When you’re making a game centered around exploration, it’s primordial to have accurate and detailed maps. In order to create such maps for the areas you’ll be exploring in Seed of Life, I first decided to use the terrain heightmaps in order to create topographical-accurate images. It worked well, but the problem was that it only showed what the terrain looked like, without all the caves, structures, and buildings. But this gave me the idea of writing a topographical generator, that would scan the level from above, and create an accurate image based on terrains, caves, buildings, and everything else. Then, a little bit of Photoshop magic, and voilà:

The map of the incomplete first level

After I had these nice looking maps, all that was left was implementing them into a map menu. Here’s the full list:

Content

• New Tool: Topogen, a tool that allows to scan the level from above in order to generate topographical imagery.
• New Feature: Minimap, it shows at the bottom left-hand corner and displays your current position on the map, along with a couple more items. It can be toggled on and off, and it can be zoomed in.

Work in Progress

• The map menu; the minimap can be enlarged into a fullscreen menu that allow for complete and free navigation. I do not intend to implement this feature in its entirety before the first release, but I still need to finish basic navigation.

Objectives for next update

• Finish what needs to be done for the map menu.
• Implement split stamina; for the moment every playable character share the same stamina gauge.
• Conceptualize and implement a way of restricting Letty’s movements, and prevent the player from flying outside the boundaries of the level.