DD# 130 Refining the Infinite Experience.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
This week, our adventure in our infinite dungeon system continues (after my air conditioner is fixed so that my GPU will not go boom any time soon.) Because all those dungeons are dynamically generated. I don't think any screenshots will do to demonstrate them.
Thus, I got two videos for this week instead.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Alternative links for players in China where Youtube is blocked:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1LM4y1478T
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15P411C7rL/
I'm not going to hide my accent at all because someone thinks that makes me sound more like a mad scientist. :)
Anyway, let's go down to more details about the system improvements:
First, something for a better quality of life:
1, You can get refresh randomly generated locations till you find a name that attracts you. Random location names now contain more useful information. You can always cancel the selected location before you enter it and the previous list of locations will be kept unless you chose to refresh it.
2, A better algorithm to make maps feel more compacted with more activities to do instead of large inaccessible areas in between. Details can be found in the first video. In theory, it shall provide 4 times more fun than before.
3, Butterfly support. A maze is a maze, people can get lost. Thus, butterfly wings will come in handy. To avoid some edge cases, they are not going to directly teleport you out of the dungeon. However, they can bring you back to the entrance where the tourist guide can help you get out.
4, Merchants. You can fight as many enemies as you like in those dungeons. It will be quite awful if you run out of supplies in the middle of your killing spree or... pet-capturing spree for the sake of love. So, random merchants may now appear in those random locations. As long as you get money, you can get as many potions as you want. You can also buy some butterfly wings from them in case you have gone too deep in a dungeon.
Second, one major issue of the entire mechanics' design needs to be addressed. That is, why do you want to explore those random locations? They are random locations, naturally, exploration plays a big part in them. However, random alone is not good enough. You need to be rewarded to make every dungeon a truly unique experience and to have an impact on your future journies.
So, here are some answers to this question:
1, Chests!
A common and straightforward solution. There are random chests with random loot in those dungeons. What's better? They have different content in different environments. For example, the fire caves have sulfurs while the water caves have all kinds of different water, including holy water. You can try to sneak through all the enemies with skill and loot everything without being noticed.
2, Bosses!
It gets boring quite quickly after maw down waves of enemies with your machine guns. How about some challenges? Different bosses from the game stories may all appear in those random locations. You may not even meet them before if you haven't progressed the story far enough. But, here in those strange parallel universe dungeons, you can fight, defeat them, and get their unique drops.
3, Customized Information
With the new customized widget system, every map can have its own UI. In those random locations, you can check how many chests you have not yet opened and how many Bosses are still standing.
4, I HATE THOSE DEAD ENDS!
It's common that we will have dead ends in dungeons. It's boring to backtrace your steps. Thus, some magic statues will now appear in those locations. You can use them to either, return back to the entrance, fully heal your entire group, or get an item with at least +2 quality. As the entire map is procedurally generated, the scenarios you will get at a dead end are also highly situational. Thus, I will leave the choice to you to decide how you want to use those statues.
5, The Design Philosophy
There are many different ways to put a goal in a random location. Some prefer to pin a mission on them. Some prefer to make everything more controllable so that they can add more narrative. Some mobile games will even go as far as putting an auto-guide system to direct you through all the points of interest. But, here, I'm not going to do any of those. Instead, I will tell you there are so many different things you can do in a dungeon. You can set your own goals, such as farming a certain type of material, defeating a certain boss, capturing a certain type of pet, farming Exp, making money from the adventure, or simply seeing what's lurking at the dark corner of those dungeons. The choice shall be all yours. I am just here to make the experience fun, and rewarding, and remove the inconvenience.
6, Future Plan
The rewarding part still needs some work to make things more diverse. More types of enemies and Bosses will also be added.
That's for this week. There is something more than the infinite procedurally generated maps in Wonderland Travel Agency. As some clue you can get from the conversation with "The Receptionist," there is something behind it. It's no coincidence that I am working on this part of the game after the main story in Egypt is almost finished. Maybe more information will be revealed next week. :)
Today's changelog:
############Content################
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Added random magic statues that will appear at the dead end of a path in random locations.
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Each magic statue will allow you to choose one of three options: Return to the entrance, fully recover, or gain an item with at least +2 quality.
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Added The Sewer Overgrowth as a possible Boss in a location with slimes.
############System#################
It's now possible to convert a random boss from a random mission to a boss of a random location.
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