It was another solid week. The final missing pieces of map generation are falling into place: locked doors, progressive difficulty and rewards, and acceptable random room stocking.
Improved Locked Doors
- Each locked door now requires a specific key. I did this to solve the problem of unlocking doors in a sequence that prevents the player from obtaining another key.
- Locked doors now only appear in one-way chains (one door between rooms with no alternate route to the end). When locked doors were placed in rooms with alternate routes into them, the locked door was unnecessary.
- The map generator now confirms each locked door has a corresponding key and is reachable. I had a lot of problems with keys not being generated or not being reachable. This is for development purposes; the production version of the game should successfully place keys every time without retries.
- Only one key can be placed in the same container.
- Configuration option to prefer placing keys in dead-end rooms.
Room Risk and Reward
Rooms now have risk and reward scores to control their difficulty and loot quality. Risk and reward scores are based on how far away the room is from the starting room using the shortest path. Rooms become more dangerous and have better loot the farther away they are from the starting room. A reward score bonus is given to rooms behind locked doors.
Improved Autoexplore
- If the map has been explored except for locked rooms, and the player has a key to unlock a door, autoexplore takes the player to that door. Otherwise, the message log tells the player to find keys.
- If the map has been explored except for hidden areas, the message log tells the player to look for secret doors.
Improved Level Info Viewer
- Added generation stats with charts. Previously this info went into a separate text file.
- Embedded level graph and screenshot.
- Locked doors and keys appear on map graph.
- The selected item is now highlighted.
- More items are linked.
New Content
- Minor Decor Map Elements. An object or single cluster of objects placed in a random, non-themed room. I prefer this to the Modifier Map Elements, which place more objects in the room. The former feels less random and improves cohesion.
Minor Enhancements
- When an item is in a cell with an object, Take is now always the default action.
- The image taken when a map is generated is now cropped.
- When stocking the map, the quantity and chance of placing an entity can now vary based on room size.
- Reduced number of coins found in garbage and debris.
- Debug console command to heal to full health.
- Health recovery items can’t be used at full health.
Next week, I’ll work on adjusting content based on room size and risk/reward level.