Guess How Much I Love You, and the art of dungeon design
Writing in genre space - and especially in game space - requires keeping an eye on creative pursuits outside of the field you're working in. There's a temptation to spend all your energy reading within your own field, but this leads to deep inbreeding. In some ways, the maturation of a genre requires this form of inbreeding, but it can also lead to the ossification of an art form (I'm looking at you, Marvel. And Simpsons. And, I guess, Fantasy Literature in general.)
That said, parenthood leaves scant time for creative pursuits. When your time is winnowed down, you need to focus to make headway. There is so much to keep up with in our corner of the hobby that it's hard to spend time looking outside of it for fear of missing out on whatever's driving discussion at the moment.
So most of my exposure to art outside of the games space looks like this:
A book for babies
Kid Lit and Elfgames
Well, let's work with what we've got. I'm looking to create a series of blogposts about the creative inspiration we can derive from works of children's media.
Perhaps an unlikely one at first. What can Guess How Much I Love You teach us about dungeon design?
Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram
I'm not an artist or a graphic designer by any stretch. I'm not going to be going as deep as Clayton. But I was struck by this book and the strength of its visual design at reinforcing its themes.
The book
A simple bedtime book. Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare gently one-up each other to say who loves each other more.
I didn't like this book at first. I found the main conceit annoying, as Big Nutbrown Hare easily outdoes each of Little Nutbrown Hare's attempts to say he loves him best. It felt like needless bragging to someone who couldn't hope to compete in a hopping contest. But my 2 year old loved it, and over many re-reads I've come to see the appeal.
"Oh, I don't think I could guess that"
Here's the core theme in my reading: the world is big when you're a little rabbit. So it's comforting to have someone big and strong to rely on. What I saw as Big Nutbrown Hare's grandstanding isn't him belittling his son. It was him reinforcing how capable he is, and therefore how secure Little Nutbrown Hare can be.
Design to support themes
All the design reinforces this theme: Big Nutbrown Hare is big, sturdy and reliable. And Little Nutbrown Hare is a little guy in a big world. Each page explores one idea, and uses a simple image to both illustrate the action and expand on the theme.
Let's look at this illustration again.
There is a strong symmetry on both sides of the page. Opposite Big Nutbrown Hare, we see an established tree, windblown but sturdy. And opposite Little Nutbrown Hare we see a rickety fencepost. It looks like a strong gust of wind could blow it down. It leans towards the tree, as if to be anchored and supported by it.
CONTENT and COMPOSITION
I think this page is the key to the book's visual language. We have content - the visual elements present on the page and composition - how they are arranged in space with one another.
Lesson - echoing Echoing elements create a visual metaphor. The properties of one set of elements transfer to other sets of elements arranged in the same fashion.
I want to use this lens to examine a few more pages in this book, before seeing how we can apply these ideas to dungeon design. As examples, I've tried to pick pages showcasing Props, Locations and Settings.
Props
"I love you as high as I can reach."
"I love you as high as I can reach."
Content By turns, each hare stands next to a fern, stretching up into the air to show the scale of their love.
Composition First, Little Nutbrown Hare stretches as high as possible, just reaching higher than the frond. Then on the next spread Big Nutbrown Hare eclipses that height. To complete the composition a huge tree arches overhead, emphasizing the smallness of Little Nutbrown Hare.
The fern appears on consecutive pages, and serves as an anchor for our sense of scale. By standing up beside it, you can see how in Little Nutbrown Hare's world he is being as big as possible. Flipping the page provides a visual surprise as Big Nutbrown Hare explodes this sense of scale.
Lesson - Scale To emphasize something's smallness, place it next to something large, and vice versa.
Location
"And I love you all the way up to your toes".
Content Big Nutbrown Hare is holding Little Nutbrown Hare by the paws and swinging him into the air. A tree leans over them.
Composition The tree echos the forms of the two hares, stretching diagonally across the page and emphasizing their movement.
This is easily the strongest composition in the book, and what kicked off the thought process for me. This appears to be the same tree as we've seen throughout the book, but now it reaches dramatically over the composition. As well as accentuating the dynamism of the two hares, the tree's form suggests a generative relationship between them - Little Nutbrown Hare is a branch on a supportive trunk.
