Runemaster - Development Diary #6

Developer diary 6 - Worldmap and Exploration

Welcome to the 6th developer diary for Runemaster. Today we’re going to tell you more about exploring the worlds in the game. Details on each of the different worlds will come in future dev diaries, so today we’ll just focus on how the world is generated and how you explore it within the game.

Procedural Worlds

We’ve said before that our worlds are procedurally generated, but what does that mean?

Initially, we made a procedural landscape made of mountains, plains, highlands and ocean, and we simulated rainfall and placed rivers, swamps forests and arid areas accordingly. Cities, bandit camps, iron mines, farms and other locations were placed based on factors like the availability of fresh water, proximity to the ocean, presence of mountain passes and more. The result was cool, and it could have looked good if it wasn’t done with programmer art and random assets from CK2, but didn't work for the game we wanted to make. We’re making a role-playing game, not a grand strategy game, and while we had some control over the gameplay aspects of this world, we didn't have enough.

It wasn't an easy decision, but, as the saying goes, sometimes you have to kill your darlings, be it in writing literature or making software.

Back to the drawing board

So making a “realistic” world wouldn't give us the world we thought we needed, but what did we really need? What are the design goals of a Runemaster world? First of all, we needed a world that would support our quests, especially our main quest line. This means one that is plausible, that works with the quest arcs and that has the right sizes and distances to have the quests make sense. Secondly we wanted to be able to create memorable locations that allowed for exploration - we want the worlds to vary because that’s important for replayability but each playthrough has to create something meaningful in regards to the setting. And thirdly, we wanted to be able to control the flow of the game in some way. The world generation needed to be consistent in creating the worlds we wanted. Every player needs to get a world that gives a great gaming experience!

Exploration

At the start, the world is unknown to you and there’s only one way to unveil its secrets. You have to travel the lands and meet its inhabitants, see its monuments and plunder its riches (if your character fancies riches, that is). Some places are connected by roads and others you have to reach by moving through forests, spiky rocks or along the shore of a poisoned lake. Every player will have to do some exploring, even if it just means going wherever the quests tell you to go, but if you find exploration interesting, there will be areas that are more hidden and off the beaten path of the main quest. Here you will find side quests, lore, loot or just an unexpected encounter. This will be especially true for the worlds in which you didn't start your journey and you’ll choose which you’ll delve deeper into.

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forgottenlor said:

I'll be interested to see how this works. I've found procedurely developed worlds work fine as dungeon crawlers. However, few I have seen really encourage exploration.

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