Map Mechanics

One thing I don't think I've mentioned before is that I find video game design really interesting. Programming was never really my thing, but conceptualising and designing a game, the ideas part of the development process, has always been really fascinating for me. I love video series like Extra Credits, or the Lost Garden blog, which talk about the various facets of the medium. I enjoy video game design so much that at one point, back in the hazy days, I wrote an article or two about it.

Since it's been a fair while since my last blog post, I thought I would take one of my old articles and publish it here, tweaked and edited a bit. This one in particular was a fun little mechanic I thought up for action RPG games. So I hope you like it.

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I've always wanted to design an Action RPG, in the style of Okami or the Legend of Zelda series. My idea for today's post is all about the exploration side of Action RPGs, and focuses on a flexible map. Instead of the world being fixed and static, locations can be moved or spun round as the player decrees. I'll explain.

In the game's beginning, the player starts off with just one piece of the world map, which shows the starting location. For the purposes of this essay, let's call that location 'X'. Now, the player explores X, and completes the missions or quests that the game throws at them. Then, eventually, the player is told that he needs to go to location 'Z'. Now look at the map piece; clearly, the player has no way of getting to Z. What does the player do? It seems impossible.

However, then they complete another vital mission, and the player's reward is a second piece of the world map. This map piece is marked by location 'Y'. This piece doesn't really seem to help, at first. But this is where the player could be introduced to the flexible map mechanics, and this is where the fun begins.

Basically, the flexible map mechanic allows the player to align the pieces in any way they want, like a jigsaw puzzle with flat sides. Then, when the player reaches the edge of the current piece, they automatically cross to the next piece that is lined up. If no piece has been lined up, then the edge will be a dead end. Essentially it allows the player to alter the world map so they can create new paths to different areas. So the player can now align these two map pieces together, as seen to the left.

The player can then head east from X, and will cross over to the second piece of the map, as the two paths join up, and find themselves at point Y. But there is still no way for the player to reach Z from there - right? Wrong, as the flexible map mechanic comes into play again. The player, who is now stood at Y, can rearrange the map pieces and place them on top of each other, as seen to the right.

As you can see, the player now needs to head south to reach point Z and continue the game. This is only a simplified example, and I imagine numerous map pieces and various combinations could keep the game interesting. A road's been blockaded? Simply build your map so you can go around it. This wouldn't be a main mechanic, exactly, just an aside that would have to be worked out when the player is planning his/her journey.

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Yeah, just a little idea I had for a map you could move. Seemed quite cool, so I thought I would write a little article about it, and I did. The whole thing was a little more difficult than I had originally planned it to be, because the images weren't formatting properly or some technical gibberish like that, but I fixed it eventually.

As for future blog posts, you may or may not have noticed the Friday Night Who UK updates have subsided into nothingness, because they weren't necessary. If you want to find out more about the FNWUK schedules, you can check the page on this blog, or look for the hashtag on twitter. Though of course, we've missed it for two weeks in a row now, so...

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!