Bonus Dungeon, need some puzzle ideas Options

[bulmabriefs144]

I'm making a 20 floor puzzle bonus dungeon for a game. I'm trying to get some good ideas for it. Basically, after the fifth floor, you can't go back down without abandoning the dungeon (and resetting all puzzles). Also, after the fifth floor the party splits into two, allowing teamwork puzzles. The dungeon is visited twice, on the first time, it's an actual plot dungeon to collect a quest item, on the second the fifth floor unlocks. I want floors to become progressively more difficult. Any ideas?
(I'm gonna add stuff as people suggest things, green puzzles are done)

Floor 1- Simple puzzle, push a boulder to a pressure plate to open the door
Floor 2- Black out puzzle with lit up squares
Floor 3- Teleportation puzzle
Floor 4- Kill a certain number of monsters, to solve a number riddle
Floor 5- Maze with monsters
-------Bonus floor lock------
Floor 6- Basic teamwork puzzle, pulling switches and such
Floor 7- Basic light turning puzzle, with characters on other sides of wall
Floor 8- Ice puzzle with pit holes, reading statues on ice gives a clue to unlocks stairs.
Floor 9- Puzzle using character abilities (easy)
Floor 10- Sudoku (single-block with hints at the top and side)
Floor 11- Some sort of 3d puzzle, maybe placing party members to make a weight system.
Floor 12-Music puzzle with teamwork (possibly with some parts of the song on different sides of a wall)
Floor 13- Massive riddle puzzle (maybe with an overlying riddle that needs to be solved)
Floor 14- Sequential duplication puzzle (like "simon says" with light patterns)
Floor 15- Puzzle using character abilities (hard)
Floor 16- Sudoku (multi-blocks)
Floor 17- Superhard teamwork puzzle: Dual-floor drop-hole challenge. Need to hash out the mapping though (but I think I understand the coding)
Floor 18- Obstacle course
Floor 19- Boulder puzzle/challenge (I'm thinking of a remotely controlled 2nd party which throws the switch to wall out boulders when you pass certain points, and boulders drop in various areas)
Floor 20- Big boss, treasure, and exit

Btw, if anyone wants to know how to do a party switch system, I can tell them. (Party one has a female leader, who is agile and can climb around certain obstacles or something. Party two has a male warrior, who can smash stuff with his sword. If this helps...)

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jan 25 2012, 12:01 PM

[Lato]

Ok here you go, you say there are 2 teams right? ok the map layout is a shaft and 2 balls, each party starts off in the center of a ball and must work there way togather to get there way to and work up the shaft to the top and finish. Your welcome.

[Kaust]

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

[Cleril]

Not necessarily a puzzle but it's never a bad thing to surprise the player.

After the teams split have a boulder chase sequence where the player has to keep swapping control between party members as the boulder rolls down at them. Basically have X on the left and Y on the right and swap the player's position intelligently (smoke and mirrors so to the player it seems like the game never does it). The player will know the switch is coming based on where the boulder is moving. You could ever swap this up and have the player control the character not being in the boulders way and have it be a sort of timed puzzle experience where the party member in jeopardy could A. Die or B. Get severely injured. Plenty of ideas can be branched off from this methinks.

And yes, this is doable with events, I've done similar things before. Just in case anyone thinks I'm crazy.

This post has been edited by Cleril: Jan 20 2012, 08:06 PM

[bulmabriefs144]

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

This sorta puzzle has to be variable based with equal to number (it starts a little ahead so you have to have one starting at zero), and each adding +1 to variable. Also the last tile needs to be at same level if equal to the right number (that is, you step on the others but you run into this one), followed by erasing that event. (I know, because I've done a zelda style puzzle, based not on sequence like yours, but not repeating squares, and this is how the final square was solved)

Lato, I think I can visualize this, but not the specifics. If I had to say though... a big splashy puzzle like that goes at level 19. Possibly this could be merged into Cleril's idea. The problem with this puzzle is of course hit detection of second party characters (I'd try but prefer not to).

[Lato]

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

This sorta puzzle has to be variable based with equal to number (it starts a little ahead so you have to have one starting at zero), and each adding +1 to variable. Also the last tile needs to be at same level if equal to the right number (that is, you step on the others but you run into this one), followed by erasing that event. (I know, because I've done a zelda style puzzle, based not on sequence like yours, but not repeating squares, and this is how the final square was solved)

Lato, I think I can visualize this, but not the specifics. If I had to say though... a big splashy puzzle like that goes at level 19. Possibly this could be merged into Cleril's idea. The problem with this puzzle is of course hit detection of second party characters (I'd try but prefer not to).

