“Oh, yeah. This is going to be a blast.” I rub my hands together, chuckling to myself. “After this, my dungeon will never be the same… Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I’ll save you the details of going through the reward collection after the Mystery Event because it’s boring. Analyzing the pros and cons of every option took me way longer than it should have… I’m not proud of it.

Anyway, I’ll tell you this: it was amazing.

From what others told me, it seems that the rewards could be directly converted to cp at a fixed rate, converted into basic resources, or even into the unique resources for each faction.

Why do I say ‘it seems’? Well, it’s because, when it came to the Flesh Monstrosities, we could spend our points on obtaining bodies ready for use in our next units… So I obviously spent all my points on captured units and didn’t even consider taking a look elsewhere.

Can you imagine it? Being able to freely choose from a list with all the units we can use in the whole game, with a nicely written price tag right next to each of them?

There were even dragons and similar bullshit units in that list!

Furthermore, the game developers were nice enough to, for the first time in our faction’s history, allow us to buy over the storage capacity. Units over the capacity will appear in the stasis capsules as soon as we make room for them. This means I could have bought colossal units, which I don’t have the technology to store yet if I wanted to.

But I decided against it. It’s best to use what I can now instead of dreaming of the future. After all, who knows when I’ll be able to use them? I’d rather make the most out of the present than have to wait for a long time to get my rewards.

As a side note, Ricard sent me a picture – followed by an unnecessarily long text, which I didn’t read, by the way – that showed he could exchange every point obtained in the Mystery Event for two souls. He also sent me several messages after that one detailing how good the efficiency was; every defeated monster during the final battle granted two points, so he could get four souls for each monster instead of one as usual.

I can safely assume this is where he spent all his points… Don’t you agree?

Not like I was any less ecstatic than Ricard, tough. Thanks to the reward list, I could get my hands on all those monsters I was too lazy to go and find myself, or those that I wanted to get but were too troublesome to capture. As well as the cheap ones, like critters, that I needed a lot of, but the task of capturing them was so boring that I never actually put it into action.

Plus a few others I was planning on adding to my dungeon soon as well. You’ll see them soon, as I’m going to start right now.

“Now the problem is where to start… should I go with the new stuff first, or improve the already built areas first…? Hmm…” I tilt my head to the side in thought.

Hahaha, who am I trying to fool? It’s obvious I’ll always go for the new stuff first. Fixing and improving is never as exciting as starting something from scratch.

“Alright!” I keep rubbing my hands together. “Let’s start with the room.”

In case you forgot the latest changes, I’ll remind you. The last time I modified the dungeon, I added the new Botanical Garden as a way to reach the central areas of the laboratory areas without having to go through most of the Tunnels or the other laboratory rooms.

I did it like this to break my dungeon’s linearity as much as possible, allowing the players to choose their desired path, while still giving them reasons to go to the other areas.

Right now, to reach the dungeon core, the invaders must find the two access cards distributed in the Sealed Area and the Botanical Garden respectively, and then use both to open the path forward. It’s the only way to reach the dungeon core…

My thoughts come to a halt. There’s something that doesn’t quite match with what I remember.

“There’s something wrong with what I just said, but what is it…” I open the dungeon menu, go to the 3D view of the dungeon, and start scrolling the view everywhere to check where this bad feeling I have comes from. “Aha, aha… The monsters are where they should be. And the Botanical Garden does have the two entrances as I planned, so why do I have this feeling like I forgot something important…?”

I then move the view to the Sealed Area, but everything seems normal. It isn’t until I go to the door leading to the dungeon core that I realize what I’ve been missing.

I slap myself. “Hiss! This is bad! I forgot to add the second card!”

Aaaah, shit! I want to scream in frustration! How could I forget about such an important detail!? Without it, it defeats the purpose of the Botanical Garden as a whole.

The difference between giving the players the option to choose the path they want to take and allowing them to skip whole areas of the dungeon is significant. I don’t want the players to be able to skip half of my dungeon! I want them to get the full experience while they have the illusion of choice!

“Two weeks…” I pull at the fur covering my face. “It’s been two weeks since I added the greenhouse… Ugh. Is this why there have been so few complaints compared to usual the number I received every other time I added a new area? Because the players have no reason to go there whatsoever!?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I thought it was weird, but I was too busy preparing for the Mystery Event and other stuff…

“Aah, this is bad. I must fix it immediately.”

I know, I know. I said I would start with the new idea right away, but this is urgent. Furthermore, this is something that’s required for the idea I want to add next. Otherwise, there would be no reason for it to exist.

“Alright, let’s do this quickly. It shouldn’t take too long…”

I take the card I created for the Sealed Area as the base and modify it to suit the Botanical Garden. The main difference between the two is the drawing they have.

