When designing dungeons in Crown Trick, we began by considering the overall plot of the game and then narrowed it down to level design, interactive objects, monsters, and bosses. The main story follows Elle’s exploration of the Nightmare Realm in which the dungeons represent emotions — fear, regret, and anger. To escape this closed circle of the nightmare world and save the real world, she must find the mastermind behind the chaos. Each dungeon has its unique style and story behind it, but most importantly there are certain game mechanics and items in each dungeon that we want to discuss in this dev blog.
Tower of Sinners
In the Tower of Sinners, the atmosphere is constructed upon the emotion of fear. Our main inspiration is drawn from old tales of witch hunts in the middle ages. Therefore, the visual elements of the surroundings, monsters, and objects all correspond with that of a witch’s dungeon. As many tales of witches feature crucibles, we decided to add a big crucible at the beginning of each floor. Players can use it to obtain special status effects that will greatly assist Elle in this spooky place.
City of Steam
The inspiration for City of Steam comes from the story Frankenstein and the main theme in this dungeon is set upon the emotion of regret. However, the doctor in this case, went to extremes with his creations due to some other twisted reasons, which you may uncover in game. The entire dungeon in the City of Steam is designed as a scientist’s laboratory (and a rather mad scientist, from the looks of it). The place is rich with various steam pipes, electric panels, wires, strange devices and other technological wonders. Almost all the monsters that you meet there are the creations of Doctor Frank himself. There you will also find a quite useful item which you can upgrade at a special workbench. Remember to make good use of it as you battle Doctor Frank’s twisted machinations.
Ocean Depths
For the third dungeon, we wanted to come up with something quite different. Most traditional dungeon crawler games feature repetitive underground interiors and surroundings. We wanted to change that with something extraordinary this time. While considering ideas for what reflects anger as an emotion, we landed upon the concept of an underwater ocean world as a dungeon. From there, the idea of environmental pollution came to our minds quite naturally. In Ocean Depths, we give players a choice to pollute or purify the ocean and depending on the choice — the marine life monsters and bosses would become stronger or weaker. Compared to other areas, the dungeon itself turned out to be livelier and filled with more objects, including dangerous traps!
Realm of Kings
The first three dungeons serve as a sort of the background story for the game and we needed to have a key character that can connect these dots together. The domain of this rather interesting persona became the concept for the fourth and final dungeon. It was at first designed as a frozen castle and it looked darker and more dangerous than other dungeons. It’s filled with traps, interactive objects, secret rooms, and powerful monsters. We also thought it would be cool to add real chess pieces as enemies (because, you know — it’s a strategy game).
We don’t want to spoil the plot too much, since it’s one of the key areas to understand the story in Crown Trick. So, it’s up to you players, to find out what secrets are hidden in the Realm of Kings for yourself!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/