungeon somehow. It would be nice if there was more ways to interact with the dungeon and its creature activity itself. Maybe FX has more options for that through script commands since I last checked.
This is something I'm really not sure how exactly to resolve for DK1, as it's quite different compared to DK2 because of the dying state. In the slow map I mentioned, rooms are potentially fairly segregated due to its cavern design, and one of the map's traits is actually dropping small bands of Heroes at random areas. They're contextually miner parties, so it'll be some Dwarves and maybe another Hero or two for protection. Weak enough that, if they drop in your Workshop for example, working creatures could take care of them, but the Hero party could potentially be more threatening, it's quite random. So a player is incentivized to build some traps around the dungeon, not just at their front gate. It essentially creates random events, varies things up and is interesting to watch how your creatures and dungeon planning deal with the sudden heroes. But a big part of what allows that to work is that your creatures don't instantly die so it's not so punishing if things don't exactly work out.

I remember last I was doing DK1 stuff, I was experimenting with modifying the Samurai to be a very different kind of unit. I gave him Teleport at Lv1, and designed him to be a lot weaker at low levels, but at high levels much more powerful, essentially to create a wide range of power for more mapmaking control. Then on a test map, I setup APs at the corner of the map, because I learned that Heroes randomly spawned at the edges of an AP, and if it went beyond the map, it looped around. So the Samurai would spawn at random corners and would be given different tasks, and they usually go for the closest thing towards them so that's where the random corners becomes important. You would have random dungeon encounters, so it becomes important to setup traps and guard posts and whatnot throughout the dungeon, similar to what I described in that slow map.
I believe FX can sort of add new units now with the Creature Swap function, so you could make dupes of all Heroes where they have teleport and always die instantly and make it work that way. With more If statements now, it's also probably possible to create something much more complicated than what I was able to work with.
But I don't know how much this truly works for DK1, because of instant death. Maybe it's still something.

That said, if I or someone did make a map with no Training Room, it does mean that creatures dying wouldn't be as punishing as a new, different creature would appear at Lv1, which is a significant game changer as to how you can design things. It's worth experimenting with I think.

I say that because with all things I said I also think this is one of the games strengths, compared to other similar games of the time at least. You can make maps in very different ways, and I think that's a good thing too.

Yes I agree. DK can be described as a bunch of pieces. There's a basic structure: a starting point to begin exploration from, workers that dig out areas to build rooms, creatures attracted to have needs to meet and fight, traps and doors to build for planning proactively, spells for reactive power. Exactly how this all works out, and the final mixture of the map varies based on the pieces, where when how and frequency of use. Even that starting structure can be broken down and mixed differently. Dungeon Heart, Imps, and Portal can all be under threat for example. I think a big part of it is also the nature of it as a "God" game, where a player can instantly be in different locations, not bound by a single entity that needs to physically move from location to location in order to interact. But because of availability, you can change how a player interacts. And the player is not completely intangible either due to the Dungeon Heart and its inability to move, so there is something that enemies can interact with and pressure. The dungeon itself functions as apart of what the player is or what they can interact with. It's a unique blend of tangibility and physical limitations. All really interesting to think about.

The Beetle and also the other insects are fine in my opinion. You can't balance everything and you shouldn't.. As a fighter they aren't so useful, but combined with the Temple they can do powerful stuff. Wanting every creature to be useful in the endgame is just not how it works.

That's... literally not at all what I said. In fact I even specified that that's not what I meant. Lol.

Game balance isn't strictly about making things equal to everything else. This isn't a competitive multiplayer game where you pick Beetle or Orc at the start of the game and then that's it. I said it above but I'll say it again, this is about defining and expanding on mapmaking possibilities. Beetles are essentially a repetitive design but are even more limited in their function.

For a creature's whole existence to be just an investment for a temple sacrifice combo, maybe it makes sense if treating creatures and everything as mere game mechanics but it doesn't make for a compelling experience.

I don't think you can make the perfect map without using scripts to slow powerful things down. Nerfing/Buffing Rooms/Creatures permanently is just moving the problem around but not solving it.

That's not even close to right, I don't even know how to explain or react to this. Something about core game design defining level design potential.

10 mistresses are just insanely powerful, that doesn't mean they have to change. You can script the amount you can have at a time. Same goes for leveling in the training room. One of the Post Undead campaign maps makes good use of this. You have to kill specific heroes to unlock more training levels, which makes you have to move instead of turtle.

I think this is more amusing to me because I just recently argued with someone in discord about why Mistresses are not even overpowered in general and how they're a late game powerful unit, and that any problems are related to map design or core game design limiting map design that enable this.