The one in the Sealed Area has my logo – a drawing version of my face with lightning – next to a skull under the ‘do not pass’ symbol. You know, the red circle with the diagonal line. The new card, the one for the Botanical Garden, of course also has my logo. But this time it’s next to a wide tree that has eyes and a mouth in the trunk.

Moving to the next step, I set the card to appear at a random point in the greenhouse. I make sure it won’t appear within ten meters of any of the entrances as well as the edges right next to the glass by excluding that area from the possible spawns.

I don’t mind luck playing a part, but I don’t want players finding the card right next to the entrance. Or even worse, check the greenhouse from outside to locate it before going inside.

The card will appear on the ground as if someone accidentally dropped it while working. This will make the players look at the ground, diverting their attention from the actual dangers above and around them.

As you can see, there won’t be fake Monster Keys here. The reason for this is simple: the different purposes of the two areas they’re in.

The purpose of the Sealed Area is to signal to the players that the monsters inside are dangerous and are, thus, sealed. The danger of the unknown. You don’t know where the monsters are, nor which kinds of monsters spawned and which didn’t. Is the card you got the true one, or the fake one? Should you keep searching and risk finding an opponent you can’t deal with?

But the Botanical Garden is different. From the start, players who have come to the dungeon before or have read a guide will know for sure what monsters are inside. But here, everything is hidden. Like being stalked, the players will never know if they’re truly safe while inside. And the card, similar to the monsters, must be found. It might end under a leaf or obscured by a tree’s roots. And as you search for it, the monsters search for you.

“Alright, that’s one thing done. Let’s move to what I’m dying to start.”

Are you curious why that second access card is so important? Do you want to know why I had to fix this first? I’ll tell you.

I move to the Minitaur Queen’s room and start fiddling with the door that leads to the dungeon core. I change the place where you use the access card to require two key items (two access cards) instead of a single one. In the future, I plan on adding a third area with its respective third access card too… but we’ll talk about that later. We’re here for something else.

The next thing I do is to create a new door adjacent to this one. A door that only requires one of the two key items, and will accept whichever the players bring with them.

You’re right. I just said I didn’t want the players to skip a significant part of my dungeon, what I’m doing now makes no sense. Well, I’m sorry to say it does make sense.

For one, it’ll further help with breaking the dungeon’s linearity, making it look like an actual laboratory instead of a game dungeon. And two, it’s because what I’m going to add on the other side will make the players reconsider their life choices if they dare step inside.

In short, it isn’t like I’m allowing them to skip part of my dungeon, but that I’m giving them the choice to suffer an even worse fate.

So, what am I going to create on the other side? I’m sure the name of the area I’m going to add will make you understand what I mean: it’s the Experimental Sector.

“Inside a mad scientist’s lair, where almost nothing you can find makes sense, it isn’t a surprise that the worst and most maddening-inducing zones are those where the mad scientist makes his experiments, don’t you agree? Fufufu! Hahaha!”

My plan for this ‘Experimental Sector’ is a change of pace from the rest of the dungeon. Instead of combat skills, here, you’ll need your brains and luck.

As I’m sure you all know, when you don’t have to care about balance and fights, you can spend more time on improving other areas. Like, for example, puzzle-solving skills, analytical capabilities… or psychological torture and the like.

“Yes, you’re right. When I feel like one of my crazy ideas doesn’t fit the dungeon, or when I don’t want any combat to interfere, I’ll add a new room here.”

In the future, I want this to be a series of rooms connected one to another, where the players will be forced to play my ‘little games’ to advance. I’m still not sure how many I’ll add, though. It’ll depend on my mood.

What I do now, is that the players will probably regret choosing this path with all their might, but I won’t allow them to backtrack. Once they step in, they’re in for the whole experience.

Or they can surrender. I don’t care what they choose, as I’ll get the cp anyway.

You can’t trap players in DMA. There must always be an exit to the room they’re in. At the same time, there must always be a valid route to the dungeon core. But this doesn’t mean you can’t close their retreat route. As long as the door will open if they solve the puzzle, in case solving the puzzle is the key to opening the door, the game will allow it.

Now, what happens if the solution to that puzzle is so convoluted that you want to pull all your hair out? If so, good luck, I guess…? Hahaha!

Nobody told them to come inside, it was their decision. I won’t accept complaints.

I chuckle to myself, imagining the player’s reactions to the first room I want to create. “So… Are you ready for a quest with no valid solution? Fufufu! Hahaha!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“STOP! Regardless of what you think, there ISN’T another way to reach the dungeon core. IGNORE. THAT. DOOR. It leads nowhere. For your good, and mine as well, NEVER try to open it, or you’ll regret it. It’s a dead end. A dead end for YOU.

As I’ve said. THERE’S. NOTHING. TO. SEE. THERE!”

- Extract from the Chapter ‘Important things to look out for’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’. This fragment further increased the player’s curiosity to go where they shouldn’t.