A Manifesto of sorts
This was originally written for Manifesto Jam 2026, but I figured I might as well post here too.
I love Dungeon Encounters and you should love it too.
Everyone knows about the Mouse that puts you in debt. It's cute and cool, we all love debt.
There's also a Hamster with 5 million HP that turns your party members into Hamsters.
In order to de-hamsterfy your characters, you need to find a shrine somewhere close to the bottom of the game's Dungeon.
There are Snakes that eat your characters and then run away.
In order to get your character back you need to fight another snake and kill it.
When one of your party members gets petrified, you have to leave them behind, find a shrine somewhere in the game, remove the petrification and then go back to pick them up again.
At some point you get an ability that lets you skip dozens of floors at once, but if you use it on the wrong tile, your entire party falls into hell, causing them to get lost.
Towards the end of the game, you can fight an enemy called "Black Hole". It is a pain to fight, it has more health than the game's nominal final boss. It too can banish your party members to hell.
Winning a fight against a Black Hole rewards you with 0 XP and 0 Gold. If you're lucky you might get a useless starter weapon as a drop from it.
- A lesser game would not let you go into debt.
- A lesser game would not require you to go on long detours just to remove a status effect.
- A lesser game would not let you fall into hell because you dug on the wrong tile.
- A lesser game would give you a cool reward for defeating a powerful foe.
People who made money with designing videogames will tell you that it is the player who is supposed to have fun with a game not its designer.
They tell you that you should not let players get confused, or frustrated. That goal and purpose of their actions should always be clear. That they can always anticipate the consequences of their actions.
They tell you to construct tiny miserable pleasure domes that entrap both you and whoever is unfortunate enough to play it. By pleasing the player above everything else, you serve them and the player serves you in providing you with the funds that may grant you the authority to become one of videogame's important figureheads.
I think these people are wrong. If a videogame is a medium of communication between their creators and players, then the creators should be allowed to have a voice in them that goes beyond serving their counterpart.
Industrial Videogames, regardless of scope and team size, are dead. Whatever desire for human connection existed has long been obliterated in the name of economic necessity. They tell you that if you want to make a videogame, any videogame, you too have to reject your humanity and turn yourself into a servant.
50 years of videogames have conditioned us all to always put a chest at the end of a corridor, to hide who we are and what we want to say behind mountains of performative opulence.
It is time to stop listening to these people and make games that are for us.
- Make a game where players can go into debt.
- Make a game with absolutely annoying status effects
- Let Players be the architects of their own downfall
- Let Players go through long, arduous challenges and give them nothing in return
- Make a gigantic empty space and let the player wallow in their confusion
- Take things away from them, or give them too much
- Let them break things and break them in return
- Put something in your games that is just for you, and only you to understand
Or whatever else might strike your fancy.
I love Dungeon Encounters, because it made me realize all of this and it's why I think you should love it too.
Thank you for your time.