A look back at Puzzle Dungeon Jam
In November/December I hosted Puzzle Dungeon Jam. I wanted more creators to make puzzle dungeons because they are one of my favorite types of adventures to run and play in. At 23 submissions, I couldn't be happier with the turnout. The months during and after the jam have been both rewarding and busy as hell. Stress aside, I loved having an excuse to read so many cool puzzle dungeons. Would I do the whole thing again? Yes! But probably with some changes.
Hosting and feedback
As part of the jam, I said I would provide developmental editing feedback for early submissions. Not reviews, but peer comments. Participants could use or ignore the feedback. I only intended to give feedback for a few entries, but it kind of grew in scope into a podcast with special guests. I wound up in the Puzzle Dungeon Workshop with 11 of the 23 total submissions—but published only 10 episodes due to technical issues. I'm committed to providing feedback for the remaining 12 entires, but I'll be doing it offline. It will take me a while, but I'll reach out to creators with comments.
In terms of time, this amounted to about 56 hours between November and through January.
~4 hours setting everything up for the jam and promoting it.
~4 hours on each episode of the podcast.
~1 hour reading and making notes.
~1.5 to 2 hours recording.
~1 to 2 hours editing and miscellaneous Youtube and Spotify maintenance tasks.
~12 hours playtesting adventures
With the additional 13 submissions feedback the hours will add up to 69. Nice. My goal was 1 hour of recording for each episode which I kept blowing through. The editing process consistently proved to be more time consuming than I expected. I wound up working out a pretty good flow toward the end of the season though.
I got a lot of positive comments on the workshops both from their creators and others. At least one person got use from each workshop and that works for me.
Stats
- 23 puzzle dungeons
- 10 Puzzle Dungeon Workshop feedback episodes
- 8 special guests
- 13 hours of video
- 6 puzzle dungeons play-tested—3 as a player, 3 as a referee (OVER AND UNDER, Inner Sanctum of the Immortal Scorpion, In the House of the Tempest King, Valley of the Screaming Sky Goat, Darkness There and Nothing More, The Thief Trap).
- 3 dungeons have rotating or shifting rooms (In the House of the Tempest King, Inner Sanctum of the Immortal Scorpion, Titansflute)
- 2 dungeons have electricity gimmicks (In the House of the Tempest King, Eels? At the End of the World)
- 2 dungeons have programming gimmicks (In the House of the Tempest King, Account of the Animating Geyser)
- 2 dungeons have musical gimmicks (Titansflute, Astral Archive of Advanced Arcana)
Adventure Achievements
I felt a lot of excitement to run games while reading these. Getting to play in a bunch was the cherry on top.
Most unique gimmick
Blue Leprechauns - 1pagedungeons
Use and combine different colored rays of light.
This creator duo brainstorms one page dungeons once a month and record the process!
Most unique experience
The Thief Trap - JohnOutWest
Reset this dungeon and clear out the bodies—here's a map.
Weirdest
Eels? At the end of the world - badfree
I doubted my own sanity more than once between beautiful passages of prose—bonkers in a bottle.
Most lessons
Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between - Slime Mind Studio
Incrementally builds on bite-sized lessons in order to build oozy inter-dimensional gimmick mastery.
This project is crowdfunding an updated and expanded print version for Zine Month!
The correct amount of eyeballs (a ton)
Reservoir - Cameron Maas
Manipulate the sentient discharge of the flesh dimension.
This project is also crowdfunding an updated and expanded print version for Zine Month!
Most Zelda feels
Titansflute - Alex Niederberger
Manipulate a giant double flute constructed from the bone of a titan.
Strahd at home
Sven Ghouli's Crypt - Revivify Games
Dollar store vampire-lord impersonator convinces cultists to work for him in an actual vampire crypt.
Most faction action
Forgotten Shrine 01 - David Garret
Trust the fungus. Use your relationships with the denizens to get the lay of the dungeon and learn how it works.