....Ok to be honest I was just making a dick joke....come on no one got that!?

[Cleril]

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

This sorta puzzle has to be variable based with equal to number (it starts a little ahead so you have to have one starting at zero), and each adding +1 to variable. Also the last tile needs to be at same level if equal to the right number (that is, you step on the others but you run into this one), followed by erasing that event. (I know, because I've done a zelda style puzzle, based not on sequence like yours, but not repeating squares, and this is how the final square was solved)

Lato, I think I can visualize this, but not the specifics. If I had to say though... a big splashy puzzle like that goes at level 19. Possibly this could be merged into Cleril's idea. The problem with this puzzle is of course hit detection of second party characters (I'd try but prefer not to).

It's all in the parallel process events and smoke and mirrors.

Use a PP to track the second party member (the one not controlled by the player) and the boulder. Determine with conditionals whether the boulder is on the second party member and if so have them do whatever it is you want the game to do.

Smoke and mirrors is needed to convince the player you aren't switching their position. You use could a script that let's VX do no screen effect transitions or have the boulder kick up dust (say it goes up a ramp and lands on the side with the other party member) essentially making the player think it's dirt and that they blinked. It also serves as your tutorial as the player will recognize that when that occurs it's time to focus on X position on the screen.

The key thing is to remember to never take control away from the player or at least design the map in such a way to make it seem like you aren't. Oh and you can use move routes and set event positions to smoke and mirrors the transitions. Flash the screen, change player graphic to the other party member, turn on a switch to make the event change graphics, set a move route at full speed to put the player where the other party member was.

It's doable, I did something similar in the first part of Duel if you want to see it done from a players point of view. Link is in my signature.

[kayden997]

I used a Black out puzzle for one of my projects.
Basically the lights stay on for a bit and black out.
The goal is to step on the glowing floor plates that are randomly places in places.
Lights return to normal when you stepped on X amount.

Also, I used ::Bump:: sound effect every time my character hits the wall or object while in the dark.

[Vexus]

Maybe a puzzle with mining cart with levers taking you either place x or y or dead end/monster fights?

Sort of final fantasy 9 if you know the part I'm talking about.

Or another puzzle would be:

There are 2 statues shooting a beam of light and a bunch of mirrors and you need to turn them exactly so the beam reaches a crystal/portrait/statue/whatever.

[bulmabriefs144]

....Ok to be honest I was just making a dick joke....come on no one got that!?

I thought of it, but usually find it's better to say nothing in case I'm wrong. Besides symbolic (or phallic) puzzles can be intriguing.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jan 21 2012, 07:32 AM

[Titanhex]

....Ok to be honest I was just making a dick joke....come on no one got that!?

A dick joke?! NOT ON MY FORUMS!
Lmao I got it though, but you ruined the chance for me to say something about it

BTW For the smoke and mirrors, it'd be interesting to make the mirror person have a very slight difference between the player and the character, say on one side of it.

Have you thought of a drop-hole challenge, where the party above has to drop items or objects to the party below, and the party below has to maybe flip levers or hit buttons for the party above. Would require some pen and paper to draw out the mechanics of it, but it's possible to use.

Also try a music puzzle. The room places a few chords to make a song. You have to duplicate that song with the buttons or triggers along the room that play each part of the chord.

[bulmabriefs144]

Anyone have single notes I can download? Otherwise, that last one's a non-option.

[amerk]

Btw, if anyone wants to know how to do a party switch system, I can tell them. (Party one has a female leader, who is agile and can climb around certain obstacles or something. Party two has a male warrior, who can smash stuff with his sword. If this helps...)

Just a suggestion if you are open to it, but you could always include a tutorial in the tutorial or the RM2K/3 section.

I'm curious to know if your inspiration comes from the Wild Arms games. I've only played the first and its remake, but I find WA to be a bit more refreshing than some other rpg games, and they're usually filled with some fun puzzles. Your 20 level duneon sort of reminds me of the Abyss.

In any case, you've got a lot of the basis covered, it's just a matter of how easy or tough you are planning to go. I can't really think of any more puzzles. However, if you're stumped, one idea may be to do multiple of the similar easy puzzles in the first few floors that gradually get harder, and then in the later floors introduce new features. In other words, they don't have to necessarily be a completely different puzzle on each floor. The abilities puzzle for example: depending on how many abilities a person has, that's something that can be utilized multiple times.

