Thursday 21 February 2008

More re-design

While working on my brand new exterior areas I realised that my indoor Maze might be too large too. It was 25x25 tiles with very long corridors. It was fun to design but not too smart. I believe people will think it's boring to run through all those miles of crypts. Mazes can by definition be really boring, but I don't want to make it worse. So now when I'm in that reconstruction mode I took the chance and made a new maze are from scratch. I compressed it so much I could without loosing track on the original maze from Zork I. It took over two hours to do every transition right and test it. What is left is to decorade it with all that stuff mazes are made of.

And now everything gets difficult. What placeables and such will I use? Too many and too distinct interior decoration will give the player landmarks in the maze. To few or too similar ones will make it look boring and empty. My head is really empty so I'll check out some of my DnD books for inspiration. Sometimes I think: "I'll break the whole idea of a puzzle game only and throw in a couple of goblin scouts and a orc ambush...", but no, not this time.

This may be a spoiler, but I trust you not telling anyone...

Okay, the maze doesn't seem so complicated. "Try it without the mini-map", I say.


/A

8 comments:

Briesence said...

Too bad you can't teleport players without them realizing it.

Ernie Noa said...

Where's the troll with a nasty axe?

:-)

Amraphael said...

@Ernie
Not in this area ;)

@Brisence
Now we're back to my brain power drain again...
Teleport without realizing it??? ¤:P

Briesence said...

In a couple of text based MUDs I played there were maze areas where you could enter a room, leave through the same door you'd entered by, and be confronted by a totally new area. Probably completely impossible to do that without load screens in NWN2.

Amraphael said...

@Briesence
Ah, now I get it. I fact I have this in the game.

I certain areas I've removed the mini map and the area map. When you enter a door a script randomize the target transition door. It works as you say but the player stays within the same area. I'm not sure if I'll keep the maps hidden. It may make the game too hard for certain players. But the random doors will stay ;)

It would work cross areas too if you select force the same load screen for all areas.

Anonymous said...

That looks fun! Too bad I can't have GPS in game. I'm so directionally retarded! lol Seriously. I get lost in games often. I almost think it is part of my fun though :P

Briesence said...

"I'm not sure if I'll keep the maps hidden. It may make the game too hard for certain players."

That would be me.

EC said...

I like the lay out of this maze very much.

When I look at your square pic, I can't help but think that it would make a fine LP sleeve for some 1970's progressive rock band... ;)