A locked wooden door in a stone dungeon underground.
A locked door in an old victorian mansion on the second floor.
A locked door in an old hospital.
A closed bank vault
For each of those. How would you get to the other side in a world with magic and in a world without magic?
In Dungeons and Dragons, the solutions here are almost infinite because the "game computer is the human Dungeon Master who can dynamically adapt to new proposed solutions on the fly". But in a computer video game, the answer is usually "find the key." In Ultima VI there are a couple of other solutions like "blow it up" or "pick the lock." And another loopholey solution: [Show/Hide] On the door, cast Magic Lock then cast Unlock Magic. It'll forget it had a normal lock after that and just unlock. My game will have "classic loopholes settings" you can toggle on and off.
But also, in real life you could take the door off the hinges, climb out a window and into that room's window, set it on fire, bash it down, break through the wall or floor nearby. With magic you could use an open spell, shrink and go under, enchant the door and persuade it to open, freeze it and shatter it, or teleport through it, or persuade someone inside to open ith with or without magic.
In game design the challenge is that each one of these has to be programmed into the game individually. But if the game operates in a systemic way (more like Deus Ex or Breath of the Wild), these systems can interact in emergent ways.
That's something I want to explore more of in my games. The locked door principle doesn't really just apply to locked doors and is great for exposing the limits of a lot of game design, and for helping us brainstorm ways to surpass those limits to create more intuitive and immersive worlds.
Here's the original fb UDIC post.
