Tomb Titivator
Posts: 911
Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36
Monday, 23rd May 2016, 01:48
nicer lab mazes
People want maprot gone and simpler mazes, which all sounds grand. The following might be compatible with some such proposals, but assumes that the basic idea of the labyrinth will not change, so nobody's toys get taken away.
make maprot instant and complete
There's no point to having some terrain linger on in your minimap. It's actually actively detrimental. The point of maprot is to make you identify with your character's predicament, right? Delayed, incomplete maprot creates a disconnect between you and your character. Instant and complete maprot makes you start relying totally on your memory and spatial awareness, so that you start remembering/imagining terrain you can't see but which you visited earlier. Current maprot inhibits that, but you also can't rely on the map, so you get the worst of worlds. Same reasoning goes for the Abyss, BTW. This ought to also solve the bugs that plague the minimap in those places.
turn 45 degrees
Labyrinth is made up of lots of hallways. The way shift+direction works, you stop before coming to the center of the node. This lets people cut corners to save time. It's okay in the dungeon, but distracting in the lab, where you're supposed to just be looking for the exit. It also creates a bunch of open space, which diminishes the claustrophobia and smallness you're supposed to feel in this place.
I've noticed that the labyrinth is composed of a series of "nodes" connected orthogonally, though since Crawl's walls take up 1 tile each and work as barriers, each "node" takes up 2x2 tiles (as opposed to 1x1). You won't see this in labs:
It should be pretty easy to make the maze algorithm generate equivalent diagonal labyrinths, like so:
This makes shift+direction take you straight to the corner. It makes the labyrinth seem larger, and there's also the illusion of the space being cramped, of having to squeeze your way through, which is nice.
size and sight
IMO labs are a little too big for people who aren't maze fanatics, and you can see a little too far each way. I suggest making the lab effectively smaller (making it easier/faster) but also make it similar to guiding your finger through a 3D model while blindfolded (making it harder). Some ways to do this:
improve lab generation algorithm
Obviously easier said than done, I'm no maze-ologist, but I haven't seen loops or anything interesting like that which would have made me stop and think "ok what am I doing? Danny!"
remove ancient gears
Their effect is hardly noticeable, so the player cannot be expected to take measures against them. Technically they can block off your path to the exit, and open it up somewhere else, far away, and that effectively means that you have to start over again, but with a somewhat familiar maze. Why is that a good thing? Guess it supports the notion that one can get stuck in the lab forever. But I say: let players finish the maze they started with.
make maprot instant and complete
There's no point to having some terrain linger on in your minimap. It's actually actively detrimental. The point of maprot is to make you identify with your character's predicament, right? Delayed, incomplete maprot creates a disconnect between you and your character. Instant and complete maprot makes you start relying totally on your memory and spatial awareness, so that you start remembering/imagining terrain you can't see but which you visited earlier. Current maprot inhibits that, but you also can't rely on the map, so you get the worst of worlds. Same reasoning goes for the Abyss, BTW. This ought to also solve the bugs that plague the minimap in those places.
turn 45 degrees
Labyrinth is made up of lots of hallways. The way shift+direction works, you stop before coming to the center of the node. This lets people cut corners to save time. It's okay in the dungeon, but distracting in the lab, where you're supposed to just be looking for the exit. It also creates a bunch of open space, which diminishes the claustrophobia and smallness you're supposed to feel in this place.
I've noticed that the labyrinth is composed of a series of "nodes" connected orthogonally, though since Crawl's walls take up 1 tile each and work as barriers, each "node" takes up 2x2 tiles (as opposed to 1x1). You won't see this in labs:
It should be pretty easy to make the maze algorithm generate equivalent diagonal labyrinths, like so:
This makes shift+direction take you straight to the corner. It makes the labyrinth seem larger, and there's also the illusion of the space being cramped, of having to squeeze your way through, which is nice.
size and sight
IMO labs are a little too big for people who aren't maze fanatics, and you can see a little too far each way. I suggest making the lab effectively smaller (making it easier/faster) but also make it similar to guiding your finger through a 3D model while blindfolded (making it harder). Some ways to do this:
- make nodes/hallways very big and wide, e.g. steps of 9x9 instead of 2x2
- make maze smaller; use a darkness-like effect: set LOS to 2 (or 3?) whenever the player is in the labyrinth
- make maze smaller; generate fog everywhere in the labyrinth at all times
improve lab generation algorithm
Obviously easier said than done, I'm no maze-ologist, but I haven't seen loops or anything interesting like that which would have made me stop and think "ok what am I doing? Danny!"
remove ancient gears
Their effect is hardly noticeable, so the player cannot be expected to take measures against them. Technically they can block off your path to the exit, and open it up somewhere else, far away, and that effectively means that you have to start over again, but with a somewhat familiar maze. Why is that a good thing? Guess it supports the notion that one can get stuck in the lab forever. But I say: let players finish the maze they started with.
- For this message the author HardboiledGargoyle has received thanks:
- Yermak
