Whole map versus Room-by-room?

[nijineko]

My current project is to recreate an homage version of a very old ASCII rogue-like as a mobile game. The maps from this game consists of walls, doors, secret doors, and openings. The maps also featured one-time fog of war (once explored, always revealed). In rooms, one could find things like stairs, traps (pits, shafts, energy, teleport, guaranteed monster encounters), and various magical effects (darkness, anti-magic, illusions). Based on the combination of these things, one could also find hallways and large rooms.

I have started creating a whole map for this game, only to find myself asking some questions. Here is a list:

• 1. Should I design a whole map, or create a unit by unit map (where a unit = rooms and hallways).

• 2. If I choose unit-by-unit, can I reuse these rooms yet still keep track of where they are in the big-picture map?

• 3. If I choose unit-by-unit, can I add and remove unique features via some method (global events?) to prevent visual repetition?

• 4. How can I best emulate the special features of traps and magical effects on the map level?

• 5. How should I best pull off the fog-of-war (any good plugins out there that are play-tested and recommended?)

• 6. How can I include a "create-your-own-character" mechanism in the game? (Both visually and mechanically)

• 7. How can I include mini-games?

• 8. How can I include crafting?

Today's post focuses on questions 1, 2, & 3 only. Future posts will cover other questions.

What experiences and suggestions does everyone have in this area? I'm looking for opinions, ideas, and brainstorming; though if you have technical details of how-to, while that is most welcome, it is not expected at this point.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Sorry I missed this post. If you kept working on the game, you're probably well beyond this point.

But because I think this is an interesting topic, here's my take:

Make all of the sections individually. That way you're not constrained by real geometry.

One of my favorite examples is World of Warcraft. It seems transition-free as you go from indoors to outdoors. But if you pay close attention when you enter a building, you'll see your minimap black out the outdoors area, and you'll see that the inside of every building is much larger than the outside of the building.

Lots of traditional isometric games do it that way for the same reason--making the indoors to a different scale--but also to make sure the player only has to travel through interesting areas, so you don't have to travel down annoyingly long hallways to get from one grand room to another.

I don't know how it works in RPGM, but I solve issue #2 in my game through careful scripting: I build a level that I want to reuse, placing floors and walls, etc. Then I place another level in the exact same location, with NPCs and an event that teleports the player back outside. I make as many of those levels as I want, and that way I can reuse the same tavern, in different towns with different NPCs. I just have to be careful with which NPC-and-teleporter-containing level I load when the player enters the tavern.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

For me, issue #3 was a concern because although I can put furniture, for example, in a separate level, the shadows get baked onto the floor whether the furniture-containing level is loaded or not. For stuff like that I decided it was easier for me to copy and paste everything into a different map, and then rearrange the furniture there.