Entry Four

Designing maps is more than just connecting rooms together, there's a logic of where you can and cannot go at a certain point in the story, how to place the enemies and the rewards. It gets even more difficult in a parallel world type game like 100RTBD. When I developed ChronoScape for university, I had solved that problem by making the game extremely linear - you only progressed forward until you hit a locked door of sorts, changed to another time period, found the key, and moved forward.

Another interesting thing to think about is the whole concept of the endgame, optional bosses, new game+ and other concepts of the sort. I want to include these kind of things, so I have to think about them as I work through making the regular progression of the game.

Currently working on: Designing the map

Time spent on the project so far: 16 hours

Entry Three

As I continue making the map, creating paths, adding enemies, items and puzzles, I also weave in the story in unobtrusive ways, mostly terminals that the player will walk nearby and blocks of text will be shown on screen. The story will not be very linear as the nature of the game itself won't be and while I find this concept interesting in many ways I'm not sure how it'll pan out. The player will have to piece the story by himself, and I enjoy that idea because it adds a layer of 'what is not said' on top of 'what is said'.

There's also the issue that my game will feature a fairly large amount of backtracking. While backtracking by itself isn't a big problem, I feel that if I don't juggle it right, it'll become tiresome. So far, my plans are to add a way to teleport between different spots on the map and to make the basic movement and gameplay as fluid and snappy as possible so it's not a huge chore to move around.

Currently working on: Designing the map

Time spent on the project so far: 14 hours

Entry Two

I am still working on creating the map for my game - doing so is still the cornerstone of determining the number of enemies, bosses, items, challenges, and the like. It's a very complicated task, maybe too much, even. It reminds me of my final project at university when I had to make a game from scratch and I had designed and started to make an RPG called ChronoScape where you moved between seven parties scattered through different time periods and you had to switch back and forth in order to progress. It's a bit like that.

Being a MetroidVania, there is a clear path of getting upgrades that will allow you to continue in another direction from a place where you've been before. My game will have that times ten, literally. Creating a single 10x10 grid of paths linked in a way that allows for exploration and secrets is difficult enough, but I want to play with some other mechanics as well, so that means a sizeable number of hours writing the design document. 

There is also an idea floating in the back of my head about how feasible the end-product will be. I had some issues with Friday The 2013th where I couldn't find how to make certain things work in Unity, but that's for another time I suppose, I'll struggle with the technical challenges when I get there.

Currently working on: Designing the map

Time spent on the project so far: 10 hours

Entry One

When I created my design document for Friday the 2013th, it was quite easy, I only needed to list everything I wanted to put in the game - loosely based on the original - and then go point by point and implement these mechanics.

100 Reasons To Break Down (my current project) is a MetroidVania that I would call ambitious in some ways. I was stunned at first by how big some part of making a game from scratch can be. I didn't really have a design doc for Brooman Potionmeister or for Grid Drill, I just made it up as I went, but for 100RTBD I want to plan everything beforehand and then work on implementing it. 

It's the same thing, really, plan things beforehand, make sure the whole game is more or less complete before you even start coding and then try to do all of the things you planned for. But right now, the planning stage is really a daunting task, I'm currently making the map and for a project of this scope, it's a big part of the work.

Currently working on: Designing the map

Time spent on the project so far: 8 hours