Main route map planning

I created this World Layout wiki page: https://github.com/clintbellanger/flare-game/wiki/World-Layout -- it contains ideas for more maps along the main quest. Please read it first then come back here.

The first few maps are in the current empyrean-campaign mod. I'm working on the beginning maps to set the tone/pace for the rest of the Act.

There are lots of blank maps in there still. This issue is for planning those required maps.

Pitch map ideas below. Especially explain why the map is an interesting use of the tile set.

The goal is to create a rough description of each map.

Proposed name
Which tile set it uses
Its general layout (maybe including a sketch)
What special events might be on the map
What type of creatures are on the map

Some complex map ideas might be reused as side quests or added to the main temples. I'll be strict about content and tone, so be open to suggestions please.

We'll close this ticket when the list of main maps in the World Layout wiki is complete -- that is, each map along the main route has a name and general plan. From there I'll create new milestone/issues to create each map and assign them to volunteers.

I'm going to pitch my own WIP maps, so that you have an understanding of what we're doing here.

Arrival

I wanted the player to start in a map that feels weird, mystical, lonely. The player starts on a teleporter circle, with no way to activate it. The implied story is that people teleported/banished from the main city appear here. It's okay if this is just mysterious for now. Later when the player uses working teleporter circles, they'll guess at what this all means.

Use screenshake when the player touches the circle. I think on player spawn the very first time we also want some kind of grand teleportation spell effect (shaft of light kind of thing).

I dropped the music for ambient wind sound, to play up the mood.

The shape of this map has areas of water and rock radiating out from the teleporter center. Sort of like broken concentric circles implied in the shapes. I want the sense that the magic radiating from the teleporter is important, and may even change the shape of the world around it.

I don't want to place enemies here. This can be a safe map for players to experiment with movement. I want this to feel like a secret clearing, a sort of ancient area where people aren't supposed to be.

River Trail

This grassland map has a trail following a small twisty river. The trail is all along one side of the river, and the other side is mainly rock wall. On one end is Arrival, the other end leads to the main town.

I didn't want the lonely Arrival area to connect directly to the main town. This extra map between Arrival and the town helps Arrival feel like it's tucked away and mysterious.

This map can feature a few almost-harmless enemies. Weak level 1 zombies most likely. The player can learn combat controls without being actually threatened.

I want this map to feature an old man who's forgotten where he is. This could be cut later for pacing, but I feel like a flavor NPC here could help set a mood. This NPC could be scared or startled by the player. We might use this NPC to convey concepts about this world. Examples: humans do try to work together here, but the ones that don't are monsters. Or, try to remember who you are because it's easy to forget when we're just surviving.

Exile

This is the main town of Act I. The name will probably change.

This map needs to have vendor NPCs that probably double as quest givers, the shared stash, and a teleporter circle.

The map I have built right now is bad. I'm going to make a new one soon. But, I expect this map to be remade many times before release. As we're fleshing out the story and giving this town some kind of purpose, we'll want to reshape the map to fit the story and add more NPCs (etc).

Salted Field

The first map outside of town I wanted to be fairly small, but with enough open space around the map to avoid many of the fights. So this is a small open field that will have a few level 1 enemies carefully placed.

Starting players may walk back to town a few times, so making most of the fights optional here will be good for pacing.

The alpha demo "Frontier Plains" was probably a bit too large. I want that starting free-roam feel still, but we'll scale it back greatly and put it in the first two maps.

"Salted Field" refers to this practice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth

Stonewood

We don't have a dedicated forest tile set, which is pretty tough to do in isometric tiles. But we can use narrow grassland rocky passages decorated with trees to have a similar effect. So I call this map "Stonewood" as a fantasy mashup of rocks and trees, instead of pretending this is a regular forest.

We found from the alpha demo that it's tough to progress through narrow passages, especially when the enemy mix and placement is good. This map is going to feel like a step up in toughness.

