Brief Progress Update and Designing on Paper

Unfortunately this year has been even more difficult than the last, so it has been a while since I had any progress to report, but I am getting back to work now.  I've completed the sixth dungeon level (out of probably 13-15) except for music and a few outstanding enemy sprites.  Levels 4-7 are all part of the steel mill mentioned in my previous update.  This dungeon is somewhat more complex than the previous one in terms of geometry, scripting, and texturing, so it has been a bit more effort to complete.  The fourth and final level of this dungeon will have a different look and should be a little easier to complete, although I haven't started designing it yet.

Just for fun, I thought I would walk through my design process for each dungeon level.  Below is a scan of one actual level from the game, as originally drawn and annotated on graph paper (the final design always differs slightly from the blueprint).  Before I start placing objects in Unity, I sit down with graph paper and just start doodling a maze.  Each level is a 16x16 square.  This isn't particularly large by genre standards, but it's big enough to give me more breathing room than MM0's 12x12 floors, without being so large that I struggle to fill the space.  I start with a basic idea or theme to build around, drawn from whatever real-world location the dungeon is supposed to represent.  This informs the layout and flavor of the dungeon to an extent, but I don't bother trying to emulate realistic locations.  The Hate don't just squat in empty buildings; they create extradimensional hell-spaces, so whatever I feel like doing is fair game (the former is mostly an excuse for the latter).

Sometimes I have a simple progression puzzle in mind that the architecture revolves around; other times I just figure out the flow of the level as I go and drop in ideas as they come to me.  Typically you can't just walk straight from entrance to exit with no resistance.  There will be gates to unlock, critical items to find, and sometimes bosses to kill.  However, I try to provide multiple possible routes towards uncovering the level, rather than just directing the player down a strictly linear path.  Depending on which way you choose to go, you may hit a dead end or powerful monster and have to backtrack, or you may find some valuable treasure early on that gives you an advantage.  Since some areas are optional or not immediately accessible, you may discover the exit to the next level before you've cleared everything.  That's just the nature of dungeon exploring.