Maps

It is done!

This post is almost a post-mortem as we look back at what has been finished within a minor project scope. If you haven't followed this dev blog so far, my goal was to create propper maps to build the game environment and have a solid foundation to progress with development. For that I was unsure if it is worth investing time into programming a map builder and now I cannot imagine ever doing a map without a map builder again. It was absolutely worth it! It took me one weekend to create such a dev-tool and over a span of 2 weeks I managed to create 7 maps (technically 10) with decent details. Some teaser screenshots during the creation of the maps are attached here.

As this is a hobby project of mine, I often need to restrain myself with ideas and features, that could enrich the environment. Regarding maps this means that I cannot spend time for different regions, because in turn every region would ultimately need to have some content added or else it would just be there doing nothing. So what kind of maps did I add? Ultimately the game consists of three big maps with trees, grass, cliffs and houses. I also added 2 caves for now, three interiour maps for three houses and the three world maps also got a winter version. I would really love to add a fall version as well, but ultimately my time ran out. I can imagine I will add or replace some maps far in the future, but for now this will be the ground for many fundamental implementations. :)

But that is pretty much it for this dev blog post. My progress within my private little road plan is well ongoing and my next two topics for this "phase" of my game will be scene handling and implementing a save and load system.  For that I have three weeks (or rather this weekend and the upcoming 2 weeks). I guess the load and save system may inevitably require a refactor at some point in one way or the other, but my scene service, so traversing through maps and swapping between menu views etc., has to be very solid. I might delay already in my first roadplan phase, because I need to make this scene service as modular and generic while being flexible and robust as possible. 

Oh well, I thank everyone who stops by to read these blog posts.