Ice puzzles are especially tricky, and you can make failure (falling off the edge for example) costly, which forces players to really think.

And maybe riddles. Each floor could have a solution to a riddle that needs to be unlocked to get to the 20th floor. Finding parts of the solution isn't required, but would help if the player can't solve it.

You could also do a sort of elemental puzzle where the player must determine a certain elemental order.

Depending on the physics of this dungeon, you could also make each floor unique. Maybe one floor takes place in a dungeon, and another in a temple, and another in a forest.

Edit: Sorry, no musical notes. But another idea is a sort of maze room where you have four doors (top, bottom, left, or right). The player must proceed through the correct sequence of doors to be able to solve the puzzle (let's say something like up, left, left, up, down, right, left, right, up). Every time they go through the correct door, the room changes slightly, like something is added to the room, and when they go through the wrong door something is taken away or they start all over. It never gets old, and forces the player to memorize each sequence.

[bulmabriefs144]

I dunno, if I told you guys this but awhile back my ability to input text, glitched, and I couldn't add more than a few lines, or it'd quit midsentence. So no more tutorials.

Same terrain (you're inside an underwater tower), although some floors may be flooded or something. And some areas might be frozen for the same reason.

I know how to do riddles (easy, use a password system). But I already have some, so I'd wanna have this as a secondary device (like passwords to a gate to the second part of a puzzle), and possibly have a related set of puzzles, as one larger puzzle such as "what do all these puzzles have to do with this thing"). Elemental puzzles in terms of sequence, I've done (even complex magic circles).

I seriously do not know how to do ice puzzles in RpgMaker 2k3. I saw the XP tutorial, but the lack of easy terrain conditionals meant I didn't know how to stop once the character started. I'll see if I can fiddle around with it though.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jan 21 2012, 06:58 PM

[Titanhex]

Most any free synthesizer program should be able to get you some single notes. Or a music editing program could shop a song into pieces for you.
Anvil is a free synthesizer program, but you may want to grab a very early version of it, as the recent versions of it are more complex. Either way though a synthesizer program can be really nice to have.
This is a nice comprehensive list to get you going though. I've seen and used Audicity, it is nice. But it helps to have midi keyboard software. I think Anvil inlines one to their program.
A few websites had some free sounds, but they weren't exactly what I was thinking of.

For an example of amerk's puzzle and some other puzzles, check out my "Thex's Puzzle Designs" in the Event section under RM2K.

You could put a maze or dodge-the-object-mini-game in hard mode simply by reversing controls at different intervals.

[amerk]

Some tutorials I found on RMN for RM2K3. Not sure if that's what you are using or if you are using RM2K, but even so perhaps these tutorials will be a benefit:

Ice Sliding Tutorial:
http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/164/

Boulders on Switches:
http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/495/

Then I thought this would be an interesting puzzle, it's a tutorial for a Sodoku style puzzle.
http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/51/

[bulmabriefs144]

Btw, if anyone wants to know how to do a party switch system, I can tell them. (Party one has a female leader, who is agile and can climb around certain obstacles or something. Party two has a male warrior, who can smash stuff with his sword. If this helps...)

Just a suggestion if you are open to it, but you could always include a tutorial in the tutorial or the RM2K/3 section.

I'm curious to know if your inspiration comes from the Wild Arms games. I've only played the first and its remake, but I find WA to be a bit more refreshing than some other rpg games, and they're usually filled with some fun puzzles. Your 20 level duneon sort of reminds me of the Abyss.

Never played it. But the concept is common. I think Tactics Ogre had a bunch of bonus dungeons, along with FFT.

[LDanarkos]

You can make an Euler Walk puzzle. That's a puzzle where the hero has to walk over every tile exactly once. Once every tile has been walked over once, you win. If you step on a tile that you've already stepped-on, it starts over. You can make it so that tiles already stepped-up light-up. In a perfectly rectangular field, starting in one of the corners, this puzzle is way too easy. When you make it so that there's some dead spots that you aren't meant to and can't walk over, and/or when you have a non-rectangular field, it can be more challenging. You can let the player choose which tile they start on by pressing enter. Make sure that the field you design is solvable.

I made such a field just now with 27 tiles in about 30 minutes.

