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Since I’ve been working pretty much like a madman on my new idea (I kinda like those which occupy you immediately), just now, by testing my new creation, in only 24h development time, I decided to write you a bit about engine progress so far…

I wrote few thoughts yesterday about possible features engine may have, and I must say, part of them proved to be heavy to make.
Still, I write this with smile on my face, since I think I just made something new in browser based games. OK; not sure entirely, but I never saw this before, must say.

Anyway, to skip self promotion and stuff, let me in few words try to describe what I’ve done so far:

First, a screenshot:

Click on it to make it bigger (load in separate tab).

Anyway, see this one? And if you saw original one, with empty map I made and opensourced, you can notice difference. Small one, but it’s here. This one has objects. OK; trees for now, but it’s still a prototype.
So, no big deal, you say?

Well, this is actually infinite dungeon engine or endless engine, however you’d like to call it, at it’s start.
All those trees are made completely random. But, it’s not like engine creates random objects each time player moves, but it’s a bit more sophisticated than that.

Key features:

• Random object generation
• Increasable map size. (Initial size: 480×480 tiles, increases by 1 on each player signup)
  * This still needs to be developed, but coordinate function makes sure every object preserves location after world has increased
• Persistent old objects. (Once created, they stay where they are, much like, if you would explore something, by going further, you’d find things, and going back, you’d go back to previously discovered objects)
• Engine makes sure that no more than 29% of visible tiles is randomly populated with objects.
  - If you take in consideration that 480×480 map is actually 230.400 tiles, that would mean you have 66.816 various objects to discover. Maybe even too much for start, I guess.

What engine should do next: (and is about to soon)

• Use part of 29% generation rule for interactive objects, such as shrines, gold, monsters
  - I guess, around 6% of tiles would be enough.  That’s cca. 4 objects on a regular visible area (9×9), and in above example, around 14.000 interactive objects on a default map.
• It should have excellent probability methods. Rare items – pop up rarely, stronger monsters, pop up rarely.

I won’t yet write about hero screens, and stuff, since we can get there soon.

Now, besides good things, I see potential balance issues with game engine.
Still, for starters, I’d like to hear your thoughts about this so far…

Cheers

P.S.
Yeah, I managed to get myself trapped inside trees
Bugs, gotta love them…

Tags: ajax rpg map, browser game, free browser game, Game Development