If you look at the design I created for this map, it has the feel of twisting passages but it's all pretty linear. This is still an early level, so it's good for the player to feel maybe lost but not to actually be lost. You can see other interesting parts of the map before you can reach them, which I find to be fun map design.

This map features the first teleporter back to town. This should feel like a good reward for progressing through the goblin scouts etc. in the area.

Goblin Camp

Goblins are a good early creature, and we want some hook to get them as part of the local conflict. This map puts a goblin boss and tougher goblins at the center of the Stonewood area.

I have a broken bridge here that I want to use as a shortcut. I have a stack of chopped wood next to a missing bridge piece, and my idea is that you can click on those bridge parts to repair the bridge from that side of it. Basically you can bypass actual Goblin Boss area and those tougher goblins when just passing through.

We may put a trade NPC next to the broken bridge. I might want to make one with a small wagon of goods, a traveling merchant you can help along the way. He could explain that the bridge can be fixed from the other side, but the goblins are too dangerous for him to handle. This could be an NPC that you meet and help several times who has rare magical items for sale. Consider how this NPC feels about the goblins -- maybe they're standing between him and profit and must be crushed, or maybe he just wants to get by safely.

The bridge also makes it obvious that it's easy to go back to Stonewood and the teleporter there. The goblin boss and henchmen should give lots of treasure/xp so players will want to get back to town.

In the alpha demo the goblin quests required killing the main goblins. I want to change that. The goblins in this world aren't necessarily evil. A pacifist route through the camp should be possible (e.g. sprint through the camp, fix the bridge, then bypass the goblin camp from then on).

The areas between 6 and 9 are more dry/arid grasslands mixed with dungeon passageways. Minotaurs can feature prominently here.

The third main dungeon/temple at 9:00 will probably be themed as a mad wizard layer.

Perhaps after wading through some minotaurs and other humanoids, there is a minotaur village. It should be somewhat out of the way so that the hero may simply bypass it, but it shouldn't be hard to find through normal exploration. The hero isn't immediately attacked here and gets the opportunity to see the more "human" side of the monsters, that they have settlements and lives outside of eating adventurers, and most of them aren't remotely interested in fighting anyway. Still, the hero has to win their trust somehow in order to get access to their vendors selling high-level gear. Perhaps the hero has to side with one group of monsters or another to get past some sort of obstacle?

A possible idea would be that the village has sent a raiding party to clear out some group of rival horrors. If the hero sides with the minotaurs, the hero will be free to pass through to the other side after they clear out the horrors. If the hero sides with the horrors and helps fend off the minotaurs, the horrors will let him pass unmolested. Siding with the minotaurs also gives the hero access to the minotaur village with its high-level vendors and possibly side quests. Siding with the horrors gives the hero some alternative reward, such as a magical item. Of course, this could be an entirely optional quest, so the hero could just fight or sneak through the horrors alone.

To review: A) Side with minotaurs. Fight through horrors with minotaur help. Get access to minotaur village. B) Side with horrors. Fight minotaur raiding party. Get treasure. C) Do it alone. Fight horrors or sneak/rush past them. This is difficult.

This would all take place between 6:00 and 8:30ish, clearing the way to the third temple at 9:00. The grasslands tileset seems to be the way to go, but if there is a way to make it look a little more dry and dead, that might be better -- not necessarily a desert, but maybe a steppe.

Minotaur Village

This map is tucked away from the main circle, and the hero need not ever go here. As the hero approaches, there is a crude palisade of pointy logs or some other barrier. A pair of minotaur guards stand at the gate and tell the hero that strangers are not welcome. The hero cannot enter until winning their trust through a quest. Through the palisade wall is a village with a few townsfolk (mostly minotaurs but possibly others) and vendors selling high-level gear.

