World Map Current Draft

Hello! Progress on the UI update is proceeding as scheduled. I figured now is a good time to check in and share the current version of the world map. This covers the 30 levels that are currently in-game. I don't anticipate this map changing much, I might add some more details later. I hope you all like it!

I think I'll take the time to explain how I made up the world map, since I thought the process was pretty interesting. 

Levels in Eat the Dungeon have always been designed from the bottom-up. That is, I would begin a level set with the adventure combinations I want to feature in each level. Then, I would devise interesting situations of defenses, attacks, food types, and other attributes, without considering actual in-game enemies. Once I feel like the levels are interesting enough, I'll slot in already existing enemy definitions into the places they fit, and then add enemies to fill roles that already aren't covered. Finally, I name the level after seeing all the enemies and determining what kind of shared them fits with most of all of them.

Since everything is bottom-up, not a lot of thought is paid to continuity between levels, and I don't know what the next area of the map is gonna look like. Retroactively assigning a continuity to the levels was an interesting creative challenge, and new areas is something we'll be discovering together.

The first thing was to layout the new level order. Going over the level list, using what little continuity already exists, and splitting off optional chains left me with a mockup of the game's new level paths:

I also used part of the UI mock up as a kind of "viewfinder". I dragged it all across the map to make sure levels were spaced in a way that was navigable and aesthetically pleasing.

Then, I divided the map into thematically similar regions, loosely based on pre-existing continuities:

I assigned each region a basic theme like forest, gingerbread, or haunted house. Then, using the theme, I drew the details of each region first. This was, predictably, the most time-consuming part of the process:

I wanted to do the features first, because I wasn't sure how big I wanted to make them, and I didn't want to define the landmasses only to find I was running out of space later. 

Then, finally, I set down the actual landmasses and background:

And that's how we arrived at this map! Lemme know what you think of it!

Next week I will begin the code implementation of the new UI. And then the week after that, I should be able to update the game with the world map and new UI. Please look forward to it!