Most mythic underworld
Perils of the Tower Wizard - Ill Hierophant
The dungeon hates you because this tower is actually the mind and body of an asshole wizard who screwed up a spell.
Breaks the mold
Tomb of Eight Gates - Noseatbelts
Did I just teleport?
Guest Highlights
It was a ton of fun meeting these humans and getting a sneak peak into their thoughts and creative dreams. All workshops were full of fun ideas.
Nick LS Whelan - Papers & Pencils
Nick's looking down avenues I didn't even know existed. This Youtube comment sums it up best:
Came for the cool puzzle dungeon concepts, stayed for the Ted talk on gelatinous cube metaphysics.
Warren D - I Cast Light
Warren is a strong advocate for blogs and just getting your voice out there because people will listen.
Everyone needs to start blogging, so put up your first post today. Talk about puzzle dungeons. Talk about what you do with spiders. How do you make goblins different? What do mycelium priests really want?
He also had some great advice on NPC motivations: Make their desires weird. Give animals human desires/fears. Give humans animal desires/fears.
Dwiz - Knight At the Opera
Workshop: The Tomb of Eight Gates
Dwiz has some captivating energy that makes you want to go out and make something cool.
I think [Puzzle Dungeon Jam] can go a long way toward de-stigmatizing puzzles... This is a skill. This is something you can learn to do. It's a muscle that you can exercise. Creating puzzles that your players are capable of figuring out and mastering in the course of a single evening. It's awesome when a puzzle has multiple viable solutions but you don't have to be afraid of saying, "there's a right way to do this and I think my players can learn how because this dungeon's gonna teach them." And that's just so exciting to have that experience. You can do it.
Arnold K - Goblin Punch
Workshop: Outcast Unseely and the Ooze between
Progenitor of too many cool things to keep track of, and Arnold doesn't want to! These ideas are released into the wild and they infect the rest of our community in the best way.
Joesph R Lewis - joesphrlewis.com
Joe's advice on getting stuff done resonates with me. Put structure and procedure around your adventures and around creating your adventures. Get something written down first, because that's the hardest part. Mold it into what you want.
Ben Laurence - Mazirians Garden
Ben's brain has too many great ideas to put down on paper at once. Ultan's door will open again and you can peak inside.
Amanda P - Weird Wonder
Workshop: Perils of the Tower Wizard
"NPC-centric" games yield more talky talky and opportunities for the PCs to pluck the relationship webs to get what they need.
Josh McCrowell - Rise Up Comus
Workshop: Eels? At the end of the world
Metroidvania dungeons are not only possible in your tabletop adventure game, they exist! Josh is working on one right now.
Season 2
Yeah, I'd do it again next year. This was fun. It was more work than I thought but I think it was worth it. I think if there was much more than 23 entries I would have felt overwhelmed. About 10 episodes felt like a good amount of time spent. I'd probably get super serious next time with my assertion that I'm not going to be able to give feedback on every entry especially if there are a lot more submissions (which I hope there will be).
Go make something
There's one thing that kept coming up in each workshop from every guest. And that's the genuine desire for others to create. Go write a blog post. Go make an adventure. Get something out there because people want to hear about it. Here are some accumulated some resources if you want to make your own dungeon, puzzle or otherwise. You don't need anyone's permission and you don't need to wait for a jam. You can do it.
But...
I mean if you were looking an excuse to make something, I'll give you one. Zine Month starts February 2nd. This is a community-driven event full of creators. You don't need to crowdfund anything. Just make something. Folks in the ZiMo discord are super friendly and will answer your questions. You may just find your next co-creator there.
Also...
I made a puzzle dungeon with Skullboy and Sam Sorensen and it's crowdfunding during Zine Month! If any of this puzzle dungeon nonsense interests you, click the "follow" button for a notification on launch. It's an escape room wizard tower crawl. We've been working on it for over a year now. Go take a peek at A Familiar Tower! Thank you <3
While you're at it...
Spread some love to the other puzzle dungeons with Zine Month projects <3<3
Outcast Unseely and the Ooze Between
And uhh...
Play some more games too! :)