While I was chasing some game ideas and creating prototypes for Shard Light, Core Dump, and Subsisters, I couldn't help but start playing around with another idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a while.

Final Fantasy VIII was the first game in that frachise I ever played, and one thing that always stood out to me about it was Triple Triad. I can't count how many hours I spent playing that game while completely getting sidetracked from the main story (don't get me wrong, FF8 is, to this day, my favorite in the franchise). If you've never played it, it is a relatively simple game to play but it is almost deceptively simple. The core rules are easy enough to grasp, but as you collect new cards and new rules spread to your region (damn you "Random" rule) the game becomes quite deep but still easy to pick up and play.

A game of Triple Triad
Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII. © Square Enix.

Players take turns laying cards on a 3x3 grid. Each card has 4 ranks listed on its face, one for each side (top, left, right, bottom). When a card is placed next to an opponent's card, they "clash" and the card with the higher rank wins which flips the losing card's color to that of the winner's (player's color is blue and the opponent's is pink). When all slots on the grid are filled, the player with the most cards owned wins the match.

There are other rules that come into play like combo chains and other rules that mess with the ranks of cards, but the core rules are pretty easy to understand.

This was my base. The game is simple enough to recreate, especially the basic ruleset. But I wanted to expand on it. What if the cards not only had monsters on them but also rooms associated with them? Then that would mean at the end of the match you effectively end up with a floor plan of 9 rooms. Then the various results of clashes could be used to determine how the rooms connect.

And that is where this game starts. A card game that is used to create a dungeon layout. Then you get to play through that layout.

After messing around with a prototype for a few weeks and prototyping 2.5D pixel art dungeon crawler, I felt that I was onto something and thus Dungeography was born.

The Dungeography prototype: a card match that lays out the dungeon, and the crawler you play through it
A card match that lays out the dungeon, and the crawler you play through it.

It doesn't look fully polished yet but it's a start. I'll be posting regular updates as I meet major milestones or talk about different approaches.

Thanks for following along!