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With our new old buddy Ryu starting some pretty interesting discussions around here, he has inspired me to try my hands at coming up with a worth while topic. So here I go! This is something that I have been thinking about for a while, and I am wondering what you all thought.
The idea I would like to bring to the table is "map generation". Now up front I would like to say that "I know, I know, this will NOT work with EVERY game out there". In fact map design is very important to most games. From shooters to racing games, random maps would basically break the game in many aspects.
Where I feel this mechanic could be useful are games with a heavy emphasis on exploration. Think large world RPGs like Skyrim or FarCry 3. Games where there is no REAL reasoning where towns, caves, landmarks are placed could be randomized in a way that really makes for a unique adventure each time.
I got really take by this idea when I played the original Dragon Warrior Monsters. The game was structured in a way that you enter a warp gate with loose governing restrictions on the environments. The warp gates sent you though a set of 4 to 27 mazes generated new each time you enter the world with predetermined pieces.
This really helped with a lot of the grinding the game required you to do to get your monsters up to respectable levels so you could breed them again and start over. I ALWAYS preferred that to grinding in a pokemon game, one monster (pokemon) at a time, running up and down the same stretch of grass and running back to the pokacenter every 4 battles, then back to the same stretch of grass...
I think a governed use of a map randomizer could lead to some very interesting games, experience and ultimately a more engrossing game play experience. I cant help but get this feeling that "everyone" who plays the same games as me has already played the exact same levels and I feel like im following in their footsteps... But with a good map generator, that feeling would be eliminated, giving you your very own adventure, never played by anyone else before or ever again.
The downsides would be things that games really already have to deal with. In this case, probably the feeling of sparse maps and boring design, without proper generation specs. Much like most "open world" games already feel. The second thing hampering this is probably development costs. Building an engine just to create maps would probably be a pretty heavy wallet shot to most companies.
What does the community think?
The idea I would like to bring to the table is "map generation". Now up front I would like to say that "I know, I know, this will NOT work with EVERY game out there". In fact map design is very important to most games. From shooters to racing games, random maps would basically break the game in many aspects.
Where I feel this mechanic could be useful are games with a heavy emphasis on exploration. Think large world RPGs like Skyrim or FarCry 3. Games where there is no REAL reasoning where towns, caves, landmarks are placed could be randomized in a way that really makes for a unique adventure each time.
I got really take by this idea when I played the original Dragon Warrior Monsters. The game was structured in a way that you enter a warp gate with loose governing restrictions on the environments. The warp gates sent you though a set of 4 to 27 mazes generated new each time you enter the world with predetermined pieces.
This really helped with a lot of the grinding the game required you to do to get your monsters up to respectable levels so you could breed them again and start over. I ALWAYS preferred that to grinding in a pokemon game, one monster (pokemon) at a time, running up and down the same stretch of grass and running back to the pokacenter every 4 battles, then back to the same stretch of grass...
I think a governed use of a map randomizer could lead to some very interesting games, experience and ultimately a more engrossing game play experience. I cant help but get this feeling that "everyone" who plays the same games as me has already played the exact same levels and I feel like im following in their footsteps... But with a good map generator, that feeling would be eliminated, giving you your very own adventure, never played by anyone else before or ever again.
The downsides would be things that games really already have to deal with. In this case, probably the feeling of sparse maps and boring design, without proper generation specs. Much like most "open world" games already feel. The second thing hampering this is probably development costs. Building an engine just to create maps would probably be a pretty heavy wallet shot to most companies.
What does the community think?
