Depthcrawl Design, pt 1 - Borges and Basilisks

8 August 2024

Contents

Intro

from Library of Babel, by Erik Desmazires

Recently while reading Nova's bathtub review of The Stygian Library by Emmy Allen I was struck by something she mentioned: there really aren't that many depthcrawls in the world. As far as I know Emmy invented the format with Gardens of Ynn (in 2018! pre-COVID!!) but, barring one or two modules, the format hasn't seen a ton of exploration.

Personally, both Stygian and Ynn beat my brain in a fist fight the first time I read them. I am, in many ways, drawn to infinity, and this strange, wonderful exploration had me barking at the moon. She nails this kind of otherworldly imagery that reminded me of reading books as a kid. Think: throwing your head underwater, opening your eyes, and feeling like you've entered another world.

What is a Depthcrawl?

Carceri Series, Plate XIV, by Giovanni Piranesi

They're a type of procedurally generated pointcrawl built for exploring infinite, extradimensional spaces. As far as vibes go: less roguelike, more tesseract. I haven't read any depth literature outside of Emmy's work, so I'm not sure how many details (if any) are codified, but I'll sum up what feel like the core points to me.

Doesn't sound too crazy, because it isn't! What makes her work sing is how tightly Emmy themes everything. She's got an eye (and pen) for whimsy and clear experience with the old school playstyle, so despite a premise that can be hard to wrap your mind around, it all still feels so, so playable.

really makes you want to take some players and put em in a Situation (from Ynn)

Writing My Own

from Library of Babel, by Erik Desmazires

I've been kicking around the idea of making a depthcrawl for a while (Sunflower River actually started its life as one), but it's intimidating! There's a lot going on, it's a type of design language I don't really speak, and there's very little documentation I've seen on how to actually write them. BUT there's no time like the present, and also I'm between game jams and kinda fiending for a Project, so I think it'd be exciting to write a series on depthcrawl design, starting with analysis of some existing Depth Material and working my way up to creating my own.

Sidechat: Jorge Luis Borges

from Plotted: A Literary Atlas, by Andrew DeGraff

It's going to be basically impossible for me to lay out my depthcrawl ideas (or: Deep Thoughts) in any meaningful detail without detouring into my primary literary influence on this topic. Borges was an Argentine writer writing proto-magical realism with a philosophical bent. Never read him? Start with the Secret Miracle, about a feverish author encountering something sacred moments before his execution by firing squad. His work covers a wide variety of topics but the dude was definitely a freak about certain core concepts:

Et cetera. Why am I telling you this? Two reasons. Actually three, but the first is obvious - I like being self-indulgent! The others: Borges writes like the page is too small for his ideas. My favorite stories of his feel like unreality, or exploring a city with a deep fever, barely able to react, just letting it wash over you. He hasn't just shaped how I think of infinity, he's shaped the way I want infinity to feel. I don't plan on just ripping classic Borges symbols whole cloth, but the tone of his work is absolutely going to be swirling around in my primordial idea soup, and that's important to acknowledge!

The last is less important, but still relevant: when I first read these modules I was convinced that Borges was a major influence on Emmy as well, because two of his most famous stories are about:

Comically, I didn't find out until I'd already started on this post that she doesn't include him anywhere in the listed influences across Ynn and the Library. But this odd coincidence has stuck with me while writing and I think it gives me an interesting springboard - if Borges' work screamed at me so much in my reading of Emmy's, why not use one of his many excellent short stories as the seed for my own depthcrawl?

Initial Ideas

Zoe (author's imagination), by Pooja Sanghani-Patel

Not to mince words but figuring out which story to start with was pretty easy because it's one of my absolute favs: Death and the Compass, a melancholy, borderline psychedelic murder mystery relating to the tetragrammaton - the unspeakable four-part name of God. This story whips. I want every word tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. Not only is the haunting / surreal tone directly aligned with what I want to capture in this crawl, but the labyrinthine imagery in the climax is some of Borges' best.

This shit could feed a depthcrawl by itself I mean come ON

The diffusion of light guided him to a window. He opened it: a round, yellow moon outlined two blinded fountains in the melancholy garden. Lonnrot explored the house. He traveled through antechambers and galleries to emerge upon duplicate patios; several times he emerged upon the same patio. He ascended dust-covered stairways and came out into circular antechambers; he was infinitely reflected in opposing mirrors; he grew weary of opening or half-opening windows which revealed the same desolate garden outside, from various heights and various angles; inside, the furniture was wrapped in yellow covers and the chandeliers bound up with cretonne. A bedroom detained him; in the bedroom, a single rose in a porcelain vase -- at the first touch the ancient petals fell apart. On the second floor, on the top storey, the house seemed to be infinite and growing. The house is not this large, he thought. It is only made larger by the penumbra, the symmetry, the mirrors, the years, my ignorance, the solitude.

that quote, i think, rhymes with this scene

I'm moved by the way each location in the story feels immense, from the wasteland suburbs to the tavern invaded by harlequins to the nightmarish manor. It makes me want to branch out from the relatively constrained themes of Emmy's work into something more expansive, like a city. What I'm imagining here is this: a multilayer crawl, structured as three rings (or spirals?). Each ring is infinite in one direction, finite in another. You can "strafe" eternally at the same depth, but if you keep going deeper you'll eventually transition into another ring.

they're all infinite, just different subsets of infinity

I like this setup, and the seed of Death and the Compass, for a few reasons:

Specific themes / vibes to incorporate are a post for another time, I think, but this covers the broad strokes! My ultimate goal: packaging all this up in Twine ala Snow's Sun King's Palace; I feel like depthcrawls are begging for automated rolling & consolidated information.

Roadmap

Zoe City, by Karina Puente

No plan survives contact with the enemy, but this feels like a solid overview of what I'd like to cover in this series

Phew. Okay. God willing the next time you see me I'll have a study on Emmy Allen's depthcrawls. Until then: stay safe!