Thoughts on room-based RGPs

[sargon94]

Lately I've begun rudementary work on a room based RPG. The code itself is astoudingly easy. I was wondering what major drawbacks are in store for me. I can already work around a simple square of 4 rooms arranged in a grid pattern. The guy can move across all 4 logically. What major drawbacks are to be expected later on?

[firedraco]

By room based do you mean where each room has a number (usually) and has some exits which point to different room numbers? Or do you mean an actual "map" where the player has x/y coords?

[3hM2Nwbp]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by drawbacks, but it would seem that the most challenging part of the project would be to create a format for storing your game maps. Personally I'd add a third dimension to make a cube instead of a grid, don't forget ladders and stairs :P

Overall, I think the biggest drawback would be creating an intuitive way for making new maps.

[sargon94]

@firedraco: The "rooms" are just small parts of a larger map, they are called "0,1" or "0,0" and so on. You move through them by simply moving off the screen of one and into another.

@Luc Lieber: storing them? They're bitmaps, all of them. could you explain this 3rd dimension a little better?

[3hM2Nwbp]

You must have some sort of control structure where there are unpassable areas (walls, etc). Can the player move south, west, east, north? Without knowing more about what you're designing, it's hard to say what else could be made 'plug-in-able'. Regarding the third dimension, a cube instead of a grid.

[sargon94]

Impassable areas (like walls) can be easily handled with collision detection. Your three-dimension idea is certainly intriguing, I'll have to implement it in some way. This is still in the development stage but I've found myself a good graphical artist to help (since I have no artistic skill of my own). Any ideas or problems you can think of would be greatly appreciated.

[3hM2Nwbp]

Perhaps I misunderstood the rooms idea, more likely, the entire game itself. Were you planning on this being first person? I had assumed that the player would be presented with a choice [which direction do you want to go next]?

[sargon94]

Yes, top-view. The rooms are just parts of a larger map. Their only purpose is that they fit on the screen.
No, the player is controlled with the arrow keys.

[sargon94]

Perhaps I should upload my exe somewhere, any ideas as to where? (I need to upload the pics too)

[3hM2Nwbp]

Ok, I was thinking that you were thinking more along the lines of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry_VI:_Bane_of_the_Cosmic_Forge

however now I see what your approach is. Collision detection will work fine.

*PS - Yes I still have this for SNES :)

[sargon94]

Haha, what an interesting way of making a game :)
Not one I'm into though, I go with the traditional approach

[PiMaster]

Have you figured out how you're going to create/store the rooms as files?

[sargon94]

Yes, they are bitmap images, all of them, or do you mean their properties?

[ultifinitus]

He means maps, not properties. Like a tilemap

a la google : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile_engine

how are you going to make your game dynamic in that it will load it's current room's information from a file like this:

[1,1,4][2,1,4][x][x][x][x][x]
[x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]
[x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]
[x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]
[x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]
[x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]

where x represents a random set of three numbers.
this, for example could represent a room with 5 collision layers and each tile could represent a certain type of tile: ai immovable etc. by the numbers in it's [] then you just need to come up with a protocol.