Happy with my new random levels, I quickly discovered that some of my map combinations didn't make much sense, especially when rivers or roads were involved. In the sample below, you can see two river tiles are connected with a tile with no river - it just doesn't look right.
To make better maps, I needed to a river/road to start on one edge and finish on the opposite edge. I started a prototype to solve the problem, migrating over a few level data structures from my game - fortunately my design and structures were generic enough to allow this. My initial plan was to take my level area, draw a continuous river/road across the level, and then fill in the blank tiles with random tiles. To work through this, I created a simple console application to output ASCII, using these tiles as samples:
╔0══╗╔1|═╗╔2══╗╔3|═╗╔4|═╗╔5══╗╔6══╗
║ ║║ | ║─────║ └────┘ ║──┐ ║║ ┌──
╚═══╝╚═|═╝╚═══╝╚═══╝╚═══╝╚═|═╝╚═|═╝
With the templates in place, I started work on the tiles. The first level, running my current level creation algorithm, looked like this, again highlighting how ridiculous this all looks:
Next, I went to work drawing the river first, and then filling in the remaining tiles. This wasn't too difficult, starting with a simple (3x3 level):
...and scaled nicely, getting more complex quickly (8x8 level):
Finally, I adjusted the path-finding of the river, so that it wouldn't drop back on itself. Essentially, if I start from the left, let my river go up, down and right, but never backwards (left). The output looks like this:
This is exactly the result I was looking for. Additionally, it scales up easily, I ran some 100x100 samples in less than a second. The next phase is to recreate these tiles in my game, the next post will be about this process. If you'd like to play with the prototype, I've posted the level creation tool online here.
To make better maps, I needed to a river/road to start on one edge and finish on the opposite edge. I started a prototype to solve the problem, migrating over a few level data structures from my game - fortunately my design and structures were generic enough to allow this. My initial plan was to take my level area, draw a continuous river/road across the level, and then fill in the blank tiles with random tiles. To work through this, I created a simple console application to output ASCII, using these tiles as samples:
╔0══╗╔1|═╗╔2══╗╔3|═╗╔4|═╗╔5══╗╔6══╗
║ ║║ | ║─────║ └────┘ ║──┐ ║║ ┌──
╚═══╝╚═|═╝╚═══╝╚═══╝╚═══╝╚═|═╝╚═|═╝
With the templates in place, I started work on the tiles. The first level, running my current level creation algorithm, looked like this, again highlighting how ridiculous this all looks:
Next, I went to work drawing the river first, and then filling in the remaining tiles. This wasn't too difficult, starting with a simple (3x3 level):
...and scaled nicely, getting more complex quickly (8x8 level):
Finally, I adjusted the path-finding of the river, so that it wouldn't drop back on itself. Essentially, if I start from the left, let my river go up, down and right, but never backwards (left). The output looks like this:
This is exactly the result I was looking for. Additionally, it scales up easily, I ran some 100x100 samples in less than a second. The next phase is to recreate these tiles in my game, the next post will be about this process. If you'd like to play with the prototype, I've posted the level creation tool online here.
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