Should I bring the dungeons platform back online?
Oh gosh! Do I see right?! Is it a Christmas miracle? :D
Welcome back! <3
Edit: I voted yes to everything of course, so many good memories. <3
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Kyrrelin, happy to see you!!
The first comment, and it is from one of my favourite people on SteamGifts <3
Hope everything is going well for you.
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Hah, you know how to make me blush. ☺️❤️
Can't complain really, life can be sometimes rather hectic, but everything is overall pretty much fine. :3
Sounds like you are also doing fine. <3
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Life is great and gets even better after your comments! <3
By the way, your last dungeon, Undersea, will have to be remade unfortunately before being published again x( The files such as pictures and sound bits that were uploaded to the server for the latest couple dungeons (Undersea and Ganrandro's Mind) are lost and can not be restored. Your Little Zoo dungeon is almost completely fine though (just some bushes are missing), Imgur has passed the test of time as a place to keep images forever.
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That's good to hear! 🥰
Oh well... I have never expected it to last forever. ;) I am not sure I still have the sounds or pictures... some time ago I made a little cleaning of my files. 😅 Also, I have upgraded my PC so I would need to first switch between them and check it out... or was I creating it on a laptop? I will need to make some time and organize it a little seems like. xD
I wonder if the dungeon we were working on with Kuzu would still be accessible? 🤔
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I feel bad for not backing up those files xP All events are still there, but it's just darkness everywhere because of no pictures.
If the dungeon is called Labyrinth, then it is still there!
Hope to see Kuzu back too, dungeons without the Hypnotoad would not be the same :) He is still in the Discord channel with other people, but nobody responds to me there for now.
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You don't have to. ;) Hahaha, that's also a possibility. 😂
You are right about that. :D Ah, Discord! Sorry, completely forgot about that... I am using it like once a year. You can maybe post an update in the Steam group too (if I haven't missed it in my feed already 😅).
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Thank you for coming back, I felt like I was talking to myself there, but not anymore! <3
I guess I will post an update there too, but later, maybe with some thoughts and progress :)
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first of all welcome back!
I would be up to create another dungeon (i think i created two small ones in the past), when i have time (not in december).
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And, another legend is here.
Your dungeon was the very first user dungeon on the platform :)
Thank you and glad to know you are willing to make another dungeon!
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I remember going through at least one of these. Would be nice to see more.
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Glad to see another experienced adventurer. Thank you!
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I enjoyed dungeon crawling! I just didn't like the time wall aspect of it.
Regardless, follow your heart. If you want this, then do it!
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That's exactly what I do, my heart has brought me back here :) Thank you for the kind words!
By the way this project has no time wall, the RPG adventure that I made before had energy limits, but for now I want to bring back the dungeon sandbox where people make dungeons themselves.
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That's a great idea! I'm very new to SG and haven't had a chance to try them out yet, but I'd love to see and use them when they're ready. Welcome back!
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Thank you! Great to see opinion of new people as well. Dungeons were lots of fun to make and explore, hopefully you'll get to experience it as well pretty soon :)
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I wasn't active during that time period, but it sounds super neat, and I seem to recall wistful comments about how cool they were as people would reminisce. People seem to love having more tools to make elaborate giveaways, and I love to see the creativity people come up with. My spare time for SG is usually on mobile though, which sometimes throws up barriers, but I'm all for it.
Welcome back, and nice to meet you!
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Thank you for the welcome and sharing your opinion, and nice to meet you as well! I really loved the creativity people showed when making dungeons, and I would be happy to open this possibility again if people want it. My project did have problems on mobile phones since it was not adapted for them, but this time I might do some work in this aspect before I launch it again.
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Ive read dungeon
theres a pool saying dungeon
I clicked dungeon
Yes dungeon dungeon dungeon!
