Dungeon Crawling: Difference between revisions

With the increasing trend towards [[Wide Open Sandbox]]-type game designs, the term "Dungeon Crawl" has taken on a certain derogatory connotation when used to describe a game. It is usually synonymous with [[The Maze]], which not only represents the opposing [[Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness|linear]] game design tradition, but also implies developer laziness. The ease with which a dungeon generally forces players to follow [[One True Sequence|one path]] through a game and [[Fake Longevity|keep them tied up for a long time in a small space]], all without having to [[Insurmountable Waist -Height Fence|resort to illogical barriers]], is all too easy for developers, and annoying to players. Dungeons, after all, are reasonably expected to be fully enclosed structures whose walls are well reinforced -- often by the very earth itself, if located underground, as they often are -- making a single, static path through them more or less "justified". Dungeon Crawls often cheaply limit options for traversing them using a spaghetti strand of enclosed corridors, keys and doors, and other barriers requiring unique items to surmount them -- all of which are less realistically implemented in a wide-open setting.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has Nodoka doing this after she gets separated from everyone else during {{spoiler|the gateport incident}}, and choosing her share of treasure like a professional [[Min -Maxing|MinMaxer]].

* It is the job of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_Rat:Tunnel Rat|Tunnel Rats]] (most notably in Vietnam and other guerrilla wars) to crawl into insurgent tunnel complexes to search for weapons, intelligence and the enemy. Being a tunnel rat is one of the worst jobs one can draw as it was highly dangerous and possibly one of the quickest paths to PTSD.