Dungeon Master Forum

Admin Note: This thread was split from the "Dungeons Matter" thread.
The discussion is about an issue that could apply to *any* custom dungeon.

I'm just too slow for the time switches

Perhaps designers should take a lesson from CSB.
Provide alternative solutions to tough problems.
The alternative may be rather involved or require
a lot of extra time. But it makes the game more
'realistic' (a word that I hesitate to use when
describing methods of attacking pixelated monsters
with a keyboard). The real world usually presents
options.

Paul Stevens wrote:Perhaps designers should take a lesson from CSB.
Provide alternative solutions to tough problems. [...]
The real world usually presents options.

I agree, I haven't played at length any custom dungeons for quite some time as I find many designers falling into this trap and I have no patience for it any more.
If players have to mind-read the designer to finish a dungeon, that's a flawed design. Too often, custom dungeons provide puzzles that only make sense to the designer and not the player.
I'm trying to resolve this issue in my DSB game, with lots of options for different paths and puzzles, but it's slow going....

lots of options for different paths and puzzles, but it's slow going

Worthwhile results usually require a lot of
slow-going, tough work.

The Sistine Chapel wasn't built with artistic
ability alone.

Postby Paul Stevens
Perhaps designers should take a lesson from CSB.
Provide alternative solutions to tough problems.

Please remind me about alternatives in CSB.
You are talking about the FTL Chaos Strikes Back game, don't you ?
I did play the FTL game on my Atari ST, completed the game, mapped all of it.
But this was so long ago.....
I remember it is split in 4 areas Ku Dain Ros and Neta but all 4 must be done to get the 4 corbums.
I don't remember about alternatives, neither about puzzles.

I don't remember about alternatives, neither about puzzles.

My favorite phrase in describing the CSB puzzles:

"There is always another way."

Play the game yourself, with little help.
Then watch one of the record-breaking movies
in which the game is completed in 10 minutes or
so. You will see that almost every one of the
puzzles that you solved was solved in a
different way or totally avoided. And, believe
me, another person would have solved them
in yet another way.

This 'multiple-solution' avoids many of what
might seem like a dead-end situations. A player
keeps trying and suddenly discovers that a tough
problem has been surmounted as if by magic.

Or, like the Riddle Room in Dungeon Master.....
The player does not need to completely solve the
problem. Getting 75 percent of it yields most
of the reward; 100 percent adds something
special but not critical. Otherwise a player can
get totally stymied by missing one small detail.

First of all, thanks for splitting this discussion from the "Dungeons Matter" thread. I didn't want to see it as a criticism of Ouch!'s dungeon because - despite of my problems with speed puzzles - it's an excellent dungeon, very patiently and carefully build, and certainly one of my most favourite ones.

terkio wrote:I don't remember about alternatives, neither about puzzles.

Just a small example from the very first beginning. You can leave the starting room in three different ways:

1. Open the "run and jump corridor".
2. Through the portcullis.
2A. Blast it with a fireball.
2B. Kill one of the worms, get the key and unlock the portcullis.

There are hundreds of similar examples. Some time ago I started a thread on different ways to complete CSB and it turned out that there are many more ways than I'd previously imagined - some of them more different, some less (the secret back door, the "Weapon", the teleporters, the Skeleton key; getting the Master key from a demon x from a vexirk I don't know how many levels below...).

As Paul said - there's always another way.

The one that annoys the hell out of me is the original comment: timed events. Well, actually, not timed events per se, but timed events that have too-tight tolerances and are on a linear path to success.

I'd recommend that when every designer builds a timed puzzle and tweaks it to 'just right', they should then go ahead and increase the tolerance by at least 1 second. And of course, also provide a different route for the less dexterous among us. For example, a corridor of opening/closing pits might have an alternate route that's mostly fighting, etc.

The problem is that during testing, a designer will hone her skills very quickly to easily pass the stuff she's built. PLayers don't have that benefit, so what appears to be easy to the designer simply ends up an exercise in frustration.

The timed puzzles in DM and CSB were tricky, but I think the tolerances were mostly just right.

Thanks for the reminders about CSB.
I recently had a go at RTC CSB.
Indeed I tried the two ways ( run & jump / porticullis ). I got stuck just later, trying to get a flask, messing with keys a haze and a "supplies for the fast" to end up empty handed at the four way choice.
I found my maps ( dusty scrolls on my bedroom wardrobe ). I was amazed to see the complexity of CSB, mostly remembered I had spent more than 2 months on this great game.
This is too much. I gave up.

