vittro
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Almost every day I see a lot of new ideas in puzzles ( user made, or TCB ) or in very fun rooms... But, I can make only a few puzzles, because I often don't have ideas on them... So, how do you think to new puzzles? Do you take the editor, place some elements and make a puzzle? Or you think about it before opening the editor and them make it? Please, post the ways you make good and new puzzles, because I don't often have ideas...

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TripleM
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Have you seen the articles here?

Banjooie
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One of the cardinals rules of DROD room design is to not make rooms that rely on the order that monsters move.

So I just read the article.

And then I lol'd.

Edit: Anyway, what I do when I want to make a room is I drop a bunch of random elements into a room, and let 'em interact. Then, hopefully, I notice something.

For instance, 'Hey, these briar roots--they're not growing over these hot tiles!'

Then I think of what hot tiles do.

That is: They restrict sword turning. They kill monsters. They prevent you from standing in one place.

Hey, hot tiles /force you to move/ in general. Hey, while we're here, let's fork off an idea.

When you don't move, a hot tile kills you. What's something we DON'T want a hot tile to kill?

Halph.

So now we have a room where Halph needs to constantly move.

BUT WAIT!

It takes him a turn to hit the orb--which means if he hits an orb, he dies.

But--but but but, he changes direction every time you hit a door.

And suddenly, you have a room wherein you have to keep hitting doors as you go through a maze to keep Halph from burning to a crisp.

Not sure what happened to the briars, but there's other rooms for that.

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[Last edited by Banjooie at 04-19-2007 11:25 PM]

larrymurk
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I gotta say that was pretty funny Banjooie.

I usually try to think of an interesting way elements behave and then try to create a puzzle that focuses on that. Often I come up with the ideas by solving rooms the "wrong" way and figuring, "Hmmm, now wouldn't it be neat if the player had to solve this the way I did?"

Jeff_Ray...
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For me, imagination is ikn my blood. I just make as I go, and take a break if I lack ideas. Them ideas should come back after a while.

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Chaco
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My development process is pretty similar to Banjooie, although I usually take a different step.

Whenever I make a room, I sometimes pick an element and try to name as many properties of that element as possible. For example, not only do adders get hurt when you stab their heads, but their midsections and tails are invulnerable. I then try to base a puzzle on this concept - the midsections and tails are blocking something, so you have to go to the head and kill it before you can go through there.

And, with a few other things to keep in mind and possibly a few fixes, a puzzle is made.

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calamarain
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I'm similar - I tend to make larger puzzles out of micropuzzles. e.g. a mud mother that must be killed within the first 60 turns upon entering a room or another area becomes impossible... a corrider full of golems that must be killed efficiently or the corridor is impassable. Combine these two and you not only have to kill the golems right, you have to do it quickly.

Things like that work well. If you look at a lot of rooms in TCB or JtRH and KDD, you'll see that a lot of the rooms could be made smaller - the actual puzzle section only takes up say... 80% of a room. Or 50%. You don't have to fill an entire room with stuff - you can space things out with corridors and scenery.

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Chaco
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Actually, I try to avoid micropuzzles if at all possible - I aim for one puzzle per room. One of my worst pet peeves is somebody making a multi-section room that, if I mess up, due to either checkpoint placement or some other factor, I end up having to do a lot of other stuff which is devoted to more than one section.

I prefer having any subgoals be subservient to one main thing that you need to accomplish in a room.

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calamarain
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Chaco wrote:
Actually, I try to avoid micropuzzles if at all possible - I aim for one puzzle per room. One of my worst pet peeves is somebody making a multi-section room that, if I mess up, due to either checkpoint placement or some other factor, I end up having to do a lot of other stuff which is devoted to more than one section.

I prefer having any subgoals be subservient to one main thing that you need to accomplish in a room.

Oh, I quite agree on that one. Nothing worse than being unable to kill that last roach because you missed something the second you entered the room... If I do make a micropuzzle combined room, it's quite clear what you need to do in each section and whether you've screwed up. e.g. the mud mother one I described above, if you've not killed her in time, you can clearly see that the next area is inaccessible. Or, another example that's in my current hold-in-progress (shameless plug!) - a mini goblin puzzle between two sections - where it's quite clear that the force arrows won't allow you to go back later - you have to kill them right now before you move on.

Micropuzzles don't necessarily have to be dependent on each other - e.g. a room with 2 entirely separate puzzles that don't affect each other. Can be solved in either order.

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tokyokid
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I generally start with an element or monster I like to make a room about (or is the theme of the level, etc).

For example, I'm making a room with an adder. It's the level entrance room, so I plop Beethro right in front of the adder. Now the room is istantly a chase room-that I love so much! Then add walls, pits, etc to decarate the room. Then just keep adding elements to the chase! The puzzle builds itself from there.

Good luck!

calamarain
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tokyokid wrote:
I generally start with an element or monster I like to make a room about (or is the theme of the level, etc).

For example, I'm making a room with an adder. It's the level entrance room, so I plop Beethro right in front of the adder. Now the room is istantly a chase room-that I love so much! Then add walls, pits, etc to decarate the room. Then just keep adding elements to the chase! The puzzle builds itself from there.

Good luck!

Oooh, that's an idea! Not thought of that one. Might have to include a room like that. Could even do it not as the entrance, but using a tunnel instead.

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vittro
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Thank you all guys, now I'm making a lot of hard puzzles! I followed Banjooie method and also Coppro ideas combined with the other architect ideas, and it's working pretty well. Thank you again

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jdyer
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I also get ideas from games completely unrelated to DROD. Sometimes the other game is similar, sometimes the connection is only small (but enough to spawn an idea).

For example, in A Quiet Place, there is a room with a snake that is a timer with door "checkpoints", so as you as running along hitting orbs along the way you are "buying time". The way this puzzle came about is I was thinking of the game Gauntlet and how it was similar to DROD with its generators. While I didn't reproduce Gauntlet in whole, I did think about how it has a timer constantly ticking down which can be refreshed ("Blue warrior needs food badly!") and then tried to come up with a way of reproducing that in DROD.

Another technique to try is start by laying out completely random architecture and monsters. Obviously this is not the path to Genius Rooms (tm), but if you're an observant player, in the process of playing such a room you may notice some odd behavior or maneuver that was needed to get to the end. Focus just on that particular effect and augment it, cutting out the extraneous material.

Just to give an example, in the process of a random run I noticed a snake block a monster from killing me in a unexpected way. While this wasn't necessary at all -- I was just noodling around -- I thought what would happen if I made that the point of the room?

jdyer
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Another tip: make a room that seems to be impossible for some reason, and try to solve it. Usually the room in question will be impossible, but then ask: what is the smallest tweak you can make that will make the room possible?

Quite often (although it usually takes more than one tweak) this will lead to an interesting puzzle.

calamarain
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jdyer wrote:
Another tip: make a room that seems to be impossible for some reason, and try to solve it. Usually the room in question will be impossible, but then ask: what is the smallest tweak you can make that will make the room possible?

Quite often (although it usually takes more than one tweak) this will lead to an interesting puzzle.

It works very well with trapdoor puzzles - try to get as many of the trapdoor segments as possible to drop. When you think you cannot get any more to drop, and you've just got that last one left, simply remove it, and you've got a solvable possible puzzle.

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