Farmstead

On the outskirts of the village, there are peasants in partially-destroyed huts with trampled and dying crops. These villagers may not initially trust the hero, and they make vague references to "horrors" of some kind when spoken to. They are under the protection of the minotaur village. There need not be any major threats on this map, but maybe some pests that bug the peasants every now and then. Toward the south end of the map is a group of minotaur warriors friendly to the hero. If approached, they explain their mission to clear out a group of horrors and invite the hero to accompany them and lend a hand. The plan is to take a vial of whatever (holy water, essential oils, sap from a sacred tree) and use it to purify the corrupted altar in the Swamp Passage, which is a sacred place of power for the moon god or some such.

Swamp Passage

This map is filled with monsters of some kind, which the minotaurs refer to as horrors. Preferably some of them should be intelligent or under the dominion of something intelligent (perhaps a former apprentice/colleague of the mad wizard) enough to communicate. If we're creating new monster assets, my vote goes for a group of shamanistic lizardfolk with undead minions. If the player chooses to fight through it alone, it should be very challenging. Upon entering the map, the hero is confronted by one of the horrors, who makes an offer. If the hero fights off the minotaurs, the horrors will allow safe passage. The player has the choice to side with the minotaurs or the horrors. The map has no rock walls but plenty of trees and lots of swamp. The map has a narrow bottleneck of dry land at the end, making it impossible to simply bypass. A character with stealth or teleportation should be able to avoid most of the enemies by darting between trees, but may still have to do some fighting or running. Purifying the altar should not kill any of the horrors, but it will keep them from respawning, or else it kills the undead but their masters still have to be dealt with.

Edit: Interesting OGA resources for the above include...

Tents for minotaur village, which might need to be re-rendered. http://opengameart.org/content/tents-hunter-lumberjack-pavilion-storage-unknown-horizons-3d
Lizard character, rigged and textured already but would need to be animated. http://opengameart.org/content/rigged-textured-reptile

@johndh I like some of these ideas but some of them aren't a fit for this game. Let me pick out a few details here because it'll help everyone understand the tone we're setting. Also this helps me understand what I'm looking for.

Adding a swamp area isn't an option. Building a new tile set is a huge task that would push back the game by months. So I've designed the act to make the most out of the three tilesets we do have. Your basic quest idea could be rethemed to be set e.g. in caves though.

Feuds between humanoid monster races is a good hook for a standard fantasy RPG. But it doesn't fit well in the game we're making. That story is probably too nuanced for an action RPG. "Attack" is the main verb of the game, and few things should get in the way of that.

We will try not to have any quests related to normal, day-to-day worries of a fantasy world. E.g. there won't be gathering supplies, or fetching mundane items, or catching bandits. There aren't going to be more villages, just unexplained strangers in the wilderness. This shouldn't feel like a real place with real concerns. It's more storybook and fantastic than that. This is a break even from the alpha demo, where the world was a bit more literal.

Example from above, the Goblin Camp is boring and mundane. Let's make that trader into a collector of curious goods (maybe a grave/tomb robber). His partner (in crime) tried to find the other side of the bridge to lower it. He's not willing to leave this precious cargo (a treasure chest wagon thing). Inside the goblin camp there's parts of a human on a spitroast, and maybe a quest item that hints at it being the remains of the partner. The original NPC will mostly be glad that he now gets to keep both shares of the loot, and then he gladly offers to sell you some. Now this whole situation doesn't feel heroic, the goblins seem kinda horrible, and the NPC is shady if you think about it for any amount of time. But the story is just sprinkled in, not heavy handed. And after this part of the story, it goes back to just being about the protagonist collecting items to perform a messed up ritual.

I think it'll be good for us to focus on the first slice of the game -- from the starting village up to and including the first dungeon. We can use that area to refine the tone of the game, because it's difficult to explain in documentation right now. (I'm used to leading code projects, not design/art projects)

As of dadd634cd219e69863b783124cbeb1954d32b76f, mapping for Empyrean is complete! The only exception is the Halls of Infinity maps, which will be re-purposed alpha_demo maps, so not much design work there.

flareteam / flare-game