I worked a bit on my Exile project. well, actually I just started making new stuff from scratch, some of it based on the Beeb version of the game. Most of you may be more familiar with the Amiga version.
Exile for the BBC Micro reference page.
Here's some art:
New roughs:
Old painting:
Here are my problems:
At first I wanted to paint the entire map (which is giganormous, but it seemed like a fun thing to do). At the same time I really liked the angular tiled feel of the Beeb version (rather than the more organic looking Amiga version).
Then I realized that it was a false choice to go for just organic OR angular.
I can have structured corridors, and combine those with more organic caves, a bit like if someone had been cutting mining corridors, bumping into natural caves every now and then.
I could suggest this by placing large mining machines here and there. This brings me to the issue of destructible terrain. Certainly buckets or a quad tree could be used to limit the information density mainly to the surfaces of the cave walls (which the bullets would hit) (the solid rock would rarely be affected and thus use less mem) (empty space would be less affected too).
Then I thought of another interesting solution. I could place sediments and plant life, moss and stuff on the walls, which could be shot off, giving the feeling of destruction / interaction. Some of the plant life could spread via spores and grow back. Stuff that is destroyed could rot, etc (to free up mem). This would make the environment feel like it could be affected even if no tiles can be destroyed. The size of the mining drill mentioned earlier could suggest that the rock is really hard and that's why it won't break even when exposed to Coronium explosions.
A big question which remains is that of the amount of interesting graphical features to use for the foreground (i.e. rock walls) and background. The rock is obviously some sort of cut-through view, and I don't know if I should keep it simple and grainy (sometimes artificially structured) like in the Beeb version, or if I should have large interesting hand painted features. Perhaps the interesting stuff should be put in the background, because the player in in the caves and not inside the walls. It might be distracting to put interesting features inside the walls if the player can't get there. However, the player can't get into the background either! It feels wrong to tempt the player with another dimension.
Perhaps the background and foreground (walls) should be kept mostly simple, with landmarks where needed. This way interactive foreground objects should be the most interesting with nothing to distract. Perhaps the background could be interacted with though, kind of like in Impossible Mission where you turn towards consoles and furniture. There could be special rooms where the backgrounds is obviously rich. A bit like parts of Aquaria where the background can be generic rock at many places, then there's suddenly a big stone with a swirl on which suggests something significant.
However, I do feel that it's slightly confusing to add another dimension to interact with. The player might become paranoid that he's missing something in the background, and it is possible to just put a big swirling stone as a foreground object instead.
Oh yes, now when I think of it there's the pillars which you can run behind. I haven't thought about those at all. I think the bushes might be in the same layer.
Another thing I'm not sure of is how to approach artificial vs 'organic' rock texture. The Beeb version had quite structured rock. A fully painted look would be more difficult to tile (unless a system like that in Aquaria is employed). It would also suggest that the rock has different levels of hardness which would be bad is the rock is indestructible. I think I'd rather see a more grainy artificial look for the rocks like in the beeb version. I don't know if I should also use artificial colors. I think I want to suggest that the environment was 'made' long ago.
Any thoughts? I suppose the only real way to find out is to make a proper mockup.
Edit: I think that with a blocky approach it feels more like you're moving around in a very graspable/readable interactive game environment, whilst if I were to paint each cave by hand, moving about would feel more like just gliding around on top of a painting, disjointed. There would a lot of special little spots but at the same time none of them would be interactive in a special way. It doesn't feel 'honest' somehow, like everything is fake.
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