A New Type of Cave (Patreon)

Development is back on track! The Covid thing is mostly behind us, followed by some post-concussion issues which kept me from getting starting right away, but now, finally, it's time for the real Beta 12 to take shape...

The first map is a new type of cave area--not Lower, not Upper, and not Proxy, but something else :)

It's linked to the world in a somewhat unique way so I'm not quite done with that bit yet, but I already completed the first order of business, that is getting the general layout generating as desired. While this cave type uses more or less the same underlying cellular automata-ish algorithm behind other caves, it will feel and play differently due to some unique modifications (not to mention of course the different content).

For one this map's overall layout is square, and somewhat larger with usually more occupiable space.

As described in the linked article, and a technique used for other caves, the generation can be guided by intentionally blocking off some areas. Cogmind's existing caves only use this feature in a broad sense, but this process used here includes a greater number of areas randomly blocked off. Here you can see the above map showing its underlying structure, including a number of randomly positioned rectangles (also allowed to overlap one another to produce different kinds of blocking shapes):

The dark gray "corridors" linking different cave sections also differ from those used in Cogmind's prior caves by roughing up their edges--more nooks to hide in.

In addition to the random rectangle blocks, I also added some small blocking squares to each corner of the map so that the final results are more likely to be rounded and natural.

The main map area is 125x125, but there is also a thick border around all sides to leave room for embedding prefab encounters later.

Some additional caves from the generator:

And here's a shot from inside the game, although there's not  much in there yet. Much ;)

Next up is actually populating this map. Many of the building blocks for the content are already prepared, but I imagine there will be even more to come. This is kind of a big space to fill!

While working on this map I also went back and made some improvements to Mines generation based on new findings and extra features in the generator.