Big pnp-rpg, been dungeoncrawling since forever
Not really ofc, i wouldnt survive a lvl 0 dungeon with 3 goblins
Or maybe i would? 10 foot pole, running for my life... yeah i think i could manage to sneak and loot and run away like a low lvl squishy commoner like i am
Did i say Yes Dungeon?
YES
DUNGEONS!
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An experienced dungeon adventurer like you will undoubtedly succeed even doing such a risky thing!
Thank you for the comment! :)
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A rpg like linked to SG? I want it NOW!
I'm a newcomer, so we never interacted before, but welcome back!
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For a newcomer you seem to have made a legendary progress here on SteamGifts! Thank you for sharing your opinion and for the welcome :)
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I was around back then, but I never did a dungeon, so yes, please!
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I believe you will have another chance, I already started working on it :) Thank you!
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I'm really glad your back and the timing is really nice too.
Actually, not sure if your ok with this, but I was thinking about making a dungeon for a community outside of Steamgifts. It's actually crazy you came here now, because this thought I had was like very recent (like a month ago). The reason is I wanted to use it as a community project and since it mainly just involves a maze with simple conditions and ability to add links and images, it would be perfect for a sort of community project that involves fun puzzles and pictures that's very easy going for multiple people to help make and contribute too.
Especially with the new puzzle types such as wordle and nonograms that have been created by other awesome SG members it would perfectly complement the dungeons.
My other thought was simply making a game using RPGMaker (the other idea in my mind for the community project I thought about), but my mind was really favoring your dungeon creator because it could so easily intergrate with web link puzzles as I just mentioned above.
I hope the fact that the dungeons have lived in my mind even though its been so long makes you realize how cool it was. I really do apprciate you for having created the system, making dungeons yourself but also giving us the tools to make them too.
One question though. Would the old dungeons becime accesible again too?, for archival purposes, and just trying them out again? Obviously your doing the hosting so if that's a no, I totally understand (edit: My bad. Read again and see you said you can, yay)
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Hey, thank you for your comment and kind words! Always happy to see people interested in creating dungeons and appreciating my work, comments like this lift my motivation to continue working on this tool :) Feel free to make a dungeon for any community you want, of course I don't mind! I made it for the love of this community, but it can be used by all dungeon crawler fans out there.
Dungeon sandbox will be updated in some important aspects before going online, mostly in terms of UI and creation flow to make it as user friendly and simple as possible while maintaining the possibility to make complex dungeons as well with advanced tools.
Most of previously made dungeons will be accessible right away, data will be restored from the backup so there will be 15+ dungeons ready to be explored from the start.
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This is really great for puzzle creation too. Having some examples to play will help with inspiration and being able borrow ideas others previously came up with.
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First look at the updated UI :)
Now main work is being done on updating creator's UI and overall flow - it takes some thinking, planning and experimenting because I want creation process to be as simple as possible. But there's already some good progress there too, I will showcase it once more work is done.
By the way, I would love to see more feedback and thoughts, all comments are much appreciated and are very important for me to keep making as much progress as possible :)
Thank you!
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Layout of UI looks great and I assume like before, movement can be done using keyboard too. One possible suggestion I can think of that might be neat is adding some transparency in the background of UI elements (for example the dark background part of the map) so you can see more of the dungeon (maybe there should be an opacity setting). A UI toggle button could also be cool too to have a clear view of the dungeon when desired.
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Yes, keyboard movement is possible with WASD (+ QE for strafing) or arrow keys :) On-screen buttons were made with mobile devices in mind, but there is no actual mobile adaptation yet (I might work on that after I bring the project back online). Thank you for the suggestion! I think I might replace the top right Restart button with an option/settings button that would allow to adjust opacity of the UI or maybe I'll just make it a little transparent all the time.
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Gah, I have only vague memories of the dungeon even though I created it. 😅I wonder what all the symbols on the map are. Was every element portrayed there? Levers, platforms, treasures, invisible walls...? ;)
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Haha, it might be because I removed the ceiling of the dungeon :p Dungeons will probably not have ceilings anymore, had to remove them because them were causing some performance issues. Instead of this, it might be possible to change the background which is almost the same but doesn't cost as much resources.