I agree on all you said. Let me add some comments.
I think a dungeon should be completed by more than 90% of players that are DM and CSB able, without any hint.
Sure it feels good to give hints, but that is not the aim of games.
Alternative ways is good, but not too many. Some prefer linear scenarios, others like all open ways. Balance is the essence.
Dungeons should be tested by third parties, to fine tune puzzles ( speed, kryptic riddles, maze complexity, monster strenght, ... ).
Designers should be aware, they are no good at testing. It is like programmers that "tested" their software, mostly where it works for them.
A no alternative can be good, to force learning a new trick. This, as long as there is enough knowledge or background to succed.
One can imagine a sequence where you learn a first easy trick, then a second trick, more difficult, using the first one and a bit more, then a third trick.....and so on building up trick complexity.

One can imagine a sequence where you learn a first easy trick, then a second trick, more difficult, using the first one and a bit more, then a third trick.....and so on building up trick complexity.

Imagination is not needed. Play Dungeon Master.

Learn to step on a pad to open a door.
Learn to take a torch.
Learn to pick up a club.
Learn to open a door with a pushbutton.
Learn to fight a skeleton.
Learn to take item from altar.
Learn to pick up a key and unlock door.
Learn to pick up a key and find a door.
All this in the first 60 seconds.

I remember a very hard time event in 'Up and Down' dungeon. You had to cast 2 or 3 times the gravity spell while a fireball had been launched just behind you. That was pretty impossible but I managed to do it : I was probably the happiest dungeon player in the world at that moment !

There is a very subjective and narrow line between something that is annoyingly impossible for the effort you want to put in, and something that is a memorable challenge that stays with you.


I think the playing ethos has changed away from what made DM/CSB great. Us older people have less time for any one thing, and those with more time have far more pulls in various media for their attention. Neither allows for the patience and time to have those same experiences, unless there something special keeping focus.

That means a designer is spending lots more precious time (comapred to anything else they have to do or want to do) creating an experience and yet the player is prepared to spend far less time doing it.


Grimrock took about ten years to get to fruition, and within 18 hours of release some people had played it and were waiitng for the editor, the game itself seemingly taking about 9 or 10 hours of dedicated play from a standing start.

So in a small community, and a non-commercial custom dungeon, it also seems to be a prohibitive obstacle to spend so much time to craft an experience that, by necessity, needs to be such a short time sink. Especially if some of the designers time is also being sunk in to polish and alternative paths instead of a core game.

beowuuf wrote:There is a very subjective and narrow line between something that is annoyingly impossible for the effort you want to put in, and something that is a memorable challenge that stays with you.

Now you're just being sensible!

No, really, the original point was a little bit different. My problem was not that I wouldn't have enough time or patience to solve some puzzle / riddle / maze; my problem was that I wasn't (or thought I wasn't) fast enough for an arcade / action part of a dungeon. I don't mind spending a lot of time finding a way in a complicated maze or finding a meaning to some complex riddles. But the fact that some people are simply not quick enough - physically or mentally - for some sort of things is quite a different story. The fact that you have to restart the game over and over and again and again to strike appropriate keys in appropriate order fast enough is annoying. This is not a question of time but of obvious futility of such an action. I'd rather spend half an hour fighting a tought battle or finding a way through a maze than 10 minutes of and endless restore - try - fail session.

I maintain that the time tolerances you're faced with must be way too tight then.

There were a lot of similar complaints levelled at the timed stuff in Grimrock, yet I found them all doable and only mildly frustrating when I had to (sometimes) re-do a part.

Designers need to allow more tolerances in their puzzles for a variety of player types and not simply build stuff for their own speedy hands...

I generally don't have problems with timing puzzles, because I can mash keys just as fast as the next guy. But sometimes it is annoying, you know what needs to be done, you know how to do it, you just can't mash the buttons fast enough sometimes... A solution that I can offer; in my dungeon, which will probably never get finished, puzzles get easier the more you try them. This is done either by having the character give you a hint or by slowing down the relays for timing puzzles. I do this because I get more enjoyment from solving a puzzle then mashing buttons and would like to reward people for figuring it out. This is pretty easy to do in RTC using multiple relays and a counter.

In my Towers dungeon I often provided alternative methods to complete puzzles. Just had to think outside the box, or look around!