DGC Ep 155: Diablo (part four)

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our main discussion of Blizzard Entertainment's 1996 classic Diablo. We cover level design in a procedural world, how the tone of the game darkens further in this final segment and then turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Killed Diablo!

Issues covered: quoting oft-repeated lines, last two levels as a more authored experience, strategy for the final levels and killing Diablo, the final cutscene and tying to Diablo II, exposition delivery, over-the-top font, going after Lazarus, missing quest pieces without Leoric, missing exposition when you kill a character out of order, random teleportation stuff, "co-opetition," missing major quests with the random quest selection, lack of in-game messaging about random quest generation, possible complaints if seen as a single-player game, getting the itch to play again because of multi-player, level design and macro tiles, fitting a set up tiles together, seeing the algorithm, having more authoring capability from bigger pieces, purely algorithmic generation, following a table-driven approach, feeling like a real place and good environment choices, not getting drops that fit your character, innovation in loot drops to encourage other styles of play, getting an unique item, procedural everywhere, shifting to real-time, the influence of this loot system, giving an identity to your loot, the cool lighting model, constraints breed creativity, simplicity of the game, multiplayer as a key element of the game, trading in multiplayer, our upcoming bonus episodes.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Star Wars, Jonah Lobe, Bethesda Game Studios, Mario (series, obliquely), Kingdom Hearts (series), Borderlands (series), Planescape: Torment, Gold Box (series), Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic, Ultima, Spelunky, Castle Ravenloft, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Rogue, Nethack, Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Everquest, MUD, Carl Sagan, David Brevik, Path of Exile, Blizzard North, Tanarive Due, The Good House, Stephen King.

Next time: An interview! And your feedback!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [e-mail]