I'm looking for some ideas for landmarks or point of interest in a dungeon game and hope for some input.

Sofar I have three settings, a castle setting, natural cavern, and sewers. As landmark I understand an unique visual object, easily recognized by the player, without any game relevant impact. Just as something to remember a location or to refer to it. Here's what I've come up sofar

Castle Setting
- throne
- tomb
- well

- statue

Cavern Setting
- archeological excavation
- skeleton (giant, dragon)

Sewer Setting
- ???

PS:

The game is like a roguelike (very structured setup),viewed from the top , here is a screenshot:

Castle Settings

* awesome tapestry

* torture chamber

Cavern Settings

* abyss

* subsurface flow (short piece of)

* opening in the ceiling where sun / moon light comes in

* lair (e.g. of bats)

* occurrences of natural resources in the walls

Sewer Settings

* entrances / exits

* catchment basin

* some kind of machinery (pumping, forwarding)

* any bigger room as opposed to the narrowness of the regular sewers

* (e.g.) rat nest

Personally, I find things like an ordinary throne in a castle not very landmark-ey. A landmark should be something that really stands out and might even be a bit odd. It really depends on the universe you're creating, but try making things more unexpected and weird. Because if the player stops and thinks "What the hell is that?" or "Hey I wasn't expecting that here" then that will immediately become a landmark for them.

So if you were to have a throne, make sure it's in a big grand throne room which is much larger than all of the other rooms where the throne over-arches everything else and has high-contrasting colors.

Just my 2c

@haegaar

Thx for the input. I've added a screenshot to the first post to present the look of the game. Therefor some things are harder to realise due to the very structured setup of the game (think of a tile based game/ dungeon keeper).

A landmark should be something that really stands out and might even be a bit odd. It really depends on the universe you're creating, but try making things more unexpected and weird. Because if the player stops and thinks "What the hell is that?" or "Hey I wasn't expecting that here" then that will immediately become a landmark for them.

I thought about some wierd stuff, like a shipwreck or whale-skeleton in a sewer. The whole game is a fanatsy setting (common RPG setting) which could contain some funny, not really serious elements.

For *Medieval European* sewage systems, you could have:

Sluiceways

Sluice gates

Drainage grating

Raceways

Holding pits

(Some of the following might not be suited to your design; I leave it to you to decide whether that is the case for any given entry. In any case, an unsuitable entry may still spark a more directly useful inspiration.)

For the castle:

• A wizard's laboratory
• A scrying chamber, complete with one or more of mirror, reflecting pool, or crystal ball
• An oubliette
• A ruined section, perhaps by siege weaponry
• The bed-chambers of the king, queen, princess or prince
• A grand dining hall
• A grand ballroom
• A room filled with paintings
• A map-room

For the caverns:

• Crystal outcroppings
• An enormous crystal geode (that is to say that the room is a geode, and the player moves about within it)
• Lava pits or chasms
• Exposed fossils
• Faces in the walls
• An unnaturally dark room
• A long-buried meteorite

For the sewer:

• A room filled with unidentified slime
• A confluence
• A hidden bandit-lair
• The chained bones of some unfortunate left to die amid the foulness
• An unidentified, but worryingly large, nest
• A patch of phosphorescent fungi

Castle:

• School rooms
• Collapsed stairway
• Secret passage with windows into rooms
• Hall of sculptures
• Rooftop of neighboring structures
• Barracks
• Secret alter to demon gods
• Aviary
• Kitchen
• Hot baths

Caverns:

• Giant Mushroom Forest
• Bat Guano mound
• Giant Lake
• Exposed Magma
• Half buried UFO
• Ancient city
• Dwarven fortress
• Gates to Hell
• Stalagmite cavern
• Tunnel with wind that blows the player back

Sewer:

• Beggar's shanty
• Sewerage whirlpool
• Bottomless abyss
• Secret treasure vault
• Blackmarket
• Cave opening to the ocean
• Abandoned prison
• Random house's basement
• Sewerage rapids
• Area with noxious, poisonous gas

Lot of useful stuff, thanks. Not everything is directly usable for me, but maybe is a good idea for others.

roads/pathways of distinctive style - not too many - to make THEM an extended landmark (you see it and follow it either direction)

crossings between such paths also would be a 'landmark'

Rooms/spaces of unusual shape can be distinctive

Pair of pillars demarcating a particular passage/portal

Peculiar plants in certain areas

Different lighting levels/colors can be recognizable

The strongest (impression wise) was always "different wall/floor texture" to me. Like in Eye of the Beholder 2 I went to the temple and then went down and immediatlley I knew I was in some sort of prison/dungeon (texture), similarly when I went up I noticed I entered some luxury quarters. So this could complement the land marks.

Another thing is "sectors", like at the top of the map there is a "wizard's lab" while at the bottom you have "guard's garrison". In this case the theme alone works as a sort of landmark.

Another thing I remember in old games were "plagues" or "writing on the wall". These were surprisingly noticeable (but note it was First Person View so maybe it won't work in your setup).

Some random landmarks:

* Castle - wizard's area

- huge mirror

- bookshelves

- a book in the middle of the room, chained

- crystals

- incinerated imp on the floor

- (guards) animated armour, flying scimitars

- damaged flying carpet (in repair, some loom) or a teleportation gobelin (upon touch moves you to identical gobelin elsewhere)

* Castle - main gate

- armoury

- dining room (lots of beer)

- frequent shields & weapons on the walls

- book "How to save a princess for dummies"

- hieraldy library (crests)

- drunken knight

- stuffed dragon