In this second part of analyzing Desktop Dungeons, we look at how choices are given meaning not only through their complexity, but also through the role they play in structuring an experience.
This is the first part of an in-depth look at the design of Desktop Dungeons, the South African game that won the Excellence for Design Award at the IGF. In this part, we look at the player actions, choices, and tension.
Two things are key to becoming a great game designer: making games, and playing games. In this article, Rodain Joubert extracts and explains three game design lessons from playing Dungeon Crawl that revolves around difficulty, providing meaningful decisions, and removing tedium from the game interface.