I recently finished this grayscale pixel art sokoban style game out of Finland. As usual when I finish a video game that left a strong impression, I like to think about what lessons I can carry over to tabletop games.
I don’t even know if I recommend the game. Strong impression is an understatement. It is repetitive and frustrating. The visuals and music are incredible. It drips with mystery and revelatory discovery, but is as obtuse as a brick wall. This is clearly a product of artistic vision, in the best and worst ways. I don’t want people to play it because it’s good (Though in many ways it is), I want people to play it so I can talk about it.
Minor spoilers for the first thirty rooms start here.
Information Budget
Introducing a campaign is hard. You need to fill in your players about the world, but there is only so much lore you can dump before you burn out attention spans and memories. It’s like the opening chapter of the book, except your audience has to play the characters that should know this all.
This is why both amnesiac plots and “generic fantasy” settings are so prevalent. Void Stranger goes for the first, but the main character is in an unfamiliar and alien location to both us and them, so it’s not a vital component if you’re mimicking it. We do learn a few details about this character and their reasons for being here on floor 28, but they shed no light on this place. An NPC on floor 30 has a lot to say concerning some higher beings, but without context she raises a lot more questions than answers.
But still, those two interactions ground the story. You’re not wandering aimlessly, you have a goal. This place has a history, of which you know a little. This helps make the story feel real.
I think this stands as a defense of really weird plots and worlds. As long as your characters are as in the dark as your players, the world can be whatever you want without overspending your loredump budget. Instead of tropes being a cage, they’re a toy. Following them or breaking with them keeps players on their toes. A creature spun wholesale from your mind gives no background knowledge to fall back on.
Unknown, for Now
In such a tightly designed experience, everything is relevant. You see and hear a lot of things that mean nothing to you for now.
Who are these named people?
What do those black statues do?
Why are some of these rooms not even puzzles?
All these questions will be answered in time. Well, in a different game, they would be answered in time. You’d have a cutscene that explained it, or it’d be revealed during normal play. Not here. At least not all of them. The answers exist, but you have to claw them from the dirt yourself.
What we can definitely take from this is a reason to retread old ground. Mysteries that you have no idea what to do with now, but can figure out later. This is a great eureka moment.
How hard it is to reach that eureka is a matter of taste. Luckily, in tabletop games you know your audience well. If you hide answers as well as this game, you must accept that your players may never solve it.
Major spoilers for the whole game start here. If you’re not sure, you haven’t finished it. I try to be as vague as possible, but still.
Oh Megadungeon, My Beloved
We should bring back megadungeons. Well, I know for some of us they never left. Whole campaigns should be set in vast unknown structures like the Void.
I was genuinely shocked when I reached my first ending, to discover that this was not a metaphor or some grief stricken dream. The memories we unlocked of a girl playing soccer made me believe the medieval setting was some overlay our maternal main character put on a tragedy. Not so. The Void was very, very real.
Megadungeons make mysteries easier, because everything about them is a mystery. Why is it here? Who built it, and how? What is all this stuff for?
Secrets in Plain Sight. You can introduce recurring elements, and reveal their purpose later. In Void Stranger, there are the grinning and black statues, and the shortcuts. Later on, once you know how they work, they make navigation much easier. You feel like you know the void like the back of your hand. Even if the cost was a lot of repetition and error.
You can give something one obvious purpose to hide a secret one. In Void Stranger, this is the UI. You could mimic this in a tabletop game, having some way for them to edit character sheets or other “out of game” elements directly. But I think you’re better off using other genre staples: merchants, safe resting areas, shrines, lore dumping NPCs/Murals/Computer Terminals.
Lore. You can reference historical NPCs and build on them, and have that lore information become relevant to solving or circumventing problems, or adding context to other lore. In Void Stranger, you will get clues that reference a person, and unless you actually know who that is, they’re useless.
Environmental Storytelling. Each of the Void Lord’s domains looks different. They have different architecture, enemies, and puzzle mechanics. Without saying anything, this speaks to these characters. In a large dungeon, you can take advantage of zoning like this to guide players, suggest lore, and mix things up.
This is of course very common in video games. Hallownest (and most metroidvania settings) is a megadungeon, and does this excellently.
Big Secrets. You can hide late game secrets and locations anywhere. If your players don’t even know that is a door, how would they even begin to solve the puzzle of opening it. The obvious one in Void Stranger is the brand puzzles. Each leads to a new location that opens up the game vastly through items or lore. The final one, lying in plain sight, leads to an enormous endgame with a huge amount of extra puzzles.
Optional Areas. A benefit of a large structure is that not every part of it needs to be on the critical path. Some bits can be optional diversions. One of the best ways to create these is to actually decide how your mechanics and structures function, then think of using them in unintended ways.
Void Stranger takes place between floor 1 and 256 of the Void, but you can modify your floor directly. What happens if you input 0? Well, that is on the critical path. What about a number above 256? That leads to the white void, which is an interesting diversion but not necessary for completing the game. The same goes for deleting the B, or inputing your brand in a brand room.
You put in a portal in your game, and the players can input coordinates in specific ways. Maybe complex and arcane ways. What happens when they try something weird? Put in coordinates outside the dungeon? Ask yourself these questions, and create fun side quests.
Conclusion
Other games include great mystery without the need to be obtuse. The best example is the modern classic Outer Wilds, with its extremely helpful clue map. This game may not be the best example of how to make a perfect exploration campaign, but it will inspire you to put in depth. Real, fathomless depth. To make your players say, “Wait, there’s more? That was only the beginning?”
Plus the soundtrack by eebrozgi really is something else. Especially the track with Eevamari’s vocals.
The Renaissance Woodsman 