how many of you "zquesters" out there make multi-floor dungeons & then when making your quest sometimes actualy confuse yourself? right now, i'm in the midst of making a 5 or 6 story level that i call "Mage's Tower" (althou it doesn't really look like a 'tower'😉 and i'm getting so confused--cuz i making like all the rooms, and tyring to keep in mind what staircases warp you where and where i'm going to put things--in HD, there's a level with 9 stories (which i haven't beaten yet)--i can't imagine making that! and i'm having trouble with only 5 or 6!!! anyway, i'm just curious, how many of you tend to inadvertantly confuse yourself when making a quest? anybody got any tips?
how many of you....
I draw things out on paper. That helps me alot.
Yeah. I've confused myself before. Of course... it was a dungeon made of nothing but warps and sidewarps (a huge maze of rooms). I ended up canning the level since I couldn't keep track of what warped where... even with it drawn out on paper. 😱
I keep it all up in my mind. It also helps when you align all the floors to their identical screen numbers from floor to floor. So you can easily track which room is above/below what room.
That's how I do it, DFW.
I do it all out of my head.. :P I don't even write my dungeon designs out on paper! I just make them as I go.. Also, I made a 14 floor tower before.. It was my final level in my first quest.. but my next ganon's Tower will have about 20 floors and I'm going to use events (which is the first time I use them) to open the doors. :P But I try to make it to where one staircase is right "on top" of the other.. thus making it easy for me to keep track of my warps.. also I don't tend to use that many stair cases..
:whap: Bad Smilie....
I canned the whole multifloor thing for two reasons - i can make a dungeon without 80 rooms in it just as fun as one with less than 30, and I think the player loses interest getting lost in a giant tower as such.
as far as making them, i've actually found it feasable to have the above floors on incremental maps. That way, switching maps is just like switching floors, and you know exactly what room is on top of what other room, without having to make special markers or getting confused. It also makes it dandy to line up columns and staircases.
same here i draw on paper, it gives me an idea of what i have done and what goes where and does what
I dont use paper very much, I do it to get a general direction, but the I write the game threw the players eye, one screen at a time. Sometimes it works (Works best on overworlds) some times it doesen't (on dungeions I plan it out base on sections not screens.)
Multi-floor levels give the player something to workfor besides the boss, It gives then (or me) a feeling of accompleshement to access a new floor in a dungeion.
Using Excel or MS Word, I use tables to plan out all of my dungeons. I still get confused on single floor dungeons anyhow. 😞