More Hub World Iterations

Author: Salireths.

There is more work being done on the level design - I'm currently drawing some concepts and blocking out an updated variant of the hub world, iteration over iteration, it is shaping into a pretty interesting place! A place that is not just here to introduce the player into the game, but also a meeting place later on, a home. When it's time to add NPCs, it should become a proper town.

We've also been working on a little side project that might be a welcoming addition to TGOR, but it's not ready and its too early to talk about it yet...

Hub World iteration

This is a rough layout sketch for yet another iteration of the hub level, not much has changed since my previous post about it but with this variant I've refined some ideas. It should be much smaller while keeping the same amount of features in a denser package. This new approach will help me make this level faster and reduce the amount of uneventful walking needed from the player.

The plan picture I made mostly for myself, so is difficult to read, so let me try to explain it step by step.

The idea of "automated organic vault" still remains, where a fully grown player character hatches from an artificial egg at the beginning of the game. Unlike the previous idea, there is 8 eggs, creating an aesthetically pleasing pattern to go with the overall design theme, and making it possible for multiple players to "hatch" at once. This room is akin to an airport gate, though you get a new body upon arrival!

In the previous version the player expected to explore four different stations around the Gateway on their own, which could be confusing for some players and give out too much freedom before all major mechanics have been introduced.

To combat this, open world games usually have a linear tutorial section at the beginning. The idea is to make this tutorial unnoticeable, as part of exploration.

This is why now the player has only one way to proceed forward - through the Luna's Shrine.

Luna's Shrine. I'll be working more on the design of it after finishing writing this post, currently thinking to actually put a statue of Luna herself on top of it - rewarding the players with a nice view if they look up ;}. Luna is a dragoness of life and pleasures, that's why everything around her is sexually suggestive and her technology is literally about smooth glowing tentacles and egg-like structures.

To continue with the airport analogy, it is like a customs checkpoint - player needs to touch the orb in the middle, which bestows the Aura upon the creature - an energy shielding system, which is the in-world explanation of many gamey mechanics, like the user-interface, health bars, inventory, etc. After that is done, player will be able to pass through the shrine and proceed forward.

I use word "Shrine" to describe structures dedicated to one of four dragons and, subsequently, one of the four major gameplay aspects. Shrine can contain multiple thematically-close stations, like for crafting or equipping gear, changing appearance or healing injuries. Unlike previous iteration, stations don't have to be put always near the Gateway, they can be scattered around the map, and even made portable.

After leaving the "checkpoint" and acquiring the Aura player ends up in a circular hallway.

The inner wall of this hallway a semitransparent forcefield which is later removed after tutorial is complete. The field-wall has 4 colorful bands, one of which starts glowing after Luna's shrine activation - hinting the player that there is three more to go.

Player will be able to move only in clockwise direction around that circular hallway, as counterclockwise path has been blocked, because there just-so-happens to be a cave-in (i know it's a common trope in level design, but more about that further down).

This is all needed to direct the player around the level in a linear fashion.

Next room is, with the lack of a better name, a "food place".

I have to design an alien restaurant/bar while staying away from human sci-fi tropes, yet making it cozy and recognizable as a place where creatures would gather to eat, drink, share their experiences. I keep asking questions to myself, "how would they sit or stand while eating?", "what tableware would they use eat and drink from?", "how would the tables look like, actually will there be tables?", "how the food is prepared and served?", and much more - worldbuilding is not an easy task...

This place, along with other rooms like it, is not only made for the sake of immersion and roleplay, it is here because the game will have natural needs system, so it is important for gameplay too.

After going through an empty restaurant place, the player arrives into a desert and crystal themed area belonging to the Engineer Dragon. In this place, through usage of the crafting station the player needs to make a basic inventory and equip it to proceed.

Next: the player can optionally visit the baths room, which is, like the restaurant, also important for the gameplay and immersion (how else would you be washing that dirt off?).

Or they can skip it and go straight into the Shaman Dragon forest, where they are greeted with a ominous looking shrine:

The shrine has 8 totems, each representing an element that player can wield to manipulate the environment. These act as a base for the weapons - first player equips an element by interacting with a totem (pillar), then they can equip augments to transform that element into a weapon or a tool. However even without augments the element can be used directly.

