After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2021 and its first release in March 2022, Dungeon Alchemist has positioned itself as one of the most interesting role-playing map-building tools available today. Let’s learn more about this great project with Wim De Hert and Karel Crombecq, founders of the Briganti team.
How would you describe Dungeon Alchemist in just a few words?
Dungeon Alchemist is a fantasy map-making application that uses artificial intelligence to let anyone create high-quality maps quickly.
At IGWTF we all play tabletop RPGs and we loved Dungeon Alchemist from the first day on Kickstarter. How did you start working on it?
For over twenty years, I’ve been an avid Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons player. With a background in graphics, I ended up being the designated printer of the maps included in adventure paths, and more often than not those maps were low-quality, enormous, and nearly impossible to print. Creating your own maps was a tedious, repetitive task. Most of the time was spent drawing the same walls, the same doors, the same floors. By the time you finished two rooms, you were bored out of your mind.
I’ve always been fascinated by AI and believed it could open up entirely new possibilities for role-playing. At the time, I was working with Karel Crombecq, one of the leading Flemish game developers, on a puzzle game called BoaBonanza. He has a doctorate in machine learning, and together we quickly put together a working proof of concept.
Could you tell us more about your team, Briganti? In Italian this word means “Brigands.” How did you choose this name?
At this point, Briganti employs one additional person for administration. We work with freelancers daily for asset creation, community management, and development. During the Kickstarter, it became clear that we needed a legal entity to operate under. We founded Briganti within two days because everything had to move extremely fast. Our counsel at KPMG, Belfius Bank, and the notary were a tremendous help.
We chose the name Briganti for its mythical meaning, referring to the snake goddess of arts and poetry. The ouroboros in our logo combines the snake with a visual reference to quantum entanglement, since we also wanted a subtle nod to AI.
Is there any particular twist or aspect that you think makes Dungeon Alchemist unique?
We’re the first to combine AI and fantasy map making at this level. The ease of use and the speed make Dungeon Alchemist accessible to everyone.
How is the role-playing community reacting to your title? It sounds like a game-changer for map makers.
Creating Dungeon Alchemist seems to have inspired an incredible number of people. We started as a simple map maker, but the features we’ve added give Dungeon Alchemist the potential to become much more. The response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and we intend to carry that momentum forward into future development and partnerships.
How did you achieve such strong results with the AI behind your building tools?
From the beginning, it was clear to us that rooms and interiors follow very subtle, human-like logic. We had to train the AI to decorate rooms the way a person would: start with walls, doors, and windows, then place the main objects, and then decorate the rest around them.
The AI learns these interior-design rules by studying examples for each room type and analyzing how objects are placed relative to walls, doors, and each other. It also looks for patterns (like “pillars are placed in a regular pattern”) and tries to replicate them. All these details help produce believable maps, but getting here required countless iterations, tweaks, and small improvements.
Are you planning virtual reality integration?
We often refer to Dungeon Alchemist as a map-making application first and foremost. That means we look to third parties to integrate extended functionality. While we will likely not implement VR ourselves, we welcome any and all collaborations in the future.
We’re this close to releasing the Abandoned Ruins #DungeonAlchemist update, and we completely ruined EVERYTHING! ? Here’s the new objectbrush in action. ? #screenshotsaturday #indiegamedev #ttrpg https://t.co/GOh7LdRHJo @wimdehert @KarelCrombecq pic.twitter.com/cR864jF4VS
Dungeon Alchemist (@DungeonAlchemi1) May 28, 2022
How are you organizing work within your team?
Since the start of the project, we’ve been using Slack for communication. Daily tasks, milestones, backlogs, and bugs are tracked across several Trello boards. Some boards are exclusively for Karel and me, while others are shared with asset creators, accounting, or developers. A lot of our community interaction happens through our Discord server. Meetings are usually held on Google Meet, which offers very useful screen-sharing features that we use almost daily.
How did you decide on the price point for Dungeon Alchemist?
Setting the final retail price wasn’t easy. We wanted to ensure we could deliver all promised Kickstarter stretch goals, keep the application running for a long time, and still remain accessible. Neither Karel nor I were in favor of a subscription model, so we chose a different approach. Users pay once for the base platform, and all unlocked Kickstarter content will be added for free over time.
To offset the slightly higher price point, updates to basic functionality and features will also be added at no extra charge, and users have very lenient terms of use that allow them to benefit commercially from the content they create.
What are the future plans for Dungeon Alchemist?
First, we will deliver all the stretch goals and content we promised. In the meantime, we’ll continue adding new functionality and improvements. We have a voting system where users can help us determine priorities. There are many exciting features on the way, including first-person view, animated exports, and more.