I am Craig Pike and The Black Maw megadungeon is mine.
Back in the fall and early winter of 2018 my reviews wandered in to “How hard is this shit, really?” territory. Faced with bad adventure after bad adventure I started to wonder just how hard it was, so I set out to answer my question.
I created a random dungeon generator based on IPP3, then used the ideas it generated to riff off of and generate levels. My goal was to write a dungeon level in about an hour. The map would take longer, as would the art, “layout” and uploading to DriveThru, but the goal was to have the principal writing done in about an hour. My first level took about 2.5 hours and my third one about 90 minutes, before I let the project lie for six months or so. I’m returning to it now to finish it.
The first map came from Tim Hartin and I learned CC3+ for the rest, following various recipes on the internet.
I do NOT recommend this method to anyone. Nor do I think Black Maw represents what a good adventure should be. It’s just an experiment, performance art if you will, to see what can actually be accomplished in about an hour. Also, no, the primary writing is not that hard.
More notes later.