Initially player won't have any elements unlocked, so those totems (pillars) would be empty. Progressing further is not possible straight away either - because all paths are blocked by rocks and rubble.

However there is a mini-dungeon nearby, which upon entry, locks the player inside and gives them a power to learn to use while escaping the place, metroidvania style. This power is one of the elements which will allow player to manipulate and/or destroy any further rocks and cave-ins, unlocking the rest of the map for exploration.

The elemental octagram is something I'm quite proud of - it arranges the elements not just for cool looks but also serves as a helpful utility. I'll be elaborating more on that part in the later posts, as well as explaining what each element is for. For now I have a question though - just by looking at the runes, names and colors, what do you think those elements represent? Let me know in the comments! This is actually helpful to know what your associations would be without knowing the system yet.

After removing rubble from the next hallway entrance, player can enter the sleeping/dormitory/medical area, then, after that they will gain access to the Library.

The library is the last of the four sections, it belongs to the Librarian Dragoness. Unchanged from previous iteration, this place is about knowledge tree and progression, finding new places to explore, new tasks to perform and things to research.

This is where the player is given their first Gateway Key, additionally with the last shrine activated, the central shield wall will be removed, opening access to the Gateway and the garden floor.

Before leaving this level, there is more to explore: a toilet room, and believe me - I'm not going to be designing anything even remotely close to what comes to mind when you hear the word "toilet". As Luna would think when making such a room, "a trip to the toilet should also be a unique pleasurable adventure". Aside from giving a place for the creatures to satisfy their other part of natural needs, it might also turn into a place to satisfy other primal desires.

Also, each room mentioned (food, bath, sleeping, toilets) has a garden and observation area on its second floor, which later might get filled with more content (like buildings and houses) when we add NPCs.

With all this information, I'm just letting you know what is in my head right now as I continue to iterate over this level, the fact that things did not get changed drastically is a good sign - we're getting very close! Next stage is to finish blocking it out and playtest it!

Knowledge

Aside from the level design, there has been progress on Knowledge tree and Trackers.

I think I've already said enough what Knowledge tree is, but just to quickly reiterate: our game doesn't have levelling or skills that you put experience into, instead the progression relies on a system similar to achievements - however with much more depth. This system is broad enough to work as a quest journal, tech-tree, skill-tree, perks - all unified.

It is a tree-like hierarchical graph with nodes, connections between them, and a special root node where everything originates from.

To unlock a node, all of its conditions need to be met, as well as its parent node needs to be unlocked as well. There is no experience or points to spend - a node is unlocked automatically, like an achievement.

An unlocked node can reward players with new abilities, crafting recipe, cosmetics, levels, playable species... the list goes on.

There will be many different knowledge trees, separated by different categories and areas of expertise.

The interface allows panning and zooming, as well as selecting nodes and previewing additional information about them. The art for the interface here is not final, it's a placeholder for a time being, however I'd like to keep the hexagon grid and the star constellation theme.

We made it so the visual graph representations are built procedurally - removing the necessity of painstakingly hand-placing the nodes every time something gets changed.

The visual graph representation is generated using different random seeds. Notice how only position are being changed in that GIF, all nodes are still hand-made.

Because of this mods can add nodes to already existing trees with minimal conflicts - the graph will just adjust itself to the growing number of content.

Trackers

This system enables the game to track what player does around the world.

Usually this sort of system just provides trivia and stats to the player, for example letting you know what distance your character has moved since the beginning of the game. And while this is still true in our case as well, it also records some additional detailed information - such as where (what level) the player been, what creature body they had, and what action or movement mode they used.

Having this information, the game (and player) can query very specific information like "how much time player has spent walking around the east side of the hub level as a Hizathri creature?".

It wouldn't be all that useful on its own, but this system goes together with the Knowledge Tree. As I said earlier, to get a node unlocked, some specific conditions need to be met. These conditions are taken from these Trackers, a simple example would be "First steps: Walking distance as any creature in any level > 100 meters".

Trackers are also responsible for saving and loading all their accumulated variables, making it a reliable storage not just for stats, but also for special conditions required by some of the crazier knowledge tree unlocks and maybe even quest stages.