Victory lap time. I am right on track with my week’s goal of a playable prototype. It came at the cost of some tremendously ugly code, but I hacked together a playable demo that gives a solid impression of what the game will become.
The whole procedural level thing was an experiment. I built this prototype to prove the concept to myself–and I think it really works. This is is going to bring the ground combat of Soulcaster to a new level. See for yourself:
The procedural room layout engine continues to improve. Today I added two main features:
1. The entire dungeon generation is deterministic for a given random number seed. Thanks to Chris Pavia for recommending I do this early on–it’s already helped out in testing a lot. If I find a flaw in the layout, I can keep working on the same room until it’s fixed.
2. The pattern merger takes the doorway positions into account, so it won’t block off an exit to the room. It also has a list of available decorations (currently just to serve as room corners and island splits), and picks one at random that is small enough to fit without blocking any doors.
Here’s how I design the corner decoration patterns:
It’s time I talk a bit about my next project.
Brace yourself. It’s very placeholdery. Graphics were ripped sloppily from Soulcaster II, and the full screen layout is too ugly to show in its entirety. But let me win you over by explaining bit about the new direction Soulcaster 3 is taking. (For starters, it’s probably not going to be called Soulcaster 3. A better title will reveal itself in the next few months.)
This blog post is part of a new effort to not develop this game completely in the dark. Remember… it’s never too early to show your game!
