Tip of the day
Make sure you equip your items to get their effects, most don't work from inventory alone.
Devblogs/Archive/3
DevBlog #3: Worldmap and Travelling
Posted: December 26, 2022
World Map and Travelling
Merry Christmas everyone! I have one (late) present for you all: the newest dev blog! This week's topic will be about travelling and the world map.
Recently, I have been pretty busy with the holidays and my studies, which is why I haven't been able to post dev updates as much as I've wanted. Hopefully things will ease when the year changes. I would have loved to be more active, but as an indie dev things in life can sometimes get in the way.
But enough of that! Let's get started with today's topic by covering some aspects of the general UI of the travelling system. Lets start with the picture of the world map (remember, it can still change a lot):
The world map image only works as a sort of a background image, in the game it also has lots of locations placed over it, like here:
The world map view can be opened by pressing the "Travel" option from the floating plus button menu, here:
The World
The world of WalkScape is called Arenum, as can be seen from the world map. There is a lot going on in the world, and some future blog posts will be covering the lore of the world. The locations you can visit in the game are divided into different types, which usually tell something about what you can expect from travelling to a place. Location types include:
- Cities. Here you can visit NPC shops, refine your materials by using services like a forge, take on quests and so on.
- Towns. Smaller than cities, but usually have similar features.
- Forests. Foraging, woodcutting, hunting and combat options are usually available.
- Mines. Mining and cave fishing options.
- Dungeons. Usually contains lots of combat stuff.
- Mountains. Mining and agility training options. Also might have combat and foraging options.
- Beach/lake/river. Fishing options, limited woodcutting and foraging options.
- And more!
My goal with these locations is that the major locations would feel special and regional. Suggestions on how to make locations feel special are greatly appreciated. You can also suggest locations!
Each location generally has a mixture of different features. The most prominent are activities. A forest location might have activities like cutting oak, birch and other trees for different woodcutting levels as well as foraging activities for different levels. In addition to activities, they might have NPC shops you can visit, a bank to store your items, NPC's you can talk to (and get quests from), combat options etc. My aim is that each location serves a unique purpose, so you don't feel like there are 30 similar forest locations with same old activities. Some will be aimed for higher level players to give them higher level activities and so on.
The world map view is pannable and zoomable, just like a Google Maps or whatever you are used to. By tapping a location the map zooms in and shows you more information (with cool animations!). I would include a screenshot here, but the UI is still work in progress, so I will probably make a dev update when it's ready.
I am also thinking about introducing requirements for different locations. This way you couldn't just walk everywhere from the beginning, but instead would feel like your progress also unlocks new places which I think would be nice. Some locations might need a quest to be complete for example. All locations in one region will probably be unlocked so you are kinda free to do whatever you like, but unlocking next regions will need you to do something first, especially if we are talking about different continents. Suggestions and feedback is welcome here: do you feel like restrictions would be bad, or are you OK if they make sense and still would give you enough freedom to explore without feeling restricting?
Travelling
So, there are a bunch of places to visit. How do I get there?
From the location information panel which is still work in progress you can find a travel button. By tapping this button the game will create the shortest path possible to the location. Each location is connected to other nearby locations in the map and these locations have varying distances between them.
When a path is formed (if a possible one can be found), you will be taken to the Travelling-activity:
Each trip between two locations is divided into ten "waypoints" (basically actions), each of which requires a number of steps to complete depending on the distance between the locations. For example, a short distance would require you to complete those ten waypoints which would only have 50 steps each, but a longer distance would require you to walk 300 steps for each waypoint.
If your selected travel path consists multiple locations they will chain up, so the next travel will start immediately. This way if you have a long distance you don't have to worry, you can just keep your phone in your pocket while you are walking and the game will do everything in the background.
You can also cancel a travel, but this will take you back to the location that you have last reached (so the location in the left side of the travelling UI).
Making travelling interesting
Okay, so the travelling would feel like very boring content and even annoying if it was just that. This is why it's spiced up!
First of all, you get Agility experience while travelling. With a bigger agility level you will require less steps to travel between locations. Cool, but not enough!
Then, when completing a waypoint you roll a "find something interesting"-roll (better name suggestions appreciated). The chance is quite low, but this way you feel like when you are travelling you can also find interesting things that you couldn't find by doing other activities! Things you can find include:
- Treasure chests. These are like loot boxes, but totally free for the player to open. Contains unique and rare loot too.
- Experience. You can end up in something that will give you a varying amount of experience in an unrelated skill. Like a fallen tree that needs to be chopped off. Basically just random experience rewards with description texts.
- Random encounters. You can find something during your travel that will be added to your quest log. These can be viewed after the trip is completed so you don't have to worry about them while you are walking, only when you get home. Encounters can give quests, dialogues with NPC's you pass by etc.
- Finding region specific stuff. You can find seeds, flowers and other nature-specific stuff while you are travelling.
With these things in place I feel like the player won't see travelling between locations as a chore. My aim is that the travelling feels like something you can be excited about as well. You can never know what you will find.
Travelling can also be skipped to some extent with different teleportation options and paid services from cities/towns (wagons etc.). These will be costly, and teleportation is something that is available to players when they get to the end-game and have a high magic level.
Location art
One thing that maxchill has worked on recently is location art. We aim here to give the player a more immersive feel when they are travelling through the world. Maxchill has used some AI + Photoshop magic here to create something that I feel look truly great (sorry about the quality here, I'm on a phone and had to rely on screenshots):
In the game these images are separated into different depth layers which have been animated to create a parallax effect, creating a 3D feel to the view. I think these are fantastic: while you are walking in the real world you could at the same time be making a trip from the cold regions of Jarvonia to the warmer south and see the scenery changing from cold to warm. While also seeing epic scenery and finding interesting things on your way. I think this combination will make it feel like you are exploring the world and keeps it interesting that you will always be excited to travel to a new place, or even to the old ones you've already visited.
Should the player explore?
A big question for you this week is that should all locations in the world map be visible from the beginning, or should the player only see the neighboring locations from their current location that they have not yet visited grayed out, but will be able to travel to them (if requirements are met)? When the player has visited a location its name and icon will be permanently visible on the map.
This way the game would actually feel more like exploration as you don't really know anything about the locations and possibilities at first (just a small area around where you start), but will naturally unlock them after playing the game. Of course you would see the world map, but it doesn't really contain all of the locations and you couldn't read about them without visiting them first.
Also, while talking to NPC's they could sometimes give you information about a location, making it visible on the map.
This could also be kept as an option that the player can choose to opt-in (or opt-out if it's popular enough). The bad thing is that if you are trying to find a location to do high level woodcutting or stuff like that you should actually spend time trying to find a place for that, which could feel annoying to some. But if you can find information about such locations by talking to, for example, a Master Woodcutter, it should be quite logical on how to find your way to one. And someone will probably create a wiki where all locations will be listed or a guide, so I think if you really want to find a location it's not going to be that hard.
Next time
I hope you all had wonderful holidays and found this dev blog interesting! As usual, I hope you to give us feedback and suggestions! See you again in two weeks (or next year, as it will be posted 9.1.2023)!
Happy new year everyone!
