trapadjacent

Trapadjacent is a term used in game design and dungeon crawling to describe the spatial relationship between a hazard such as a trap and the surrounding spaces that can be affected by it. In common usage, trapadjacent refers to tiles or zones near but not on the trap itself, within which secondary effects may occur when the trap is triggered, such as blast damage, knockback, gas release, or chained hazards.

Definition and scope: The exact definition varies by system. In grid-based play, trapadjacent often includes any orthogonally or diagonally neighboring tile to the trap location, effectively the eight surrounding squares. Some systems adopt radial definitions with a configurable radius (for example, radius 1 or 2). The concept is also used in digital game design to model nearby hazards that influence player decisions even if they do not step on the trap.

Purpose and usage: Designers use the concept to model risk, balance, and player decision-making. It helps determine terrain hazards, visual cues, and tactical considerations (for example, players avoiding tiles that are trapadjacent). It also informs procedural generation of level layouts and encounter design, ensuring that proximity to traps meaningfully shapes gameplay.

Examples: A pressure plate trap may release poison gas in all trapadjacent tiles, while an arrow trap may fire only into the trapadjacent corridor, leaving the trap tile itself passable or only lightly affected.

Origin and orthography: The term appears in game design glossaries and community wikis as a descriptive label for hazard zones around traps. It is not tied to a single standard; practitioners define trapadjacent rules within their own systems.

See also: trap, trap mechanism, area of effect, proximity, game design.