Being done with the map is a bit overwhelming, I have to say. So many items, enemies, stats, skills and other things to think about... What should I start with? I've expanded a bit my core ideas for many of these things, but there still is a bunch of work to be done. Also, I'm trying to start doing character sprites but of course, I'm not that good at it.
Currently working on: Expanding the core concepts
Time spent on the project so far: 31 hours
And I'm done with the whole map design for my game! All 1000 squares now have a description and what's in them more or less in them, item and enemy wise. I also have the story pretty much laid down for the player to discover as he explores the game outside of the beaten path. Now I'll have to make a list of all these items and skills and gear parts and enemies and work on cleaning up my map designs and stuff. Probably tomorrow I'll get on that!
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 30 hours
Still working on that map, it's going pretty fast now that all I need to do is to fill the remaining blanks while having a good idea of sense, style and story for everything around in a way that makes the game come together coherently. I'm at 802 rooms out 1000 so I have more than 80% done. It shouldn't take more than a few days to complete this. I'm pretty excited to move on!
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 28 hours
I'm done with one out of 10 maps, the other maps should go pretty quickly after that. When I'm done with this, I'll start working on the various items and pieces of gear scattered around the world of my game, then we'll see, but I probably will design enemies and bosses. Then someday, maybe I'll start coding...
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 27 hours
I'm done with the main critical path of the game now, all that is left is some end-game fluff, optional boss battles, endings, things like that. I think that the basic way the player will take through the game is solid and allows for a bit of exploration as the player feels is adequate. However, I have to make sure that movement is fluid and that the exploration skills given are powerful enough to be truly useful.
Of course, what I call "end-game fluff" is a big part of the game, about 40% of the game's content is locked before you get there. In terms of rooms to visit, at least. Enemies are a bit more widespread than that and I still am unsure about the final count for items, gun parts and gear for the player. I'll get there when I'm done with the map.
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 25 hours
As I go slowly but surely to the end of designing the whole map of everything that is going on in 100RTBD, the tasks at hand loom over me like a constant reminder during each claim I make in the description of the map. All these enemies to design, all these 'pieces of gear' that I describe only by that label, without elaborating and pushing that to a later stage of creation. Chests with "some items" and challenge rooms where the rewards are "gun parts" leave a bit to the imagination.
But of course, everything is still up in the air right now, all I have are a few documents and a bunch of ideas, before anything is put down into real hard code, it's not a big deal if I write and think anything I want, the only challenge then will be to put these things in place for real, making them playable and making them fun. Right now I'm having a ton of fun with this map and the different things I can do with the game world. Here is a picture of an excel document if that's your thing.
Today I spent most of my time continuing the map and spent most of my time thinking really hard about the way paths get opened up later in the game. I thought it would be complicated, and I was kinda right. The obvious paths are easy, but if you get at some place with a certain ability, it's not clear where you can or can't go. I think I've got a good grasp on it by now.
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 20 hours
Because I've been moving, I didn't have much time to work on my design document, but I finally found some today and I've been chipping away at the massive work that I still have to do before I can even start programming. I have to say that I'm really looking forward to the programming bit, but design is also fun because in a way it's programming the game without writing code. At least it's thinking about how the game will go in your mind.
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 18 hours
One of the things I didn't plan when I started my map is how the locked doors and enemies are spread across the game At first I thought I could get unique doors for each room that would get unlocked linearly as you progressed through the game but then I noticed that I wouldn't have enough rooms and enough doors for the later stages and I kind of ran out halfway through. It's not a big deal, I can just change the way doors work after a little while in order to accommodate the endgame.
I also noticed that in my first stages I just spread the enemies very thinly, new kind of enemies would appear after many rooms while in the later stages, enemies change like crazy. As long as I add all kinds of enemies so everything is thoroughly represented, it's fine. I think?
Currently working on: Designing the map
Time spent on the project so far: 17 hours
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
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
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
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