Tentacle Clocktower
[Dungeon (1 Star)] [Geode Topside]
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Approved
Ylva 2 years ago
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Needs Review
SpookiPants 2 years ago
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Active
Ylva 2 years ago
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Needs Review
SpookiPants 2 years ago
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Active
Ylva 2 years ago
Tentacle Clocktower status has been set to Needs Review
SpookiPants 2 years ago
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Hello again!
Thank you for dedicating so much time and effort to this dungeon! I believe it is in a pretty good spot as of now.
Im going to mark it as Approved, i hope the Developers would find the variety sufficient.
Something to note if you would feel like making more dungeons - it is much easier to create variations if dungeon is cut into more pieces. It does make initial planning a bit harder, but it goes a long way and helps with providing a better experience for the players.
On an example of this creation:
- if the tentacles (with or without the ground) were separated from the tower, you could make different tentacles = different ways to climb the tower, going clockwise or counterclockwise, with more tentacles or with just one, going all the way up or just to where the entrance is and so on.
- if the bottom part of the tower was a separate piece, you could make it opened or blocked or filled or completely different - as long as it fits within the space between the tentacles - it would work.
- if the middle part of the tower was a separate piece it could also offer many more paths/obstacles for players, and it would work nicely with everything else if you keep the entrance to it in the same spot - to ensure that all the tentacles can provide a valid path.
- the boss room is already a separate piece - it is best to make these spacious so both single target and cursed skull objectives could comfortably spawn. but even with current size there are many things that can be done.
You have an absolutely brilliant brain (and i do know that for sure from looking at the way your Random dungeon works!) so i truly believe that getting any new dungeons done and approved would be much easier for you if you keep the variety requirements in mind.
Hello!
Overall the changes are looking really good, well done \o/
It is much easier to climb up, the amount of decorations is less overwhelming, the dungeon has a bottom now and i believe it is more noticeable now where one should go.
One major issue that still exists though is lack of variations. The boss room does feel a bit different with some pieces missing and i think it is more or less ok this way, but for the tentacle_clocktower_bottom_1 and tentacle_clocktower_bottom_2 the only difference cant just be a tiny room with portal. This bottom 'room' makes up most of this dungeon and it does need to have distinct alternate version.
Like i mentioned in a previous review, amount of tentacles, their shape, way they wrap around the tower could be a good way to make the player experiences with dungeon vary. At the very least you could flip the blueprint and make them wrap clockwise instead of counterclockwise. It could also be good to have something on the inside of the tentacles, jumppads, antigravity, some decorations, traps and may be mobs to make the climb less monotonous.
Im changing the status of this creation to Active, hopefully for the last time :)
PS. please make sure to keep your screenshots up to date!
ZertVicHello again!
More dungeons, yay! I like the idea of this one a lot, it would fit nicely together with quite some other dungeons in the biome.
Like with the previous dungeon, this one could greatly benefit from some extra variations. It is also rather hard to navigate through the dungeon, currently the pathways are far from obvious and they are rather narrow.
Mobs and portals seem to be in order, good job!
Some more feedback about room design:
tentacle_clocktower_top_1 - only has one version, it would need to have a second option. The tentacles dont reach high enough to block it, so the room could be bigger or some clock faces could be opened, or it could have some platforms on the inside etc.
Having some traps could help with variety too, the current top_1 doesnt have much space so id say some spikes would suffice, but in a bigger room there could be fireball turrets and such.
The fight area is very small, it would only allow for single-target objectives to spawn comfortably. Radius of Cursed Skulls would go well past the walls and some mobs would spawn on the outside making it hard for players to hunt them down. It could be good to make it bigger, but i understand it can be hard to achieve with current design. Please keep in mind that boss rooms need to be bigger (15x15 or so for mini, 21+ for big ones) for future dungeon projects.
Pro tip - the shape of your Fake Air roof would be the shape that your dungeon cuts out in a terrain where it spawns, so since you do not have below-ground rooms it could be good to make it somewhat more rounded. (The way its currently set up wont protect tentacles from getting filled with soil if they spawn in a hill! they do need to have a bottom)
tentacle_clocktower_bottom_1 and tentacle_clocktower_bottom_2 - it is very hard to spot the differences between the rooms. Please make sure that gameplay does feel varying. Having different paths through rooms/colors used/traps/decorations can help a lot with variety and so help to delay the unpleasant feeling of killing exactly same thing over and over again.
Currently only difference that i can spot is a position of 'mimigame' teleporter, however with abundance of the decorations it is very hard to spot arrows pointing down. The difference would just would have to be more than this, sorry.
Now, i do try my best to find and offer easy solutions, but sometimes there are no shortcuts unfortunately.
The access to the boss room is done through tentacles atm, player finds an entrance in one of them and climbs up through a narrow tunnel. This will not work too well sadly. The idea by itself is great, but:
- it needs to be obvious where player needs go. currently the tower itself looks more inviting and would likely suggest that players need to find stairs up from it. I was pretty confused on where should i go before reading your note, players wont have such a chance (signs with text directions are not allowed as there is no good way to get them translated). Once inside the tentacle, there are ways to get mislead again - you can see a room you can see an exit out of tentacle but stepping there would drop you all the way down.
One way to achieve a clear path could be using separate colors for the 'ground' of it, like lighter shade inside the tentacles that is followed by a carpet inside the tower.
- tentacles are VERY narrow - this plays well in metaforge with one player and slow movement speed, but with 2-3 on mounts this will cause a lot of frustration. Yes we can likely assume here that majority of the players would go straight for the clock, but a 2-jump route still has to be playable.
I would suggest reducing the amount of usable tentacles to 1 or 2, remaining 2-3 could be smaller, thinner and purely decorative. That would also help with having enough space to make them different and so more organic. In such a case the remaining tentacle (or two) could be significantly thicker and offer smoother rise on the inside. Something along these lines (any other solution works just as fine):
Alternatively (or for variation _02) it might be good to make players climb the tower from top of the tentacles, not through the inside.
- there needs to be a bottom - at the moment dungeon ends 1 block below the red plug, this is way too little. There would need to be at least 3-5 blocks below to make sure that dungeon would not look weird if it spawns on a hill/on top of a cave etc. I had to ask for some help to illustrate this better, if the dungeon spawns as is the tentacles and the whole structure will have no support:
That is not just a cosmetic issue, since there is no bottom layer under tentacles they will be filled with the land that dungeon spawns on (one on the right). To make sure that dungeon remains functional and accessible for all kinds of players the tentacles would need to have some 'floor'.
- decorations - last but not most definitely not least - some rooms have a bit too many decoration pieces in them. In such small spaces decorations feel overwhelming rather than pretty. Decorations are meant to add small details and 'oh, nice!' kind of effect, but it is no fun when they block visibility or get in the way.
Take the minigame teleporter room for example, even with half the decorations it still feels rather cluttered, while other areas of the dungeon (tentacles) have absolutely nothing in them.
The Boss room is pretty good example - it relies on voxel blocks to make it pretty and decorations are only used as a highlight.
To sum up this wall of text - this dungeon does look really promising, idea and overall design is good but it does need some more work.
Im going to change the status of this creation to Active for now, set it back to Needs Review once you upload any changes. Hoping to see it on review again!