bomber50
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I don't think the aesthetics of a dungeon has been discussed too often on the Architecture boards. How do you make a hold look nice?

I'm currently in the process of making a hold and it all looks just a little bit on the ugly side.

Red-XIII
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Well if you want in the Help section of the AE, Erik Hermansen wrote some simply suggestions so you could start reading all that section.
About personal hints I'm not sure if I can help a lot since I'm not a good artist but I think that if the hold has total different puzzles it's a little hard build up the aesthetics; for exemple if two puzzles requires half of the room ( let's say 1N and 2N) you can fill the empty part in 1N with water/walls/pits and continuing with them not only in the nearest room like 2N but also in 1N1E, 1E and so on; you can use rooms with no puzzles and even not accessible.
If your hold has an interesting story you might want to put some decorations, like bones or graves if you are in a cave, or grass in a forest. If you want to build a level with a huge artwork (like goblin forest in gigantic jewel lost) I suggest to search in the web for some schematizations since that would be a very hard work.
I know I said some obviousness but I started with this little basics to make my holds less uglier.
Hope I helped a bit.
P.S. even if you can't build a super-architectural hold I think that many players (like me) prefer the quality of the puzzles, but of course also aesthetics has his matter, you just have to find your balance.

____________________________
There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher

mxvladi
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I think there are several (pretty obvious) things to remember when designing the room:

1. Do not leave room almost-empty. It surely won't look very nice.

2. Do not overuse decorations/weather effects/light effects/whatever. While almost-empty room sure looks pretty ugly, the "over-designed" one looks just as bad. Plus, it might slow the game down in some cases, which is even worse.

3. Do not place stuff(and by "stuff" I mean both decorations/obstacles and monsters) randomly. The room will almost certainly end up pretty ugly if you do. Even in some basic roach horde room, if architect has put at least *some* thought in placing roaches, player's first impression of the room will be better.

(fun fact: the winning entries in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly contest are exactly this: overly-designed rooms with almost randomly-placed stuff. Speaking of which, the compilation hold is a very good example of how you shouldn't design rooms)

I'm pretty sure that if you make a room which doesn't suffer from above flaws, it'll end up being fine room. Not the most beautiful room ever, but definitely fine.


Also, DROD is a puzzle game, so the puzzle itself is pretty important, too. I like rooms with elegant solutions much more than just beautifully-designed ones, but with unimpressive puzzles.

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[Last edited by mxvladi at 10-19-2012 03:33 PM]

Elfstone
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At the risk of sounding as though I'm blowing my own trumpet, may I suggest you have a look at 'Seasons' and 'Castle Steele'. I have always found the aesthetics of DROD fascinating. There are people on this site who will tell you that I go too far in that direction (and I have always admitted that I am no good at puzzles) but you may find some useful ideas in those two holds.

____________________________
Winner of: Novice Architect Excellence 2006.
FAPCA - Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics

The spitemaster
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Actually, to be honest, I sometimes start randomly. For the hold Val Unrich 80-90% of the rooms started with a random placement of obstacles and monsters. Only after were they all placed did I mine the placement for a puzzle. I also went along and moved and replaced many objects to make transition and the style be consistent across the hold. At times what I finish is unrecognizable from what I started with, but other times I just leave it the way it is.

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Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away

Lucky Luc
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You might also want to take a look at Entropy, which is in my opinion the most beautifully designed hold I've played so far. Sure, it's progression over time is a very special case and can't be transferred to every holt, but it generally shows quite a few design possibilities, from extremely tidy to completely decayed.

noma
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Penwielder comes to mind too with his thoughtful use of lighting and room elements. And the rooms themselves are not only well designed but also contribute to an artful layout of the entire level.

You should check out the winners/nominees for People's Choice Awards in Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics for inspiration of what makes good design.

Eighth: Archipelago by Penwielder
Seventh: Detention Complex by Penwielder
Sixth: Gigantic Jewel Lost by Zch and Kallor
Fifth: Castle Steele by Elfstone
Fourth: The Consequence by Oneiromancer
Third: Figure or Ground by Jacob
Second: Great Uncle Yurgess' Hold by Sergenth
First: Eye by Clayton Weiss

This Awards page has links to the individual award threads if you want to check out the nominees. Reading the blurbs under the Layout and Aesthetics award description could also give you some tips.

This Building page (what is that section of the website called anyway?) gives some general tips that, while not specifically about aesthetics, will still help make a better designed room.

Rheb
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http://forum.caravelgames.com/map.php

Check out:
1 Gigantic Jewel Lost
2 Doctor E. Will's Mega Complex

I find the most beautiful holds are the ones where you can't instantly separate the levels into a selection of rooms. This is not always practical. But IMO, the gains will always outweigh the losses if you do it well enough.

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Voligner is my very own DROD-like game. Please check it out!

Jatopian
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This is a bit off-topic, but doesn't GJL's Goblin Woods seen all as one map make one wonder what it would be like to play a DROD with one-room levels that size?

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Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

Rheb
Level: Smitemaster

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Ha, yeah. It would be awesome and horrible!

____________________________
Voligner is my very own DROD-like game. Please check it out!