Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Requests For Features => Topic started by: Uitë on March 10, 2012, 18:21

Title: More varied maps
Post by: Uitë on March 10, 2012, 18:21
One of the many innovations the original Doom made was in its level design. Rooms could be of (almost) any shape or size, and often hallways would link different areas of the map. E1M3 would be a good example of that:

Spoiler: E1M3 (click to show/hide)

Now what does DoomRL have? All randomly generated levels except caves follow the 'space-filling collection of rectangles separated by one tile thick walls' formula. I'd love to see more interesting randomly generated level designs in DoomRL, with less rigidly shaped rooms that are not as crammed together, and look like they could actually be somewhat plausible structures, as in Doom.
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: spacedust on March 10, 2012, 20:35
That would really be interesting, seeing that the tiles version has set a somewhat awkward precedent for not having the entire map be visible on screen at once. Maybe larger and more irregular maps can be implemented in the console version subsequently.
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: thelaptop on March 10, 2012, 20:46
Given that the current generator code for levels are completely in Lua, this boils down to how to write better generators.

Sounds like with some careful planning, we can open this up as a competition for modders to try their hand to generate interesting levels.  =)
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: Uitë on March 11, 2012, 02:48
Quote from: spacedust on March 10, 2012, 20:35
That would really be interesting, seeing that the tiles version has set a somewhat awkward precedent for not having the entire map be visible on screen at once. Maybe larger and more irregular maps can be implemented in the console version subsequently.
Yeah, with the graphics version, it's not as strictly required that the map be 80x20 tiles, though that does work really well for console mode. I'm not really a programmer myself, but it someone could make an algorithm that works for any shape/size map, that would be awesome and bring more variety to the game.
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: HexaDoken on March 11, 2012, 04:44
This is a great idea actually. A generator that is capable of making levels of at least Wolfenstein level(lolwords) it will be just great. It will be also plausible for console version, I mean, cmon! Dungeon crawl has quite sosciphicated levels in console version too.
Also, maybe some random generation for special levels? So, well, the monster placement and item types won't be the ONLY difference between each play.
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: ParaSait on March 11, 2012, 07:08
Quote from: thelaptop on March 10, 2012, 20:46
Given that the current generator code for levels are completely in Lua, this boils down to how to write better generators.

Sounds like with some careful planning, we can open this up as a competition for modders to try their hand to generate interesting levels.  =)

(http://www.madebysociety.com/wp-content/thumbnails/683.gif)
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: Uitë on March 14, 2012, 04:28
Shark20061 has made a mod to generate different levels it's here (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,5363.0.html). What do you guys think?
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: HexaDoken on March 14, 2012, 04:55
Oh god oh god oh god oh GOD how horrible it looks in graphs mode.

But still, while wall sprites mess up badly, this is much greater than what we got now! While it still can get repetive(it actually did after a few runs), it makes you think that you're not scouting some random set of boxes, but something what can be real UAC base. We need more of them, we need them better.

And the size of levels limited to a size of console screen still hurts much.
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: Deathwind on March 14, 2012, 19:15
Why can't we change to a scrolling screen? I understand it would be alot of work but it would enable you to add quite a bit to the game, secret rooms anyone?
Title: Re: More varied maps
Post by: Game Hunter on March 14, 2012, 20:41
Quote from: Deathwind on March 14, 2012, 19:15
Why can't we change to a scrolling screen? I understand it would be alot of work but it would enable you to add quite a bit to the game, secret rooms anyone?
It's just a part of DoomRL's design. When Kornel made this game he had a bunch of things in mind and restricting the layout to a 80x25 screen was one of them. (Granted, part of the reason was probably related to keeping everything on one screen, and graphics mode kinda breaks that.) It's one of many things that will be unrestricted come DoomRL 2, so...yeah, not gonna happen.