I spent my half an hour withLet’s Build a DungeonatTokyo Game Show, appropriately, building a dungeon. This game dev simulator began with me creating the first mission of the pixel art MMORPG you’re supposed to create in this game. It’s all very meta, but roll with it.
This meant picking the shape of the plot I’d be creating my town in and placing buildings inside its boundaries, which allowed me to then expand those boundaries. The demo prompted me to make a design decision: would players be mages or melee fighters?
These were the only two classes I could pick from in the demo, but a note on the page said there would be more to choose from in the final version of the game.Farmore – there were a whole wheel of greyed out options.
Then I had to pick a quest to implement from two options, and place the necessary buildings and quest giver inside it. This was where my first big surprise came: I could enter the quest building and customise it. In fact, as Springloaded CEO and LBaD game designer James Barnard informed me, you may enter any of the buildings you put down. That includes a bathhouse, a courier, and even your own home. Of course, I sent my avatar running straight to the bathhouse to have a look inside.
This was just one quest to implement – according to a screen that laid out my quest choices, there are a whopping 70 required to finish the story mode.
I plopped my quest giver in, clicked through the quest dialogue, and entered my dungeon to start building it out. In order to place the gate for the dungeon’s boss, I had to expand the dungeon to 150 tiles and put down five enemy spawn towers, but I couldn’t just put everything down haphazardly and hope for the best.
To put down a spawn tower, the playtesters who were already running around my dungeon had to have taken down the other spawn towers I’d already placed – this would stop me from putting down five in a row and making the dungeon unbeatable, I presume. I could also fill the dungeon with torches, breakable objects, chests, piles of gold to reward players with, and plenty of options for decoration.
I tried to create a couple of rooms with narrow passages to ensure that there’d be some bottleneck of enemies and it would be harder for players to get overwhelmed. As I placed the gate to the boss, I received a notification saying that I’d lost connection to the game server. I looked nervously at Barnard, who grinned at me, so I figured this was supposed to happen. Following instructions on the screen, I pressed tab on the keyboard, and was sent to my desktop – well, my simulated desktop.
What I saw in the demo was incredibly ambitious – after tooling around the desktop for a bit, I was prompted to playtest the dungeon myself and see how my design worked in practice. Barnard told me that the type of game you create in LBaD is up to you, and there’s an astonishing amount of flexibility to work with here. In fact, he said that you should be able to create Skyrim in the game if you so choose, which is a jaw-dropping goal. You’ll be able to draw your own pixel art characters and have them pop into the world fully animated from all angles. You’ll even be able to create your own NPCs with dedicated conversation trees, controlled by logic gates so they can react to the things your characters has or hasn’t done. What the hell.
But whatwasn’tin the demo is even more astonishing. After all, this isn’t a game development tool, though it does do an admirable job at breaking down game development principles into understandable goals with intuitive tools to implement them – it’s a game developmentsim. On that desktop were apps labelled Design Board (a Trello-analogue where tasks that need resolving are added), GameLink (Steam, pretty much), Events Calendar, Release Management, Org Chart, and even NapWire, which I assume is supposed to be Napster given it lets you play music.Seriously, what the hell.
GameLink allows you to go in and play your work in progress. Release management, from what I understand, simulates server management. The Org Chart allows you to hire people and vet them through their social media – you’ll be able to tell what kind of person you’re hiring through their LinkedIn persona, though to be fair, most people who use LinkedIn obsessively are the worst anyway. Another app, OmniReporter, allows you to check on the studio’s financials and see exactly how fast you’re bleeding money. There’s way more I haven’t even gotten to touch on, it’s ridiculous how much Let’s Build a Dungeon is trying to do.
Perhaps most importantly, Let’s Build a Dungeon draws from the studio’s own experiences making games, including the one directly preceding this, Let’s Build a Zoo. It’s self-conscious about the state of the games industry as it exists today – you can be an evil CEO and crunch your developers to the bone, if you want, and your boss might send you threatening messages reminding you of the financial pressure you’re under.
The way Barnard describes it to me, it’s borderline satirical, blurring the boundaries of fiction and reality in an attempt to show you just how ridiculous and difficult game dev can be. I can’t help but feel like that’s really valuable in a time where the work of these developers is being devalued and they’re facing layoff after layoff.
When I asked Barnard when we should expect to see Let’s Build a Dungeon in the wild, he said, “Never. It’ll never be done.” Seconds later, he shrugged and said, “2025?” At this point, I don’t really care how long it takes, I just need to see how deep this game dev rabbit hole can go. You can wishlist it onSteam.
Let’s Build a Dungeon
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Run a game studio your way and see how things develop in this multi-layered management sim from the creators of Let’s Build a Zoo.Manage your game studioReview the resumes of hundreds of hopeful applicants as you staff your dream studio in this true-to-life and ridiculous simulation of the games industry. Recruit and manage artists, programmers and planners to produce new assets and mechanics that bring your creations to life.Manage development schedules, advertising campaigns and press relationships to grow your studio from a scrappy indie team into a development juggernaut. Will you risk financial ruin by delaying your game until it’s perfect, or push your staff to breaking point with crunch time and salary cuts? Will you bow to community requests, or stay true to your creative vision?Design a virtual MMOAs a fledgling MMORPG developer, it’s your job to build a fantasy world that keeps virtual players hooked while balancing the books. Welcome them into your world and watch their adventures unfold!Design an expansive adventure filled with quests, towns, monsters and dungeons, tailored to your virtual players’ demands. Jump in-game at any time to ban rogue users and see your world from a new perspective.Can you wow your audience with an RPG classic, or will this game be your final fantasy?Build a world for your playersWill you build a monster catching RPG? A cozy farming simulator? Or maybe a magic-fuelled action adventure? Whatever you build, build it your way with thousands of objects, environments, characters and enemies to choose from.Place every tree, build every quest and decide on job classes for visiting virtual players as you watch them explore in real time. Increase drop rates if they are struggling, or boost enemy stats to keep them grinding for XP. The more time spent in your world, the happier your investors will be!Play your custom RPGHire testers and stomp out bugs in your game, or jump into your world at any time to experience your masterpiece through the eyes of a player.Features• Design and build your very own MMO world, fit to be filled by hordes of virtual players• Manage the day-to-day running of your game studio, from hiring and firing to keeping your investors happy• Attract new virtual players to your MMO masterpiece by expanding your world, designing new quests and monitoring player journeys• Progress through the campaign to develop new items, environments and mechanics that bring your ideas to life• Playtest your RPG at any time to see the world through the eyes of a player• Mix-and-match quest styles for endless replayability• Customise using thousands of items, or design your own• Negotiate tough conversations with shareholders, staff, players and publishers to make meaningful choices that will impact the direction of your studio.Creative Mode and mod toolsCreative mode is an open sandbox and you are free to write your own story, create dialogue and cutscenes, draw characters and adjust gameplay mechanics. Browse the games made by other people online, or upload your own to our built in game browser.