Yes, those are all kinds of objects on the minimap, you can click the minimap to open the full map and see more details :)
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Happy New Year everyone, hope it will be a great year for all of you! 🥂 For me, 2025 was a difficult, but successful year, I'm very happy to have managed to achieve the goals that I set for it, the main of which was to pay off all my debts, and now I'm going into 2026 with the new ones. I want to let you know that I keep working to bring the dungeons back, just doing it at my own pace - because, as you know, it is just a hobby project. Most of the work recently is done on the "backend", fixing bugs and updating/refactoring old code to make a better foundation for the updates I want to implement, but my to-do list for the project is getting shorter and I'm slowly getting closer to the end goal 😉
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Happy new years! Looking forward to the dungeons :D
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Hello again to the wonderful community of SteamGIfts!
It's been a long long time since I last was here (3 years to be precise), I see many new faces here as well as some familiar ones.
Happy to see the community is still alive and kicking like it used to be when I was active here myself.
2015 - The beginning
10 years ago, on 23rd of November of 2015, I opened something special just for this community - my world of dungeons that you could dive into to go through an interesting adventure, solve puzzles and find treasures (which are links to private giveaways).
I was happy to see all the feedback and support in the events that I hosted which kept me going with new dungeons and updates.
2018 - Power to the community
A few years later, in 2018, seeing how people loved making and solving puzzles on this forum, I decided to give SteamGifts community the power to create their own dungeon events. I made a whole dungeon constructor/sandbox platform where anyone could create their own fully customizable dungeon, fill it with treasures (private giveaways) and share the dungeon link to invite people in. It allowed to create a full adventure experience with many puzzles right inside your own little dungeon world - with doors, portals, switches, traps, NPCs, items, etc. All of this was playable right in the browser, without any app downloads.
People were very creative and made great dungeons for holidays such as Halloween or Christmas, game-themed or just something completely weird and fun. One legend (yes, it's you Kuzu) even made a series of dungeon crosswords :)
Some of the dungeon events by the community:
Halloween adventure by grez1
Puzzlemania by ercalote
Garandro's Mind ٩(◕‿◕)۶ by Garandro
Bioshock-themed dungeon by Kyrrelin
Yes, it took way more time to make your own dungeon than a usual quiz puzzle or jigsaw, but it was fun and offered a totally unique experience that people remembered for a long time.
It was an exciting journey, I really loved seeing any activity of people making and exploring dungeons.
2020 - The pause
The dungeons project was always just a hobby for me and over time I couldn't spend as much time as I would love to to keep the development. It stalled at around the year 2020, I got a new job and got too busy with my job and life. I had no more time or energy for such a time-demanding hobby, so I decided to make a pause until better times. Years 2022-2023 were especially busy, I couldn't be active with the project and didn't see any more activity from people and eventually stopped prolonging the hosting services - the project went down.
However, I kept thinking about it, it was always in the back of my mind. A lot of work had been done and people were having fun, I thought It would be a shame to let it all go to waste, so I was waiting for a better time to bring it back online and possibly continue the development.
2025 - Time to go back online?
Now, at the end of 2025, I finally have some more time and experience and feel like it could be the right time to bring the dungeons platform back online to allow you to make dungeons with Steamgifts giveaways. I have most of the backups, it will take some work to recollect, optimize, update, partially remake, test and bring the project together to at least make it available online again, but I am ready to do it now.
All my dungeon projects were made exclusively for SteamGifts and stayed this way from the beginning.
Thus, I want to ask the community:
I don't know how much the community has changed throughout the years, but I would love to see opinions of both groups of people - those who never heard about all of this and those who had experience with my projects.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thank you!
If you want to learn more, you can find many topics of the project events on this forum. Over the course of development the project had several names - you can find its topics if you search for "Game of sWords" and "Steam Dungeons".
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