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

It shouldn't be too hard. Basically the rule is, once the puzzle starts, the next tile the player is allowed to step on is a predetermined number, and every other tile is wrong. So let's say you numbered the trail so that the first tile you're meant to step on is #1, the next tile is #2, and so on up to #12, and every other tile isn't part of the trail. So make a variable called Trail Variable or whatever. Set Trail Variable to 1. For tile 1, which is also event 1, make it below hero, On Hero Touch, and do If Trail Variable != 1, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 2. For tile 2, do the same thing, but make it say if Trail Variable != 2, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 3. etc.. For all of the tiles that aren't part of the trail at all, make them below hero, On Hero Touch, and just start over when you step on them. When you get to the final tile in the trail, if Trail Variable = 12, then turn on a switch that shuts the trail game off and allows the hero to pass.

This post has been edited by LDanarkos: Jan 26 2012, 05:36 PM

[bulmabriefs144]

You can make an Euler Walk puzzle. That's a puzzle where the hero has to walk over every tile exactly once. Once every tile has been walked over once, you win. If you step on a tile that you've already stepped-on, it starts over. You can make it so that tiles already stepped-up light-up. In a perfectly rectangular field, starting in one of the corners, this puzzle is way too easy. When you make it so that there's some dead spots that you aren't meant to and can't walk over, and/or when you have a non-rectangular field, it can be more challenging. You can let the player choose which tile they start on by pressing enter. Make sure that the field you design is solvable.

I made such a field just now with 27 tiles in about 30 minutes.

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

It shouldn't be too hard. Basically the rule is, once the puzzle starts, the next tile the player is allowed to step on is a predetermined number, and every other tile is wrong. So let's say you numbered the trail so that the first tile you're meant to step on is #1, the next tile is #2, and so on up to #12, and every other tile isn't part of the trail. So make a variable called Trail Variable or whatever. Set Trail Variable to 1. For tile 1, which is also event 1, make it below hero, On Hero Touch, and do If Trail Variable != 1, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 2. For tile 2, do the same thing, but make it say if Trail Variable != 2, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 3. etc.. For all of the tiles that aren't part of the trail at all, make them below hero, On Hero Touch, and just start over when you step on them. When you get to the final tile in the trail, if Trail Variable = 12, then turn on a switch that shuts the trail game off and allows the hero to pass.

That's what it's called? Already designed one. I've gotta test lag in my game since it could be a problem in movement skipping makes puzzles unsolvable (side effect of some of my special movement effects). The teleport puzzle I made was pretty simple, sorta like Chrono Trigger where sections that are entered teleport away from the area you're trying to get to.

[bulmabriefs144]

You can make an Euler Walk puzzle. That's a puzzle where the hero has to walk over every tile exactly once. Once every tile has been walked over once, you win. If you step on a tile that you've already stepped-on, it starts over. You can make it so that tiles already stepped-up light-up. In a perfectly rectangular field, starting in one of the corners, this puzzle is way too easy. When you make it so that there's some dead spots that you aren't meant to and can't walk over, and/or when you have a non-rectangular field, it can be more challenging. You can let the player choose which tile they start on by pressing enter. Make sure that the field you design is solvable.

I made such a field just now with 27 tiles in about 30 minutes.

I've been thinking on a floor puzzle idea, stepping on tiles in a certain order (make it an event touch below chars) but tbh, mines not going that smoothly. The other puzzle I have is just a teleportation one, kinda like the sabrina gym off the first pokemon.

It shouldn't be too hard. Basically the rule is, once the puzzle starts, the next tile the player is allowed to step on is a predetermined number, and every other tile is wrong. So let's say you numbered the trail so that the first tile you're meant to step on is #1, the next tile is #2, and so on up to #12, and every other tile isn't part of the trail. So make a variable called Trail Variable or whatever. Set Trail Variable to 1. For tile 1, which is also event 1, make it below hero, On Hero Touch, and do If Trail Variable != 1, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 2. For tile 2, do the same thing, but make it say if Trail Variable != 2, then start over. Else, set Trail Variable to 3. etc.. For all of the tiles that aren't part of the trail at all, make them below hero, On Hero Touch, and just start over when you step on them. When you get to the final tile in the trail, if Trail Variable = 12, then turn on a switch that shuts the trail game off and allows the hero to pass.

That's what it's called? Already designed one. I've gotta test lag in my game since it could be a problem in movement skipping makes puzzles unsolvable (side effect of some of my special movement effects). The teleport puzzle I made was pretty simple, sorta like Chrono Trigger where sections that are entered teleport away from the area you're trying to get to.