“Hey,” Lucas spoke up, looking at his crew, “need some advice.” He liked working on his dungeon, but he was caught between the need to focus on developing his guards and his desire to build traps.

“With the tunnel part of the dungeon? Why think so hard?” Nick asked, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “Just make it a straight line, and then we can cut toward that monster decision.”

“No, not the tunnel for the underwater part of the dungeon,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “I’m stuck on what to focus on in my dungeon. I can add some traps, make it harder for players to reach combat without falling prey to lethal tricks, or I can focus on improving the quality of my guards and hopefully make them strong enough to handle players on their own one day. Considering how much each option costs and the small amount of resources I have to dedicate to the options, however, I can’t really mix and match at the moment,” Lucas explained.

“Small amount of resources? Boss, am I going to have to find another employer soon?” Bonnie asked jokingly, pushing against Lucas’s arm as she did so.

“No, I have plenty of that type of resource Bonnie. This one is only earned from killing players within the dungeon itself.”

Nick scratched his head and asked, “Well, do the guards ever improve on their own? If not, the decision should be easy.”

“Yeah, Nick’s right,” Viola chimed in. “Traps won’t ever get better at fighting, but they’ll definitely yield more victims and thus pay for themselves. If the guards also don’t improve, then go with the traps. If the guards do improve, then go with them. In the long run, they’re the clear winner. Traps might work at first, but most players are going to talk to each other about the dungeon, so they’ll also tell each other where all the deadly trip-ups are. Even if you know where the guards are, it’ll keep the dungeon feeling fresh and exciting even on the tenth or eleventh attempt if they keep getting better.”

“Right. The bosses that only die one-in-fifty times are always the most fun,” Nick said.

Lucas actually agreed with them. Since the guards were capable of leveling up, and the level-ups clearly improved them a significant amount, it would be best to focus on them as early as possible. “Well, I guess the last question is, offense or defense?”

“Offense. No one likes a fight that takes too long but isn’t challenging,” Bonnie said. “If you’re gonna be paid for a kill, get paid quick. If you’re gonna die, I say die quickly.”

Katie also nodded. “Offense.”

Right, that’s easy enough. “Thanks.”