This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Unexplored [Steam page].

“Dungeon crawlers are very much the hero’s journey, where you start off as a nobody and end up as the big hero,” says Joris Dormans, creator of realtime dungeon crawler Unexplored. “Or at least that’s the plan.”

Unexplored creates great hero’s journeys. As Adam said in his Wot I Think, it consistently generates some of the best ever roguelike dungeons. They often feel like they’ve been laid out by hand, organic caverns giving way to rooms and corridors, each space sprinkled with foliage and architectural details, as well as puzzles, traps and obstacles to cross. And the thing that makes them feel so satisfying to crawl is something that calls back to the fundamentals of level design, and even architecture in general:

THE MECHANIC: Cyclic design Read the rest of this entry »