Lesson - movement Dynamic elements in a composition suggest movement.
Setting
"I love you all the way down the lane as far as the river."
Content The tree, both hares, and a vista of rolling hills.
Composition Little Nutbrown Hare is atop the hill, looking down the path that leads away to the river. The scene is bounded on one side by the wizened tree, and on the other by Big Nutbrown Hare, whose gaze leads off into the horizon.
This page comes towards the end of the book, as the scale of thought becomes bigger. It shows us the setting of the story. We can see that the world these two inhabit is cozy and bucolic. Though the world is big, Little Nutbrown Hare's portion of it is bounded and secure. He can see and think as far as the river - this is the world beyond his home. Big Nutbrown Hare is unbounded. His gaze tracks off over the hills, who knows how far beyond. It holds the promise that he has mastery over a larger domain than Little Nutbrown Hare can encompass.
Lessons A location can be broken down into zones with different meanings. The gaze of a character in a composition can tell you about their personality.
Applying these lessons
The content in Guess How Much I Love You is all very straightforward. Trees, ferns, hills and meadows. By putting it together in an interesting way, we can see how it supports the story.
We're changing gears now, applying these thoughts to conceptual design rather than visual design. The core of what we're doing is taking our content - the bare items that characters will interact with, and putting them in a composition - an arrangement in space or time - to support our Dungeon's theme.
The Dungeon
We're building a dungeon. Mythic Bastionland has some great spark tables that I've been meaning to play with. Let's pick randomly to see what sort of situation we get, then build a theme out from there.
Let's focus this dungeon around a location and a relationship.
Location (Keep): Candlelit Throne Relationship: Sworn Friends
Good start. What sort of folk were these friends? Background: Pious Students
I think we need some conflict. Let's roll:
Drama: Coup (Brawl)
Ok. The KEEP OF THE CANDLELIT THRONE was established by two scholars, Ezter and Dorza. In their youth they were inseparable. When they announced the discovery of a cure for ageing, they were each granted a Keep but begged of the Monarch to rule together.
During their rule, ideological differences festered. Dorza finally struck Ezter during a feast. The ensuing brawl separated the Keep into two camps. Both rulers have retreated to a wing of the keep, where they have suppressed aging in their subjects and maintained a conflict over the decades since.
Dorza. Looks: Ascetic, stony, cheerless Believes: Prevent the body's energies from dissipating. Avoid sunlight. Avoid unnecessary movements and expressions. Cleanse.
Ezter. Looks: Ruddy, swollen, intense Believes: Strengthen the body. Exercise. Eat berries. Moisturise.
**Themes: Powerful rulers, broken friendship, avoidance of death
Setting
Content: The keep, upon a cliff above a town. Thin stone stairs lead to it. A waterfall.
Composition: The keep stands upon its cliff, apart from the rest of the town. A stone stairway zigs and zags upwards, thin enough that only one can travel abreast. It is a long, lonesome trek up, your friends constantly disappearing from view and the waterfall drowning out all speech.
Pitonwolves are known to attack here, clinging to the cliff face and taking advantage of each traveler's solitude.
Location
Content: The main doorway to the keep. Titanic statues of two robed figures flank the arched doors, which list off their hinges. Once they appear to have been shaking hands, though now the handshake has been removed, damaging the door itself.
Composition: Upon ascending the cliff, players come to a stone sculpture as tall as they are. Two hands are shaking, shattered at the wrists. Approaching the keep, the doors are clearly damaged and listing against one another. The shaking hands were evidently a keystone, and the two titanic robed statues flanking the door are each missing an arm.
PCs can squeeze through the gates one at a time. Attempting to force the doors further open will dislodge more masonry from above (potentially fatally).
Prop
Content: The Candlelit Throne itself. A hundred thousand candles of various diameters, in all shades between red and white. Candle wax.
Composition: Wax spills out the door of the throne room, white streaked with red. Inside, eyes take a minute to adjust to the dimness. Candle wax lies feet deep upon the floor, only the suggestion of a throne's shape visible within it. Deep footprints form a path in the wax, leading from Dorza's wing of the keep to the throne's base. The barest indentation is in the seat of the throne. From the galleries, monks intone: "Sit lightly upon the throne, lest it erode."