We Hired a Player?! | Dev Blog 2: Chunks

[h2]Heya, Rogues,[/h2]
Antishyr here, the community manager of Streets of Rogue 2. In this devblog, I'd like to offer you a peek at dungeons, show you how we handcraft interiors for the game, and talk about how Matt, the dev, hired a player to help him construct "chunks." Who is that guy? And wtf's a chunk? Let's find out.



[h3]BUILDING THE STREETS[/h3]

SoR 2 is an ambitious open-world game, which means everybody expects its environments to be immersive and diverse. Matt Dabrowski, the sole programmer/designer of the game, created a system that generates a whole island country with cities/towns, rivers, and forests when you start a new save. However, for every piece of the game world, large and small, there's always a looming question: "Is it worth spending time writing a system to generate this procedurally, or would the results be better (and, potentially, more efficient) if I just made this myself?" Generally, Streets of Rogue 2 follows a similar formula to the original game: Procedurally generate the maps, while handcrafting the individual pieces of those maps. Those "pieces" are classified as "chunks".

Chunk [tʃʌŋk], noun: a section of the Streets of Rogue 2's map in the form of a building interior, park, road intersection, you name it.

Here's an example of an interior office chunk:



In the open world of SoR 2, regions are the largest form of measurement. Then there are chunks, and the smallest form is a tile. The smallest regions are comprised of 4x4 normal-sized chunks, while the largest are 16x16. A normal-sized chunk has 16x16 tiles, while the smallest has 8x8 tiles, and the largest has 64x64 tiles, making it the size of the smallest region. A greatly expanded version of the level editor from SoR 1 is used to create chunks.



By the way, if you want to learn even more about how chunks are developed, check out this video devlog by Matt.

Compared to Streets 1, SoR 2 will have a much bigger variety of chunk sizes. The inclusion of smaller chunks comes in handy when Matt fills the world with small filler locations:


[h3]🖥️ FROM PLAYER TO DEV[/h3]
Initially, Matt wanted to create all the chunks by hand before realizing it was an enormous amount of work that would, before long, drive him crazy if added to an already extensive solodev list of various tasks.

Enter Cyan_Light, real name: Clay—a SoR player and a prominent modder who has contributed countless incredible workshop items to the first game's community. He and Matt decided to join forces, and the rest is history: Clay has already crafted thousands (!) of chunks for the sequel. I'm not kidding. Here are some of the examples of his most recent works:


To make Cyan_Light's work less time-consuming, Matt designed the editor in such a way that it attempts to improve efficiency and minimize human errors as much as possible without limiting creativity. For example, if you place a locked door on a wall, the game will determine which direction the door should be facing to ensure that it's locked from the correct side. Or, if you place a generic chair, the game will determine if chair variants exist for the specific type of chunk you're creating (i.e., Police Station or Suburban Home), and display one of those variants. On top of that, you can now randomize other elements like the amount of damage on objects—a table in the President's office would be in mint condition, while one in a drug den... maybe not so much?

When it comes to deciding where to put quest objects in a chunk, Clay drops a marker that the game obediently populates with a randomized item—a chest, a safe, a kidnapped person. It all depends on the requirements of the quest. Some pieces, like vending machines, may be thrown in randomly, but others, like, say, augmentation booths, will abide by common sense: You'll see an aug booth near a hospital. You can also tweak the spawn chance of objects for more variety:



Quality-of-life features like those I listed above help with the pace of pumping out chunks: One takes 10-15 minutes to cook, larger ones—up to an hour.

[h3]👣 LEVEL DESIGN[/h3]
When putting chunks together for missions, Clay makes sure there are always multiple ways to approach a quest. Here's a vent to put syringes into, and there's a PC to hack, and a bunch of windows to crack and climb through. Maybe a conveniently placed 1500-lb overheated generator in one of the backrooms.

When it comes to choosing how to complete a quest, the material a building is made of is important. You can blast through wood and brick to get inside a building (or even ride through it if your vehicle is souped-up enough). Steel buildings might prove to be more of a challenge. Naturally, you'll see more structures made of sturdier materials in high-level game areas.

A lot of attention is paid to designing dungeons. E.g., mayor's offices are huge chunks that require a meticulous approach from the design standpoint.

[h3]🦇 SPEAKING OF DUNGEONS...[/h3]
...I know you've been waiting for more details on this feature. Work is being put into it as we speak; in addition to wild caves and office dungeons we talked about above, cannibal hideouts and house basements are in the works, as well as other types of dungeon biomes we'll reveal later.

One thing to note: While dungeon levels like the ones you see here are entirely handcrafted, procedurally generated dungeon maps comprised of smaller chunks are also planned. Much of the programming for these has been completed, but Matt has opted to hold off on further development of these until after the Early Access launch because, in Matt's words, "the game should probably ship at some point... yeah, that would be ideal".

Having a swimming pool in your basement is some luxury sh*t, ngl.☝️


Here's a look at a mostly-completed cave dungeon chunk. I say "mostly" because diagonal walls are currently getting an overhaul and thus are missing from this revision of the chunk. It's also missing some extra cave flourishes that were just recently added, notably cave lakes.



[h3]🛠️ LEVEL EDITOR & WORKSHOP SUPPORT[/h3]
"Do I get to do all these fun things in the level editor, too?", you may ask. The short and definitive answer is "Yes." All tools that Cyan_Light has at his disposal should become accessible to the community in the future with the release of the level editor—that one is planned to be rolled out at some time after the early access launch. Players will be able to create new chunks and entire levels for the game, as was possible in the original game.

The level editor is already packed with tiles, wall types, animals, melee weapons, and firearms to play around with, with more coming in the future. Interestingly, adding abundant content to a game is not the biggest grind an indie dev can undertake:



As you can see from this tweet, Matt's currently focused on better floor tile mixing and sorting out diagonal wall issues. As soon as that's in the books, he'll be working primarily on design Implementation and balance tasks. Following that, he'll be completing the local co-op mode. For more info, check out the game's Roadmap. I'll share more details when I have them!

[hr][/hr]
As always, thanks for your support, all. Comment your thoughts on the devblog below and wishlist/follow Streets of Rogue 2 to stay updated:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165810/Streets_of_Rogue_2/
Read previous dev blogs:
Devblog I: Vehicles

Watch video devlogs: Devlog 1: How I Approach World-Building? 🌎 Devlog 2: Creating an Open World Solo 🗺️ Devlog 3: Games That Inspired SoR 2 💡 Devlog 4: New Release ETA, Roadmap 🗺️
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