4. Digging deep

So, just how am I going to create this game world? In a programming and design sense?
Programming
1. Randomly generated levels
Eager to remove as much labour from this development as possible, I took a look at this. See the game Spelunky for a brilliant example of this done well. Of course many other games have randomly generated content for dungeons or their entire world, so it's definitely possible. However my aims are quite simple, and I'm an average programmer at best, so although the thought entertains me I won't be going down this route. Seriously, my head would explode just thinkign about how to accomplish this 🙂
2. Fixed levels
Seeing as working out how to do random level generation would require more work than it would likely solve, I decided to go with fixed levels. It allows me to create puzzles and platforming areas with care to pacing and gradually increasing difficulty as the story progresses.
Design
OK, so how do these levels actually exist in the game world? And how many are there?
I originally envisioned the base sitting dead centre of a grid, Doing some brief calculations a 7×7 grid would give 49 levels – almost 50 (!) but a lot of work for me. A 5×5 grid would only give 25 levels however, and would feel quite small. So I settled on a 6×6 grid, with the base offset slightly. This gives me 36 levels which feels manageable and is enough to hold all the collectable 'artefacts the player will need to gather.
When placing these in the game world, my first thought was that each would be sat in a specific grid location, waiting for the player to uncover them. But then I came across the following question…
So how does the player progress in the game?
Well in the current design they have the choice to scan any grid zone in any order (as long as it's connected to the last one) and then pick one of those for drilling. This causes one big problem for a 'fixed levels' design in that I want a narrative! If the player can choose where to dig, they can choose to miss carefully placed, important levels and will get the narrative in the wrong order.
SOLUTIONS:
1. I could make the narrative non-linear, and instead have it in individual 'parcels' of narrative that the player can pick up as and when they find them. Each can be taken on it's own in any order and the player can still work out what is going on.
2. The player can't drill wherever they want. There is a fixed path. I don't like this – one of the main themes of the game is exploration. Therefore, removing elements of exploration are a no-no.
3. The player has the freedom to choose to drill wherever they want, HOWEVER narrative-critical levels will always appear after a set amount of levels have passed. For example the first grid zone they dig is always the 'discover first artefact' level, whichever grid zone they choose. The next two levels they choose are then non-narrative critical ones picked from a pool, until the fourth one which is another set level. This give the player the sense of exploration AND gives me control of the pacing of the story.
I've decided to go with 3 as it's a nice compromise and should be fairly easy to implement.
NEXT TIME: Drilling logic – how it actually works!