Dungeon Master Forum

Hi, I would have your thought about the Riverfall design found in DM2 Beta, and how to improve it.

First, here is what it looks like : somewhere in the undergrounds you found a "pit" with flowing water. When you go into that pit, you slide down it for a few seconds (there is an animated sequence) until you reach its end. You feel like you went a few levels down.




NB: These images here are a mix of Beta version into SKWin.

I find this part specially nice and interesting and I like this idea. However it has been removed from the final dungeon.

Now, what is actually technically happening here ?



As you can see from the map viewer, everything is on the same map/level, separated into 3 parts. You start from left-bottom, you are sent into the left-top part of the map for a few seconds, then finally teleported to the right area.
What is interesting me is the "fall" sequence (left-top). It is a bit like the spirit-circle trap in the upper part of Skullkeep when you need to reach the Onyx + Skeleton key.
You are actually surrounded by 4 animated actuators(sensors) that somewhat act as teleporters to prevent you to move off your central position, and act as animators to display the falling sequence. For that point, the animation is a floor animated decoration that covers the whole viewport display, hence hidding the surrounding walls of the small area you are in.
I think this sequence works quite well, but there are a few drawbacks:
- as you can still move (because there are never pauses in-game, except for sleep), they needed to block you in all 4 directions during the sequence.
- animation is setup as decoration in all 4 directions as well, but all this design takes up to 4*2 actuators + 6 in the central point = 14 actuators only for this sequence !
- as you can see on the second image, when you have the map activated you can see the setup, which is not very pretty.

I'd like to reimplement this in a more simpler and proper way.
As designers, how would you do this ?

That's a really cool thing you found there.

I'm not a designer so I have no idea if the following would work (probably not because they'd propably have found that solution if it was viable), but could a re-skinned stairs sequence do the job?

There are some other cool mysteries in the beta version ...
I believe a specific solution needs more code change and they went not enough far for it.
A stairs might not work as it is a 2-way direction. Once you fall from the riverfall, you can't climb it back. Think it of it more like a pit. Maybe it would be something like a delayed pit, first showing the animation sequence, then sending you to the level below. What's good with stairs or pit is that position lining up through maps is consistent. Which is not the case with the current design, where you are still even on the same map!
Or maybe something a bit like CSB pit to junction of the ways, because you'll fall several levels down.

You could place a teleport at the lower end of the stairs so the party will end up elsewhere, they can't climb back up that way. But you'd still need some delay on the stairs too (or maybe just a lot of them chained together without the platforms in between).

You could probably do this in RTC:

Teleporter on top of a fake pit activated by party
Party enters teleporter
When the destination is reached, the party triggers a cut-scene that shows the fall animation
When the cut-scene is finished, the party has "landed" in the destination area

The waterfall animation captured as a GIF is available on http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/606

Thanks for ideas. Using pits would be more natural than stairs for this. I think it should be 3-steps.
1: the first pit, even without teleporter
2: the fall animation over maybe a second pit (just surrounded by walls) under the first pit, but with delayed opening, allowing the animation sequence to complete. I believe an important point here is to disable movements like in sleep mode. That will prevent to put teleporter-like around to push back the player. Movements must be enabled back after the end of the sequence.
3: the land destination will be free to hold other actuators to trigger at this point.

I would need to try that. Maybe using 2 or 3 actuators/teleporters should be then enough.