[OBSOLETE] "One Room" Round Robin Mod - Round Two!

[SpiderFighter]

This thread is no longer active. Please go to [SIGNUP / DISCUSS] One Room Round Robin 2!


(Click here for the "One Room" Round Robin thread (Round One))

PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT a signup thread. This is for the discussion of the next "One Room" Round Robin, in order to decide how we want the maps to be set up, any limitations (such as room size, custom assets, scripting) we want to set for ourselves, etc. If you plan on signing up for the next round, please feel free to offer your input here, so that you are not disappointed with the parameters when signup starts. Signup for the next round will begin on the day the current Round Robin begins its week of playtest (which will probably be within the next two weeks). I'd like to hold off on actually starting the new round until December 16th, to allow people time to finish up their Frankendungeon submissions (and also so we can catch our breath and pat each other on the back for what are certain to be two amazing mods!).

If you're new to the "One Room" Round Robin, please don't be discouraged! This is such a friendly and open group and, amazingly for all the talent in here, there are NO egos! Please feel free to join us with any suggestions or comments you have.

And now...let the discussion commence!

[SpiderFighter]

The following suggestions have been made (in the current RR thread) for the guidelines (or, as I prefer, "Challenges" ) for Round Two:

• A pre-defined map of interconnected rooms, where each designer chooses the room he/she wants.
  - all rooms 5x5 (Ciccipicci)
  - an assortment of different sized rooms (SpiderFighter)
  - some rooms possibly as large as 9x8 (Merethif)
  - allows the player to choose their own path (Ciccipicci)
  
  Two floors with different wallsets (possibly Daniv's Elven sets), allowing designers (and players) to choose a "light" and "Dark" side.
  - playing as "light" or "dark" might alter player stats slightly, such as hunger or strength (SpiderFighter)
  - player character portraits could be swapped out to reflect their current good/evil status (Merethif)
  - would allow us to create a background story and cohesion/theme for the mod (JohnWordsworth)
  - player character portraits could be swapped out to reflect their current health status (HaunterV)
  
  A scriptless dungeon (HaunterV)
  Only cloning and scripting would be permitted (SpiderFighter)
  Only allowing custom assets that do not require additional files (Merethif)
  Selecting and loading all custom assets before the round begins (JohnWordsworth)

(I think that's it so far; if I've missed any, I apologize; please post it below.)

[Neikun]

A 5x5 room has twenty faces. This gives the option for 20 doors.
So if we start the map in the centre of the map with a 5x5 room, we could limit ourselves to 20 designers right off the bat. (If we did 6x6, it would be 24 designers)
One thing I would say to encourage interesting design is rather than 5x5 room, say 25 squares.

So what I imagine is a 5x5 square room to start, with every wall being a door with some way to tell the player who's room it is, and every room providing a way back to the center. Every room will feature a counter on the teleport-back square, so when the player beats all rooms, the counter will activate--when they teleport to the start room again, they have met the condition to be able to end game.

Now right away you can see a problem with my design.
Doorways beside each other will cause rooms to be connected/overlap.
There a number of ways to handle it. One way is with secret doors. (As walls between overlapping rooms)
As I doubt many people will be making perfectly square rooms, it'll be possible that overlapping will occur less frequently than.

If we map out our available space with math, 20 designers plus the 5x5 start room gives us 525 squares used.
We have a 32x32 square grid available to us, or 1024 squares.

So with the use of teleporters, a room can be designed just about anywhere on the map.

[Ancylus]

A predefined room layout might work out well. However, making the rooms different sizes would mean that the people who make their rooms late in the round would have much less choice, and overall it would be more difficult to plan the room in advance. I think 5x5 rooms (or some other constant size) would be a better idea. Alternatively, make many more rooms than there will be contributors, and leave the unused ones empty.

As for letting people pick their own path through the dungeon, I think it's fine to let people choose the order in which they complete the rooms. However, I'm not sure if I like the idea of designing the dungeon so that some contributors' rooms could be missed entirely.

The idea of two themed floors sounds good, and could be incorporated into the predefined layout. Designing the whole thing so that the player can make meaningful choices for a background story yet not miss individual contributions might be tricky, though.

Here's one wild idea: Everyone creates two versions of their room, one for light side and other for dark. The party is given an item or spell which allows them to switch to the other side (i.e. teleport a floor up or down) whenever they want. The two sides could then have a more significant effect on game mechanics, and the rooms themselves could be designed to take advantage of switching sides at the right points. Of course, getting the whole thing working would require quite a bit of careful scripting.

[Neikun]

Actually, now that I think about it... why are we limited to one floor? We should be limited by squares, but not floors I think.

[SpiderFighter]

Actually, now that I think about it... why are we limited to one floor? We should be limited by squares, but not floors I think.

We're not limited to anything right now; we're discussing.

[Kuningas]

I like the good versus evil concept.

That way we could also consider this (if it isn't too complex): divide the developers into good and evil "teams", and have them build on separate planes of the same dungeon. Nexus points where travel between the planes happens would be decided before the actual development, so both "sides" could build their parts of the same dungeon at the same time. This would, in theory, cut the construction time in half if we can devise simple and precise guidelines so the parts truly are compatible, and also make half of the dungeon completely unknown to other developers until the development dungeons are merged into a final one.

As for tracking good and evil, I like the idea that you could sacrifice remains of enemies on altars to different deities for some kind of alignment points, Nethack style. Certain powerful items could then be available only if you managed a certain alignment (good, evil and neutral would be the classical ones).

This sounds a bit complex to my ears to be completely honest, though.

[Asteroth]

I love the Good vs. Evil idea. I would adore the idea of doing an evil room, but I'm just not very clever a designer. So all you would end up doing is walk in and kill some monsters with no catch. It pretty much takes a whole floor to set up a puzzle or two in my dungeon and there not too creative. It's largely plot (although as I mentioned on another thread I am very slow at writing) and combat.

But back to the point, I would definately enjoy playing the good versus evil thing.

[Ciccipicci]

I like the concept of doors thinked by Neikun, but I suppose that making a choice like this should fit a lot well with different custom sets so every door can lead everywhere. Love the background story theme so far.

[Neikun]

Whatever we decide on, I can hardly wait. I want to show everyone my narrow tunnel design.