Demon Halls Quest Ideas | Patreon Weekly #345

Hey Patrons! In this weekly I’m going to continue the ‘longer term plans’ trend for one more week and share some early concepting details and ideas about a potential demon halls quest! This is largely recycled from Shattered Secrets #29. Do keep in mind that these are fairly early concepts, and while the general idea probably won't change the details might change a lot.

The 2026 blog post is also just about finished, and will be releasing soon, probably in a few hours or early tomorrow.

Themeing

The demon halls aren’t the place you’d expect to see too many friendly faces, or at least not any from the world the rest of the dungeon is from. The game already sets a bit of a precedent with the ambitious imp as well, of beings from other worlds that are sort of piggybacking on Yog’s invasion. For this reason, I think it’s likely the demon halls quest would be given by another off-world creature, although a Dwarf who’s still barely clinging to sanity might also be an option.

Whoever the questgiver is, they’ll want you to do something quite risky indeed: delve into the barrier between worlds that Yog has partially opened up by invading. Surely such a place has to be filled with prized artifacts, and plenty of danger.

Gameplay

The exact gameplay of the quest is still mostly undefined, but I do have a pretty good idea for a central mechanic. This is actually something that I’ve toyed with a little in Tengu’s boss fight and concepted a bit (but then scrapped) for Yog’s boss fight. The warped space in between worlds isn’t quite real or rigidly defined, and so ends up looking like a fever-dream mishmash of places you’ve already been to. From a technical perspective, this means having a level that has no defined map, but instead generates in real-time as you move through it.

This would be accomplished by taking the game’s existing room structure, turning off the ability to remember places you’ve been to previously, and then quietly removing and generating rooms when the player isn’t looking at them. A room you left might cease to exist, and new rooms might only actually pop into existence as you approach them.

The player would need to wander through this space until they accomplish some objective, and then could return by activating an item given to them by the questgiver. I’m not too certain of what the reward might be just yet. I suspect that the only really compelling choice will be something that directly helps in the Yog fight, somewhat like how the demon spawners work currently.

Endless Mode?

But what if you don’t want to leave? This sort of chaotic space would lend itself extremely well to gameplay variety and might satisfy one of the most common player demands: an endless mode! Perhaps the place would get increasingly unstable and dangerous as you explore it. Initially this might give increasing points or rewards, but pretty quickly it would just be for bragging rights. Perhaps, rather than activating the amulet or ascending, the player could instead end their run by seeing how long they can survive!