Designing new room variants -- Owen Meyers

     From the start of development, there have been only 2 types of room -- small and large. These rooms were always square and they looked visually the same. This is a problem for immersion and for the general feel of the game, as it leads to a very same-y environment. The player will very quickly grow bored of seeing the same room over and over again. In addition, every room flowed the same, leading to strategies that remained stagnant throughout the game. For example, if you see a sniper, retreat into a corner and pull out your own sniper rifle. To solve this, there was an imperative need for new room types.

    I'm going to outline 2 rooms that I designed for this game, and how I went through designing them. Firstly, the Hallway room variant. This room was designed around a much more cramped space for the player. A long straight hallway can force the player into one route, with no room for escape. This can lead to interesting interactions, especially with the large number of heavy hitters that can spawn in this room. Several shotgunner spawners and rocket launcher spawners are active throughout the room, and encountering this room on higher floors can be quite dangerous. The amount of bullets becomes nearly impossible to avoid, and the only hope is to push forward.

    Secondly, the revamped Large Room variant. Originally, it was simply a blank canvas from which we could test new enemies and bosses. This led to a room that wasn't particularly deadly, and was simply big for big sake. I replaced this with a new version that has improved enemy spawner positions. Enemies can now spawn along the 4 corners or from 2 spawners in the center. This includes a large number of pistol and assault enemies. This combination forces the player to move in a circular motion throughout the room, unless they were unlucky enough for a rocket enemy to spawn. On later floors, this room becomes much harder to navigate, as the survival path goes from a simplistic circle to much more complicated and organic shapes.


The Hallway room variation. Colliders and lights have been disabled for this view, but the spawners are visible in the center of the room. Each of those has a relatively high chance of spawning a heavy hitter.


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