Devil Daggers might be the best empty room ever designed

Here comes one of the most overused words in video game criticism but it's undeniable: Devil Daggers is visceral.

Not with regards to the exploding enemies (of which the gore is delightfully abstract) but in the truest sense of the word; Devil Daggers is visceral because of how it grounds you as a physical entity interacting with a space.

As a beginner, the swarms of enemies whirling around you quickly becomes overwhelming and the game can feel like a surreal mess but as the player's ability grows, the intricate systems start to reveal themselves and Devil Daggers presents one of the purest examples of how enemies, weapons and systems can interact to create deep game design (even when the level is an empty black room).

We often talk about meaningful choice in games and it’s tempting to look to choices which affect broad strokes of a story or even smaller choices in how the player character interacts with NPCs in dialogue for example, even if outcomes aren’t drastically changed. These kinds of choices are important of course but there are choices that we all constantly make as players on an immediate level in how we interact with the environment, enemies and systems in many different genres and how designers develop these systems and the tools the player has can create a make the difference between something boring or truly compelling.

To take an example, the original Doom isn't only important because it laid out the basic genre conventions for other FPS games to follow, but it is still engaging to play today because it has solid systems and enemy design. The mixture of hitscan and projectiles used by the enemies creates situations where the player needs to make critical decisions about which enemies to deal with first and the different weapons' effectiveness against certain enemies allows the player to make meaningful choices in how to deal with them. The availability of certain weapons is also tied to the player’s progression through the game and is mirrored by the increasing complexity of combat scenarios as more enemy types are introduced and combined, all leading to a compelling experience. The quality of enemy and weapon design is a large factor in why Doom's modding scene was so popular because even fairly simple maps can be satisfying to play with a bit of good enemy placement.

How Devil Daggers presents its meaningful choices is slightly different. It's ostensibly simple: one weapon with two fire modes, one flat disk shaped arena, relentlessly spawning enemies, no level end button just survive as long as possible. But there's a lot more there; certain enemies and enemy spawners drop gems which upgrade your weapon to deal more damage and fire homing daggers. However, you can only pick gems up while not firing and using the secondary shotgun blast actually pushes the gems away from you and over the edge of the arena. This presents the player with some interesting choices: how often to actually fire their weapon becomes vital in order to upgrade. Also, advanced players can leave some spawners alive to continue spawning enemies in order to farm gems. This can lead to a delicate balancing act between trying to avoid being overwhelmed and farm enough gems but also clearing the arena before bigger enemies appear.

And then there’s the enemy design. The important thing about the enemies and what makes the second to second gameplay so gripping is that each new one that's introduced fundamentally changes how the player interacts with the scene and forces the player to make interesting choices about how to use the tools at their disposal. For example the centipedes with their underbellies studded with gems, break the flow of the considered shooting previously required to absorb gems while you go full auto into their stomachs. Or the spiders whose alternating shielded and vulnerable poses leave the player to turn their attention to and from the other enemies in the arena.

What makes the moment to moment gameplay mean something for the player is not just variety for variety's sake, it is all layers of interaction between the systems, enemy design and the tools afforded to the player and more importantly what that means with regards to the choices the player makes and how the player body interacts with and traverses a space. In our real lives we are constantly assessing our environments and are faced with an implicit narrative; we make meaningful choices simply in how we choose to traverse day to day spaces. Giving the player meaningful choices in traversal and interaction with an environment and its occupants, whether through movement or shooting or dialogue choices can create compelling design... even in an empty black room.