Blocky Dungeon seems like a name that would have been taken by now, but it looks like my prototype post is getting enough SEO to be a top result for the name. Google chose my game name for me!

I’ll be adding this to the projects page soon, as I have enough media on it to consider it my current project. While I flirt with random prototypes pretty often, this game has the most assets available to me, by far.

What’s up?

Yuuki’s been working hard trying to master 3DS Max, so that we can mix low poly models with voxel block models. Meanwhile I’ve been hammering away at shaders and effects in Unity Free.

I took a look at random dungeon generation, but I’m not convinced it would make things more fun. Surely more re-playable- but I want a story. It’s not like SNES Zelda isn’t re-playable.

Random Generation?

Also, with the number of set pieces we’re pushing, integrating it into a random generator would be data-entry hell. I’ve talked to a few developer friends about data-entry when it comes to Unity and components. Managers, systems, hierarchy, and asset organization- and the only thing that has come from those conversations is a feeling of guilt. I look at my current project folder, and it’s a mess. Finding a certain model without search is like pulling teeth, and most of my models aren’t named properly in the first place.

Scope Creep

This is mostly because I didn’t want to do much further than my first GIF I spammed all over the internet. Some pathfinding, some really basic attacks, and a few torches to light the single wall piece. But because we had so much variety in our previous project- throwing away totally usable art seemed foolish, and our scope has grown.

Scope creep is another reason I don’t want to mess with random dungeons. It’s an entire topic/branch/genre of game design on it’s own, and ain’t nobody got time fo dat. You’d think that the time required to design dungeons would be longer than getting random generation to work- and I have to say, if you want stupid basic dungeons, that’s true.

But dungeons designed by a designer, and not by a random number generator, always look better. Always have more heart. And if you’re going for something story driven, there’s not much good in random generation.

You’re rambling!

Anyway, before I ramble too much, I’ll leave with saying that I’m probably going to spend at least a week compiling, naming, and sorting the assets we currently have. We have so many little objects for the scenes, we’re not sure what we do and don’t actually already have. Swords, tables, bookcases, candles. Things that don’t fit in a dungeon like trees! The list is huge, and I’m happy to have so much of the art complete. But it’s also a mess.